Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church in counseling and discipleship.

Hello. Hello. Hello. Still on the road, and I'm excited about today's episode. We have somebody who's been with us, I think, at least at this point, like, four times or It's been several episodes that we've done, and they've been really good episodes.

And you guys know that we've been spending some time on trauma. And so I'm joined with Beth Claes. We're gonna be talking about avoiding burnout. And Beth, why did you choose burnout?

I have a bit of a story in burnout. And I think it's related to trauma, certainly in part because as counselors, we have a front row seat to the suffering of what other people are enduring, right? So part of what we experience is we hear story after story of what hardships, what sin, what ways people have been sinned against evil in the world. And so that's part of what can contribute to an experience of burnout. And I would say that certainly had a role for me.

I think I've mentioned in previous podcasts, I moved into a counseling director role now about three and a half years ago at a church in the Pacific Northwest. We, as the counseling director, I just have a wider lens of the kinds of things that are coming up, even if I'm not intimately involved in every case, have a wider view and get exposed to lots and lots of hard, difficult things just in three and a half years. Gruesome domestic violence cases assault, people processing, sexual trauma, all kinds of things that have gone on in their lives. So you have that piece. And then I think my personality to get more personal on it.

Certainly, I want to be someone to help. And so when I see that there's a need for whether it's counseling or consultation or support. I want to be a person if I feel like I can do that to step into that space. And sometimes that means I can be too quick to take on too many things because I just see the need and I want to help. And so for me, it was both the combination of what kinds of cases at times I was involved with, as well as overfilling my schedule with counseling and the other responsibilities in my role.

And just getting to a point about over a year ago now, but where I was like, I am going to tank if I do not change something. Like this is not sustainable. And it was a hard place to be, I think. It took me a while to really face that. I kept feeling it's fine, it's fine.

And you can just try to push through. But eventually just the spillover of a variety of things, which we can get into if it's helpful, but just ways I was seeing how this was impacting me and not going to allow me to continue to serve the way I wanted to serve in the long run unless I made some pretty significant shifts.

Yeah, that's a lot. With that though, and specifically avoiding burnout, the idea of caring for trauma survivors, as far as without becoming overwhelmed, but how would you define burnout?

Yeah, I think burnout includes, we can get into some of the red flags of it. But I think some of the key things that come to mind are that it's usually there's an overwhelming exhaustion. There's this sense of I don't have enough in me to keep doing what I'm doing. Oftentimes there's some cynicism, you start to feel more cynical because you just feel like you're around problems all the time. And you also often feel a helplessness to actually really solve them because almost feel like you're just not coming up for air.

Yeah. And it's just like the waves are just keep hitting you. And a lot of times there can be a detachment both from, it could be from counseling, from the work there, it could be a numbness you bring home that you're like, I just have nothing left in the tank to feel anymore. Again, that sense of I just feel like I'm not able to have a positive impact anymore. There's just there's so much that you lose sight of that.

Yeah, that's good. And so some contributions to burnout, obviously, you shared your story. But specifically trauma survivors and obviously first responders are usually the first ones we think of no pun intended there with that statement. But then secondly, it's also like counselors like ourselves, much to what you said, where we can take we because we want to help. Yeah.

And we start shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit, we end up taking on too much than what we can really care for.

Yes.

And then it becomes overwhelming to your definition of burnout. But what are just some personal things that are not personal things necessarily, but we can can lean from our personal things. Just as far as the contributions to burnout, the secondary trauma, personal sins, the dynamics of that, because that's a hard part sometimes with trauma is just dealing with those things. How would you speak to that?

Yeah, I think it's helpful just to recognize first that it can we can't have a similar trauma response just from listening to someone's story as the person who has gone through it. That's not always the case. Certainly, it's not as if you did go through what they experienced, but physiologically, our stress levels can rise up. It can lead to an overwhelming emotional, even if you keep it together in counseling. And I don't, to be totally honest, I've had some counseling cases where we have our session, the person shares what's going on, but sometimes there are such awful painful things that after they leave, I need a minute to just feel what I'm feeling after hearing their story.

