There will be days when you want to pack up your bags and get the heck out of a helping profession role. Perhaps you’re tired, overwhelmed or in need of new adventures. It might feel like topping up others’ wells has slowed topping up your own to a trickle. In giving so much in this one area of your life, you may have lost the sense of abundance in other areas.
And maybe that’s exactly what you need to do. For a while or for forever, you just need to take your energy somewhere else. Compassionate, curious people are needed everywhere, not just in community services.
Whether we stay or go, the urge to run is a message we don’t want to suppress or ignore. It’s telling us something isn’t working, something needs attention, and that something might need to change. Maybe it’s us. Maybe it’s the way we’re approaching the work. Maybe it’s the way the work is structured. Maybe we just need a good old fashioned holiday.
We can make friends with the urge. Get to know its patterns, its rhythms, what sets it off and what settles it down. Perhaps it becomes a prompt to slow down and seek more support. Be more gentle with ourselves, nourish our body, ask for more help. But now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I might need to go have a chat with a rabbit.
Helen Mentha 