Compassion Fatigue Solutions

This list of self care ideas was compiled by participants at last week's one day Compassion Fatigue workshop which was held in Ottawa on March 26th, 2010. Take a look! Could you commit to one of these in the week to come? A springtime resolution perhaps?

Self Care Strategies at Home
-listen to the birds for 5 minutes
-dance uninhibited to one song
-play in the dirt
-play with your children and/or grandchildren
-colour mandalas or colouring book
-play wii - nintendo fitness
-chanting
-karaoke
-manicure/pedi/facial at home uninterrupted
-treat yourself once a week
-enjoy the sun
-express positivity once a day to those you love
-have a fun day
-start work late one day a week and pamper yourself (music, bath, long shower)
-read how much and however you want when you arrive home
-learn to yodel (or another new fun skill that makes you laugh)
-borrow a neighbour's pet
-discover a new musician or poet
-put on different music and dance with your children
-share what you are grateful for every night
-have "me time" once a week
-have flowers once a week
-have sex with yourself or with a partner once a week
-belly dance
-all day in bed - music, books, meals
-go to a park and play on the swings
-have a family pedi/manicure
-have a nerf ball fight in the home with the whole family
-put on some music and dance
-have all you need for the next day ready and waiting in the morning
-movie night
-try a new recipe to cook for yourself
-try to delegate without nit-picking
-take time to enjoy walking your dog
-take time to release - crank up the stereo, dance and go wild
-take up a new hobby
-plan to be organised i.e. meals

Self Care Strategies at Work
-leave your office and enjoy your lunch break
-screen your calls and prioritize them
-leave your briefcase "on a tree"
-plan and organize
-learn to say no
-carpool
-go for a walk
-have movie time for release, maybe at a staff meeting
-hold a staff fun day e.g: drumming day
-never miss lunch/don't eat it at your desk/don't work during lunch
-have a pot luck lunch with your team
-stretch every day
-pack a cooler with healthy foods, drinks, snacks
-meditate with a bell/chime to remind you of time
-put a stretch reminder on your work computer
-music for work during down time/breaks
-wear slippers all day at work/at your desk
-once a day email a funny video to colleagues
-introduce yourself to someone new once a week
-lunch time yoga or after work
-watch a movie at lunch
-community soup lunch with recipe to share
-bring pet or baby in for a visit
-share what you are grateful for at staff meeting
-read a non-related book at work
-deal with confrontations one-on-one
-look at alternative ways to debrief (drawing, dance, etc)
-discuss with other organizations "best practice"
-social field trips (i.e. white water rafting, friday bbq or potluck)
-dancing
-watch or listen to comedy (Ellen, Loreta Laroche, youtube)
-play cards
-have a memory box full of happy memories
-wave breathing
-journalling
-fill 5 pages with what pisses you off about your life. When you are done, put them in a sealed envelope and then shred it
-bring fresh flowers to your desk

My 9 year old son: "this morning, at my sleepover at Z's house, I woke up at 6am, but I knew I had to let him sleep in, so I lay there until 740am when he woke up".
Me: "wow, that's a long time to lie there. What did you do with all that time?"
My son: "Oh, it was totally fine, I just thought about lots of stuff"
Me: "Oh yeah? Like what - What you are going to do when you grow up? Things that worry you? (ever the shrink...)
My son: "Nah, I thought about all the great moves I could do next time I play on my wii hockey game. Time just flew by!"
Ah, gender differences...

Yesterday, I had a chance to enjoy several peaceful hours doing two of my favourite things: cooking meals for the week while listening to CBC radio's Eleanor Wachtel (this time, I took in an interview Zadie Smith, the author of White Teeth and a very bright and reflective person. Thoroughly enjoyable). Wachtel is a truly gifted interviewer and it is always a treat to listen to her show. These two activities are very restorative practices for me - going into another person's universe for a while (in this case, the authors she interviews), chopping vegetables for the meals of the week and most importantly, doing all of this alone and in silence. For me, a perfect restorative day would start with making bread, I would then go for a long run, come home and make soup and then while the soup is cooking and the bread is baking, lie on the couch and read the entire Saturday newspaper from cover to cover. Ah..., I feel relaxed just thinking about it.

