MY WEEKLY BLOG<\/p>\n
CAN I HELP YOU?<\/p>\n
We all play our\u00a0part\u2026and act\u2026and burn out\u2026and are helped or help ourselves to stand up again.<\/p>\n
– – – Ram Dass<\/p>\n
As we get older and hopefully
wiser, we face new obstacles along the path of awareness and service. Have you\u00a0ever been under prolonged stress that left you wiped out and\u00a0overwhelmed? Have you ever had to care for someone who is ill, a parent, a\u00a0relative or a friend? If you have, you know that burnout is a great challenge. Spiritual\u00a0leader Ram Dass, worked with a lot of dying people, so let me paraphrase some\u00a0of his wisdom with a sprinkling of my own ideas:<\/p>\n
When we decide to be there for\u00a0someone who needs help, we can do more than just struggle to stay afloat. We\u00a0can do more than just cope. We can use burnout as a catalyst to look inside,\u00a0which reveals the foundation of service. When we view our fatigue and doubt as
clues and signposts for our inner work, the journey will become lighter, deeper\u00a0and fuller. We will not simply survive what we are facing. We will be able to\u00a0grow and find a depth of caring and love we never knew we had. The pain of\u00a0others may break our hearts but it will break them open. That is the price of\u00a0compassion.<\/p>\n
In the nineteen eighties, I lost\u00a0one of my closest friends to AIDS. When he was gone, I was exhausted and\u00a0devastated. I wished I could have helped him more but I hadn’t known what to do\u00a0so I decided to volunteer at Chris Brownlie AIDS hospice. I wanted to witness\u00a0the dying process up close so I didn’t fear it so much and find out how I could\u00a0contribute something.<\/p>\n
When I arrived there for the first\u00a0time, I stood at the door, paralyzed, afraid to walk in and be with what was on\u00a0the inside. 26 beds. 26 dying men. I thought about leaving. What on earth did I\u00a0have to offer these people in the face of so much illness and suffering? I was
about to turn around when someone came up behind me, opened the door and gestured\u00a0for me to walk in. I exhaled, stepped inside, and began a journey that\u00a0permanently changed me.<\/p>\n
The teaching there was not so much about\u00a0death as it was about life, about appreciating every waking moment in which I\u00a0was free from pain, able to walk and able to take care of myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsn’t it depressing to be there?\u201da friend asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I answered. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0invigorating. I get to leave all my personal problems at the door and feel\u00a0useful. I get to comfort people who are in pain and bring them things they\u00a0can’t get for themselves. Sometimes we even have a laugh together.\u201d<\/p>\n
When you care for an ailing person,\u00a0it\u2019s 5% doing things and 95% showing respect and compassion. And 100%\u00a0listening. The hospice residents were young and unaccustomed to asking for help\u00a0and they felt ashamed to need it, so it was a delicate balance to care for them
and not treat them like victims. I always stood at the door and asked if I\u00a0could come in and as I went from room to room, each person needed something\u00a0different. I paid attention. I didn’t group everyone together. I didn’t bring my own troubles into the mix. I taught myself to stop, to listen and if I\u00a0didn’t know what someone needed, I asked him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One man didn\u2019t want to die alone so\u00a0we volunteers took shifts with him, holding his hand and letting him know we were\u00a0there. I delivered food trays. I read to people. I wheeled a man outside who
wanted to breathe fresh air. I played cards. I helped someone call his family\u00a0and say good-bye. And there were some severe wakeup calls. A man told me he loved\u00a0peanuts and I arrived the next day with a bag of them, but his bed was empty.\u00a0He had passed away in the night and I hoped that heaven had enough peanuts to\u00a0make him happy.<\/p>\n
In the midst of it all, I had to\u00a0keep reminding myself to stay present and be aware of how I was feeling. If I\u00a0woke up one morning feeling wiped out, I stayed home. Vietnamese Monk, the late\u00a0Thich Nhat Hanh, said, \u201cWe have to know our limits. We have to organize our
lives in such a way that we can continue to get the nourishment and healing\u00a0that we need. You must have the courage to say \u2018no\u2019 or you will lose yourself\u00a0very soon. If you do what it takes to preserve and restore yourself, that will\u00a0allow you to preserve and restore others.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dalai Lama advises, \u201cIn dealing\u00a0with those who are undergoing great suffering, if you feel burnout settling in,\u00a0if you feel demoralized and exhausted, it is best, for the sake of everyone, to\u00a0withdraw and restore yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is a lot of talk about\u00a0restoration, but what does that mean? I thought the Dalia Lama was talking about\u00a0sitting in meditation, legs crossed, eyes downward, thumb and forefinger\u00a0touching and breathing in and out. But I was pleasantly surprised when he said,
\u201cSleep is the best meditation.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you’re caring for someone or\u00a0doing too much and you feel a sense of dread, anger or increased irritability,\u00a0chances are you\u2019re burned out. But there is a cure if you\u2019re willing to take a\u00a0good look at it, recognize it and do what it takes to heal it. The steps are\u00a0simple:<\/p>\n
When you’re tired, rest.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re hungry, eat.<\/p>\n
Don’t become a tyrant and push
yourself around.<\/p>\n
Don’t expect too much of yourself.<\/p>\n
Be gentle with yourself.<\/p>\n
Burnout stems from stress and fear,\u00a0the feelings that happen when we get closest to the truth. There is no greater\u00a0truth than someone who needs your help. There is no greater gift than being\u00a0able to give it. And there is no greater reward than being able to give it to
yourself. In the Asian roots of Buddhist tradition, the word \u201ccompassion\u201d\u00a0always includes yourself. Sending energy out until we are sucked dry is\u00a0unsustainable. it needs to make a circle and you need to be on both the giving\u00a0and receiving ends.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MY WEEKLY BLOG CAN I HELP YOU? We all play our\u00a0part\u2026and act\u2026and burn out\u2026and are helped or help ourselves to stand up again. – – – Ram Dass As we get older and hopefullywiser, we face new obstacles along the path of awareness and service. Have you\u00a0ever been under prolonged stress that left you wiped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2120,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119\/revisions\/2120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}