Mental Health: Empathy Fatigue and Healing the Spirit

When you are of an empathic and caring nature, it is difficult to not feel for those around you who are suffering and struggling in life.

These days, that can be quite the challenge because of all the upheaval and unrest in the world, and what often feels like a rejection of anything that seems "kind" or "soft" from the the broader societal narrative.

Naturally, we want other people to be happy and to feel good about their world, and it's very difficult to stand idly by when they're having difficulties.

Whereas it is good and noble to care about those around us, you also get to a point where you start feeling weary from the emotional load you are trying to carry. One of the psychological terms that has been coined in recent years is ”empathy fatigue.”

I means that the reason we are feeling worn down and tired is the result of putting so much energy into worry that we are growing exhausted.

A lot of people will insist that "it just feels wrong" to step away from a situation in which a friend or loved one is suffering, but there is a time when it is more important to practice self-care than to practice other care.

There's an old altruism that went: "physician heal thyself," referring to the fact that doctors are often so busy taking care of others that they forget to take care of themselves.

Those of us who minister to both the psyche and the spirit would do well to heed those words, as well. After all, we're not really any good to other people if we're too exhausted to give them our full and authentic attention.

The bottom line is that we cannot live somebody else's life for them.

By extension, we also cannot experience their suffering and difficulties for them; that experience falls exclusively to them. If we try to make it our job to carry others' burdens, we're ultimately not really helping. In fact, we're not only wearing ourselves down, we're also standing in the way of allowing the person we're focusing on to have their own full authentic experience.

Our job as healers and friends is to stand by, to support, and to hold space. We cannot hope to ”fix it” for them, we can only hope to support them and to make their journey a little easier by our presence. But they still have to travel that road.

So don't take on too much! And don't take on burdens that are not yours to carry! True healing does not come through alleviating one person's suffering by making it your own, it comes when everybody stops suffering!

Thanks for stopping by and visiting my blog and Bright Blessings to all!

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