For helpers
Helping Professionals and Volunteers
Helping professional/ volunteer is a broad term that includes everyone- paid and unpaid- who is deliberately in service to others. This can include medical staff, educational staff, psychologists, social workers, youth/ residential workers and volunteers to mothers, elderly, children and people with disabilities.
Often people in this group work in service of others to the detriment of meeting their own needs. I know in doing my own personal work I came to a place where I could see that I was often trying to fill a need outside of myself as a way to avoid looking at and fulfilling my own needs. It was uncomfortable to move into the place of vulnerability where I admitted that I had unmet needs that had been there for a long time.
When we are unable to recognize our own needs and meet them, we continue to accumulate the pain and hardship of those to whom we are in service. We continue to take on the pain until it is unbearable and then we respond in a variety of ways.
-We discharge the pain through fighting with those we love; being defensive; not allowing people to get close to us.
-We numb through drinking, drugs, sex, gambling, spending money and keeping crazy-busy.
-We avoid. We work hard and then veg out. We come home from work only to stare at the TV, mindlessly watch YouTube videos or scroll on social media. We avoid real relationships in our life.
-We burn-out. We go on stress leave or we simply quit. We find other roles where our skills in helping are not called upon.
-We feel shame for being able to talk the talk when we are with the people we serve, but not being able to keep up and walk the walk in our off-hours.
If this sounds like you, you might consider coming to therapy to work through this cycle and find a new way of thinking about people and needs and helping. Looking at the messages you received growing up and what was rewarded and supported and what was denied and ignored helps to cultivate a truer sense of who you are. And when you can see how to meet your own needs on your own and in important relationships, you can come into a more whole sense of self (scary, I know). There is a path and a way to something different.
Welcome.
Warmly,
Heather.
Helping professional/ volunteer is a broad term that includes everyone- paid and unpaid- who is deliberately in service to others. This can include medical staff, educational staff, psychologists, social workers, youth/ residential workers and volunteers to mothers, elderly, children and people with disabilities.
Often people in this group work in service of others to the detriment of meeting their own needs. I know in doing my own personal work I came to a place where I could see that I was often trying to fill a need outside of myself as a way to avoid looking at and fulfilling my own needs. It was uncomfortable to move into the place of vulnerability where I admitted that I had unmet needs that had been there for a long time.
When we are unable to recognize our own needs and meet them, we continue to accumulate the pain and hardship of those to whom we are in service. We continue to take on the pain until it is unbearable and then we respond in a variety of ways.
-We discharge the pain through fighting with those we love; being defensive; not allowing people to get close to us.
-We numb through drinking, drugs, sex, gambling, spending money and keeping crazy-busy.
-We avoid. We work hard and then veg out. We come home from work only to stare at the TV, mindlessly watch YouTube videos or scroll on social media. We avoid real relationships in our life.
-We burn-out. We go on stress leave or we simply quit. We find other roles where our skills in helping are not called upon.
-We feel shame for being able to talk the talk when we are with the people we serve, but not being able to keep up and walk the walk in our off-hours.
If this sounds like you, you might consider coming to therapy to work through this cycle and find a new way of thinking about people and needs and helping. Looking at the messages you received growing up and what was rewarded and supported and what was denied and ignored helps to cultivate a truer sense of who you are. And when you can see how to meet your own needs on your own and in important relationships, you can come into a more whole sense of self (scary, I know). There is a path and a way to something different.
Welcome.
Warmly,
Heather.