Dealing With Compassion Fatigue

Summary

This episode, Bishop DeDe and Adam discuss compassion fatigue, its impact on individuals and communities, and the importance of self-care and boundaries in maintaining emotional well-being. They explore how compassion fatigue manifests in the church and society, emphasizing the need for individuals to refill their emotional reserves to effectively care for others. The conversation also touches on the significance of community support and the necessity of reaching out when feeling isolated or unseen.

Takeaways

• Compassion fatigue is a real and significant issue.
• Self-care is essential for maintaining the ability to care for others.
• Feeling overwhelmed by the world's problems can lead to compassion fatigue.
• It's important to acknowledge and feel our emotions.
• Setting boundaries helps prevent compassion fatigue.
• Engaging in spiritual practices can rejuvenate our spirits.
• Community support is vital in combating feelings of isolation.
• Reaching out to others can help alleviate feelings of being unseen.
• Taking breaks from news and social media can help recharge our emotional batteries.
• Compassion begins with caring for ourselves. 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Compassion Fatigue
02:38 Understanding Compassion Fatigue
05:25 The Importance of Self-Care
08:09 Compassion Fatigue in the Church
11:09 Navigating Compassion Fatigue
13:36 Responding to Suffering
16:25 Finding Community and Support

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe (00:01.928)
Hey friends, welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. I am the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York. I am joined by Adam Eichelberger. He is our Director of Communications. And we are speaking about faith. Whatever your faith may be, this is a space in which we talk together, reason together, question, pursue. But what we try to refrain from is really arguing. Because when we're speaking of faith,

There's a great temptation because it matters to us to want to fight about it. Who's right, who's wrong, what's good, what's bad, and to look at it very concretely, like there's in and there's out. In this podcast, we're speaking of faith, which is a vulnerable thing to do. I want to acknowledge that because we've all gotten out of the habit of speaking about our faith. And today, the topic that I want to talk about a bit is something called comp-

Compassion fatigue you may have heard about it associated with teachers or caregivers where there's just a fatigue with caring I want to make note of the difference between compassion fatigue and actual burnout Burnout is when you are fatigued and don't want to do a thing anymore where you have done all that is life-giving for you in a particular job or role and Where you're looking for a new avenue

to live your life, that burnout is a sign to us that it's time for a change, time for a new venture. But what I'm talking about is compassion fatigue where I've heard from several people lately, I'm just so tired of caring about what happens over there. You know, we keep talking and talking and it's just exhausting. All of the division is exhausting. It's just drains me.

That is part of when we talked last week about rest and rejuvenation, the importance of the spiritual practice of rest. Addressing our compassion fatigue is also part of our spiritual life, which may sound odd at first, except when you think that Jesus tells us to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, to love our neighbor as our self.

Bishop DeDe (02:24.764)
that all depends on these two commandments. When we look at those two commandments and say, when will it be enough? What more does God require of me? Haven't I tried to care about people enough? I just don't want to hear any more about X, Y or Z. I'm tired of caring about that. That tells us that we may be fatigued. It tells us that we're a little worn out.

It also tells us that we're not filling up our reserves. If you think about your energy and your excitement as like a glass of water that you have sustenance for the journey, when we just feel worn out, it means that our glass is empty. We need to refill it. This isn't about optimism or pessimism. It's really about our ability to engage with life. That when we feel happy and fulfilled and rested and revitalized,

Then we have greater capacity to care about other people, to engage in a life that's meaningful for us, and to ensure that we are living our life and feeling the joy of living our life. Even when it's hard, maybe especially when it's hard, that we're feeling that purpose of living. There is so much opportunity right now for us to feel hopeless or defiant or determined or a lot of other adjectives.

that you can pick for yourself. Some people feel very good about how their life is going and how the world is. Some people are devastated and terrified wherever you may be in this moment to think about your ability to care about the needs and desires of other people around you. When we talk about our faith, we're talking about living into what Jesus commands us to live into.

And I want to highlight in the Gospel of Mark, there are plenty of opportunities to see that Jesus himself at times had a little bit of compassion fatigue where he would withdraw and take a nap as you know, on the boat or he would withdraw from the crowds and restore, spend some time in prayer, doing the things that we do for us to be reading scripture, prayer, maybe listening to music, engaging in a hobby.

Bishop DeDe (04:44.358)
The power of changing the topic is very energizing sometimes, where we're thinking and thinking and thinking about one thing to say, you know what?

