The volunteer in the homeless shelter, seeing the parents battling their own demons brought on by years of poverty, lack of safety, racism and other forms of oppression, and the tremendous lack of resources to help their children escape this curse…
The teacher, knowing how many kids in that classroom come from households where there is violence in the home or neighborhood, whose single parents are too stressed to have the energy to help with school work. The teacher seeing kids who are malnourished, bullied, falling further and further behind…
The therapist and the case worker, seeing client after client with the most horrendous trauma histories, holding steady while hearing detail after detail of abuse and neglect, and knowing how that impairs clients’ health, other relationships, attempts to navigate an already stressful society…
The medical practitioner, doing the dance to get complex medical issues assessed, diagnosed, treated, (and covered by the insurance company) in only minutes…and knowing it is never enough…and the schedule is packed with other patients with their own complex medical issues…
There is SO MUCH PAIN in the world!
And it is generally the highly empathic and sensitive person who is drawn to providing care…
How DO you sustain yourself when you can never do enough?
Here are a few hints, with the caveat that we all know what sounds “Simple” does not necessarily mean “Easy.” But in this case, “Simple” does include “Essential.”
Even if it feels it is never “enough.”
So we must just do what we can, AND DOING IT SUSTAINABLY IS ESSENTIAL!
So here’s Simple, Essential and towards the goal of Sustainable:
SLEEP: Rest, recharge, and keep your own physical, psychological, and spiritual health so you have it to tend to others. My empathic friend and colleague, this is ESSENTIAL!
NUTRITION: We indeed ARE what we eat. Want to do good work, provide good service? Eat nutritional food…on a regular basis! Gotta!
EXERCISE: Work out the stress. MOVE into something fun. Use those stress hormones to be stronger and more flexible. You don’t move—your stress hormones attack you. And when you lose your health, your peeps lose their helper.
LOVE: Your family, friends, pets, land, plants, home, the fact that you are alive and able to contribute (many people don’t even have the privilege, health, or skill-set to do what you do) even a teeny bit. Love yourself and your life. Loving is healthy, it feels good, and it makes you better at your work!
LAUGH: You’ve heard it before: The. BEST. Medicine. Happy hormones flowing through you. Taking a break from “too seriously.” And laughing with others? REALLY the best!!!
TAKE TIME OFF: I know—It seems counterintuitive when dealing with the pressure to heal too many people and too much pain—AND I have learned over the years that taking time off makes me a MUCH better healing professional. If you have not taken time off, try it. Even with the stress of preparing for and returning from time off, it is worth it!
OK.
That IS enough. For now. And now is the only moment we are actually in.
You take care of yourself, and your clients/patients will pick up on it. Even if they are not conscious of that. You will have more of a positive impact. Your word has more clout.
Let me know how it goes. I want to help you figure out Sustainable, Simple, and Essential.
P.S. If you haven’t gotten those free meditations and accompanying e-book to turn down the overwhelm in this very minute, scurry on over now to
Empathic Resilience Meditations
When you sign up to get these initial meditations, you will also get notice when my Build Better Boundaries course goes live! And isn’t the need for Better Boundaries exactly the challenge here?
