Letting Go...

Sometimes it feels as though letting go, surrendering control, will allow the world to fall apart. What if something goes wrong? What if someone makes a mistake? What if there's a mix-up?

And yet, carrying the burden of responsibility for everything turning out right is exhausting. We become drained, anxious and irritable when we try to hold life together by sheer force of will. I spoke with a woman this week who is a helping professional who is also caring for her mother, a woman living with cancer. She told me that although she speaks about "letting go"  all the time in her work, she'd never realized to what depths and repeatedness this act was required of family caregivers.

So, what would happen if we didn't try so hard to control things in advance? Could we lighten up, just a little, and respond to circumstances as they arise instead? Kate, the beloved adolescent character of Jean Little's writings, understood about the need to let go, at least occasionally:

Today

Today I will not live up to my potential.

Today I will not relate well to my peer group.

Today I will not contribute in class.

I will not volunteer one thing.

Today I will not strive to do better.

Today I will not achieve or adjust or grow enriched

or get involved.

I will not put up my hand even if the teacher is wrong

and I can prove it.

Today I might eat the eraser off my pencil.

I'll look at clouds.

I'll be late.

I don't think I'll wash.

I need a rest.

Perhaps we could all let go, just a little, in our own ways, today, and have a rest...?

I will be doing just that on Friday when I travel to southern California for a week. And after that comes Easter weekend so you will not be seeing a blog post here for the next two weeks. Until then - Happy Easter!

Jan 

 

   

The Promise of Spring...

I encountered these crocuses under a tree by the lake yesterday, a reminder of the hope and the promise of Spring.

I think that early recovery from Compassion Fatigue is a little like the coming of spring. The signs of early recovery are subtle at first - being wakened one morning by a whisper of optimism, hearing yourself laughing for the first time in a very long while, feeling a longed-for gathering of energy and interest. Gradually the bud inside you begins to swell and grow, creating the new weller-than-well person you are becoming.

The process of recovery is not a direct line from A to B though, rather, a meandering route of two steps forward and one step back. As James E. Miller says of Spring in Winter Grief, Summer Grace:

This season cannot be all brightness and glow, however. You still feel sad sometimes.

You get caught off guard by sudden rushes of painful emotions.  That's the nature of 

Spring - The gradual warming punctuated by brief stabs of chill. Yet as you  let your 

feelings evolve in ways most fitting to you, you promote the natural unfolding of your 

grief, the natural unfolding of your life.

He goes on to describe this natural unfolding in more detail:

You can begin to direct more and more what is happening around you.

You can decide about those things you want to start doing again.

You can experiment with things you've never tried before, realizing that something

within you now is eager to try.

You can begin to turn your attention more to others,

offering what you have to give, welcoming what is there to receive.

You have every reason to do both,

and every right.

In fact, James Miller is speaking about the process of recovery from bereavement but I believe he's got it right for those of us recovering from compassion fatigue as well. There is a seasonal flow to both experiences and the season of Spring brings the warmth, showers, budding and blossoming that equate to the Springtime of our recovery.

Most of you who have heard me speak more than once, know that I use a beautiful haiku by Jean Little, as a closing for all my workshops.  Over the years it has become my "signature", a blessing for those courageous enough to be beginning their own recovery. It goes like this:

Surprise

I feel like the ground in winter,

Hard, cold, dark, dead, unyielding,

Then hope pokes through me like a crocus.

So, bouquets of crocuses to each of you as you take the next step toward recovering from the

"gift" of compassion fatigue.

* Both books I've quoted today would make beautiful gifts for yourself or for someone you

love. Winter Grief, Summer Grace has wonderful photographs and poignant prose with

unintrusive Christian overtones and Hey World, Here I Am! by Jean Little makes a

great gift for an adolescent or pre-adolescent girl - or anyone who ever was one!

 

 

 

 

 

Getting Enough Sleep...?

This past week has certainly been one of diminished sleep for me!

Between the advent of this year's Daylight Savings Time, an out-of-town workshop with a time zone change, an overnight visit with an old friend, and seeing my goddaughter off on Spring Break at the airport at 4:15 this morning, my sleep debt, (the difference between the amount of sleep we need and the amount of sleep we get), is pretty high. The bad news is that this sleep debt is cumulative. The good news is that a few consecutive nights of full, uninterrupted sleep will usually return us to full functioning.

How do we know when we're sleep deprived? Sleep researchers say that our sleep latency tells the tale. In other words, if we are well rested, we will make the transition to sleep within 15 - 20 minutes but if we're sleep deprived, we will fall asleep in less than 5 or 10 minutes. (Or as soon as our heads hit the pillow, as the saying goes.) Other ways of taking stock include asking ourselves if it is hard to wake up in the morning, if we wake refreshed or tired, if we run out of energy by late afternoon or how long we sleep if we don't have to wake up.

