Start A Ripple Of Compassion

I was dropping my son at holiday programme on Tuesday and before I could sign him in I had to wait for a mother ahead of me - it was one of those mothers - you know the ones that hold up the whole queue while they do something complicated, and keep asking more and more questions, with no sign that they are winding up. I just wanted to sign in and go back for a client session, and I was getting more and more restless having to wait. She eventually resolved her questions and when I was in the car heading back to the office I began to reflect on the incident and whether my thoughts and restlessness were in line with my values. It has been a hard year for us in Tāmaki Makarau and if I am starting to act angsty in queues and getting easily irritable then it has got bad.

We are finishing a hard couple of years, and we are observing a shared increase in stress and tension, that is often expressed in negativity and hostility to others. The summer break is a chance for the deep refreshment and restoration that we need to withstand the things that 2022 has in store for us. Many of you in healthcare and social services will be wondering what summer break I am referring to, because I know that you will be continuing to work through supporting those that need it most. As helpers we have no hesitation in putting up our hands when we hear the call to heal the world - after all that is our purpose, that is what gives our life meaning. BUT sometimes it is this eagerness that can limit our longevity which is what we need to be cultivating right now. We begin to think that the world needs us. That it is our work that is holding the nation together.

We forget that what we long for is to create a world that doesn’t need our work.

What the world needs most to heal the hurt, struggle, irritability anger and hostility is ripples of compassion. Ripples that start with us, and flow outward to create compassionate teams, and compassionate systems, that can heal the world. Those ripples begin with us, and not with us putting our hands up to heal the world.

Rather it begins with us learning to be compassionate towards ourselves. To be able to recognise and tend to our own needs and to take a compassionate stance towards ourselves. This basis of kindness allows us to be all we can be, to be calm, to grow and learn and to prioritise our own self-care. These actions create a deeper well of compassion in ourselves so that we can sustain the providing of compassion to others. Our modelling and emphasis on self-compassion helps others grow in compassion, they can then grow a compassionate team and work to create compassionate systems so that we can create a new more compassionate world, where we are motivated by kindness rather than by individualism.

Growing our own self-compassion isn’t an easy task. Over December I have challenged myself to practise self-compassion every day and it does require intention, attention and lots and lots of practice. If you are taking a summer break it is a great opportunity to work on your self-compassion. If you aren’t taking a summer break then you definitely need to work on your self-compassion! Here are six suggestions to get you started on developing your self-compassion, but remember to have compassion for yourself in the process - it will take time.

How to grow your self-compassion

Intention:

1) Take some time to develop an understanding of what self-compassion is and isn’t. Kristen Neff defines self-compassion as having 3 components. Including an ability to express warm kindness towards our own struggles, failings and imperfections. A sense of common humanity - struggling is normal and many people struggle, in fact, it is part of being human. Finally having a stance of mindful openness towards our emotional experience.

2) Choose one self-compassion practice that you are going to work on for a week. There are many suggestions on Kristen Neffs website.

Attention

3) Begin by slowing down and building your ability to notice the tone of your mind messages and self-stories./ self-talk. Notice how you talk to yourself (if you do not everyone has an internal dialogue). Pay particular attention to the tone you use in addition to the content of your dialogue. You could ask yourself - is this how my best friend would speak to me?

4) Be open and curious about your feelings. What might your emotional responses be telling you? Allow your emotions to be there.

Practice:

5) Practice taking a kind stance to your feelings, reactions, imperfections and mistakes. Imagine what the kindest person you know would say, and practice using those words to yourself.

6) Practice paying attention to your needs. Stop regularly thought the day and wonder - what do I need? Chose to meet those needs with care and tenderness.

Be as kind to yourself as you are to your clients, and together we can change the world.

Don't be a superhero

In normal times (now known as precedented times), as helping professionals we primarily care for others from a place of our own strength, health and resilience. We are those that care, we have to be strong and keep ourselves healthy so that we can care to the best of our ability - others are counting on us after all. Our professional training often reinforces this with its emphasis on evidence and ‘maintaining professionalism’ within our relationships with clients. We come to think of ourselves as superheroes, we come into work in the morning and don our professionalism like a cape and evidence based practice like they are our superpowers.

In unprecedented times however we realise that we are not superheroes at all. We realise that we are just ordinary humans. We are all struggling with the background of a global pandemic-both clients and helping professionals alike. The distinctions between those that help and those that are helped have been stripped away. The global pandemic has left us all feeling vulnerable, tired, battered and disappointed. The life circumstances that our clients and patients face have also entered our own lives, we have been caring and also dealing with ill family members, our own illness, negotiating difficult situations with family members, being far from friends and family at special times and being bereaved. Just because we are helping professionals doesn’t make us immune to the life circumstances that our clients may struggle with. It is confronting when we realise that just because we care for others as our profession doesn’t make us superheroes.

Perhaps our strength does not come from immunity from these life circumstance but rather from our ability to accept that we are only human. We understand that being richly and fully human means that challenges (and even pain) are part of life, a part of humanity. We are not superheroes just well-trained, ordinary humans, embracing the richness of our humanity. There are four key elements to being richly human that can resource us for standing with our clients in the face of our own struggles.

