Compassion Fatigue, Anxiety, Caregiver, fatigue

Who Helps the Helpers?

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Is caring for others part of your job? Maybe you are a healthcare worker, faith leader, teacher, or non-profit leader who cares deeply about the people you serve, but sometimes you feel exhausted, frustrated, anxious, or irritable. If so, you may be experiencing compassion fatigue.

My name is Britt Riddle, and I have over fifteen years of experience working in a variety of helping professions and navigating and recovering from compassion fatigue and burnout. Compassion fatigue is a common response to the complex and overwhelming situations we may find ourselves in when working with people who have experienced trauma or other significant stressors in their lives. Now, as a therapist at The Mindfulness Center, I specialize in working with people in helping professions who want to prevent or reduce compassion fatigue—by clarifying their values, nurturing inner peace, cultivating mindfulness practices and perspectives, and rediscovering what brings joy in their lives.

Compassion fatigue refers to the emotional, physical, and spiritual exhaustion that comes from being consistently exposed to stressors in other peoples’ lives.

 Signs you may be experiencing compassion fatigue may include:

  • Emotional Exhaustion: Feeling overwhelmed, burned out, and emotionally drained from caring for others;
  • Physical Exhaustion: Experiencing physical symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, and difficulty sleeping;
  • Spiritual Exhaustion: Feeling disconnected from your values, beliefs, and sense of purpose;
  • Depersonalization: Feeling detached and removed from the people you are trying to help, and experiencing a decrease in empathy and compassion
  • Challenges with Emotional Regulation: Feelings such as anger, frustration, sadness, and hopelessness may feel more intense and may make it more difficult to feel grounded;
  • Decreased Sense of Self-Worth: Feeling that your work is unimportant and not making a difference.

 The good news is that researchers have identified specific risk factors and protective factors for compassion fatigue and burnout. This means we can work on shifting our perspectives, learning new skills, and making small changes to our environment to reduce compassion fatigue. When protective factors for compassion fatigue are cultivated, compassion resilience can emerge—the ability to maintain our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being while compassionately caring for others.

People and workplaces that foster resilience on a regular basis create an environment where employees feel less stress, experience fewer feelings of imposter syndrome, are more socially connected, and find greater meaning in their work. This leads to greater work satisfaction, increased productivity, and less burnout/turnover.

 In addition to providing therapy, we often get requests from organizations about how we can support their work and their employees. We care best for others when we ourselves feel supported, which is why we would be glad to partner with you to customize trainings, workshops, and support/education groups to support your employees and organization as you do the important work of caring for others.

Britt, Riddle, Religious, Spiritual, Development, Injury If you are interested in exploring compassion fatigue and compassion resilience, either for yourself or your organization, I would be glad to talk with you more about this to see how we might work together. You can contact me or schedule a free 10-minute consultation or first appointment with me here: https://mindfulness-center.com/our-team/britt-riddle-dmin-mamft/. I look forward to hearing from you!

 

 

Do I Stay or Do I Go?

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In general, relationships are tough, even for those who’ve been married, friends, or coworkers for years.

How do we recognize when a relationship is good for us or when a relationship isn’t good for us? Often, the lines are fuzzier than we’d like, black and white don’t apply, and we live in a foggy grey, feeling stuck. Sometimes happy. Sometimes frustrated. Almost always anxious. 

So much of this is normal. The images portrayed to us in movies or books present relationships, especially romantic relationships, and decisions that look easy. “The one” is always obvious. Friends are always funny and supportive. Sex is always amazing. Conversations over tough topics are nonexistent or minimal. So, when we encounter a real relationship and it doesn’t look like that, we really aren’t sure what to make of it, or how to assess if it’s “good” or not. Whether it’s a friend, coworker, or spouse, the proverbial question becomes, “do I stay or do I go?” 

Jennifer, Komis, Mindfulness, CenterAs a therapist, I specialize in helping people flourish, whether that means leaving a toxic relationship of some sort or working to improve a relationship in their life that’s worth it. I work with individuals who aren’t sure what they want and help them determine what’s a right choice for them, not THE right choice, as right choices are almost always multiple.

So, we talk about boundaries, feeling safe, communication, fears, hopes, and how in the world we might honor all of those things in the decisions we make for ourselves. We talk about how the messages we experience growing up sometimes influence how we see people or relationships now. We discuss how to choose what to do in our relationships, as opposed to living a life on autopilot that feels consistently unfulfilling. We make all the space we need to calmly tackle the hard questions about what the next steps might look like in workplaces, marriages, and friendships.

In short, I partner with you as you build a future you can be excited about and that nourishes you, mind, body, and spirit.

If this sounds interesting to you and you’d like to explore working with me, please feel free to schedule a free 10-minute phone consultation or first appointment with me HERE. I look forward to chatting with you!

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