Compassion Fatigue and Awe

Helping others can eat away at health and happiness — recover with Awe

There are some experiences that stick with us throughout our lives because they drive our personal mission. Here are two moments that I have carried with me. Both include elements of human suffering that cultivated a desire to help.

The Baseball Game

Professional baseball games can be an opportunity to build great memories. Some families attend regularly and others budget for the experience less frequently. I have never attended with my family. There were no professional sporting events near our home. I attended with friends and on work outings as an adult.

On one such trip, I observed a family that was feuding. The mother and father were standing about ten feet apart. There was a son, about ten or twelve years old, between them on the mother’s end of the ten feet. I don’t know what the argument was about but through their body language, facial expressions, tone, and the energy they emitted, I could tell they were both angry. They were both speaking through tightly gritted teeth.

As the heat of their tempers turned up, a quick movement caused the large drink the son was holding to splash to the ground. I am not sure if it was the son’s reflex or the mother grabbing the son’s arm as she turned to storm off. The angry attention turned to the spilled drink. Then to the son.

What struck me was how fun this memory could have been, but how stained it now was in the heart of that child. At that moment I knew I wanted to spend my life helping people understand themselves and other people better so they could use communication to cultivate happiness and to avoid misunderstandings and misguided emotions that berate joy.

Eyes of Sadness

Another moment of human suffering that has stuck with me for years came from the sadness I saw in the eyes of my adopted son’s birth mother. Our story is not the typical adoption story.

I knew my son when he attended the elementary school where I taught. At that point, I had never met his mother. I moved on to teach at a middle school. He moved across the city and surprisingly attended the same middle school where I was teaching.

One day he showed up to school under the influence of marijuana. His mother was called to pick him up. By then, I knew a lot more about their story but I had still rarely seen her.

The sadness I saw in her eyes that day went deeper than typical disappointment when a child gets in trouble at school. I saw the depth of destruction caused by a cycle that spanned generations. As they walked out of the school parking lot toward home, she embraced him with one arm. In my mind, I could still see the sadness in her eyes and I could feel her pain.

At that moment, I didn’t know she would end up in jail in the coming years and he would end up with his grandmother and then homeless. I didn’t know that I would be called on to become his adoptive mother.

Sometimes people need help. There is an element of helper that drives me.

Awe for Compassion Fatigue Recovery

I have spent years in my job and years at my home helping others and ignoring myself. This led to compassion fatigue. I am now striking a much better balance. I realize that in order to help others I have to be my own best self. Once my son graduated from college I worked on my own mental and physical health.

One of the elements that has been most instrumental to my compassion fatigue recovery is finding awe. As part of my mindfulness practices, I have recalled moments of awe and fed on the sensation of these memories. As I hungered for more, I slowed down and recognized the details of the world around me. Taking more time for feeling awe has been so refreshing.

Ironically, I used what helped me recover from compassion fatigue to start helping others. I am helping others discover the power of awe through a publication For Awe where I share awe practices and provide space for others to share their experiences of feeling awe. Filling up on awe is helpful in maintaining health and happiness.

Final Thoughts

I spent many years without any awareness that I was operating from a depleted reserve. A balance of self-care and an abundance of awe have helped me refill.

Everyone needs to find the perfect combination of elements to feed their souls.

Thanks for reading! I hope everyone finds their perfect combination of elements for their perfect personal happiness recipe.

Thank you to Diana C. for the Know Thyself, Heal Thyself space for personal reflection prompts and to Aswin, for Friday’s guest prompt: The element of our existence.