When Caring Hurts
How to Care Well and NOT Burnout
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I’m writing this in the 8th day since Hurricane Helene brought her wrath down in the beautiful mountain communities and cities of Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina.
We’re in trouble here. And this is going to be a long road ahead. Again, Gwen and I were spared. Many were not.
When caring hurts and what healthy caring looks like in hard times—this is the time to re-think how to care well and how to insure that caring will last.
The cardinal rule in caring for the souls of others is for the one who cares to not die or burn out in the process of caring. This cardinal rule seems to at first go against our nature. We want to throw ourselves into the crisis. We want to do every thing humanly possible. This is what we think. This is what is needed initially. But those who run their lives on Adrenalin will soon hit a wall and sooner than they think.
No one can live their life on rushes of Adrenalin for long periods of time. We will deplete our bodies; burn-out and implode.
The real question of caring is a deeper one. It involves capacity and sustainability. Let me explain.
It was Mother Theresa, the Albanian Nun who taught me this lesson in her remarkable memoir, Come Be My Light. Mother Theresa was small in stature—under five feet tall. But her heart was immense—as was her capacity for caring in the most dark and dire tragedies and disasters facing humankind.
Mother Theresa worked in the most needy places of crowded Calcutta. There she established the Sisters of Mercy who went to help the sick, the dying and the afflicted who lived under a bridge and eked out their lives in the sewage, drains and shadows from the hot sun.
A rhythm of caring was developed for those who cared which looked like this:
-Work under the bridge for six days. Help people. Heal people. Listen to people for six days.
-The seventh day, go to the “Mother House”-a nice house with beds, hot meals and warm showers to rest for one full day. Rest. Disengage your mind. Rest from what you saw, what you felt and what you did.
-Repeat this rhythm for three weeks. Then in the fourth week, take one full week off and away from “need”. Go to the Mother House where the meals were served on table cloths and cloth napkins and served in china dishes. Her belief was those who care must be cared for.
-Repeat this rhythm for eleven months. Then those who care must take one full and entire month off—away from “need” and to devoted to their own soul care.
The issue in emergency relief; rapid response teams, any one in a caring role, like is now happening throughout Western North Carolina is that the caregivers are going to burn out from exhaustion. What they are seeing eats at them at night: bodies in trees along the swollen river banks; so many without water in the urban city of Asheville. The mountain rural areas require mules taking water and supplies in as road as still impassable.
Mother Theresa’s rhythm is also the way to live for doctors, teachers, dentists, nurses, anyone in caring roles!
I’m seeing people eager to help. Wonderful! Great! Bring it all on! Western North Carolina is in peril and the stories are horrifying. But, by living in a healthy rhythm, those who are trying to care can also be cared for.
Those who care must be cared for—this is the cardinal rule in care-giving.
There is a rhythm to caring well and this rhythm needs to be heeded and those who are involved in caring must find a way to do their rescue work in sustainable patterns and rhythm.
Burnout and dying is no way to care. This reeks havoc in the families of the caregivers. Marriage problems begin. Absent parents who show up back home exhausted, traumatized and demoralized then present larger issues. It’s already happening. Our first response in caring is good. But it needs to be a healthy response…one that is thought through well and one that is lived out now.
The way to cope and the way to care is this: Engage—then disengage. Go give your heart, your strength way to those in peril, but then, disengage for yourself. Most Emergency Responders are trained and equipped to help and give aid. But many are not taught the basic skills of caring well for the long haul. This is the main reason for burnout and self-destruction; mental issues, depression and despair to set in the hearts of the care-givers. This can largely be avoided, if and only if, healthy ways of caring are attended to now.
Self care is never a selfish act. Unless the one who cares learns to care for themselves in healthy ways, then the caring is going to hurt and hurt bad. This kind of hurt is toxic and is another level in disaster relief.
All healthy rhythms hinge on one and only one principle and it is this: One full day of rest for every six days of work. Not only is this a commandment given human beings but it is a practice that is time tested and proven. And remember this, the commandment to “Cease” was not given to human beings in good times. No, it was given to people in hard and difficult times of wilderness, violence and high anxiety. All the realities we are seeing today in a natural disaster.
Two books which outline this rhythm of care are:
Soul Custody: Choosing to Care for the One and Only You.
Inside Job: Doing the Work Within the Work
A thorough overview of living in rhythm is addressed in The Jesus Life.
Here’s a prayer I want to offer for Caregivers! Click here!
As someone who has for years tried to set a rhythm of an hour a day, a day a week, and a w.e. a month, this spurs me on to create this vital rhythm in my life again. I learned of Mother Theresa's method many years ago and feel it's important to establish what is actually feasible in my daily life. Thanks for the reminder and the witness. I am worthless to be a caretaker, soul care provider, spiritual director to those on my path, much less with critical caretaking that can overtake me in an instant. Bless you and Gwen for the front line care you are providing. Many prayers being said for this region for hope amidst the agony of the devastation. Shalom.