The Algorithm of the Soul

Exploring the paradox of why caring is so expensive to the soul

Who of us, who have cared for anyone or anything, does not know the feeling of compassion fatigue?

It’s a simple algorithm to figure out. Just as 2 +2 equals 4. The math of the soul goes like this: Those who give, and give and give must be cared for. It also helps to know what you’re caring for when you try to practice the care of the soul.

Compassion fatigue is a bone weary tiredness of giving and giving— fully and deeply knowing that there’s nothing more to give. The bucket of the heart is all poured out.

No one runs on empty. Somewhere along the way of care giving, it dawns on us, as we scoop the ladle one more time into our empty buckets to pull something out—that there is nothing the ladle can scoop out any more.

The question for the one who gives and gives is this: how will I now be given to and what will this look like?

Teachers know it. So do pastors and priest, nurses and doctors. Really, anyone who extends care is susceptible: servers in restaurants, plumbers fixing pipes and counselors fixing people. Mothers know it and so do people who spin plates on little rods attempting to keep everyone else happy but themselves.

This process of emptying the soul has symptoms: numbness, blankness, cynicism, despair, perpetual desolation marked by half-smiles and shallow breathing.

It’s not being burned out. But, it is more a spiraling sense of a looming implosion that has not yet happened. The Caregiver sees something with their inner eye is on the horizon of your soul. And, it’s not good—not good at all.

When the battery in our cars goes dead, we know to get the “jumper cables” and attach the cables to a battery that is filled. That usually works. But here’s the problem: The soul is not a battery to be “jumped”.

Trickle charge is what we need when the battery goes dead. We hook the battery up and trust the slow trickle charge to infuse what has been drained out and dead. Slow infusion and trickle charge works for the long haul.

Photo by Alex McCarthy on Unsplash

In our world of fast, instant, immediate and quick microwaved living, we have become suspicious of slow time and trickle charge.

I just led a retreat where I watched my “inner meter gauge” show the massive output of care I was giving in my preparation; attention; giving talks; listening and showing concern. Every meal was scheduled with intentionality. “It” is a lot to manage. My mind was full, concerned with time flow, sequence and memory retention in my talks. By the last session, I knew there was nothing in my bucket to pull out for me; for Gwen; for anyone. I put into practice what I have learned the hard way.

What I did was take the next four days to myself. I trickled charged. Since I was undone, I knew at least a few things I needed to do to come back to life: slow meals; slow walks; slow rocking on the porch; slow fires in our fireplace; slow quiet; slow solitude; slow processing with three trusted friends.

One of the challenges I find in caregivers is not enough time or perhaps any time is scheduled or implemented for recovery. Without recovery, we won’t recover. That’s the fact, straight and simple.

A few practices of recovery to consider are these:

• Build days and spans of recovery into your schedule. It’s not just the event. It’s the days after the event that matter just as much.

• Sabbath means “to cease”. What can you cease from and how can you practice a soul sabbath? Cease from people. Cease from anyone or anything who tries to hook up to your soul and drain you of more.

• Quiet is the antidote for emptiness and empty bucket living. Practice quiet.

• Eradicate hurry from your ordinary life.

• Be excessively gentle with yourself.

• Give yourself permission to rest even if no one else does.

• Enter slow time.

• Be with life giving people.

• Stay away from “vexed” people, as John O’Donahue so famously says.

• Breathe.

• Be.

I wrote a poem about the paradox of caring. Caring is a paradox because when we care so much—we lose alot. Having been in the caring “business” for nearly fifty years, I’ve been in the foxholes with many caregivers. I’ve been a witness to the cost of caring. But, I’ve also seen the dead come back to life. I wrote this poem for pastors and priests, doctors and teachers, servers and CEOs as well as builders, plumbers and those who know how to hard wire their gadgets but don’t have a clue about the wiring of their souls. It’s my hope that this new poem could offer some language—a few words that might help define the innerscape of the caregiver’s soul.

On my third day of recovery, after this retreat, I went to a mountain lake. Drank a cup of dark roasted coffee. Then, when I put the ladle into my heart bucket, these words came out freely and untethered.

I’m offering my poems to all of those who choose to support my work as a poet. I’m finding that poetry is a way to say more in less words. Poetry is the language of the soul, not the mind. In poetry, truth is compressed and distilled into fewer words. My poems are this new, great expermient for me. After having written a dozen books, I’m finding that through my poems, I’m finally saying what I wanted to say all along, but could not until now. You can have access to this poem by supporting my work for as little as $5 a month. And if that’s just not doable, right now, write an email to info@pottersinn.com and just say, “ I want the poems.” No questions asked.

(Gwen took this picture on her iphone lasst night, October 26. I’ve never seen a fall like this one. I may have been asleep though and missed them all until now.)