Today, I'm taking the day off from that. I'm not gonna watch the news. I'm not gonna think about all these things. I'm gonna go to the park and walk in the trees. I'm going to go out and garden. I'm going to puzzle and do things in my house that are nurturing to my soul and rejuvenate. I'm gonna tend my soul. And then the next day when we go out, our capacity for caring about other people is increased.

our ability to have compassion for those who may differ from us is enlarged because we feel like we're getting enough. I think at the core of compassion fatigue is a message from our own bodies, our own souls saying, hey, you're not paying attention to me, you're paying attention to all those other people, but who's gonna care for me? Who's gonna care for how I'm feeling? And compassion fatigue may be addressed by having a day where

We allow ourselves to cry or to journal about how hard things are or to really just feel the sorrow that seems to be so close to us all the time that we try to push back and push back and put on a happy face. One of the things that's part of tending our soul that we often either don't speak about or maybe some people talk about it all the time is when we're feeling bad, when we're feeling dispirited.

When we are really feeling low, just hopeless, how will this ever work?

Bishop DeDe (06:30.276)
As people of faith, to stop and to acknowledge that is a real feeling. Jesus is always showing us and exhibiting to us where he weeps about Lazarus or in the Garden of Gethsemane, that feeling our feelings is essential for a healthy mental health and healthy life. And then to take that to God and say, God, you got to fix this or figure this out. I'm feeling hopeless. There is no hope in this for me.

And I feel very devastated by it. How can I feel good? And to take that before God and then to allow ourselves the space to just be in that moment and breathe and allow some nurture. Exercising, eating a healthy diet, paying attention to how we're sleeping like we talked about last week. But in each of these ways, tending our soul is about tending our ability to have compassion for others.

And because we're loving our neighbors, ourself, it begins with our compassion for our own self. Maybe we need some compassion before we can offer compassion to our neighbors or our friends. So I've talked a lot about compassion and compassion fatigue, Adam. don't know, what are your reflections either? What I've said are questions that come to mind for you.

Adam Eichelberger (07:54.2)
So there's two things that kind of came to my mind, Bishop, hearing you talk about this. And then I did have a question from me to you about this topic. So the first thing that kind of stood out to me when I hear you talk about this, and especially when I, in my own life, reflect on scripture and where I can maybe see some lessons in compassion fatigue, I think about two stories from the gospel. The first one that kind of comes to my mind is we all know the miracle of Jesus feeding the crowds.

Bishop DeDe (08:00.508)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (08:14.214)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (08:21.756)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (08:22.42)
And the first thing he does is he tells the disciples like to feed them and they kind of are running up against the wall. They don't know how they're going to do it. And they, they kind of aren't able to respond. And I think it's really easy for me in my own life, especially being somebody who's worked in ministry for a long time listener. I don't know if any of you can relate to this, that it feels exhausting sometimes continuing to do the work of the gospel.

Bishop DeDe (08:46.568)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Adam Eichelberger (08:50.624)
So it's good for me to remember that the disciples who are following Jesus are feeling the same things as me. But then also when I think about the story of the crucifixion, I think about Simon the Cyrenian who is called into service to take up the cross of Jesus. And oftentimes this image is the kind of comes out to me is this reluctance to do so. Like he's just this guy who gets caught up in the mix, who gets called to do this thing that he doesn't want to do.

Bishop DeDe (09:11.89)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (09:17.181)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (09:17.754)
And I don't know if it's necessarily the best piece of advice, but one of the things my father-in-law told me when I got engaged is sometimes you got to fake it till you make it. And I don't necessarily know, sorry, dad, that this is necessarily great marriage advice. But sometimes for me, it's a reminder that like I have to be mindful of the fact that I am in a place of maybe a little bit of drought. And sometimes I do have to persevere. But then like you talked about Bishop

Bishop DeDe (09:43.708)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (09:47.106)
being willing to take a step back and find a way to hit refill on all that is really important for me. So the question I have for you as somebody who sees, I think a little bit of a different picture of the church than many of us here on the podcast or in our diocese do, because you see it from so many different angles, especially in the work that you do. Where do you see compassion fatigue showing up in the life of the church today?

Bishop DeDe (09:51.548)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (10:09.608)
All right.

Bishop DeDe (10:16.07)
That is a great question. And I don't, listener, invite you to answer this question. I am not the purveyor of all knowledge on this, but I will say one of the places of compassion fatigue I hear is when people bring up either social justice or LBGTQ plus empowerment, they'll be like kind of a, well, we do that or, well, what about elderly or what about somebody else or well,

I'm not going to go to that or just people voting with their feet where they suddenly just don't go to the things they would normally go to at church. Tuning out sermons, not praying or not reading scripture and the habit that they may have each day. I hear all of those things happening for different people at different times and listener, may be feeling that too, where you you watch the news and you hear about the plight of someone in our world and you just think.

