Exhaustion or Empathy Fatigue?

By JULIE POTIKER

Is It Exhaustion, or Is It Empathy Fatigue?

Caretakers the world over are all too familiar with feelings of being stretched too thin from time to time as they nurture, support, and protect those they care for. And the realities of the pandemic have pushed many caretakers to their limits and beyond.

From navigating all the new restrictions, to securing personal protective equipment, to enhanced cleaning routines, to simply helping those they’re caring for deal with the ongoing stress and loneliness, caregivers are left completely maxed out. And on top of that, they’re also often the only contact those they care for have with the outside world during this time. The pressure is immense.

Amidst it all, caregivers are doing one thing most of all: They’re caring. And sometimes, they care so much that their empathy drains them completely.

If this sounds like you, you are certainly not alone. If you’ve been in a caretaker role for some time now, you may even be resigned to thinking, “This is just the way it is” — but it doesn’t have to be.

Most of us are familiar with the remedies to 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? 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 the constant position of giving while not receiving anything back to fill your own 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 it lies in compassion. The mindfulness practice of mindful self-compassion 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 to inspire you to recognize, heal, and avoid empathy fatigue.

1. Don’t ignore fatigue. When you feel exhausted from caretaking, 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:

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 own oxygen mask on first applies here. If you don’t keep yourself healthy and well in body and mind, your ability to care for others will be severely compromised — and impossible to maintain long term!

4. Schedule “you time.” Make time for mindful self-care. Take 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. Practice loving kindness. Fill yourself back up with an abundance of caring.

5. Practice on-the-job self-compassion. Whether you’re caring for a loved one at home or in a care facility, focus your attention on your hands while using hand sanitizer. Do a quick check-in with yourself. Drop your awareness to the soles of your feet for a moment as you take three conscious breaths. Get centered in your body.

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!

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Julie Potiker is a mindfulness expert trained to teach “Self-Compassion Training for Healthcare Communities: An Adaptation of Mindful Self-Compassion” — an empirically supported program of Dr. Kristin Neff at UT Austin and Dr. Chris Germer at Harvard Medical School and approved by the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion. Visit mindfulmethodsforlife.com.

Note: A review of Julie Potiker’s book, Life Falls Apart, but You Don’t Have To, can be read on page 26.

Mindfulness Meditation for Caregivers

Here’s a meditation that is wonderful for caregivers of any kind. You can repeat these words when encountering patients or when in the operating room; you can direct the words at colleagues who are frustrated and making life difficult for other staff; you can even use it in meetings with administrators.

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 his or her 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 is telling you something: It’s time to turn your amazing caring skills toward yourself. And it’s the furthest thing from selfish to do so, in spite of 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!

As a caretaker, you should 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 your own wellness is crucial to your caretaking capacity.

Be the best caretaker you can be by making self-care a priority. Put it on your calendar. Set a wellness alarm. Put a note on your refrigerator. Surround yourself with reminders to check in on you and see how you’re doing today. With practice, you’ll get into a healthy self-care habit — and you just might be amazed at what a difference it makes in how you feel as a caretaker.

Are you a person with a disability or are you an older adult? YOU HAVE OPTIONS!

The PA Link to Aging and Disability Resources is your source for long-term living support services.

The PA Link can provide person-centered counseling to help you access a network of private and public community resources providing choices to seniors and those living with a disability.