And so I think it's first recognizing and giving the proper weight to that, that just hearing what someone else has gone through certainly can impact our responses. And so that's why we call it vicarious trauma or secondary trauma. We're hearing it secondhand, but we're experiencing some of the responses that someone who's gone through trauma can experience. I think the other piece that was really helpful to me in my processing was recognizing where I will lean into putting too much identity into ministry. I think there's a temptation, maybe for all of us in that of, again, there's a good aspect to it where I did want to help people.

I did want to be the hands and feet of Jesus, but also started to make the ministry work I was trying to do like the key feature of my life. And when you go into that place, it's a recipe for disaster. At its root, there's certainly at least a temptation to make the work too much about yourself and not about the Lord and what he's doing. And I felt that. I think sometimes we can overfill our, again, especially people doing counseling, people in ministry, sometimes we overfill our schedules because we're trying to help, but also because we get something out of the constant busy.

And it's like we're feeding something in that space. And so recognizing if you're not leaving any margin in your life, then is that a healthy place for you to stay? Even if you don't feel like you're on the brink of burning out from trauma or secondary trauma. And then I think there's also a reality that ministry is a burden at times. Like we cannot deny the fact that when you are engaging in counseling, you feel the weight of it and you have to do something with that.

So when you think about burnout, it's like recognizing that you're never, if you're engaging in counseling, you're never going to have 100% of the days feel like, yeah, I was able to help them. And it was just, it was great. It was fine. You're going to carry the weight the hardships that people are facing. And so they have to go somewhere.

You can't, you're not going to avoid that.

All right. So we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna camp on this for a minute. Right. This is, I said this in a previous podcast. And at this point, I can't remember if it was released or where it is in the can.

This is one of those things. Oh, yeah. When I was recording when Sean and I were recording with Jeremy, we were going over Romans chapter three is and it was one of those vulnerable points from a counselor's perspective, namely myself, that sometimes to that particular point, can I get motivated for them on their pathway to change or transformation or whatever? And I get more excited about their their progress than they do. And I can going into the world and those compassion fatigue.

Yeah. And so it's like I get a little discouraged and then what I realized after a while is that Michael, you're more not only you're more concerned about their change than they are, but you're also getting ahead of the Lord. Yeah. Because it's almost like I got excited, so Lord, you got to deliver. Yeah.

Like I've come up and I've tried to give them capital h hope and here's how that materializes and manifests and all that stuff, but then it's just I'm like, are we hitting our goals? And realizing that my goal, I'm imposing my goal on them, then it may not be. It was like, it was a really good heart check to that particular point. I think that's a real temptation.

Yeah, and I think when we think about avoiding burnout, which I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit more, a key thing is recognizing, since we're not going to change the fact that we will be exposed to other traumatic stories, right? If you continue to be a counselor, that's not going to change. So the one thing we can change is making sure we are tending to our own souls. Because if we are humble before the Lord trying to follow his lead, recognizing I'm not the savior, I'm not the one who's going to fix all of this, I am just an instrument in his hands, then I will be in a much better place to serve and minister to the people who are coming to me than when I'm, oh, I need to do all the things and help all the people and get them where they need to go. That is never going to go.

Yeah. So that's good. And so with that particular point, Beth, okay. So we're all of our counselors who are listening. Okay, guys, keep going.

I'm with you. So some of those red flags, maybe some indications like, hey, you might be there, counselor. I mentioned in passing a moment ago, compassion. But you've got a few other things there. You want to run through those and then just speak to those and maybe observably speaking, what is the most common temptation or symptom in people?

Just for ways for them to keep this in mind, keep those heart checks going.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Compassion, fatigue is certainly one of them. I already mentioned just feeling really exhausted or dissociation, which is that idea that we separate from part of ourselves and shut down maybe the emotion shut down, Like I can't deal with that right now. I'm not going to feel it.

I'm not going to tend to it, which again, lends into numbness, anger, cynicism, could be an inflated sense of self importance in your ministry. Like I have to be the one to take that case on or do this, or I'm going meet with them this many times. I'm going to bump it up and wearing to your point, Oh, they're not quite there yet. I'll just keep doing more to try to help them get there. Could be an emotional overwhelm.

