Good Shepherd Newsletter 3

Competency 3: Sustaining a Healthy Lifestyle

Posted by  on April 20, 2020

Chances are this newsletter came by email. It was one of many in the day, one more notification in a long string of notifications. There were likely other notifications: telephone calls, text messages, notes, fellow clergy or staff asking a question, calendar reminders, even reminders to take a break. When do the notifications end? When does the workday end?

 

On the tail-end of a pandemic and the demand it has placed on many professions and vocations, it may not be surprising that 76% of employed adults in the U.S are experiencing burnout symptoms (Spring Health, 2021). Data over the last year shows that the Covid-19 pandemic and political issues are the largest current contributors at 57% and 33%, respectively (Springhealth, 2021).

 

What exactly is burnout? Burnout takes the form of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion that can be caused by excessive exposure to stress. Burnout is most noticeable through feelings of being overwhelmed, emotionally spent, and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, interest and motivation in the chosen vocation begins to wane. As burnout increases, productivity begins to decrease as do energy levels, which may lead to feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and resentfulness. Additionally, cynicism may find its way into daily interactions and the feeling that there is nothing more to give becomes more powerful.

 

The effect of burnout spills over into every area of life—including your home, work, and social life. Additionally, long-term changes to your body that make you vulnerable to illnesses like insomnia, colds, and flu can occur. Dealing with burnout is important in order to head off these negative possibilities.


Signs and symptoms of burnout

There may be mornings when dragging out of bed requires every bit of energy and prayer that can be mustered. Most people experience days when they feel overloaded, helpless, or underappreciated. When this feeling is pervasive, burnout may be on the horizon. The process of burnout is gradual and doesn’t happen overnight. The signs and symptoms are subtle at first, but become worse as time goes on. An easy way to remember this is like the check engine light on a vehicle. Sometimes the light appears because there is a problem, but one that can be easily fixed. Visiting a mechanic may be put off, the car seems to be running fine, and since there is not an obvious repair needed, it can wait. However, the longer it takes to get a repair, the worse the problem gets. Something that could have been easily fixed got worse over time as it wasn’t noticed. Paying attention and actively reducing stress, can prevent a major breakdown in life as well.

Recognizing burnout

 

The ability to recognize burnout is often difficult. Often, it appears as stress, but stress has an endpoint that can be seen; if everything can be accomplished there is light at the end of the tunnel. Burnout is the cause of unrelenting stress and involves feelings of not being enough. Motivation disappears, mental exhaustion creeps in, and there is a feeling of emptiness. Often, in these situations it may seem that there is no chance of positive change. Burnout can feel like we are all dried up and have nothing left to give.


Work related causes of burnout

  • Feeling like you have little or no control over your work.
  • Lack of recognition of reward for good work.
  • Unclear or overly demanding job expectations.
  • Doing work that’s monotonous or unchallenging.

Lifestyle causes of burnout

  • Working too much, without enough time for socializing or relaxing.
  • Lack of close, supportive relationships.
  • Taking on too many responsibilities, without enough help from others.
  • Not getting enough sleep. Personality traits can contribute to burnout
  • Perfectionists tendencies; nothing is ever good enough.
  • Pessimistic view of yourself and the world.
  • The need to be in control; reluctance to delegate to others.
  • High-achieving, Type A personality

Some are able to notice the signs of burnout and some push past the boundaries of exhaustion without ever realizing it. Regardless of one’s ability to notice burnout, if it is not addressed in healthy ways it can lead to further physical, emotional, and spiritual distress. How does one deal with burnout? 

  • Recognize: Watch for the warning signs of burnout.
  • Reverse: Undo the damage by seeking support and managing stress.
  • Resilience: Build your resilience to stress by taking care of your physical and emotional health.


Below we will explore ways to manage burnout.


A. Health and Wellness

The goal of exercise, in order to prevent burnout, is not to become a King David or Samson, but rather to allow our bodies moments of reprieve. Throughout history, mankind has been on the move, traveling from place to place, working the fields, as technology has made our lives easier it makes regular movement a little more difficult. There may not be a need to get up for hours as you pour over emails and write homilies. Regular exercise can have a positive effect reducing stress, anxiety and depression. A recent study by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that running for 15 minutes a day or walking for an hour reduces the risk of major depression by 26%.


Does the thought of carving out an hour of your day to walk cause more stress than the actual walk can alleviate? No worries, current recommendations are to include at least 30 minutes of exercise everyday. This can be done all at once, or broken up into shorter periods of time throughout the day. Rhythmic exercise (moving both arms and legs) is a natural way of boosting mood, increasing focus and energy. Often this time can be used as a time for prayer and contemplation, perhaps walking for as long as it takes to pray the rosary. Alternatively, listening to your favorite music or podcast might also make the time more enjoyable. Fresh air and time away from the demands of a busy schedule provide needed distraction to break out of the cycle of negative thoughts that feed depression and anxiety and provide a fresh outlook.