You notice that in my scenario there are no kids, no partner, no friends calling on me. That does not mean that I don't love them and cherish my time with them, but there are times when I need to be completely alone to recharge my batteries.

The work that we do requires us to be 'on' all the time, for our clients, our colleagues and the families we work with. In fact, some of us are so used to being 'on' that we have difficulty switching off and may spend the evening avoiding silence and solitude because we have lost the art of slowing down. Some helpers are never alone because they are so overcommitted in their personal and professional lives that others have access to them 24/7. Some other helpers are so fried that they have no energy left to talk and socialise with others on weekends and evenings - ever - and this can end up feeling lonely and depressing.

In addition, a lot of helpers tell me that they feel very guilty about wanting to spend some time on their own and have no idea where to begin.

My example above (cooking, podcast etc.) may not be your idea of a good time, so I would like to invite you to think about your own restorative practices. What do you enjoy doing to recharge and reconnect with yourself? How do you carve out the time among all your family and work responsibilities?

Photo from: www.flickr.com/photos/mharvey75/374461385

During my travels last week, I met some lovely people and enjoyed several great chats over lunch and during breaks during the training sessions. One of these conversations was about green smoothies (as in smoothies made with greens) - yes, you heard me right. Let me explain what this is all about.

Several months ago, I came across an article on the health benefits of eating raw foods. I had heard about raw foodism in the past and was always rather sceptical about this approach to nutrition. In a nutshell, raw foodism advocates eating foods in their least processed and most natural forms. The argument is that cooking food destroys important enzymes and make foods less nutritious and less digestible. I have no idea about the science behind this, but I do know that eating mostly plant-based foods in their least processed forms can't be a bad thing and that most of us eat far too much salt, fat and preservatives.

I decided to try introducing more raw foods in my diet in October and within two weeks, I noticed significant changes in my overall health. After a lifetime of low blood sugar crashes, for once in my life I started feeling actually satiated between meals. I no longer got that shaky headachy feeling if I didn't get lunch right on time. I also noticed a whole host of other improvements to my overall health and energy. Eating more raw food is not about dieting or depriving yourself. Rather, it's a way of introducing more plant-based foods in your life.

Anyhow, if you want to know more about raw food, you can read all about it at the sites I mention below, all I really wanted to tell you about today was green smoothies.

I don't think that many people will argue with the concept that eating more greens is good for all of us. Raw Divas recommend a very painless way to do this: drink a green smoothie once a day. For starters, they suggest making this very simple green smoothie: (you need a blender for this): 2 ripe or frozen bananas, a handful of spinach, a cup of water and a few ice cubes if your bananas were not frozen. Start with a little bit of spinach and add more after you are used to the taste. Try having a green smoothie at breakfast, as a midafternoon snack or in the evening instead of your usual cookies and milk. Tera Warner of Raw Divas also has a very tasty banana ice cream recipe on her website. Here is a cute video of her and her son making the ice cream.

I have no affiliation with these raw food sites but thought I would list a few that I like to visit once in a while for inspiration:

The raw divas website mentioned above has lots of recipes on the site if you navigate around a bit.
www.rawmazing.com (she has the best recipes, I find)
www.kristensraw.com (she is hard core raw vegan but offers a lot of recipes on her blog)
Choosing raw has very nice lunch ideas and other recipes worth trying

Whether or not you decide to go the raw food way, try a green smoothie and let me know what you think.

Photo by Nillerdk @ wikicommons

A child in a state of full March break. Photo by FM

I am back after a week at home with kids. I laughed when, on Friday, lining up at the cash while trying to break up a bickering little fight between my two, the cashier said to me: "only a few more days, hang in there" referring to the fact that kids would soon be back in school. I do love them to bits but for a working mother, a week at home with kids is not always particularly restful or peaceful. For once, however, I wisely did not make unrealistic plans before the break (as in "I will read the following three novels this week, and clean up my basement, and nap daily, and ..."). No, this time, I was clear in my goals: "Other than going for a run daily, I will not have an agenda and we will do fun family-centered activities all week." And that is what we did, and although I am a little nap-deprived, I am happy with that. We had a lot of laughs and I learned that Ontario is the biggest peanut producing province in Canada, did you know that?

