By Tom Andrews, senior support advisor at ACEVO
The other month I attended a gathering hosted by the excellent initiative, the Decelerator. Their work focuses on endings; supporting civil society organisations to anticipate and manage endings. The day was full of interesting people, discussions and reflection. There was talk about fear, loss, grief and loneliness (and a bit about celebration too); and of the inevitability of endings for all of us.
In one open session the discussion moved to comments and questions. One thought came to me during the discussion as people detailed the emotional toll of their work:
Do we hold things too tightly?
The great joy of working in civil society / charity sector is that it aligns with what we believe in, our values and outlook on life. The work embodies who we are. This is a blessing but can also be a challenge.
It powers us forward – but also ploughs through our boundaries.
It provides a sense of fulfilment – and also carries a heavy weight.
It gives us purpose and identity – but sometimes we forget we are more than our role.
Drive and passion can lead us to hold on too tightly, losing an ease and wider perspective, as work become indivisible from who we are. This can become problematic, particularly when dealing with endings. We take it personally, we feel responsible, we not only feel the loss of an organisation/project/post but a loss to our identity. If I’m not leading this charity, who am I?
I was reading some research recently – a journal article entitled ‘Don’t walk in her shoes’ – around helping behaviour, perspective-taking and the emotional burden this can have on the helper (Buffone et al, 2017). It explains that some forms of help merge self-other boundaries (we become too invested personally) and this subsequently has a negative impact on the helper as we experience another’s suffering. Other more deliberate ways of helping are less draining (and more sustainable), allowing us to empathise while seeing the situation as separate and distinct from ourselves.
I don’t know about you, but I feel an obligation and huge commitment to the work in our sector. I do wonder, though, whether we should sometimes turn our dial down from 10 to 8. To create a little bit of distance. To step back, maybe half a step. So while we still approach our work wholeheartedly, it might help ourselves and our organisations if we loosen our hold a bit, to create a slither of distance, so we can look our role up and down, and then when we need to pause, switch off or move on, we do it, clearly and intentionally.
“Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.“
Rumi
“Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go.”
Hermann Hesse
Reference: Buffone, A.E.K., Poulin, M., DeLury, S., Ministero, L., Morrisson, C. and Scalco, M. (2017) ‘Don’t walk in her shoes! Different forms of perspective taking affect stress physiology’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 72, pp. 161–168.