Tag: depletion

To Care for Ourself is to Care for the World

Self-care is often considered to be narcissistic or self-indulgent in a fast-paced world where we have multiple responsibilities and ever-changing demands.  However, the reality is that in caring for ourself, protecting ourself from burnout, we are able to give time and energy from a place of abundance rather than from depletion.

In a previous post, I wrote about strategies suggested by various experts on how to manage ourselves in times of overwhelm.  The focus in that article was on the overwhelm resulting from external events and circumstances as well as from our own health situation such as chronic illness. 

In a talk given for UCLA Health, Diana Winston focused on the internal causes of “overwhelm”, namely, our own self-stories and patterns of thinking and doing.  Her talk, Taking Care of Myself I Take Care of the World, focused on what we can do to redress the frenzied state of our lives as we endlessly pursue multiple conflicting goals. Diana stressed the need to prevent personal overwhelm, exhaustion and burnout and offered strategies for addressing this modern-day challenge.

The internal messaging that drives us

We might be caught up in activism over climate change, addressing issues of domestic violence or working to help redress the growing levels of homelessness.  We might think that we must be doing something to help those in need and cannot rest until these needs are met. Diana cautious us that working in a frenzy is not going to enable us to make a “long-run, sustainable contribution”.  She argues that if we are operating from “depletion”, we cannot give to the world in a “real and meaningful way”.

Diana quoted Thomas Merton who talks about self-violence when people over-commit in the face of conflicting demands.  He argues that “frenzy” depletes our inner peace and “kills the root of wisdom that makes work fruitful”.   This raises the question as to why we work in a frenzy when such a state destroys both the rewards and productivity of our work. 

Diana suggests that sometimes this need to help everyone and “commit to too many people” comes from a sense of self-identity, needing to do something compassionate to feel validated.  It might also be that it makes us “feel okay” if we are doing something to help others, we feel useful and not “empty” or useless. Diana acknowledged that in an early period of trying to help everybody all the time, she was working from a sense of feeling “not enough”, her inner voice was critical of her output.

Meditation and reflection to reverse frenzy

Thomas Merton argues that “we are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being”.  Diana maintains that we can recapture our sense of being-in-the-world through meditation and deep reflection.  In the process we can unearth our negative patterns of thinking and gain clarity about the way forward for peace and productivity.

Diana argues for scheduling “a time of not-doing” in our diaries so that we can become less frenzied and less focused on doing.  We can change our attitude from “running out of time” to expanding our time through delegation, asking for help and learning to act more productively and calmly by devoting some time to self-care.  We can then contribute to the world through “overflow’, rather than depletion.

Diana also argues for the process of self-resourcing, building “positive states of mind” through pleasurable activities.  This can involve forest bathing, meeting with friends, spending time in our garden, journalling, blogging, and engaging in compassion practices.  We can imagine beautiful places that have brought us joy or revisit activities such as pickleball that offer enjoyment and fun.  Tai Chi, meditation-in-motion, is another way to replenish our inner resources and develop our overall health and fitness.

When we don’t care for ourselves

When we get consumed by our work and frenzied activity we exhaust ourselves and operate from a state of depletion.  Burnout, for example, causes depletion on the physical, mental and spiritual levels.  We become tired and exhausted, overly negative and cynical and  lose a sense of meaning in what we are doing.

Diana points out that we can’t give to others from this state of “emptiness”.  Self-nurturing can rebuild “our bathtub” so that we can offer service and help from a state of “surplus” rather than deficit.  When we are in deficit, every small challenge appears large and adds to our depletion.  We become short-tempered, impatient and critical of others.  So many things are seen to “stand in our way”. 

Diana suggests that The Nap Bishop, Tricia Hersey, has a lot to offer through her focus on rest and relaxation.  In her book, Rest Is Resistance, Tricia promotes the idea of napping, being prepared to say “no” and upholding personal boundaries as ways to “free yourself from the grind culture and reclaim your life”.  She argues that in this approach lies true liberation and justice.

Reflection

When I think about self-care, what immediately comes to mind is my weekly glass of wine that I have to relax and wind down from the week.  I rationalise this aberration from my diet on the grounds that it helps me focus away from work and is restful.  However, with my chronic illness of MCAS, drinking alcohol is not self-care but self-harm.  When I really reflect on what alcohol does to my body and mind, I have to ask myself, “Why do I persist in having my one glass a week when I know it is injurious to my health?”

