Don’t Panic While the World is Burning Around Us (part 2)

There are days when I wake up and feel into the reality that it is painful to be a human and do human things while our globe is heating up, people are being genocided and we are told that everything is ok. it is all not ok and there is no guarantee that things will get better. How do we remain hopeful when things seemingly get bleaker everyday.

If you are a mental health clinician working with other supervisees or clients who are spiraling into the darkness of our times, how can we respond? Who are we to say that things will be okay? How can we be in solidarity, express compassion, without soaking up the distress around us?

One of the common ways that we respond is to express empathy and understanding while quietly agreeing that this world is so fucked up and messed up and full of suffering and pain.

This quiet agreement, while super valid, can slowly eat us up inside. The reason? not because the reality that this world is full of pain and suffering is untrue, but because it doesn’t take into account the healing and goodness that is happening also. That goodness can live alongside suffering and either wouldn’t take away from the other’s experience.

The quiet agreement with the darkness can seem like expressing solidarity or allyship, but in fact, it is a way that our voices can collude with our client’s spiraling.

Why do we quietly agree with our client’s darkness while expressing external empathy? Because there are parts of us that believe that if we don’t “put ourselves in our client’s shoes” and we don’t feel what they feel, even if it’s just one ounce of what they feel, then we are cold and disconnected and mistuned clinicians. It brings up feelings of being a “bad clinician.”

The quiet agreements that we make with our client’s darkness can eventually lead to existential dread, depression and or panic (if you are anxiety prone, like me).

How do we unlearn the programming around extending empathy with agreement and move towards compassion (extending loving understanding without agreement)? First, we must step into the power of our self energy. How do we do that? We must first recognize that we have a higher self within us, a steady pilot, internal lighthouse, an anchoring force that allows us to love our clients without being entangled or leaning into their distress.

Second, recognize that there are parts that are present that are very spongy and absorb others distress and burdens that others carry. Work with those parts and find out their good intentions and protective strategies. Befriend them.

Third, do the internal work and get support with someone who gets you. Find your people and get resourced.