Hello Reader,

You can't pour from an empty cup.

Have you ever heard that phrase before?

It means that you can't give what you don't have.

It has a whole lot to do with your mental health. Your ability to keep going each day, and you know what?

Learning English, using English, and trying to get your Canadian immigration paperwork in order all depend on you having something inside your cup, and something to give.

In other words: the process of learning English, getting (or keeping) legal status in Canada, and just getting yourself established here is a huge and ongoing drain on you.

Just the process of finding work can be a massive assault on how you see yourself.

In your home country, you likely have an amazing degree and can work at a pretty amazing job - but here, you get to start over because your hard years of training and experience aren't valid....oooooohhhhh that really pisses me off! that really bothers me! Like REALLY BOTHERS ME!

My wife is fighting her way through that same journey right now. She's a teacher in Mexico. Has her full teaching degree. Here: she has to start all over again.

Thankfully she has been able to take courses to move herself into stronger positions in the school where she works now, and God has been opening doors for her that she has been getting to go through with LOTS OF HARD WORK and YEARS of patience, but yeah: it's totally frustrating, isn't it?

(IF you're in the middle of this kind of struggle, my friend - I see you! Hang in there!) But...

Take care of yourself!

I've stopped posting on LinkedIn. I've been deadly silent over there for about a month now.

Reason: I was hitting empty.

Too much pouring. I was already starting to feel the burn = the feeling of not wanting to do anything anymore, and that scared me. (I even made a video about it here. ) I've burnt out before, and I don't ever want to go through that again.

So I stopped pouring in one area of my life. LinkedIn.

The choice didn't come easily. A lot of my clients had come from there, much to my happy surprise, so shutting down felt like a big decision.

But you know what?

I'm glad I made it.

I'm glad I stopped posting.

What I discovered:

The world didn't end.

I didn't implode. (But boy the pull to post was strong at first!)

Nobody on LinkedIn seemed to notice my absence. 🤔 (Like not even a, 'Hey, are you still there?') Not that I care about that - but it would have been nice to have someone wonder if I was still there....

But that tells me something pretty important: It doesn't matter.

And I may not go back to posting.

I mean it feels like being on a freaking treadmill! Kinda like this 👇

And well, all that trying to post every day made me start to feel empty.

And you can't give what you don't have.

And I want to have something to give.

What this means for you?

This is your friendly check-in.

How are you feeling these days?

Do you feel like you're about to burn out? (Like maybe you've already burnt out?) Like you're trying to carry too much at once, and things are starting to fall off your plate?

If so, my friend, I wonder if there's something (or somethings) that don't matter as much as you think they do that you can let go of, or pause for a season?

Warning!

You'll need to be very careful about the things you decide to stop or pause. Make sure, before you do it - if that's the route you decide to take - make sure that what you hit stop on is not mission critical!

Your immigration papers? Those are more than likely VERY mission critical. Don't stop working on those.

Pressuring yourself to take the CELPIP 2+ years before you actually need to, just because you think you should have it yesterday? That might not be mission critical. Hitting pause for a few months will likely be fine!

(Both of those situations are real, by the way. I know a few people in them.)

But if you can't stop your CELPIP prep or your immigration applications, there might be other things in your life that you can safely give up so you can start filling your cup again.

And I don't know what those things could be, but I want to encourage you to find them. And when you do find something, make sure they don't matter (like my LinkedIn posting) and go ahead and slam that 'stop' button!

I promise you that you'll be glad you did.

And, by the way, hitting stop on those things doesn't have to be forever.

But it does have to be long enough so that you feel like you have a full cup again. Know what I mean?

So, over to you. Do you have something that you know you need to stop doing so that you can start refilling your life again? Hit reply to this message and let me know! I will respond and cheer you on!

Well, that's it for today! Thank you for reading! Have a great week, and go get your cup filled!

Aaron