Finding our Way Home

Fourth in a series of five posts

Only connect! … Live in fragments no longer.
E.M. Forster, author

How do we pull out of the spirals large and small that are part of the human experience in general and the caregivers path in particular? We do this through that of awareness and connection.
We can start with connecting with our mind, body and heart and with the people around us.

Become aware of your frame of mind at work

What do you think you are doing there?

As a young social worker I had a great job working with people with major mental illnesses. I cared a lot about them and I liked and respected my coworkers. I had a wonderful, caring boss. But my frame was off. I began to suffer on the job. I wanted to solve every injustice the people I worked with encountered, and felt it was my fault that I couldn’t. I had the unconscious notion that the more I suffered, the less the people I worked with would suffer. This frame did not serve me well, to put it mildly. But I wasn’t at all aware of my frame. It was the air that I breathed.

There were other important things I didn’t notice. I paid too little attention to how the people I worked with endured, and too much to what they endured. I gave a great deal of thought to what I could do little about – to what was crazy about the systems that oppress people. I gave less attention to how we all find hope, and growth and connection.
In two years I had exhausted myself. I ached all the time. I walked around saying “This job is eating me for breakfast.” It took me a long time to see that it wasn’t the challenge of the job that was eating me. What burnt me out was the way I framed it to myself. I didn’t know how to see the strength in the people I sought to give care to. I didn’t know how to seek support, or how to care for myself.

Here are some suggestions of how to bring awareness to yourself and your caregiving work.

Stay with the body

Notice what happens in your body. Do you hold your breath at work? Are you eating when you are hungry and drinking when you are thirsty? Does your blood pressure go up around certain people? Do you lose sleep over certain interactions or ongoing conflicts at work?

The body holds our experience. The emphasis with body focussed therapy tends to be on the trauma and tension the body holds, but it also includes the body’s experience of safety and peace in the here and now. Notice where the body feels supported and grounded. I offer a practice I call sitting all the way down. It makes the concept of accepting support very tangible. It’s just this. SIt comfortably in a chair. Breathe in and notice where your body is making contact with the surface underneath and behind it. Breathe out, and invite yourself to accept a little more support from the chair. That’s all, just breathe in and notice, breathe out and accept more support.

Give your own heart your consideration

Does your heart sink when you picture yourself at work? Does it feel tight or tired a lot of the time? Is it somewhat unfamiliar to you? How open or closed does it feel? Are you as open as you used to be to people whom you love, or does your home life seem like a hassle, just one more obligation?

There’s connecting with others and there’s connecting with the self. Sometimes the stressful events we deal with cut us off from our inner support and resources. I worked with a dedicated doctor who was in a spiral of anxiety and feelings of unworthiness triggered by the death of a patient. The doctor felt she could have done more. She wasn’t sure that this would have prevented the death. Indeed, a thorough review by the hospital board had exonerated her. Still she was preoccupied with guilt and with the sense that she was now undeserving of happiness. It was hard for her to engage with her work and the rest of her life the way she had before.
We worked with a practice from Somatic Experiencing called pendulating. I asked her to notice a place in her body that felt safe and relaxed. She described a warm, relaxed feeling in her belly and lower body. We spent some time being curious about that feeling. Then I asked her to notice where in her body she felt agitated and anxious. She moved her awareness to her heart. She said, “I had no idea how sad I am.” She spent some time just noticing this, how sad she was in her heart. Then at my suggestion, she turned her attention again to her warm, calm stomach. We noticed that again with care. When she turned her attention back up to her heart, now placing her hand over her heart to support herself, she said, “Now I feel sad, but grounded at the same time.”

She was on her way back to herself. She was on her way back to including herself in her care.