Well, I just don't have to care about them. And one of the aspects of our faith that is very hard and an invitation both is that we do care about all people. may not, weep over everything we hear. and we may not donate money or, we, and we should be good stewards of our money. That's a different podcast, but, but I see people really being, struggling with being compassionate about others.

in one place. And then also I would have to mention that the hatefulness of the rhetoric to hear some of the awful rhetoric around when the Senator was shot in Minnesota. One of the things that I read that someone had said was just horrific. It doesn't matter where you are on a partisan spectrum. When people are harmed, we should care in some way. We don't, again, it can be

however you're able to care, but it is not okay to dehumanize anyone. And so when our compassion fatigue seems to entitle us to look down on like, you get what you deserve, that is not okay. We've crossed a line because when we profess to believe that God is the creator of all, then to dehumanize or dismiss someone out of hand like that is to dismiss God.

Bishop DeDe (12:42.05)
And we have to pay attention to the ways in which we talk about things and the ways in which we allow inhumanity to infect us and that dehumanization. Because when we dehumanize another person, that reciprocity of love your neighbor as yourself, when we dehumanize someone else, there's a piece of it that's dehumanizing ourselves as well, where there's a limit to care and concern.

So I would say those are some of the places I see, you know, people not showing up for service, withdrawing from social communities, not really caring about justice work or other things that are central, that are gospel values, or really in that place of feeling like it's okay to joke about someone not really being valuable when it's a beloved child of God.

Adam Eichelberger (13:41.636)
yeah. I think that sometimes, I think, especially recently when we see everything that's going on, especially in our country here in the United States, when people are showing up in droves to voice their opinions about things, I think that one of the things I've seen and kind of anecdotally I've encountered in conversation with folks that kind of relates to this directly is when you see thousands of people showing up to voice their opposition to the things that they disagree with.

Bishop DeDe (13:46.536)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (14:10.542)
I've heard two things that are kind of prevalent in all of that is one, they see the photos of the videos or the drone footage or whatever of thousands of people showing up at protests and saying like, well, what's one, well, I don't need to be there because what's one more set of feet there. And I think on the other side of that, there is the fatigue from so many folks who are doing so much, who are turning out in so many places. And it's like you said, like that's where we start cresting from.

Bishop DeDe (14:25.443)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (14:39.554)
compassion fatigue to the burnout where we're like, just, I just don't have the capacity to go out into.

Bishop DeDe (14:42.757)
yeah.

I don't want go to another protest. And I would say, you know, when you need to bring up fake it till you make it, I would say there are times in all of our lives where we fake it till we make it. There are moments where you really need to just sort of, you know, sort of gut it out. However, we need to pay attention to that because when we're faking it till we make it, we may be overdoing because like with the protests, I was not able to go and

Adam Eichelberger (14:56.578)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (15:15.536)
you know, there are times, I'm not sure I would have gone, but there are times when I don't go to protests more because of my schedule than whether or not I agree with whatever's being, you know, bandied about. But I know that I can pray for the people who are going. And especially if there's a protest where I may disagree with what people are upset about, I still pray for the people who are protesting because I recognize in what they're saying a passion and

a disconnect between how life is and how they need life to be for whatever reason. Not advocating for, know, there's certainly limits to all of this. You know, if it's somebody's, you know, protesting for racism, for instance, I will pray for them that they see the sin of that. But I want to be careful here. This is, you can get kind of off topic, but.

But I think to see that when we care about human beings, there are times when maybe we aren't able to go to the thing, but we're supporting it. We need the time to be quiet. And then there's other times where we may want to withdraw because we're feeling fatigue and to say, you know what, I need to go show up because the energy of the other people around me will inspire me. Like the protests this last weekend, what I heard over and over from people is,

I have been feeling so alone and afraid and concerned about my refugee and immigrant neighbors. And to be in a crowd and hear other people are concerned fueled me up, inspired me, and helped me have energy to continue to advocate for justice and inclusion. In the Episcopal Church and especially in the Diocese of Central New York, we have parishioners and refugees and immigrants

who are directly impacted by these things that are happening. And it's easy to look at what's happening in Los Angeles and say, well, that's on the other side of the country. But I'm really grateful to the people who are showing up and stepping up and saying, look, we're talking about human beings. We're talking about people who pick our food. We're talking about people who clean the hotels. We're talking about people who are neighbors. We're talking about people who are parishioners here in central New York.

