Word.ws English Dictionary

you can't pour from an empty cup

you can't pour from an empty cup proverb: in order to be able to provide other people with emotional support, one must take care of one's own mental health.

Proverb

you can't pour from an empty cup

  1. In order to be able to provide other people with emotional support, one must take care of one's own mental health.
    • This view is shared widely across the industry, including by London-based yoga teacher Kat Achtelik, who participated in several NGO-led projects in Asia before moving to the UK. For her, practicing yoga and meditation comes down to self-love: “You cannot pour from an empty cup. You have to take...2017 September 18, Camille Darroux, “How yoga and meditation can help social care workers deal with trauma”, in The Guardian

Questions about you can't pour from an empty cup

What does you can't pour from an empty cup mean?
You can't pour from an empty cup means in order to be able to provide other people with emotional support, one must take care of one's own mental health.
What part of speech is you can't pour from an empty cup?
You can't pour from an empty cup is a proverb.

Words near you can't pour from an empty cup in the dictionary

  1. you can't make this stuff up
  2. you can't make this up
  3. you can't outrun your fork
  4. you can't polish a turd
  5. you can't polish shit
  6. you can't pour from an empty cup
  7. you can't put a wise head on young shoulders
  8. you can't put an old head on young shoulders
  9. you can't put the shit back in the horse
  10. you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube
  11. you can't put the toothpaste back into the tube

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: you can't pour from an empty cup (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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