The Burden of Compassion Fatigue: How to Overcome It
It’s late and you’ve finally settled in bed. You are pastor-on-call, and the last thing you want is for the phone to ring.
Your cell rings. Your adrenaline pumps. Immediately you swing into “pastor mode.”
The woman on the other end of the phone is crying. The ambulance just left her house and is headed to the ER. She thinks her husband had a heart attack but she’s not sure. She’s scared and she wants you to meet her at the hospital. Off you go.
You get to the hospital, where you find out her husband has passed away. You walk into the side room where you find a woman on her knees, wailing, as her two little boys sit in the chairs next to her crying too.
After being up all night at the hospital, you still have to go into the office the next day…AND you are still pastor-on-call. You get another phone call: someone’s mother-in-law has passed away and the family wants you to come and pray with them and help arrange the funeral. Off you go…again.
Month after month dealing with intense situations begins to take a toll on you emotionally and physically. You find yourself with a negative attitude and an underlying sense of hopelessness. You don’t find pleasure in everyday life anymore. You want to quit and give up ministry. It’s not what you thought it was going to be. It’s become drudgery. I want to encourage you NOT to give up.
What you are experiencing is very real. It is called compassion fatigue. The symptoms of compassion fatigue are an overwhelming feeling of negativity, both emotional and physical fatigue, and an underlying sense of hopelessness.
Whether you are a pastor of a small church or one of many pastors employed at a church of thousands, a major aspect of being a pastor is shepherding people through crisis.
Other ministry leaders shepherd people through crises as well: pastoral counselors, small group leaders, worship leaders, elders, and deacons. Anyone who is on the front lines, caring for those who are hurting emotionally or physically, can experience compassion fatigue.
I remember the first time I realized I had compassion fatigue. For 10 years I worked as a therapist with at-risk adolescent girls at an all-girls school. Daily, I encountered girls who had been traumatized by physical and sexual abuse. After years of hearing their stories, I became cynical and burdened.
Because of the population of kids I worked with, I rarely experienced favorable outcomes. I began to forget that there were healthy, loving families with well-adjusted teenagers. I knew I needed help to navigate the murky waters of being emotionally burned out.
Here are a few important strategies you can utilize if you find yourself dealing with compassion fatigue.
It’s important for your emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being to take regular breaks. Try planning a three-day weekend once every quarter with the sole purpose being to rest and focus on God.
To prevent compassion fatigue, it’s important to get away from ministry to get refreshed and renew your vision. Even if you work a secular job you can take a three-day weekend and get away specifically to rest and focus on your relationship with Christ.
It’s important to find hobbies that you find pleasurable and fun. If you find golf relaxing, then golf. If it’s refurbishing furniture, redo furniture. Hobbies can provide a release from the stress and tension that come from caring for others dealing with trauma. This is imperative for your well-being.
When your life is about others, you have to compartmentalize your emotions so you can be present in the moment. It's difficult to change hats from being in the midst of pastoring someone through trauma to problem-solving technical difficulties at the church to bringing a message on the weekends when your own heart is broken over a situation.
That’s why it’s imperative that you have a “go-to” person on whom you can unload your thoughts and emotions, someone who is accessible to you and who expects nothing from you. Someone who is willing to listen to you and pray for you.
Finally, it’s healthy to remember that you are not God. You have limitations. You are not created to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. You can’t take someone’s pain away and make their world the way it was prior to the trauma. However, you can pray, support, encourage, listen, and be available.
Let Jesus carry you as you’re helping others, and as you are helping others, point them to the one who carries everything, heals anything, and restores. He’s our everything. Point them to Jesus.
Love,
Julia Mateer