When was the last time you felt like you had permission to be human? For me, it was during COVID lockdown. Because, for the first time in my adult life, I wasn't tip toeing around that micromanaging coworker. I wasn't dodging family drama and chaos or navigating tantrums of immature adults.
I was just home.
During COVID, my home became my sanctuary, a place of complete serenity, where I could finally hear my own thoughts and address my own needs. And because of this, I discovered some important things about myself. I discovered that I wasn't antisocial, that I wasn't difficult, and that I wasn't mean.
I realized I was completely burned out from having to mask and perform to make everyone else feel comfortable.
Fast forward to after lockdown, once we were back out in the world. I realized I was a different person when I was around people with whom I felt safe, because I got to be myself.
All of the suppressed parts of the fun person I am authentically came to the surface. It was almost like riding a bike. It was like my body was saying... I can finally breathe out here with people who aren't draining me to within an inch of my life.
That's when I realized what it felt like to have permission to be human.
When was the last time you felt like you had permission to be human? Let's dive in.
Welcome to Rage Against the Audacity Podcast.
Now, if you're picking up what I'm putting down. You know that it is exhausting to be hypervigilant and aware of everyone else's emotions while yours gets pushed aside.
Here comes the validation we talked about in the last episode because you have not been imagining things. What you have been going through, it's called the emotional labor tax, and trust me, you've been paying it your whole life. Let me break it down for you. The emotional labor tax is the invisible, unpaid work you do every single day to manage other people's feelings and keep relationships from imploding.
It's you becoming the designated conflict mediator when family drama erupts. It's you prioritizing everyone else's emotional needs while yours gets pushed to the back burner and that shit is wearing you the fuck out folks.
Some of us have been paying the emotional labor tax since we were kids.
Think back for a moment. Have any of you been your parents' therapist or marriage counselor? Has one of your parents triangulated you in drama with their partner or a sibling? Have you ever had to make sure your parents were okay before you felt you could be at peace? Another situation might be that one of your parents constantly complains about the other, and they do that to wind you up so that you can fight their battles. It's one of those, if you know. You know, right?
It's you being the emotional glue, holding everything together, fighting everyone else's battles, and mediating everyone else's problems and making sure everyone else is okay, while slowly coming apart yourself.
And I mean that literally, you're falling apart piece by piece in slow motion, because the emotional labor tax is draining you dry. This is impacting your mental capacity, your sleep, and making you less effective at home and on the job. It negatively impacts your mental health, your physical health, and is zapping your motivation to do anything other than survive.
And here's the thing, it creeps up on you day in and day out over months, even years. You slowly realize you can't think anymore. You're exhausted all the time, and no matter what you do, you never feel rested.
Having to pay the emotional labor tax is another part of this audacity epidemic we're experiencing. The breathtaking nerve of people who feel entitled to offload their emotional trash at your feet, lightning their load at your expense.
These people demand your energy through the constant need for attention.
They need your time and intelligence without considering how that may be impacting you.
And if you say something about it, you suddenly get the old, after all I've done for you speech with a side of them playing victim.
Now let me be clear about something. The emotional labor tax isn't empathy. Empathy is understanding someone's perspective, seeing things from someone else's point of view, and understanding their life experience, which is all good and healthy, ... and empathy does not exhaust you.
The emotional labor tax is when you cross the line from understanding someone's struggle to making their struggle your responsibility, even if it is an exchange for what you think is your peace, and in the end. You still can't sleep.
The thing that really gets me on top of all of this, nobody sees it. Nobody acknowledges it. But the second you stop paying the emotional labor tax, everyone who's draining you starts to notice, real quick. If you were brought up in a family that demanded an emotional labor tax, love and caring may have looked like getting worked up when drama and chaos came a knocking.
Even if you stayed calm and walked on eggshells for them, they may have felt that you weren't showing them love and respect. We used to call the struggle love back in the day. Anybody out there remember that? Let me tell you a personal story. I've never told anyone this. Back when I was a kid, my mom told me and my brother one night, I guess we were between the ages of six and 11.
I wish I could remember the exact age, but I do remember we were in the car and my mom said, kids who get beat by their parents, love their parents more than you love us.
That stuck with me. It still sticks with me to this very day, I didn't realize until recently, I guess it's been within the last couple of years, that my mom saw love and respect in the blind obedience of fear in survival mode.
This was the beginning of my conditioning to start paying the emotional labor tax for a lifetime in my family relationships, and that bled into my adult, work and friend relationships. It took me a long time to figure out why I was terrified of what would happen if I stopped caring the way my family expected me to care.
I was afraid of becoming someone who doesn't get all worked up because that would also mean that I didn't give a shit, and not giving a shit is also known as not absorbing people's emotions and their drama and their chaos. Not giving a shit also meant not being hypervigilant to people's emotions. Not giving a shit meant not putting others' needs before your own.
When I think about it, sometimes I chuckle because being hyperattentive to everyone's needs while ignoring your own is like being a full-time emotional concierge for people who never tip. Putting it like that puts it all into perspective, no?
And I spent years thinking that if I didn't get worked up about everything that was going on, what kind of person would that make me? Because my values were that I wanted to be a good person. I wanted to be a kind person. I wanted to be empathetic and loving, but I didn't know that you could do all that without absorbing all of the toxic behavior out there.
What we're learning here is the difference between caring and enabling between love and being someone's full-time emotional manager.
Here's what I know to be true. Your frustration and paying the emotional labor tax is valid. Your exhaustion, it makes perfect sense. That anger that you're not supposed to express might actually be justified. Maybe, just, maybe you are not the difficult one. Maybe you're just too exhausted and you've had to stop being everyone's emotional janitor.
And you know what? You have permission to be human. You are allowed to want reciprocity in your relationships. You are allowed to expect the same consideration you give everyone else.
This is your space where that exhaustion finally makes sense. Where we stop apologizing for having boundaries. Where we acknowledge that some anger is completely reasonable, and some people are really asking too much and giving nothing in return for everyone who's tired of carrying everyone's emotional baggage.
This podcast is for you; you're not alone in this.
Welcome to Rage Against the Audacity.
Next time we're diving into Conversational Selfie Culture, the exhausting dynamic where everyday communication is distilled down to performance instead of the equal exchange of ideas and understanding. Until then, remember. You have permission to be human. See you next time.