As I grow in mindfulness through meditation, reflection and mindfulness practices, I can gain a greater insight into what drives my behaviour and develop the courage to create change so that self-care becomes a priority.

As part of this reflection, I wrote the following poem to help me unearth my thought patterns and reframe wine as self-harm, not self-care.  Wine can no longer be viewed by me as a reward – it is a source of harm.

What is There About Alcohol?

What is the attraction?
like light to a moth.

It hurts my head,
makes my throat sore.

It damages my stomach,
strains my liver.

It aggravates my arthritis,
disturbs my sleep.

The pain outlasts the pleasure,
a mythical creation.

Is it for companionship?
Is it for conformity?
Is it for comfort?
Is it for control?

What do we see in this delusion,
where are the rewards?

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Image by Niels Zee from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield- Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution-Non-Commercial -No Derivatives.

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Mindfulness and Resilience in Challenging Times

The Awake Network and Mindful.org have collaborated to provide a free resource for healthcare professionals in the form of The Mindful Healthcare Speaker Series.  Jon Kabat-Zinn speaking on Mindfulness and Resilience in Challenging Times was the first in the series of six speakers.   While Jon is not an MD, he has a PhD in Medicine and focuses on mindfulness in medication, healthcare and society.

Jon and host, Dr. Reena Kotecha, spoke of the enormity of the challenges facing everyone with the advent of the Coronavirus and especially the frontline healthcare professionals who, in many instances, lack adequate resources and training to deal with the magnitude of this pandemic.  They spoke of the trauma experienced by these healthcare professionals who are witnessing the suffering and death of so many people.  Reena spoke of one frontline female doctor who had to move out of home to live in a hotel for three months to protect her mother who was suffering from cancer. 

A truly disturbing event was the suicide death of Dr. Lorna M. Breen, an emergency center doctor, who continually witnessed the very worst of the impact of the Coronavirus on people, including people dying at the hospital before they could be removed from the ambulance.   Her heroic efforts to save people through her frontline medical work contributed to her own death.  Jon reiterated that mindfulness does not lessen the enormity of the physical and mental health impact of the pandemic on the lives of healthcare professionals but emphasised that mindfulness acts as a ballast to provide stability in the face of the turbulent winds created by the pandemic.

Mindfulness as ballast for stability

Jon referred to the 25 years of quality scientific research that showed the benefits of mindfulness, extending to positively altering the structure of the brain, increasing functional connectivity (e.g. of the mind-body connection) and enhancing neuroplasticity.   Neuroscientist Richard Davidson co-authored a book, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body, and demonstrated the powerful effect mindfulness had on building resilience.

Jon spoke of “full catastrophe living” and emphasised that it is truly human to experience fear, anxiety and grief.  He argued that mental health is enhanced by feeling and accepting everything we experience, rather than denying its existence or intensity.  He stated that no matter how emotionally rending our circumstances are we can find refuge in mindfulness, by being “in the present moment, moment by moment”.  In this way, we are better able to recover from the “trauma” of the present reality and to do so without total depletion of ourselves.   

Mindfulness as awareness

Jon maintained that “we are not our narrative” – we are not our negative self-talk that diminishes us and depletes our energy in the face of life challenges.  He argues that our life is “one seamless whole” – our mind, body, thoughts and emotions.  In his view, our breath serves as the integrating factor and energy force.  Awareness of our breath in the present moment enables us “to get out of the wind” and “to recalibrate, recover and respond instead of reacting”.  To reinforce this message, he provided a guided meditation during his presentation focused on the breath for about ten minutes (at the 30-minute mark).

Jon maintained that awareness of our breath can enable us to be fully awake to what is going on inside us and to be more deeply connected to others.  He argued that we don’t have to achieve a particular goal – to become more or better – in his view, “we are already okay”.  In these challenging times, what is needed to help ourselves and others we interact with is to be authentically present, without a “mask” (metaphorically speaking), but with openness and vulnerability. 

Reflection

Jon highlighted the importance of trusting our “human creativity” when confronted with the need to help people who are stressed out by the pandemic.  As we grow in mindfulness through mindful breathing, we not only build our resilience in managing our personal challenges but also “modulate the tendency to put self ahead of everyone else” – we can diminish our self-absorption and self-doubt.  He maintained that awareness of our breathing reinforces our ecological connectedness.  

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Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.