Giving Beyond our Capacity to Care
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On a recent call with a burned-out worker, I listened as she lamented. “I don’t want to meet any new people. I don’t want to ask anyone questions. I don’t want to care about anyone else’s story. I no longer have the capacity to care.” Her wiring and temperament is completely the opposite of what I was hearing. It was the primary reason we met. She truly was not herself. She always cares. When no one else is, she is always prepared to be the first to sign up for the compassion response team. Until now. She’s gone too long in this one-sided role. As a result in this season of personal family demands, and lack of self-care she has nothing left to give to anyone. My heart breaks for her in this unique and confusing place of transition and what I would call a lifetime of giving out: compassion fatigue.
Compassion fatigue: fatigue, emotional distress, or apathy resulting from the constant demands of caring for others.*
Fatigue: temporary diminution of the irritability or functioning of organs, tissues, or cells after excessive exertion or stimulation.
So many of us get into this line of global work because we care about the problems of the world. We love people - they are our greatest resource. And yet we are often guilty of giving beyond where we can truly and authentically give to the emotional needs all around us. In these places we often hold secret bitterness and anger towards those we originally intended to help. Seldom do we talk about it, until we’re at a breaking point of burnout.
Why do we hold this alone?
Burnout is the “cost of caring” that we in the care fields experience regularly. We believe that if we give, we will be blessed. While that may be partially true, we can’t keep on giving without being replenished ourselves. We are all given a limited amount of resources – time, money, and the emotional capacity to care. I’ve seen the side effects firsthand: Mostly one-way high-output of care; caring for others before family needs; caring for others before my own needs for too long and then snap…the pendulum swings to not caring at all! We continue to carry this burden alone because the idea of caring too much is foreign to many. There remains great shame and embarrassment around the idea of compassion fatigue. “How can I no longer care? What’s wrong with me?” Exposure to the persistent needs of the world without rest, and reciprocal life-giving relationships, can create a sense of hopelessness and a numbness to the needs of others.
“People who experience compassion fatigue can exhibit several symptoms including hopelessness, a decrease in experiences of pleasure, constant stress and anxiety, sleeplessness or nightmares, and a pervasive negative attitude. This can have detrimental effects on individuals, both professionally and personally, including a decrease in productivity, the inability to focus, and the development of new feelings of incompetency and self-doubt.**
After my first round of burnout many years ago, I found myself in the hands of a very competent therapist. Reluctant, but desperate, I knew I needed something to shift. This first experience working with a counselor challenged me to consider my own philosophy on self-care. She used the reference of the Greatest Commandment from the Mark 12:30-31, asking what I believed the verses meant: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself” (paraphrased). I said, it’s all about loving God and loving others and giving of yourself sacrificially. To which she challenged, “Yes, and, I hear it as an implied verse about how we should already be caring for ourselves in order to care for others.” Welcome to my paradigm shift about selfcare. She was painfully right. I had thought little about how other-care stemmed from a place of caring first for myself. My roommate in the season prior had made note that most any conversation she hear me in, was heavily leaning one-way. It typically consisted of me asking the questions without reciprocated questions returning towards me. She was right. I had lived a lot of my life up until that point closed off from sharing with others and seldom speaking up for my needs.
How do we gauge our limited capacity?
So many of us as workers and caregivers live a life of self-denial at our and other’s expense. We know how to love. We know how to give every penny, every piece of food in the fridge, open our homes, our schedules and our lives to those in need. And yet, we often DO NOT know how not to! We don’t know how to limit our output of who we care for physically and emotionally and gauge when our compassion meter is empty.
We think that we have an unlimited ability to give and that somehow our “deficit” has no consequences and will miraculously work itself out for our good.
This idea of a gauging a compassion meter may feel arbitrary. Yet, there exist other concrete examples of resources in limited supply to glean from. Take finances for example. Numbers don’t lie! In order to have basic financial maturity we must know how much is coming in and how much is going out. Bottom line: The amount going out should not exceed the amount coming in. If we can’t live within those parameters than change needs to happen. Without awareness we can quickly get into trouble. Therefore intentional planning, budgeting and tracking is necessary. Otherwise we may be unconsciously telling ourself that somehow it will all miraculously work out. And yet “this will all miraculously work out” mentality is how many of us compassionate caregivers approach our caregiving capacity…We think that we have an unlimited ability to give and that somehow our “deficit” has no consequences and will miraculously work itself out for our good.
Applying financial principles to caregiving
1. We must first have awareness of the input and output - In this case, how much care is coming towards us and how much is going out? If, like stewarding finances well we must know our bottom line budget, do we similarly have an informed emotional budget that we are working with? How does one gauge that?
Here’s one idea: Create 3 buckets, 1 labeled “Input relationships” -Those who care for me; people that invest in us without getting anything back. 2. “Reciprocal relationships” - those relationships where sharing is generally equal and mutually beneficial. 3. Output relationships -We will all have people in our lives that are more draining and relationships that are more one-sided. This is certain. Who are these people?
The purpose of this exercise is to place the names of people in your life in each of these buckets. The goal is to make sure there are several names in each category. They likely won’t have the same number in each of them, but there should be at least some names in all of them.
2. If the amount going out exceeds the amount coming in, there must be change.
If all the names are in the output bucket, a shift is needed. It’s okay for us as caregivers to not move all of the names into one category such as the reciprocal or output buckets. Often the area in most deficit for caregivers are relationships in the input category.
3. Intentionally prepare and track
There comes the need to engage with others who can help us best see how we are doing in our care for others. As a transition and sabbatical coach this is a role I often play with clients. When the lights on the dash are coming on regularly to warn of need for care, make space to re-evaluate what needs fine-tuning! Are there people in your life who can help gauge when you’re doing too much? The ones who can be a mirror for you to help you see clearly when your giving is imbalanced?
I, personally needed to learn to ask people to help me with this. I also needed to not always ask questions when my listening became disingenuous, I knew I needed help. I also learned when sharing authentically without being asked modeled vulnerability for others and allowed me to be known.
If this is an area of challenge for you, as a fellow caregiver, guilty of not taking care of myself, I implore you to attend to this. If we continually go on giving our hearts with great compassion beyond the capacity we as a human have to give, we will indeed reach a breaking point. I’ve seen it and lived it. With an abundance of needs and needy people all around us, and as caregivers naturally inclined to want to fill those needs, we must maintain equivocal life-giving relationships, and maintain a posture of allowing others to solely pour into us. Together, let’s fight compassion fatigue with healthy self-awareness and intentionally implemented self-care to better serve those we are sent to reach.
Where and with whom are you talking about your limitations regarding care? How would being informed of your compassion capacity change the way you serve? Would there be any change to your weekly schedule?
See the newly created Sabbatical Planning Guide
*dictionary.com
**wikipedia.com
experiencing the freedom and refreshment of those life-giving spaces