I remember when I was facing this, there was a particular case that came up over a year ago, but it just hit me so hard. And it wasn't even my counseling case. It wasn't related to a different issue in the church that come up and I was just emotionally overwhelmed. And I remember one of the other staff and I having a conversation and he was like, You don't seem okay. I was like, he recognized your response feels bigger than what this is.

And it was because I was totally overwhelmed. It can certainly impact our eating or sleeping. So I would say changes, significant changes in how you typically operate. An ability to concentrate, hyper vigilance. You might have this heightened sense of awareness of what's going on around you as a result of what you're experiencing.

So I think it can look different for different people. I'd say the big things to pay attention to are, do you notice a pattern or significant change in how you're processing the things that you're doing in counseling or whatever it is, counseling in particular. But if you notice a significant change where either your emotions are coming out more or not at all, or changes in other aspects of your life, or you're just feeling really cynical about what you're doing, then I'd start to pay attention to that. I think for me, of the hard things was I don't pay attention to those things well. So a lot of the work I've done since then has been learning how to be more aware before I get to the point where I'm like, I'm actually sinking.

So that I can be like, Oh, I'm starting to feel I'm still functioning, but I'm starting feel the weight of the last few weeks, or I'm starting to feel the weight of some of the recent cases I had. I need to do something different now in order to navigate this space so I can keep doing what I'm doing.

Yeah, that's really good. And for those of you who are listening, I think that's a huge encouragement, Beth, as far as what you're saying. Not only are you looking for those things, but who's in your life that can actually help you? Because we've become so nearsighted. If you're that close, you probably aren't paying attention.

Uh-huh.

Right?

Uh-huh.

So who counselors, who's in your life who's counseling you? Who are you checking in with regularly? Who's your your Galatians six folks who can when you're getting weary and you're beginning to feel weak because that's the reality that weakness is like a burnout and it's you're like, symptomizing those things and you're like, so who's in your life who's can who can see those things?

Yes.

You know what I mean? And then also, Beth, there's also, okay, you got to keep pushing forward. You got to keep driving that. But then there's also the reality that we live in this tension. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah. Yeah. I think that it's helpful to remember that if you have a bad day or a bad week, and what I mean by that is like, you do come home completely overwhelmed or you're numb, you're feeling checked out, you just can't engage with your family normally or whatever it is. I think we have to accept that there's a degree of normalcy to that. Because of the work that we do.

But the issue is not that every day you got to come home feeling great and that you can just throw off the burdens completely and feel like, okay, I'm switching gears now, we're fine. It's okay for us to feel the weightiness of the work that we do. But if it's an ongoing consistent pattern, that's how you are feeling. That's where you got to be more concerned about, okay, what's going on? And do I need to change something so that I can continue this work?

So good. So those are some good ways to avoid. So the steps to avoiding burnout, you mentioned a few things here. You mentioned know your refuge. You want to speak to that?

Yeah, I think refuge is safety. And so if we want to avoid burnout, a lot of times there's this sense of everything's overwhelming. I feel helpless. I don't know what to do. And if we can't root ourselves in remembering, okay, God is my safe place.

So when everything else is spinning, if I can go back to that place of recognizing he is my refuge, he is the safe place, then that's an anchor point. It's not going to fix everything. The storm can still be swirling around but it anchors you in the hope that we have that even as those things are happening, we know how the story And that can be a very helpful truth. So I think going back to sometimes the simple truths is one way that we can try to avoid burnout.

Yeah, that's really good. And then you mentioned Psalm 23, right? He is a God who restores our soul. And then obviously, Matthew eleven twenty eight, he carries our burdens. So there's very helpful encouraging imagery, and not just imagery, like it's not real.

But the

image Word pictures, yes. Is, it's like you said, it's an anchor, it's concrete, concrete. It's It's something that we can visualize and rest in. And I think there's something that which I believe that was what Scripture was trying to communicate, which is why it uses those descriptive words to really help us visualize the reality of that, at least at the soulful

Yeah. Yeah.

So steps to avoid burnout, aside from knowing your refuge, you also have counsel from a healthy soul. You wanna press into that?

