31 May Maxed Out and Exhausted? It Could Be Empathy Fatigue
Are you a caregiver? Have you found yourself coping with feelings of being stretched too thin from time to time as you nurture, support, and protect your loved one? If so, you are not alone. Many caregivers are being pushed to their emotional limits, and in some cases, beyond.
If all the caring and caretaking you’re doing leaves you feeling completely drained, don’t resign yourself to thinking, “This is just the way it is.” It doesn’t have to be.
Most of us are familiar with remedies for physical exhaustion, such as sleep and downtime, but you may not be aware of how to deal with empathy fatigue. This kind of energetic, emotional exhaustion deserves your special attention.
What Is Empathy Fatigue, Anyway?
Empathy is when you connect with and feel someone else’s pain. It’s a beautiful way to relate to others, but remaining in this state becomes exhausting because you are in constant giving while not receiving anything back to fill your coffers.
Compassion is when we try to alleviate someone else’s pain. Compassion is love in action. When you start to feel tired or drained from giving, that’s empathy fatigue. And the key to healing lies in compassion.
There are tools to help you if you feel overwhelmed. Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) is one.
What is Mindful Self-Compassion?
Mindfulness expert Christopher Germer, Ph.D., and pioneering self-compassion researcher Kristen Neff, Ph.D., MSC developed MSC. The practice invites us to be fully present and aware of how we are feeling and caring for ourselves.
The three components of MSC are mindfulness, self-kindness, and shared humanity. It is an ideal solution for empathy fatigue.
The mindfulness practice of Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) offers many tools we can use to overcome empathy fatigue in the present and help to prevent it in the future.
Here are five tips inspired by MSC to help you to recognize, heal, and avoid empathy fatigue.
1. Don’t ignore fatigue
When you feel exhausted from the many ways you care for those in your world, please don’t ignore it. That’s empathy fatigue! If you don’t acknowledge it and work to heal it, it can take over and wreak havoc on your sense of well-being.
2. Add compassion to your empathy
When you add compassion to your empathy, something beautiful happens: You help another person, and in return, you experience self-compassion and self-care.
3. Be a caretaker of YOU
Caring best for others starts with taking the best care of YOU. The well-worn analogy of putting your oxygen mask on first applies here. If you don’t keep yourself healthy and well in body and mind,— and impossible to maintain long term!
4. Schedule “YOU time”
Make time for mindful self-care by taking a few minutes for meditation each day. Take a nice, hot bath. Call a friend. Take a walk and practice staying grounded by putting your attention on the soles of your feet. Listen to music that soothes and inspires you. Fill yourself back up with an abundance of caring.
5. Practice self-compassion
Balancing empathy with compassion (for self and others) is crucial for avoiding empathy fatigue. We can’t just feel all the pain all the time and expect not to be drained. Switching over to compassion enables us to take action to alleviate suffering. When empathy fatigue happens, remember that you are missing the compassion component!
Mindfulness Meditation for Caregivers
Here’s a meditation from Mindful Self-Compassion program developers Kristen Neff and Christopher Germer. I learned it during my MSC training, and it is terrific for caregivers of any kind.
Family caregivers can use these words when helping loved ones who are suffering. Friends can use it when helping friends going through rough transitions.
Try it for yourself in any context where it feels helpful to you:
Everyone is on their own life journey.
I am not the cause of this person’s suffering, nor is it entirely within my power to make it go away, even if I wish I could.
Moments like this are difficult to bear, yet I may still try to help if I can.
Your empathy fatigue tells you something: It’s time to turn your tremendous, caring skills towards yourself. And it’s the furthest thing from selfish to do so, despite what your inner critic may be piping up to suggest.
Caring for ourselves is a necessary part of being able to care for others. It makes it possible for us to show up refreshed, grounded, and balanced so others can lean on us without causing us to collapse — physically or emotionally!
Never resign yourself to just suffering your way through it when you’re tapped out.
Mindful Self-Compassion is an effective and accessible way to acknowledge that caring for YOU is crucial to your ability to care for others effectively.
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