The Peril of Pouring from an Empty Cup

“I’ve given all that I have and now I don’t have anything left of myself for me!” She blubbered through her tears.

My good friend continues to struggle with the dichotomy of being “selfish” in meeting her own needs because of how it can interfere with her selfless desire of meeting the needs of those closest to her.

Haven’t we been there too? We pour ourselves into people, hobbies, work, you name it— we’re pouring ourselves into it, with the hopes that those people, hobbies or work will fill us back up as we empty ourselves for them.

It’s the art of reciprocity that we hope for.

Except, there are times when those people, hobbies and work don’t fill you back up— so then you’re left with only the evidence of your investment but not the return of it.

It isn’t reciprocal.

Why?

Because the place where you’re starting is an empty cup. A cup that you’ve convinced yourself can only be filled by the efforts of outside factors, but not within yourself.

But what if your cup was already full because you took responsibility for filling your OWN cup before being able to fill (or be filled) by the cups of other people, hobbies or work?

What if the outpouring of your efforts actually came from an overflowing cup rather than an empty one? The dependency of those outside factors would be gone— and whatever you received (or didn’t receive) from those people, hobbies or work don’t affect you as substantially because you already have a full cup.

But we haven’t been taught to fill our cups with substance but rather with a vapor, or illusion of fullness from a broken world that doesn’t satisfy.

So how do we fill up our cups with something of substance?

We go through what’s I’ve coined “The Who, The What & The 5 Layer Why”

Here’s how it goes:

You ask yourself: Who are you?

So for me I would say, Andrea.

The second question is: What does it mean to be ___?

So for me, it would read: “What does it mean to be Andrea?”

So my answer to that question would be: To be “Andrea”, means to be kind, understanding, helpful, thoughtful, and determined to help people have a better relationship with themselves and with others.

The next question would be a reiteration of what I just said but presented as a question starting with “Why is it so important for___ to be…”— so it would read like this:

Layer 1 WHY: Why is it so important for Andrea to be kind, understanding, helpful, thoughtful and determined to help people have a better relationship with themselves and with others?

***Your answer should start with “It’s important for me to be…” and then say, “because when I am this way I feel…” and name the emotions.***

So I would answer: It’s important for me to be kind, understanding, helpful, thoughtful & determined to help people have a better relationship with themselves and others because when I am this way I FEEL fulfilled, empowered and appreciated.

And again for the next layer we dig deeper, and begin the question with “Why is it so important that you feel…”

Layer 2 WHY: Why is it so important for you to feel fulfilled, empowered and appreciated?

*** In this answer we identify what those emotions we just identified helps you to believe about yourself***

So I would answer: It’s important for me to feel fulfilled, empowered and appreciated because it helps me to believe I have a purpose that is bigger than myself.

Layer 3 WHY: Why is it important that you believe you have a purpose bigger than yourself?

***in this next answer you need to identify how your belief validates something in you***

I would answer: It’s important that I believe I have a purpose bigger than myself because it validates that my life is not meant to only serve me.

Layer 4 WHY: Why is it important for you to be validated that your life isn’t meant to serve only you?

***Your answer should be restated and then end with an underlying fear***

I would answer: It’s important for me to be validated that my life isn’t meant to serve only me because I fear being selfish.

Layer 5 WHY: Why do you fear being selfish?

***This final layer identifies the feeling you would feel if your fear came true and the consequence you believe will happen if it did.***

I would answer: I fear being selfish because I feel unlovable and disconnected when I don’t serve others.

And THAT 5th layer of this exercise outlined what the source of my empty cup is: my fear of being unlovable and therefore disconnected from people— so out of my fear I pour out of me love and an extension of connection to feel valued because I struggle with believing I have inherent value outside of the things I do for others.

Once you identify the empty cup that your pouring from it’ll help you identify how you can better fill your own cup in a way to allow you to continuously be outpouring from a state of overflow rather than emptiness.

So for me? To avoid pouring from an empty cup I need to better connect and love myself, by myself so as not to rely solely on others for that validation of being worthy of love and connection.

How can I do that?

For me and my personality, that means spending time doing things that help me connect to myself on a deeper level from a creative perspective, such as writing, painting, creating, photography— anything that fuels my focus creatively.

It also means writing 5 things down about myself that I like about myself on a daily basis to remind myself that who I am is enough, and that I am worthy of love— my additional efforts are the overflow.

I’d encourage you do this exercise with yourself and your loved ones so you can better understand yourself and what tendencies may cause you to pour from an empty cup so that together we can help one another maintain the overflow of our cups, rather than the mere “filling” of it.