This week I start travelling again and I have many trips scheduled from now until June with nary a week without a visit to one part of Ontario or another. Time to haul out the photo of my daughter pouting again (if you've been to one of my talks recently, you know what I'm referring to). This week I'm in Hamilton and Ottawa, next week in London, Ont, then Ottawa again, Hamilton and Brampton. Going on the road is very rich with new learnings for me, and the workshop continues to grow and change as I make new connections and hear new stories. Those encounters hugely compensate for the downsides of being a road warrior, as my husband lovingly calls me. I look forward to meeting you if we have not yet met.

by Lindsay

After donating blood a friend of mine wrote in a google buzz, “Why are health professionals so rough??? I’m fragile people!”

Sadly, we often are rough. We spend so much time patching people up that pretty soon we’re like factory workers putting bolts on a widget. It’s a form of “compassion fatigue.” We’re faced with so much sadness and suffering that we slowly, subconsciously, learn to hold our patients at a distance. But somehow, some patients, some situations, find their ways deep into our hearts.

This weekend I was changing a dressing on a particularly nasty bed sore on a sweet young lady that is close to my age. The sore was so nasty, and the patient so young that I couldn’t help but my let my heart go out to hear and to feel pained for her situation. I did my best to let her see and feel my empathy and made sure to talk to the next shift about a few things that could be done to make her more comfortable.

To respond to my friend’s comment, we health professionals are also fragile people, but we’ve wrapped our hearts away so that we can do our jobs professionally and efficiently. But we’re grateful for comments like yours, and for patients like mine that remind us that we’re all fragile people.

End of guest post. Thank you Lindsay for letting me reprint this from your blog.

International Telehealth Palliative Care Symposium - April 27-29th, 2010

Topics include:

-So Many Patients Die After We Get Close to Them: How do we heal ourselves?
-Best Practices for Palliative Pain and Symptom Management: How can I confidently change from dosing for cure to dosing for palliative care? What can I do when access to high-level care is limited?
-Who Cares? What People Near the End of Life Say About Caring
-Maintaining Hope and Trust: How can I be honest with a patient about their prognosis?
-Managing Delirium for a Peaceful End of Life Journey
-Traditional Healing among the Inupiaq: Importance of Caring for the Body, Mind, Spirit

To register or for more information phone: (907) 729-1900 or email: palliativesymposium@anthc.org

Leading Edge Seminars: Gabor Maté, Janina Fisher and John Ortiz in a small classroom environment... but not all at once!

The Master Class Series is a way for prominent speakers to further share their research, work and insights with you at a level of complexity that is usually not possible with larger audiences. This is a rare opportunity for more one-on-one exchanges and learning with experts and your peers. Learn in an intimate and collaborative group setting:

Smaller group (maximum 35-40 participants)

Customized seminar content based on questions and case studies submitted in advance by YOU. More time for questions and detailed follow up on issues arising from discussion. Bring your toughest cases and questions to the class.

Upon registration, Master Class participants are invited to submit case studies and questions (articles, notes, video clips and audio files are all welcome) at least two weeks before the date of the class for the speaker's consideration. Cases will be chosen by each Master Class instructor.

New Study looking at Compassion Fatigue in Public Defenders

"The Wisconsin State Public Defender is participating in a study of compassion fatigue on lawyers and support staff. The State Bar of Wisconsin Lawyers Assistance Program (WisLAP) will use the results to develop training materials and techniques to benefit lawyers and law office staff across practice areas and environments. The results of this initiative will be shared with legal professionals in Wisconsin and across the nation. [...]

The study is being conducted by Dr. Andrew Levin, medical director of the Westchester Jewish Community Services, Westchester, N.Y., and Linda Albert, State Bar of Wisconsin WisLAP coordinator. Quoted from Karle Lester of State Bar of Wisconsin

I'm on March Break with my kids this week so I'll just write briefly.

