How to Protect Your Emotions

Protecting your own emotions is incredibly important, and far too often overlooked. 
People have no problem protecting their homes, vehicle, and even their own physical 
body. But they don’t consider protecting their own emotions and emotional health. 

Here are some easy ways you can start protecting your emotional wellbeing and mental 
state. 


Set Your Personal Boundaries

Set clear personal boundaries with anyone in your life, from friends and family 
members, to colleagues and even your neighbors. Know what you can handle 
emotionally and what you can’t. A good way to figure out what personal boundaries you 
need to set is thinking about what tends to trigger you.

When you feel particularly upset or defensive, what causes it? Is there a situation or a 
person that leads to it? Is it from your social media use? Does it have to do with people 
putting pressure on you to do something when you have other things to focus on?

Make a list of everything you notice that tends to trigger your fragile emotional state, 
where you experience any feelings that are uncomfortable for you, and then start 
creating personal boundaries to avoid those as much as possible.


Recognize Toxic People in Your Life

Toxic people are sometimes very obvious, but most of the time, it is extremely subtle, 
and you don’t recognize how much they are taking from your positive energy. A toxic 
person can be a co-worker who gossips all day and constantly interrupts your work. It 
can be a friend who you have known for a long time, but never seems to respect you or 
acknowledge your feelings. It can someone in your life who doesn’t respect your 
personal boundaries and is constantly pushing you, causing you to be angry with them. 

Toxic people come in all forms, and it takes a while to start noticing them. But once you 
do, you will see what a negative impact they have on your life and your emotional state.


Recover and Rest When it is Needed

Make sure you are giving yourself adequate time to rest and recover whenever you 
need it. This can help you avoid burnout and will help tremendously when it comes to 
protecting your own emotions. If you don’t give yourself enough time for rest, you will 
experience burnout and exhaustion, and will never have the opportunity to process what 
you are going through. 

It can be as simple as going to sleep a little earlier or taking a micro nap during the day 
when you have 5-10 minutes to spare. You don’t have to take a week-long vacation just 
to recover. 


Get Away From Your Normal Routine

Sometimes what you really need for emotional protection is to get out of your comfort 
zone and do something different. When you keep doing the same thing over and over 
again, you tend to feel the same types of feelings over and over again as well. This 
cycle might feel comfortable and predictable because you know what to expect. But you 
aren’t really learning or experiencing anything.

To protect your emotions, requires building up your resilience. You can only do that 
when you occasionally get out of that comfort zone and try something new. This can 
feel scary because you never know what to expect, but it is going to build that emotional 
strength tremendously. 


Pay Attention to Negative Influences

A negative influence is sometimes people, but it can really be anything that negatively 
affects your own emotional state. This might look like social media, going to certain 
places where you don’t feel comfortable, people who tend to be energy vampires, and 
anything else you don’t think serves you. 
