| How do I combat the heartbreak that can come from doing social impact work? | Recognize the signs of what experts call "empathy fatigue". Learn how to recognize the most common stressors so you can manage them carefully and maintain a healthy balance. We'll tell you how in the article below. |
Our world — the nonprofit, social enterprise, purpose-driven world — attracts altruistic people who feel called to address a problem or grasp hold of an opportunity for their community. It attracts people who care.
People who do impact work are often people who live courageous, compassionate lives. To commit to this world, says Roshi Joan Halifax, you drawn on five qualities. Those five qualities are:
These qualities motivate people to care for others, to advocate for the planet, to try to improve conditions for their communities. Without them, says Halifax, “we cannot serve.”
Yet these qualities are also called “edge states”. As noble and rewarding as they are, they can also easily lead to danger.
The paradox of social impact work is what you love about your work can be what burns you out; the qualities that make you very good at what you do can be the same that bring you to your knees.
Halifax understands this paradox. She’s a Buddhist teacher who has worked for years with people who are dying, served in health care and prison facilities, and spoken out as a social and environmental activist.
Her book, Standing at the Edge, may be the best resource explaining how and why people in the nonprofit, caring, and service sectors become burnt out or traumatized by their work — and what they can do about it.
Many, many people in caring and advocacy roles find themselves struggling without understanding what is happening. They can’t understand why work they loved no longer brings them joy, why negative work experiences leave deep wounds. They lack the vocabulary to describe their experience. Halifax offers the words.
The qualities you bring to this work — altruism, empathy, integrity, respect, and engagement — also carry you to the edge of a cliff. The view here is incredible, and it’s where you want to be; but you are never far from danger.
The better you understand the edge states — the places of compassionate courage you want to be — and the perils that await over the edge, the more easily you can hang onto joy and recover from stumbles and upheavals.
Altruism is the unselfish concern for the welfare of others. It’s a wonderful quality, but it’s also complicated. Just because you mean well, it doesn’t mean you are doing well. What looks like altruism can even do harm.
Stick around the social impact sector long enough, and you’ll see at least one of the most common forms of pathological altruism — an obsessive focus on “helping” that can rob people of their agency.
Action that is rooted in fear, or a need for social approval, or a compulsion to “fix” others, or a desire for power over others isn’t really helpful. It looks like helping, but it’s centered on protecting the actor — the founder, the institution, or a particular social or political force. This isn’t altruism; it’s ego.
At the other end of the spectrum, you’ll see a hyper-focus on serving the needs of other people. When you fall into this trap, you ignore your own basic needs — you don’t sleep enough, don’t eat well, or don’t have time to build family or community ties to sustain you. This isn’t altruism, either; it’s addiction.
Empathy is the ability to understand and share others’ feelings. It can bring us closer together and inspire us to act. But if you take on all the feelings of those you help, you lose the independence that made you a powerful ally in the first place.
Unchecked empathy can lead to feeling overwhelmed by the emotions or trauma of people you are trying to support, or being filled with anxiety by environmental and social issues. This state is called empathic distress.
One response to this distress is to build resilience by cultivating compassion instead; think of empathy as taking on the feelings of others, while compassion is feeling for them. When you see someone in a hole, do you climb in and sit with them? Or do you stay on the surface and throw them a rope? It’s the difference between dissolving into others’ experiences and being able to stay grounded and engaged.
Many people attracted to impact work have strong moral principles and a deep appreciation for integrity (honesty paired with those moral principles). We all have ways we want to show up in the world. They could be formal vows, like Halifax’s Buddhist vows, or simply values that guide our sense of desirable and undesirable behaviour.
Moral suffering occurs when actions violate our values. Most of us feel guilty, for example, when we’ve done something to harm someone else. Moral suffering also occurs when we witness harmful actions or actions that challenge our principles and values. Just being near people who cause harm can break your heart.
The social impact world is not free from the kind exploitation, harassment, and abuses that take place in other sectors, despite our generally good intentions. And here, in a world dominated by empathic people who believe in doing good, the betrayal and hypocrisy can be especially devastating.
Even in healthy organizations, conflict arises all the time — it’s the nature of the work. Doctors and nurses may have to make impossible choices about how to care for a patient. Policy positions, economic decisions, and community development initiatives almost always promote one good outcome while failing to address other problems.
Over time, small violations can add up and create real wounds. Exposure to injustice can transform into recreational bitterness and moral outrage, which in turn lead to more injustice.
To respect someone or something is to acknowledge their value. Respect can include a sense of admiration and approval; it can also simply be an acknowledgement, the way we may respect the powerful winds of a hurricane or the authority of someone writing you a parking ticket.
Most of us hold deep respect for certain people, ideals, actions, and outcomes. We do what we do because we have a kind of moral compass to guide us. This is necessary, as long as our respect for views doesn’t morph into a belief that we are superior or a desire to diminish others.
We don’t have to admire our political opposites or a devastating disease, but we shouldn’t allow contempt and disrespect to fester either. When we allow toxic disrespect to take root, we think and act in ways that violate our own core values; we disparage and diminish others, and even turn on ourselves.
You’ll recognize toxic disrespect when you see it; it’s putting others down in order to elevate one’s own self. Toxic disrespect focuses on power over others rather than on equality. It leads to bullying, hostility between peers, and internalized oppression; it infects our organizations, our policy positions, our programs, and our discourse.
When we are engaged in our work, we experience a sense of purpose and flow that is unparalleled. It’s what makes impact work so incredibly rewarding. But if we overwork, immerse ourselves in toxic workplaces, or feel like our efforts aren’t making a difference, we can collapse.
Burnout is the opposite of engagement. Standing at the Edge provides some great, practical examples of ways to cultivate inner strength that go beyond the massages, spa trips, and “me days” proposed by the wellness world.
The struggle for balance isn’t new. The problem of burnout isn’t unique to our era. It’s helpful to learn more about it from people who have been there, sometimes centuries before us.
People who care for others, build social movements and institutions, and shape the world perform an incredible service. When you are first drawn into this work, you may take your passion and energy for granted. Society certainly does.
Yet too many altruistic people reach the point where they can’t do it anymore, can’t summon up the love and passion.
People in every sector tune out, burn out, and get out. Every sector also has its share of healthy, sustainable organizations. But the experience in our sector is different.
In this world, your work is closely tied to your values and your identity. The stakes are high. If you want to thrive here, it’s best to see clearly. If you need help clearing some cloudy skies, Standing at the Edge can help.
Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet by Joan Halifax
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