I am happy to report that the 5/30 challenge has been a raging success with my kids. My daughter asked me for a bowl of grapes yesterday at the usual "cheese and cracker" time of the day and said to me "you know, I'm actually starting to actually like eating fruit mom!" music to my ears. We were skiing this weekend and my son got an apple at the snack shack along with his, ahem, poutine. Ok it's not perfect but it seems that it has injected an awareness that was not there before. Plus, I never actually promised them anything if they completed the challenge, I just said "here's what you're supposed to be doing, at a minimum, let's track it for a while ok?" and they were off to the races.

As we move into Spring, I suggest taking stock of your basic self care needs: healthy eating, getting enough sleep, having non-trauma related hobbies and leisure activities, exercising 30 minutes a day, having an activity that replenishes you, going on a media fast for a week, resting each day for a little while. How are you doing on these? If you're not sure where to start, I suggest going back through my blog archives and reading through to see if something strikes your fancy. I also suggest not going at it alone - enlist a friend with whom to share your self care goal, someone who will cheer you on and keep you accountable in a gentle way.

Finally, start small: make one self care goal for Spring and stick to just that one goal and don't beat yourself up about the rest.

...Yes, from the tasty snack, which means I have lots of different things to write about and also means that I ate way too much salty food last night, watching the Oscars. I feel like a block of salt today. ugh. What was I thinking?

First of all, thank you to all the participants who took part in last week's Compassion Fatigue Train the Trainer workshop. I met twenty wonderful people and I think we all enjoyed having the opportunity to slow down and get a chance to talk to each other for two days (and be incredibly well fed, to boot). You were all very much in my thoughts as I visualised each of you making your way back home, either close to Kingston or all the way East. Thank you for your willingness to share in the way that you did, to take risks and to offer us, in turn, the gift of the wisdom of your experiences.

It was a gorgeous sunny weekend in this part of the world. There was much premature celebration of Spring going on in Kingston with many people running outside in, brrr, shorts even though it was only about 5 degrees (we get a bit spring crazy, us Canadians don't we?). My brother - who is also one of my best friends, and his wonderful family were visiting and we took many long walks, talked and ate and and talked some more. There was also a surprise visit from my beloved, gorgeous, super smart, trilingual 23 year old sister Doudou. Doudou is a graduate student in Montreal studying international development. She has lived in Mali, Nicaragua and Kashmir (so far) and is currently planning on returning to Africa and India as soon as her thesis is done. She is very thoughtful and extremely well informed about international aid and the challenges facing developing countries. After three years of living abroad, she is also dealing with reverse culture shock, coming back into our profligate consumer culture.

In Kashmir, Doudou lived for many months with a family that had not one stitch of furniture in their home and very little to eat. Ditto in Nicaragua and in Mali. In Paris, she worked with the homeless for several months. Yesterday, as we were sitting and chatting, she told a story about this wonderful wise homeless man she used to work with and finished by saying "oh, and then one day, he was stabbed 19 times and died. That was really upsetting."

From these experiences, I see, through her eyes, that the world is never going to be quite the same again. There is a richness to what she is learning and a huge passion for the work that is still to come, but, as her older sister, I feel this protective urge to spare her the pain of what she is going to continue seeing. Of course, then, when she starts talking, I realise that she has already seen too much for me to prevent any vicarious trauma from occurring. It has already happened and it is a normal consequence of the work that she has been doing.

One thing that surprises and angers me is that in her preparatory training to deploy to these countries, she did not receive much, if any, VT training from the NGOs. I thought we were doing better than that in this day and age.

Hearing Doudou's stories, I also feel elated to see a young person who is truly a citizen of the world, and who brings a highly knowledgeable perspective to international work. I like to hold on to these encounters to combat the cynicism I sometimes hear from my slightly older friends who often launch into the old litany of "kids these days...." which they follow with a complaint about how entitled, materialistic, self-centered, what have you they perceive kids in their twenties to be. In fact, in my experience, many of the young people I speak to are not spoiled electronic brats who expect immediate gratification for everything. The people I am meeting across the country are really engaged and concerned about the society we live in, the environment, racism and poverty.

I think that sometimes, when we, the older generations, get tired and overwhelmed, we also get defensive and stop being open to the voices of people younger than us.

I, for one, am excited to hear what they have to say.