Research indicates that moderate levels of exercise are what most people need. Moderate exercise can be determined if breathing is a little heavier than normal, but not so out of breath that you cannot carry on a conversation, and that your body feels slightly warmer but not necessarily breaking into a sweat. There are always obstacles to exercising, if it were easy this newsletter would not need to be written. The most important part is to start small. Setting goals that are extravagant when feeling stressed or under the weather is a recipe for disaster. Do what you can when you can and be proud of the small achievements and build from there! Schedule your workouts when your energy levels are high, while waiting until the end of the day may be easier, it is often better to exercise when you know you will have the energy. Focus on doing exercises that you enjoy and remember to invite others to these activities with you.


Part of making exercise a priority involves letting go of thoughts related to work and allowing yourself to focus on your body as it moves. How does the ground feel under your feet? Can you feel the wind on your skin? How heavy is the weight in your hand? Being present in the moment and noticing these physical sensations is a large part of how exercise can help rejuvenate us. Exercise also has a positive effect on our immune systems. When exercise is combined with a healthy diet the improvements are often noticeable.


Most nutritionists will agree that the “calories in, calories out” approach is where everyone needs to be. This simple statement means that to maintain a healthy diet, we should be putting in the same amount, or less, in calories than we exert throughout the day. One way to do this is to minimize sugar and refined carbs; old Halloween candy or a medium fry may hit the spot, but it will lead to a crash later in the day. Attempt to reduce foods and liquids that can affect your mood, such as caffeine, overly processed foods, or those with large amounts of hormones. Coffee is great….in moderation (Sorry...had to.). Omega-3 fatty acids give your mood a boost; these include fatty fish (salmon, herring, mackerel, sardines), seaweed, and walnuts. Avoid nicotine; smoking may seem calming but nicotine is a stimulant and can increase anxiety and stress. Drink alcohol in moderation. Alcohol temporarily reduces worry, but too much can cause anxiety as it wears off.


Eating healthy doesn’t have to be difficult but it does require some planning out of your meals. Try taking some time in your day off to plan your meals for the week. What items do you need from the grocery store? Don’t try to complicate it. Sources such as Emeals, Blue Apron, Hello Fresh and other “subscription” boxes can be a good source of new recipes for both lunch and dinner. When grocery shopping, try to stay along the edges of the grocery store and away from the aisles (where the processed food is primarily located) as much as possible. Remember, if you have dietary issues, try meeting with a nutritionist. They can help guide you to foods that your body can more easily digest.


Small investments in both diet and exercise can be of benefit in reducing burnout and emotional stress. The payout of making incremental changes in these areas will show dividends within your vocation.


B. Simple ways to recharge

Just as making small investments in diet and exercise can produce big changes, the same goes for how we find ways to recharge in our daily lives. In addition to the physical strains that we may experience with burnout, there are emotional strains as well. In our last newsletter, we focused on the importance that fraternal connections have in helping maintain positive emotional health. In addition to reaching out to others, there are simple ways of dealing with the emotional turmoil that may arise from burnout. Journaling can be an excellent way of dealing with emotions. When we can put our thoughts and feelings down on paper, we give our minds more bandwidth to focus on tasks during the day. In addition, it is often helpful to focus on the emotions we are feeling, positive or negative, and learn how to accept them. Accepting emotions does not mean that we approve of them, it is simply an acknowledgement of how we are feeling. In addiction recovery there is a common phrase, “Let go and let God.” This phrase is a reminder that if thoughts and emotions can be let go of, there is less to worry about.


One of the most effective exercises to reduce stress that can be done anytime throughout the day is that of deep-breathing. First, when practicing this sit deeply into your chair. Closing your eyes take a deep breath and let it slowly go out. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth slowly. When inhaling, breathe in so deeply that your stomach will expand. We do this naturally when sleeping but most of us never bring the deeper/lower lobes of our lungs into our normal breathing unless we’re exercising. So again, breathe in deeply, perhaps count to five to make sure you take the time you need to fill your lungs more completely. Breathe in and then slowly out, making sure you exhale completely. Repeat this for about three or four times until you notice your body beginning to relax. At the same time and while keeping your eyes closed, think about your face, shoulders, arms, hands, legs, feet and muscles. Aiming to release the tension stored in those various places, relax as you imagine the tension flowing out of your body. With gentle awareness notice your shoulders. Are they high or low and drop them, allowing the world to roll off. Notice your back and your stomach, your upper and lower legs; wiggle your feet and ankles. Foster a calm awareness of which parts of your body have tense muscles and try to relax those muscles while continuing to breathe deeply and almost imagining the air of your deep breaths going into them and relaxing them. Sitting deeply in your chair you will feel heavy. Continue this until you feel like your whole body has finally relaxed. Initially it might take longer than three to five minutes, but as you do this greater frequency and regularity, you will learn to relax and will be able to do it more and more quickly.


