When our phone battery is low, and we’re nowhere near a charger, we’ve got strategies to conserve power. Maybe we become more frugal in how we use the phone, choose lower power apps, or switch on low power mode.

But when our own body battery is low, we often to the opposite. Push through, push harder, push ourselves to exhaustion. And in the helping sector, the work is never done. It’s a recipe for unsustainable effort.

It helps to know what our low power mode looks like so it’s easier to activate when we’re too tired to think straight. We can prioritise using the skills that take less effort, the strengths we can fall back on, the clarity of must do vs could do.

We need to know how and where we can recharge and what tops up us along the way. And when we are more refreshed again, we can reflect on what was chewing up our energy so fast in the first place and find ways to reduce the drain.

There’s a lot of talk about supplements we can take to enhance performance, health, sleep, energy, happiness. Whatever you feel you lack, there’s a tablet or powder promising to transform your life.

But there’s a lot to be said for simple acts of kindness to boost the way we and the people around us feel. Both giving and receiving kindness can just feel so… nice. A moment of connection, appreciation, generosity. A comment that says “I see you and value you”. A gesture that says “you’re not alone, I believe in you”.

Change often takes a lot of energy. Resisting it, driving it, gearing up for it, fighting it, running with it, anticipating it, adjusting to it and doing all the things that come with it.

A different kind of energy is required when we are in limbo, the space between uncertain options. Waiting for a test result, a decision, an appointment, an approval, an unpredictable process to run its course.

There may be an urge to act regardless, just to be doing something, or to opt out, to somehow make the whole thing go away. Doing nothing can feel like our battery is suddenly draining like a mobile phone after one too many updates.

It’s hard to stay suspended in the in between. It takes patience and trust and a shedding of needs – the need for control, the need to know, the need to be anywhere other than we are right now.