Connection

Being richly human means valuing connection and accepting that we need others. Richly human helping professionals make use of friends and family to support their emotional and psychological well-being. This can be challenging, as many helping professionals have an underdeveloped ability to receive, always remaining in their default identity as a ‘giver’. A small way to practice the skill of receiving is to open ourselves up to those tokens of encouragement and support that our clients (or patients) offer to us. It is easy to modestly brush these off, to dismiss our clients words with “oh its my job”, “of course I care”, or the kiwi classic of “no worries”. It nourishes our humanity and also honours our patients mana when we profoundly accept their forgiveness for being late, their encouragement to stay safe, their compliments on our clothes, their enquires about our own well-being and their thanks and appreciation for our work.

We need to slow down and savour those moments of connection human to human.

Authenticity

Being richly human means rejecting the stereotype of professional aloofness, it means dedicating time to reflecting on and figuring out all the ways that we can be authentic, whole and professional at the same time. Our professionalism does mean that we need to take care with self-disclosure but that shouldn’t mean that we are not showing up as whole people and bringing some of ourselves into our interactions. Sometimes a small glimpse of our own struggles or our own experience of loss or illness can be what a client needs to feel that they are less alone. It may be a simple as saying I was away last week because of a bereavement or sharing that you have been struggling with home-schooling. These moments of being real can enhance the connection to our clients and can be a source of hope that they too can accept this challenging life and remain connected and able to help others.

Shared Humanity

Richly human helping professionals understand the power of shared humanity. We are in this unfair, challenging world together, we all experience the imperfections of it, very few are untouched. Grief, illness, vulnerability, traumas and the suffering that these can cause are all part of the human existence. Richly human helping professionals understand that life is not all joy and positivity, but that we can live full and meaningful lives in the face of discomfort and pain. We can find ways to practically express our values even when we face painful situations, and we understand that feeling pain, sorrow and anger are often appropriate responses to what we see and experience. Richly human professionals are open to all their feelings and have the courage to turn towards the full range of emotions. Awareness of shared humanity means that we are able to look up from our own challenges and the challenges of our clients and see that other sources of pain are present in the world - we notice landslides, racism, oppression, earthquakes, loss and war.

Meeting Our Own Needs

Superheroes seem to get through saving the world without ever stopping for a toilet break. Richly human helpers, on the other hand, accept and acknowledge that they have needs and prioritise meeting them. They make space to tune into themselves, they slow down enough to be aware of the needs of their bodies and mind. Rich humans develop compassion for themselves understanding that they are just as worthy of care and nourishment as their clients and patients. Self-compassion is the key that leads them to prioritise self-care. You will find richly human helping professionals stopping for lunch, prioritising sleep and engaging in activities that refresh and re-energise them.

It is by accepting that we are not superheroes and acknowledging and nourishing our vulnerable humanity that we can become very strong and rich humans. It is that rich and full humanity that enables us to continue our caring work in the face of our own challenges and struggles.

Take care as you care for others,

Christina

Using our strengths and gifts for our own self-care

Do you know your own strengths, values and gifts? It is likely that you have come across some discussion of strengths and values in your workplace, as it has become a common focus recently.      Most of the discussion of gifts and strengths, focuses on how we use them to interact with the world, how we put them into practice in our work, lives or parenting.  The wellbeing literature points to an association between the opportunity to use our strengths at work as being associated with greater well-being.  So knowing and using our gifts can be an important step in our self-care to increase and maintain our wellbeing.

After my last post about self-care, I have had various conversations about self-care including my own.  On one level self-care is easy - most of us know the principles and have some ideas of the things that help us be healthy and feel re-energised.  

It is not lack of knowledge that prevents us from taking actions to care for ourselves.    

Other elements are at play that prevents us from prioritising self-care.  Often it can be that we haven’t developed enough self-compassion, we may not value self-care, or prioritise our needs.   

It is much easier to achieve goals that are in line with our values and use our strengths and gifts. Yet most of the discussion around strengths focuses on their outward expression.  A step in becoming better at self-care is to consider turning the best of ourselves inwards.  Self-care may become easier if we find ways to base our practices in what we value, and to mobilise our strengths and gifts in the service of our own well-being and self-care.   

The first step in this is identifying your strengths, values and talents.  A good place to start is with the VIA survey that you can find here.

Then think about your values and how they can underpin your self-care.  For example, if you value honesty taking time, to be honest about how you feel about your work and your energy levels may be an important self-care practice for you. I place a high value on wisdom and I see part of wisdom as caring for myself well.  Self-care will become easier if you take the time to base it in some of your core values.  

Think about how you can turn your gifts and strengths to yourself and your own care.  We often overlook applying strengths and gifts to ourselves.  The most obvious example comes from those I know and work with who have gifts of empathy and compassion. These gifts tend to be mostly focussed outwards, and it takes an intentional attempt at refocussing for them to turn that same level of empathy and compassion to themselves.  Often people who are strong in communication and humour also tend to focus these gifts outwards, intentionally re-focussing these inwards may include journalling to communicate better with yourself, and doing things just for fun to express your humour rather than seeking to be making others laugh.  I am trying to use my strength of curiosity to become more curious about what is going on in my own mind and to spend more time exploring my own emotional reactions to things as a way of increasing my mindfulness.  

Thinking about our strengths and how we can apply them to ourselves, not just others, is a key component of helping us to prioritise and value self-care.  

I have put together a weekly worksheet (also available as a pdf) to help you reflect on how your are and can use your strengths to care for yourself.  At the end of each day reflect on how you used your strengths for others, what you did (or didn’t) do for your own self-care and think about how you could have used this strength to support and re-energise yourself. 

As always I would love to hear how you are using your strengths as a base for self-care.