C. Engage in things you are passionate about

For the context of this article, let us consider this non-theological notion of passions: people, places, interests, activities, and situations/circumstances that simultaneously (and paradoxically) energize us and deplete us in a healthy way. Our natural passions are a gift from God, as are our innate talents, out of which God means us to live the abundant life of joy and peace. Many of you became priests in response to a natural passion to lovingly serve our Lord and his people. You know well the reality of feeling energized during priestly work followed by the reality of feeling exhausted by and after an intensive measure of it.


How do we recognize our natural passions? When people are fully engaged or immersed in a natural passion, the following phenomena are commonplace: we lose track of time, we feel an enthusiasm, an alertness, a keen focus, a lack of distraction, a sense of being nourished or rejuvenated, even a ‘good’ anxiety which clinicians refer to eustress. We read an analogy of these phenomena in the Transfiguration story mainly through Peter’s ecstatic words.


As with our sensual appetites, it is wise (and therefore holy and virtuous) to moderate and balance our natural passions in order to sustain the kind of healthy lifestyle needed to vigorously serve our Lord and his people. It is commonly observed that any single over-weighted or over-utilized passion tends to result in one’s decreasing revitalization and increasing depletion over time. In the worst-case scenario, such a trend can lead to burn-out or collapse.


So make a habit of indulging your natural passions in a consistently balanced manner. You may find it useful to inventory or catalog them using the PIES model:


  • Physical: Generally means some form of exercise or bodily exertion
  • Intellectual: What do you love to learn about?
  • Emotional : ‘Wasting’ quality time with great friends •
  • Spiritual: Drawing closer to our Lord in relationship


These are the dimensions of our humanity and within them each of us can probably identify at least one natural passion. When we attend to nurturing all four of these aspects of personhood, we will sustain the healthy lifestyle needed for mission service.

