Dear Sensitive Helper:

A note encouraging you to include yourself in your circle of care

Dear Sensitive Helper,

I see you. You’re doing your best to take care of others in this time of so much turmoil.

Maybe you work in a recognized helping profession, like therapy, nursing, education, childcare, non-profits, direct service. Or maybe you’re a helping as a volunteer, a caregiver, an artist who inspires and uplifts. You may be extending that care out to animals and the environment.

I’m certain that you’re tending to the people in your everyday life, whether they’re family, friends, neighbors, or the person you pass on the street.

You’re a natural helper, because at the core of who your identity is a deep empathy for others. That empathy is part of your inborn sensitivity.

I love your sensitivity.

You see, it’s your sensitivity that drives you to help, to try to make a difference. It fuels your commitments to the people, places, and creatures that matter to you. It sets you apart from people who have hardened their hearts and choose to turn their eyes away from painful realities.

It feels awful to witness suffering. And when we’re sensitive, we’re usually driven to do something to alleviate suffering. It’s not just altruism. We hurt when we witness suffering. Taking action can help to relieve our own suffering, too.

I see your suffering, Sensitive Helper.

And it hurts me, too. My heart aches for the ways that your heart is breaking. I share your feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness in moments when it seems like nothing we do can offset all the horrors happening around us. I wish I could wipe all this pain away, for you, for me, for everyone.

But I know my limits. I’m not all powerful. I’m don’t have unlimited resources. My heart can only hold so much pain.

You have limits, too. And I want to encourage you to honor them.

You know the trite-sounding truth: you need to take care of yourself so that you can continue to help others.

But the slightly edgier truth is this: you’re not in a position to single-handedly transform all the social ills that have gotten us into this mess. You cannot fix the system alone. Your actions, while vital, are not the sole solution.

Breathe in this truth, that you can, in fact, step back from helping, acting, agitating, just for a moment. There is a community of Sensitive Helpers who are also taking action. In any single moment, there is room for some of us to pause, take a breath, weep, distract, disengage, get support, grieve.

And then jump back into the fray. Help someone else. Give them a break. Tend to someone who needs our support.

If we as Sensitive Helpers are going to be in this change process for the long haul, we will have to individually recognize and tend to our own limitations. And we must learn to support one another in making choices to prioritize our individual needs.

If we tear other people down for how they navigate tending to the needs of others versus their own needs, we hurt the movement. We hurt each other. And ultimately, I think it’s a form of self-destruction as well, a form of punishing our own humanity.

Let’s stand together (even when some of us are sitting down for a break).

If you’re having trouble believing it can be okay to not be “on” in your helping role 24/7, consider how team sports make use of substitutes and alternates to relieve the starting players. Or how there are rules about how long truck drivers and physicians can work without a rest period. Or how professional theater productions have understudies ready to step in at a moment’s notice.

Or how leaders of countries find time to golf and go to social events. Even evildoers take breaks, apparently.

Helping yourself does not mean that you let go of all your commitments to others. It just means that you make sure that you’ll be here to keep helping all of those who depend on you, who benefit from your gifts, whose suffering you help to ease.

Please, take time to help yourself. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for me. Or your loved one. Or your neighbor, your client, your higher power, your world. We’re all out here, counting on you to keep yourself well.

You cannot do this alone.

As part of helping yourself, start building or growing the community around you that gets it, that gets you. Connect with other Sensitive Helpers locally. Start forming communities around you and, if you need support learning to do that, go through a Barnraisers Project training to learn practical strategies to start in your life today.

And stay connected with Singularly Sensitive. Engage with each other in the comments. Come to our Soundings Circles or watch for another Collaborative Journaling prompt on February 18th. Leave a comment or send me an email. I read and respond to all of them, although I appreciate your patience if it takes a couple days—sometimes I need to walk away from the computer, too.

But I also want to bring people like you and me together in a circle of care that can help you both give and receive support.

The spirit of community…no matching shirts required.

Sensitive Healers are some of my favorite people in the world. And spending time with you, encouraging you, helping you help each other? That’s the kind of communal time I enjoy most.

So, I’ll be launching a private community for Sensitive Healers in March. I think there’s a need for this kind of space where we can get real about the things we’re doing and the things we need to empower us to keep helping others.

Please let me know if this kind of community appeals to you and what you might want from that kind of group. I’m eager to build something that supports us and lights us up in these dark times. We’re not alone unless we choose to be.

Thank you for all that you do, Sensitive Helpers. But also, thank you for choosing to be true to who you are and for showing up as a sensitive person! My life and the world are richer for your presence, just the way you are.

In solidarity,

Lori