Most adults need 8-9 hours sleep each night but many of us average around 7 hours with the result that we have more accidents, we're more prone to infection, we make more mistakes at work, we lose concentration, short term memory and IQ points and we are less resilient to stress. 

When we add to this the effects of long term professional shift work or 24/7 family

caregiving, we have the potential for serious physical and mental health problems and a diminished ability to care for others safely.

In,  The Little Book of Stress Relief,  Dr. David Posen, MD, suggests that we:

*  Assess how much sleep we're getting currently & how much we need to function well.

*  Go to bed half an hour early for a few nights and see what happens.

*  Then add another half hour for a few nights.

*  Keep adding to your sleep until you wake naturally, feeling refreshed.

*  Sleep in an hour or two on weekends if you run a deficit during the week.

If you are working extra long shifts because there are not enough staff or if, as a family caregiver, the idea of getting more than a few consecutive hours sleep any night makes you laugh, (or cry), things might not be so easy. You might need to summon help or actually get away regularly in order to meet this most basic of needs.

Can you ask a friend to take your children after school so you can sleep til dinner time when you're working night shift? Can you renegociate your care aide allotment? (During the last year of my husband's illness, I traded 120 hours of daytime care aide help for 2 or 3 nights of RN coverage a week and that saved my sleep and my sanity.) Can you ask a family member to watch things at your house while you go to theirs' for a nap? Can you arrange to go away for a weekend for the sole purpose of catching up on your sleep? Brainstorm with others in similiar situations to find outside-the-box ways of catching an extra 40 winks. It will make all the difference to your mood, your energy and your perspective.

   

      

Before I Leave...

I'm on my way to Banff very early tomorrow morning to teach a Compassion Fatigue workshop for transplant professionals. I am greatly looking forward to working with this dedicated group of people, and also, to seeing a nursing friend from the old days in CCU and to meeting my new great granddaughter for the first time! It promises to be a busy, happy - and cold! - weekend.

Before I leave, though, I would like to tell you about an online learning opportunity with the Compassion Fatigue Specialist and Accelerated Recovery Program (ARP) developer, Eric Gentry. He will be offering a teleseminar, Compassion Fatigue Prevention & Resiliency:  Fitness for the Frontline, through PESI Continuing Education Seminars on Friday March 13, at 2:00 - 3:30 pm (Eastern Standard Time).  The price is very reasonable and the outline looks comprehensive  and well integrated with the latest research.  You can  find seminar information and registration at www.pesi.com.  

The Silencing Response - A Symptom of Compassion Fatigue

Working in highly charged, disturbing environments and with people who have been seriously injured, ill or traumatized, exposes us to experiences, stories, thoughts and feelings that are potentially overwhelming because they are beyond our scope of comprehension, our desire to know or our sense of competency. When we become overwhelmed in this way, our ability to remain present and to listen to the pain of others is compromised and we are likely to draw on the Silencing Response (SR) for our own protection.

The Silencing Response is defined by traumatologists, Anna Baranowsky and Eric Gentry, (2006), as "a reaction ...which guide(s) the caregiver to redirect, shut down, minimize or neglect the disturbing information brought by an individual to the caregiver." In other words, when we are already emotionally overwhelmed, we find ways to silence others' painful stories so that their pain doesn't add to our trauma load. This is an effective form of self protection in one sense but in another, it can add to our feelings of guilt and shame as we realize that we are not the empathic listeners we used to be. And it keeps us from being effective helpers.

Here are some signposts, taken from the work of Baranowsky and Gentry, that can help us to determine whether we are using the Silencing Response as a defense in our conversations:

1.  Changing the subject away from painful material

2.  Avoiding a topic

3.  Providing pat answers

4.  Minimizing others' distress

5.  Wishing/suggesting that the other would "just get over it"

6.  Being angry or sarcastic with care recipients

7.  Using humour to change or minimize the subject

8.  Faking interest or listening

9.  Fearing what the client has to say or feeling numb before an interaction

10.Blaming or not believing others for their circumstances

11.Not being able to pay attention to what the person is saying or feeling bored

The up side to behaviours like the Silencing Response is that they act as smoke detectors to warn us of the need for action before the fire of Compassion Fatigue gets out of control. When we use this warning to motivate an investment in extreme self care and some good trauma therapy we can begin to recover, both for ourselves and those we serve.   

 

 

Community...

I am back, refreshed, from a wonderful retreat at the Bethlehem Retreat Center in Nanaimo, BC. The weather was crisp and sunny and Westwood Lake was covered with ice. I balanced my time between being quietly alone at the guest house and attending community prayers and dinner with my friends at the House of Bread Benedictine Monastery. As always, my body and mind relaxed completely in the quietness and the concerns and busyness of life in the city seemed far away.

