Building Your Compassion Resilience

JESSICA BECKENDORF: [00:00:00] Hello and thanks for listening to the Practicing Connection podcast. I’m Jessica, and today we’re kicking off a three-part series on compassion resilience. If you are a service provider, or if you work in any field that serves families, communities, or the public, you know how rewarding and how emotionally demanding this work can be.

Compassion resilience is the ability to maintain your empathy and strength, even in the face of others suffering. It’s not just about surviving the challenges of your role, it’s about thriving in it.

So today I’ll share what compassion resilience is, why it matters, and a simple practice you can start using today to build it.

First, let’s spend a moment just defining compassion resilience. It’s the ability to consistently care deeply for others while also protecting your own wellbeing. It’s not about becoming numb or detached. It’s about finding ways [00:01:00] to stay connected to your empathy without letting it drain you.

For service providers, compassion, resilience is especially important. You’re often working with families navigating complex challenges. It’s easy to absorb their stress and their emotions, which can lead to compassion fatigue. And recognizing compassion fatigue can sometimes be difficult until you’re right in the thick of it.

I attended a training on compassion resilience a few years ago from Roger’s Behavioral Health that used a chart of cats with, cats of all things, with different looks on their faces to represent the compassion fatigue cycle.

I’ll include a link to that resource in the show notes, and also link to the full Compassion Resilience toolkit. They have toolkits for educators, health and human services, and parents and caregivers.

So understanding the stages of compassion fatigue can help you understand what you need to do to minimize the impact on yourself. I’ll just quickly go through those now and, and [00:02:00] summarize them a little bit, but I recommend going to the show notes and grabbing the full resource.

So the first stage is the zealot or idealist. This is where you are committed, you’re excited about the work you’re doing. You’re ready to problem solve and put in extra hours. You volunteer and someone says, “Hey, I, I need something.” You’re like, “I’ll do it!” You’re excited about the work, right?

The next stage is irritability, right? You start to notice the imperfections of the systems you’re working with and the imperfections of the people that you’re working with.

The next one is withdrawal. This is where you’re now unable to kind of navigate and embrace the complexity of the issues that you are dealing with, through your clients, through your work. You might start to lose your ability to see clients as individuals, as individual human beings, right? They kind of become inconveniences or [00:03:00] irritants.

The next stage is zombie. This is where that kind of irritation might turn to rage, right? You start to maybe even hate people. It’s very strong language, these are very strong feelings. You might even hate your coworkers, and people just start to look incompetent or ignorant, and you might not be engaging in things that you used to find fun or humorous. Those things are just starting to not be as present in your life, and it might feel like you can never do enough.

Then the last stage is renewal versus pathology. So you might come to a fork in the road where you either continue deeper into your compassion fatigue, and maybe come to the point where it feels like you want to leave your profession. Or you may have changed positions and repeated the same cycle. The other fork in the road is, taking a turn toward renewal, resiliency, and [00:04:00] transformation.

So one of the wonderful things about this is that at any stage in this cycle, the zealot, irritability, withdrawal, zombie, and renewal versus pathology; in any stage you can learn skills and mindsets that kind of change your trajectory toward compassion resilience.

So, how do we build compassion, resilience? You know, there’s a lot of different ways. I’m just going to focus on a few right now. First, set realistic expectations. Recognize that you can’t solve every problem or fix every situation. Focus on what’s within your control and celebrate small wins.

Next is practice self-compassion. Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding you offer others, and when you’re feeling overwhelmed, remind yourself that it’s okay to take a step back and care for yourself.

You know, with this self-compassion, one of the things that has helped me the [00:05:00] most is when I’m starting to have negative self-talk, I really like to think about, I’ve got a few friends who are my biggest cheerleaders. And I really like to have their voice in my head. And I like to ask myself, you know, “What would they say to me right now?” And then that always, I would say that almost always anyway, has an immediate effect on me. A positive effect.

Okay, and then reflect and recharge. Regularly take time to reflect on your experiences and recharge your emotional energy. Now, let’s try a practice to put this into action. Let’s just call it the compassion, resilience, reflection. Here’s how it works. At the end of your workday, take five minutes, just five minutes to reflect on three questions.

First, what went, well today. I’d like to call this my good job list. Instead of a task list, I write down a good job list, but however you wanna answer this is fine with you. So the first is what [00:06:00] went well today? Number two, what challenged me and how did I handle it? And I would add to that, What did I learn about how I handled it? You know, what did I learn from how I can handle this again in the future?

And then three, what’s one thing I can do to care for myself tonight? This simple exercise can help you process your day, celebrate small wins, and prioritize self-care. It’s a practical way to start building compassion resilience in your daily life.

So compassion resilience isn’t just a “nice to have.” It’s essential for anyone in a caregiving or support role. By setting realistic expectations, practicing self compassion and reflecting on your experiences, you can continue to make a difference without burning out.

This week, I encourage you to try the compassion resilience reflection at the end of each workday. Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear your experiences.

That’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for joining us. [00:07:00] If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and click the share button in your podcast app to share it with a colleague or friend. For more resources and tools, visit us@oneop.org.

We’ll be back next week with a new episode, exploring compassion resilience. Until then, keep practicing.

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U. S. Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, U. S. Department of Defense, under award number 2023-48770-41333.