Healer Burnout and Effective Helping

Reading up on healer burnout and compassion fatigue. Lots written on this for the mainstream therapist, not so much for the issues of healers. I am not burned out professionally, but I find I sometimes feel burned out in my personal life. As in people in our lives know we have the nurturing, the compassion and the healing juice, so they frequently knock on the door to get support, help, advice. Help I wish to give, but don't always have the time for. I have days, especially ones in which the planetary energies are intense, where I am literally supporting people from the minute I wake up till the minute I go to bed. And yet, even so, one can't support everybody and some become disgruntled. And then there are times in which there is a need to pull back completely and recharge.

I think there are times in which it is appropriate to offer as much support as one can. The planet is going through major stuff and that is why we are here. But at the same time, care of self and one's own energy has to come first. This comes into the form of fair exchange for example. If you cant pay for time, can you exchange something of value? So the issue today is fairness in relationships with others. Is the balance between giving and receiving working? And looking at appropriate boundaries with loved ones.

As many healers know, boundaries and self care are essential tools for the long life of a healer. People will always make demands on a healer's time, its just the nature of the beast. Its up to us to know when we can give and when we can not. And when giving is appropriate and when it is not. People's Souls work very hard to create the circumstance of crisis that offer opportunity for them to shift. If we rescue them, we often interfere with that opportunity. Helping is not always wise.

My teachers used to say that if you feel strong resistance to helping someone, it is usually because you are rescuing them. Something in you knows that the energy extended will patch a hole but will not fix the problem. At other times not only we feel willing to help but we come away feeling elated from the experience of offering support. This is usually because the energy extended was given at the right time to a person ready to make a shift.

As we evolve it become more and more important that we learn to place energy appropriately, where it can be used effectively. Placing energy effectively creates better results for the collective, as instead of spending much energy to help one person who keeps recreating the same problem and who ultimately needs to walk their lesson alone, so at dig deep for the pearl it offers, we can help many who just need a tiny push to move forward on a process that is just ripe for insight. Effective energy exchanges also do not drain but create a feedback loop where the energy is amplified rather than depleted.

Boundaries, self care, effective placing of energy. Three essential points to keep in mind so we can stay not only healthy but therapeutic.

Much love

Katie


Copyright 2012. Katie Gallanti, MS, MA. www.reclaimingthelight.com, http://cosmicperspectives.blogspot.com. All rights reserved. Share as a link to this blog with authors name and website links displayed.