The Truth about the Stages of Grief

By Irene Rowland MS, NCC, LPC • 07 Jun, 2023
There are many models for the stages of grief. The horseshoe shaped diagram is my favorite and I believe it to be the most realistic. Grief is not linear. People do not proceed through each stage in a neat, orderly fashion. Typically, stages are sometimes skipped and then returned to later, as well as stages being returned to multiple times. This can happen long after a person thought they had worked through that particular stage. Just as the traditional 5 stages of grief by Elizabeth Kubler Ross are not a simple progression through the steps, neither are the many steps in the horseshoe model. If you drew a continuous line of how the steps might go for an individual, you would see that with all the jumbled directions going across and up and down the graph, it would look like a bunch of tangled thread. For many, that’s what grief really looks like. The Descent of Loss It can be a slow descent or a rapid plunge to the depths of grief. As stated already, we may or may not experience all of these stages and not necessarily in the order shown in the diagram. The tumble down to loneliness, guilt and isolation can be quite rough which almost makes those lows look restful compared to what it took to get there. Shock, Numbness, Denial It’s typical to be in a bit of a fog after you get the news of a significant loss, whether that’s of a loved one’s death, a job loss, a serious health diagnosis or any other kind of change that could be considered life changing. Grief is a natural response to the loss of how you thought things would continue to be and the future you expected. Emotional Outbursts, Anger, Fear Grievers can be easily triggered. Some losses are traumatic. With trauma, often there is hypervigilance. The fight or flight instinct is revved up, as though we must be on the lookout for any impending dangers at all times. We have all experienced reactions from people that seem disproportionate to a situation. These emotional outbursts are sometimes due to grief. The increased levels of cortisol when a person is in this escalated state of vigilance causes a lot of wear and tear on one’s body and mind. As a result, anxious, angry, or fearful people are perpetually emotionally and physically drained. This of course can lead to impaired judgement and become a vicious cycle. When there’s an anger response to grief, it can be directed toward others or oneself. Anger turned inward is one of the definitions of depression. The anger is sometimes directed toward the person who died, the boss who did the firing, the spouse who left or sometimes toward those who played “supporting roles” because it’s too difficult to be angry with the source of our angst. Fear drives the thoughts and beliefs of some of the irrational actions and behaviors of a person experiencing a significant loss. A typical piece of advice after a significant loss is to wait at least a year before implementing any big changes such as moving or a change in career. Part of the reasoning for waiting is that the individual will be further along the healing path which usually means that fear is not as much a part of one’s reasoning process. Searchings, Disorganization, Panic Trying to make sense of our pain, of the unexpected tragedies, of man’s inhumanity to man, or any number of other baffling incidences in life, is also a natural reaction. We often feel we can bear a crisis more easily if we can find some purpose in the suffering. Of course, there can be redemption in suffering, miracles can occur in disastrous situations, good can triumph over evil and all of this can be appreciated in retrospect. It is often quite difficult to discern any of this in the midst of the difficulties. Further down the road of one’s healing journey, these treasures can be discovered. I have found that the person who grieves must discover these on their own, rather than having others point them out, because they only sound like empty platitudes coming from others. Disorganization is part of the mental fog and lack of clarity during the depression of grief. Often a person in this state may be unsure of the day of the week or even unclear of the status of the basic things that they normally could keep track of, such as whether they remembered to take a shower or eat lunch. It can be very confusing to find oneself acting and thinking in ways that are so untypical of the usual way of doing things. Often the energy isn’t there to even be concerned about the discrepancy of who they knew themselves to be and who this stranger in the mirror is now. Panic can set in when this disconnect is truly realized. There can be a fear that the old familiar self may not reemerge. Panic can be the answer to all the unanswered questions of what the future might hold. There can be the fear that things will always be this disjointed and hard to understand, that life as one knew it, is gone. Guilt, Loneliness, Isolation, Depression The situations and emotions that grief entails often bring a person to their knees. This is at the bottom of the diagram in the pits of despair. Guilt can color many of the questions we ask ourselves and sometimes there’s a continuation of attempting to blame others and to lay the guilt on their heads. We often have grandiose ideas of our own power to be able to cause certain situations that were actually out of our control. Likewise, we can also assign more power to others than they are capable of having and thereby believing they are at fault in some way in a loss situation. We have all heard absurd news claims that a particular person, country, gender or ethnicity is at fault for a situation when the truth is there are many factors that play into most situations. Loneliness and isolation can breed depression. Sometimes we make matters worse by intentionally shutting out the rest of the world. Time alone and loneliness are not the same thing. We need solitude to think things through, regroup, reflect and recharge. I say that as an introvert. An extrovert gets their energy from those around them, so in that case they may regroup and recharge better with the support of others, talking through their concerns in their grief journey and thereby processing their thoughts aloud. Isolation during grief can also be a protective mechanism against having to put on a mask and acting as though you are doing better than you actually are. Isolation means not having to answer people’s questions of how you are doing or having to deal with all the things people say as an encouragement which turn out to be the opposite. This can put the griever in the awkward position of being cordial when they really want to scream. Re-Entry Troubles If a person stays on the perimeter of life for too long when there’s been a big loss, it can make re-entry more difficult. It is almost as though time stands still for the griever, but the world has moved on and you don’t quite fit in now. Things that were once important to you may now seem trivial. The latest movie, fashion trends, and the current gossip are all pretty insignificant now as compared to whatever importance you may have placed on them at one time. It’s all temporal and often grievers become larger picture type thinkers. Much is trivial when you’ve experienced the degree of brokenness that you didn’t know was even possible prior to your loss. New Relationships, Strengths, Patterns After a major loss, there’s a lot of reevaluation that comes out of the experience. We think differently. We see differently. Often there’s a new thirst for life because we’ve developed a new appreciation for the gifts that still remain. New relationships may come from a support group that helped you weather the storms of your trial. You might decide to use the time you have ahead of you to learn new things, catch up on your bucket list, resurrect old hobbies or any number of ways we can regenerate ourselves. All of these options could involve new people in our life and new ways of doing things. Strengths can develop from weaknesses. Surely, the difficult stages preceding these more positive ones involved succumbing to weaknesses at times. If our faith is predominant in our lives, we undoubtedly experience that in our weakness, He is strong and carries us through. Hope, Affirmation, Helping Others These last stages of grief are part of the adjustment to the “new normal”, the new life without the person, place, career, or situation in which we had such a connection. This is a connection so strong that the loss catapulted us into this grief journey which in many cases eventually ends up also being a growth journey. Most of us are familiar with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which can certainly happen with a complicated grief situation. Some of the PTSD symptoms can occur with “regular” grief. Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) is also a possibility towards the end of the stages of grief. We can become more resilient, kinder, more attentive, more in tune with ourselves and others and generally living a life of more depth and meaning. Grievers typically don’t take things for granted as they may once have done. In the midst of the whirlwind of all these stages and conflicting emotions, God can bring beauty out of sorrow, restoration out of pain, and a peace that surpasses all understanding. This is hard to imagine during a time period when we could not envision there ever being anything positive coming out of loss. Often the magnitude of the loss experience feels like our solid ground is shaking and crumbling beneath our feet. We can find our way again and when we do, our losses become part of our life story. They may even be many chapters of our story, but it’s not the entire story. Our grief becomes part of us and can live side by side with life’s joys. There is life after grief and it can still be good. Photo Credit: unknown source

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