Bishop DeDe (17:37.126)
And so we show up and stand up to say whatever our feeling may be about policies and partisanship and things that are happening at a higher level, as human beings, we're going to show up and advocate for the humans in our midst. And so to be fueled and inspired by the other people showing up is also a way to address compassion fatigue.

to be part of something, to go along and listen instead of feeling like we always have to lead is related. I love going to prayer services where I don't speak. And often I'll even hand the bulletin or in my case the iPad back and say, no, I just wanna close my eyes and listen to God's people praying and allow it to wash over my soul. Because I'm usually always the person leading things to be the person receiving.

is such a gift. And for you listener, whatever your relationship is with your worshiping community, that may be a way of addressing your compassionate fatigue, maybe to not be the worship leader this week, but to be one of the participants who just lets it wash over their soul and let other people carry you to share the load with one another as we advocate for justice and peace in this world.

Adam Eichelberger (18:56.558)
And it's a good reminder to Bishop when I hear you saying these things, two things that just kind of popped out that I wanted to hit. And then we're going to get to a couple of questions really quick. First and foremost, our inability to be somewhere or participate in something doesn't necessarily reflect the level of compassion that we have for a particular issue. And it's really one of the big most divisive and dare I even say, I'll take the bullet on this that

Bishop DeDe (19:15.172)
No, that's right. That's right.

Adam Eichelberger (19:24.662)
one of the more sinful things that we do in the church where we look at the people who are next to us in the pews and say, why weren't you at X, Y, and Z? Well, we obviously don't know what is going on in absolutely everybody's lives. And that is a symptom of compassion fatigue is we start getting angry with the people for not doing enough.

Bishop DeDe (19:45.436)
Well, yes, or the people who show up online and not on site. That, it can be a symptom of our own compassion fatigue. We want somebody to come and make us feel better that people are coming where they've chosen to stay home because for their family or they're not feeling well, it's better for them and for the community.

Adam Eichelberger (19:50.371)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (20:08.806)
Those are delicate things to judge you not to be grateful they're coming in whatever capacity they're coming and that we're all are together in the ways we can be together. So that is really true. Often when we get mad at somebody for not doing the thing we think they should have done, there's probably a part of us that knows that we are kind of upset with ourself more and that we're just tired. So.

Adam Eichelberger (20:32.974)
Mm-hmm.

It's also a good reminder too, that faith in and of itself is revolutionary. And that when we acknowledge like, okay, I can't be at X, Y or Z. And we actually say, or we think I'm going to make sure that I'm praying for this thing. So like when I see what happens in Los Angeles and I feel really moved about it, but I know I can't fly across the country and join because I've got family and friends who live in that area and I want to be supportive. Right.

Bishop DeDe (20:39.457)
huh.

Bishop DeDe (20:45.128)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (20:56.997)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (21:01.874)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Adam Eichelberger (21:02.806)
And when I acknowledge like, I'm going to pray for this thing. That's a great reminder to me to not to make it more than a platitude that I can't just say, I'm going to pray or even just be like, sometimes it is the best that we can do is a quick prayer. God, please be with these people, but really take the time and set it apart for like, how am I going to pray for this particular cause? I think that that's really important for me and listener. don't know if that's something that resonates with you. I did have two questions that were.

Bishop DeDe (21:17.821)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (21:22.888)
I don't know.

Bishop DeDe (21:26.44)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (21:31.784)
asked after our conversation about the sacredness of rest that we talked about in the last episode and they kind of bleed right into this. So my first one is from Scott. Scott didn't leave a last name, but we know it's Scott. Scott asks, how does our faith call us to respond to suffering without losing ourselves?

Bishop DeDe (21:35.76)
Okay, great.

huh.

Bishop DeDe (21:51.136)
Scott, what a great question. And listener again, know, fill in the gaps here and you bring your voice to this. This is about all of us speaking of our faiths. So your voice is important here. You know, differentiation as a concept in psychology that's really important where it's actually, you have codependency where there's no boundary between one person and another where they just kind of are, there's no differentiation.

But when we have a differentiated way, when we have done that work and we see the suffering of another person and we have the compassion and the sympathy and the empathy, the crying with them and all, but then at the end of it, we recognize and honor the other person by knowing their burden while we care about it is not our burden and their burden while we are compassionate about it does not mean we suddenly overtake them.

which is a disrespectful, it seems like we're doing a good thing, but it's actually disrespectful because it says, your life, my life is so important that I'm going to overtake your life for it. So part of the sacred rest is to recognize the sorrow and then hold it before God and entrust it to God. Not that we drop it or not that we say, well, hope that works out and catch you on the flip side, but rather,

I'm so sorry this is happening. I'm gonna pray with you. We're gonna hold it before God. And then I'm gonna let go of it and entrust it to God. And literally let Jesus take the wheel in this case. And give it to God and say, there, okay. And then to make a note either in my prayer journal or in my heart wherever you do that, to come back to it and pray about it. And the next time I see the person, to say, I've been praying for you. How is that working out?