Early on my last morning there, I sat by the window watching the sun rise to bathe the peak of Mount Benson and to awaken the three llamas sleeping under the bare fruit trees in the field behind the guest house. I drank a cup of tea and thought about the community of women who had created this lovely place of peace and about the importance of community in all our lives.  

Some people define  community as a group of interacting people in a common location (this was obviously prior to the internet!) and others define it as a group that is organized around common values. Whatever our definition, we all belong to a number of communities -  our personal community of friends, the soccer community, our faith community, the caregiving community, the university community, the equestrian community, the environmental community, and so on.  

We are hardwired for community, for belonging, and when we lose our sense of community our health suffers. Dean Ornish, MD, President and Director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute at the University of California's School of Medicine in San Franscisco, spent his life studying heart disease and wrote a book called, Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy (1997). In an interview with Bill Moyers, he said, "I am coming to believe that anything that promotes isolation leads to chronic stress and, in turn, may lead to illnesses like heart disease. Anything that promotes a sense of intimacy, community and connection can be healing."

So, what do we do when life's busyness makes connecting with loved ones seem difficult or impossible? How do we maintain this piece of our mental, physical and spiritual health?

The first step is intention; we become clear that we want to maintain certain relationships (- and that we may need to let go of others  for a while). Then we make a realistic plan for keeping in touch. My husband developed what he called his Keeping in Touch (KIT) List. On it were the names of the 4-6 people with whom he wanted to stay in touch, even if life was very busy. He kept the list on his desk and made sure that every 10 days to 2 weeks, he sent them a note or called them on the phone or had lunch or a cup of tea with them. Sometimes, all he had time for was a quick voice mail message or a quicker prayer but he honoured his intention to stay connected.

Family caregivers in the Well Spouse organization in the US send each other round robin letters or emails with short or long entries written when they have a free moment and then sent on around the circle. It doesn't have to be much, just as long as whatever you do allows you to feel connected with your community. As the Sufi poet, Rumi, said in the thirteenth century:

There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight

of walking in the noisy street, 

and being the noise...

Why do you stay in prison

when the door is so wide open?

Sharing life, no matter how difficult, eases the stress and lightens the load. Try it and see.... 

 

   

Going on Retreat...

Tomorrow I leave Vancouver for a four day personal retreat and I can't wait to go. There's nothing better than taking time apart from the busyness of day-to-day life to rest, to reflect, to clarify, and to renew.

I've been answering an inner call to retreat since I was very young. Whenever life became too hectic at home I would take an apple and my book and wander into the woods where I could spend hours walking my favourite paths, sitting in my favourite tree and just be-ing in the quiet. Eventually, I would return to the world, centered and at peace once more. 

Retreats come in all shapes and sizes. An hour pulling weeds in my rose garden. A few moments in the quiet darkness of my front porch, staring up at the night sky. A few days apart from my normal environs, surrounded by the beauty of nature, either with a pack on my back or in the comfort of a comfortable retreat house. Years ago, my husband had a regular arrangement with an elderly friend to spend a morning, once a month, in her spare room, resting, thinking, meditating and writing. At noon, Doris would tap on the door to announce that she'd made him a bowl of soup and a sandwich. They would have a quiet lunch together and then my husband would leave, refreshed, to go on with his life.

There are many times in life when a retreat can be helpful. During times of transition or celebration when we want to fully experience the moment. At times when we yearn for space apart to refresh and renew. During times when we seem to have lost our true selves and need to reconnect. When we feel stuck in making a decision or finding the right path. When we are longing for room for creative expression and inspiration. When our God seems far away. When we need time to grieve and to heal.

Whatever our reason for wanting a retreat, the major obstacle to accomplishing our intention is often in our own minds. How many of us have known, deeply, that we needed some time apart only to follow that thought with one of the following:

- I can't afford it.

- It would be selfish or irresponsible to take time for myself right now.

- My friends would think I'm crazy.

- I don't have the time!

- I haven't been alone for so long that it feels a little scary.

- If I leave my husband (child, wife, parent), something terrible might happen.

My personal experience is that if I commit to taking time away -ie choosing dates- I am able to find my way through most barriers that may arise. There will always be the fears of the unknown, but in the all years that I feared leaving my husband to get the rest I needed, nothing catastrophic happened. And if it had, it wouldn't have been because I had gone on retreat, but because he had severe heart disease.

So, take some time today to examine your own life.  Do you need a rest, some quiet moments to think or a geographical change to gain some objectivity? If you do, consider the type of retreat you would be able to undertake, choose a date and then make a commitment to follow through.  You might find, as I did, that after the allotted days are over you are still wanting more.

Photo by Janet Ritchey