Yeah. I think, and I alluded to this a little bit a few minutes ago, I think one of the most important things we can do is have a sense for am I tending to my own soul? And to your point, do I have people in my life who are tending to my soul? And if we are counseling from a healthy soul, it's not that we won't be affected by what happens in day to day or what happens in the counseling room. But again, we will be more likely to be able to sustain the things that are being that we're going through with counselees and whatever situations come up.

And so I think just going back to the basics and as perhaps as biblical counselors, sometimes we might feel like, duh, I don't know if I need to do But it really is helpful to pause and how's your relationship with the Lord? Are you feeling connected to your father? Do you have a sense of his care and compassion towards you? I know for me, of the things that became disconnected was feeling more like I needed to be almost like a workhorse. Like this is what it means to serve God.

I need to be busy doing all these things and losing sight of God as father and his compassionate care. That picture of God as father is was really helpful to me. Because as a parent, especially when your kids are young, you recognize they're not super helpful.

Right. They're very unhelpful.

Yeah, they're unhelpful. They're demanding of your time and your energy and your resources. And they contribute pretty much nothing to any of those things. But you love them. Because they're your kid.

And it's not hard most of the time even to be like, I just love you. You're just amazing the way you are. And so going back to, oh man, I do not need to constantly be doing things. I can be at peak while I am at rest. And so getting back to God as father was helpful to me.

And you've already mentioned this, but I cannot overemphasize the need to have people in your life that also will speak into it and make sure that you have those healthy connections. During that season for me, I went to counseling myself. I was like, I need help figuring this out. Can't, yeah, I need someone to walk with me through this. Was incredibly helpful.

So I'd say, don't shut yourself off to that. We are both the helpers and the helped. And so let's be comfortable in both of those spaces.

Yeah. That's really good. And it's humbling. Because ironically, those of us who like to be the helpers seldom like to be the helped.

Yeah, for sure.

It's like, we don't say it, but functionally we act like we've arrived. Yeah. Like we're not, we wouldn't say that, but that's just what ends up happening. Because just you end up talking to one or two people and you're like, and they're like, have you talked to anybody about that now? Or like, are you a counselor?

No, I'm fine.

I don't need

to talk to anybody.

Yeah. Yeah. That's funny how that works. So as we wrap up, Beth, any anything that you would encourage those who maybe as we were going through some of these red flags, anything that you would encourage those who are maybe thinking, you know what, symptomatically speaking, I'm carrying a few of those red flags. So what would you encourage them to do as far as the next step?

Beth I think a lot of the literature on trauma, we can still apply that to ourselves in a space of burnout, your body's feeling overwhelmed, you're having a lot of those similar kinds of symptoms. And so when we think about biblically, what are we to do in that space? Say we go, we lament, we bring it before the Lord. What are we carrying? What are the burdens that are weighing us down?

I think we can remind ourselves of the hope we have in God's sovereignty and his justice. Sometimes the overwhelm that we feel is because of the evil in this world. And it just is, is this ever gonna end? It feels like so much. And so going back to truths about God is a just God and evil will not have the final word and he sees what is happening.

There can be comfort in that. I also think creating the space for stillness is really important. So if you are someone who finds, I just go into helper mode and I go from thing to thing, forcing yourself to pause, to rest, to be still and know that he is God.

Psalm forty six ten.

Yeah. Yeah. So I I think some of those are just the initial things that that come to my mind. We need to embrace our limitations that you don't If some kinds of counseling cases are too burdensome for you, that's okay. It's okay to say, I don't know if I have the capacity or I'm the right person for this.

That doesn't mean God cannot heal that person or meet them in their story, but he doesn't necessarily have to use you. Exactly. It's okay.

You don't have to be the one.

You don't have to be the one all the time. Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, but not all the time.

Yeah. No, that's good. That's good. But thank you so much for joining us again on Speak the Truth as you are a regular attender to the podcast. We appreciate your wisdom and insight and getting into God's word and just encouraging those and thank you for the topic.

We appreciate it. Thank you guys for listening and we'll see you guys next time.

Thanks.