I've been really continuing to hold that before God's care and keeping, and then to check in with the person. I don't take on the, you know, I let, I can feel what it feels like to the degree that I can, but then I entrust that the real, the person who's really dealing with this is the other person, and I entrust them to God. And then I let it go. If we continue to ruminate on it, or if we just can't let it go,

Bishop DeDe (24:11.75)
That may be something we need to look at for ourselves and say, what is it about this that's got me hooked? Maybe I need to pray about that or look at it, or maybe I need to talk to a counselor because this is bringing up trauma in my own life. It's triggering something in me. But good boundaries make good neighbors is also an emotional reality. So one way we guard against that is to have a good sense of ourself and then to hold it before God and to continue to care for the person.

in the way that's appropriate.

Adam Eichelberger (24:43.008)
a good nugget for me because I have to be mindful of the fact that good boundaries create good neighbors. So that's something that I got to store away. The last question that we had for this episode, Bishop, and before I ask this, I'm going to ask you listeners to let us know what you think about this one. Feel free to jump in the comments wherever you are encountering the show and let us know your feedback. But Bishop Barb wanted to know asking for

Bishop DeDe (24:47.77)
Yes.

Adam Eichelberger (25:08.01)
your advice or your wisdom on this. but listeners, we also want to know yours. So get part of the conversation. What is one piece of wisdom you would offer to someone listening right now who feels exhausted or unseen?

Bishop DeDe (25:12.518)
Yep. That's right.

Bishop DeDe (25:23.474)
Well, those are two different things. Exhausted, set it down. Plan rest. If you're not sleeping enough, change your bed time schedule, whatever it is. Make sure you're sleeping enough. Pay attention to what you're eating. Get out of nature. Tend to, if you're feeling exhausted, stop. Stop. Especially, I think people are very exhausted by being in the know with the news. Don't watch for a day.

Have Sabbaths from the news cycle. Have moments where you turn off the TV. I mean, I don't think anybody should ever have the TV running in their home all the time to feel noise, noise, noise and all this stuff. Turn it off. Change how you digest the news. Those are some ways that to create space for yourself. Our bodies are pretty smart. If we don't create space for ourself, our bodies will create space for us. And it's not that all illnesses don't go there.

But do notice that when you don't take that break because you're exhausted, you're more susceptible to getting a cold, more susceptible to having an issue. Your body needs you to rest. So that's that first one. Feeling unseen, that may be necessitating you reaching out. It's a temptation sometimes, especially for those of us who are introverts.

We kind of want to sit in our house and see if anybody notices that we didn't show up. And when nobody calls to say, where were you for the Bible study? We feel hurt. And when we don't go to the thing and people don't, and we don't get somebody knocking on our door saying, hey, you didn't come to the party. Then we feel hurt, which is unfair because what we're wanting is the other person. That's not a good boundary. That's not a good neighbor. We're expecting them to climb the fence, come on in and take care of us.

So when we're feeling unseen or unheard, to reach out and say, let's have lunch tomorrow, showing up for the Bible study, telling a trusted friend, you know, I haven't been coming because I just didn't think people wanted me around. To be brave and step out of that isolation and reach out is essential. There are people who love you, listener, who want to hear you and want to care about you. You are not alone.

Bishop DeDe (27:46.298)
And you are useful in this world. So you are wanted. And if you're not wanted in the circle you're in, it means you're in the wrong circle. You need to change the circle. so reaching out, going to a new thing, there's a wonderful line in a movie. It's not the, I wouldn't say it's a great movie, but the line is you just need five seconds of courage. And that is true. You need five seconds of courage to send an email to somebody.

and say, hey, I'm feeling very isolated and it's been hard for me. And if they don't respond or respond well, widen the circle because there's someone who is able to be present with you. And so those are two different things, but they're essential for your wellbeing that we address those. So I really appreciate your questions and the conversation. Listener now.

I pass the baton to you that you speak of your faith to talk about the people, talk with the people, don't talk about the people, talk with the people in your life about compassion, fatigue, how they're doing, if they're feeling seen and heard, if you're getting enough rest, to talk with the people you love and to support one another and be energized by others.

listening to music, reading stories about courageous people, be energized by the opportunity that's before you to make a difference in this world. So if you've been suffering from compassion fatigue, I pass the baton to you and let us speak of our faith that we may share the good news of God's love for us with one another, that we may be emboldened, may be blessed and be a blessing, and we'll speak soon. Take good care.