What do a candle that's about to go out and a millennial have in common? That's right, burnout. This is a common problem for modern workers, so much so that WHO even included burnout syndrome in the list of diseases, but it will be possible to officially diagnose it from 2022: as soon as the new international classification of diseases comes into force, psychotherapists will be able to make such a diagnosis and prescribe appropriate treatment . In the meantime, we all have to cope on our own.
It’s one thing if you yourself are trying to survive when “you’re on fire, and everyone’s on fire” - you probably remember the rituals that can make life easier. It’s completely different if in the place of the dog from the meme there is a friend desperately begging for help.
We all want to help our loved ones, but it’s hard to do this if you also have low empathy. Your friend spends hours talking about how sick she is of her life, and all you can squeeze out is a message like “Don’t be sad”? You've come to the right place: we'll tell you how to support a friend with burnout if you seem to have a strained relationship with feelings and empathy.
Method 3. “Don’t be afraid to express your feelings”
It is difficult for us to be around someone who is genuinely suffering. Subconsciously, we strive to lift the mood of our interlocutor, make him laugh, and turn everything into a joke. But it doesn't work that way. The stage of negative emotions is important - in order to accept and let go of the situation. Tell him you don't judge him. And that it is normal to feel grief, disappointment, and even anger, and there is no need to be afraid to show these feelings. Help your friend open up to you to ease their pain. Having poured out his worries, he will feel better.
Offer to talk to him in person
Ask your friend if you can help him with something, then he will understand that it is okay to open up to you. You probably won’t even be required to actually solve problems: sometimes it’s enough to give the person the opportunity to talk about what’s boiling over. Meet in person, drink a mug of your favorite tea, eat delicacies - this way you will make it clear that you can support your loved one, no matter what.
How to learn to be compassionate
Letter to the editor:
Hello! I have a question about how to help a loved one, but not in a material sense, but to support him in a human way. Because with this there is always something not quite right, as it seems to me. For example, you helped with money or did something else, but what do you say when a person simply feels bad, when he cries or constantly complains to you? As usual, you say “everything will be fine” or “don’t cry,” but it’s somehow past the point, and I just don’t know what else to say - I can’t look into his soul, and I’m still not his mom or dad. . I feel very uncomfortable in such cases, as if I am not meeting the person’s expectations; it seems to me that he begins to think that I don’t really care about his problems, although I honestly want to help. What can you do here?
Andrey, Vyborg
Psychologist Alexander Tkachenko answers a reader’s question
You will regret it. How to support a person so that he doesn’t get worse
“Man is a being who suffers in the world and is compassionate, wounded by pity; this is the height of human nature,” wrote the Russian religious philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev. We all experience grief ourselves from time to time, or we grieve together with other sufferers, supporting them in difficult times. But we do it very differently. For some people, empathy seems natural, like breathing, and they do not experience serious difficulties when communicating with a suffering person. Others are forced to make a serious effort for this. Sometimes it is so serious that there is simply not enough strength for sympathy and the person generally refuses to participate in someone else’s misfortune. And with the receiving party, too, everything is not as simple as it might seem.
Many people are familiar with the situation when, in a difficult moment, they suddenly begin to “comfort” you so persistently that you are ready to forget about your grief, just to get rid of this “help” as quickly as possible.
But no matter how complex and contradictory the options for such relationships may be, the person in them still remains the same - a suffering and compassionate being, wounded by pity. This is the measure of our humanity, its necessary minimum, falling below which a person simply ceases to be human. Therefore, for each of us there is an urgent need for a skill that, alas, not everyone possesses - the ability to sympathize without being destroyed by the pain of others and without causing even greater suffering to another with our pity. But before we start talking about this skill, it is necessary to make a digression on an equally important topic - about personal boundaries.
Thesis one: Respecting the personal boundaries of another person is a necessary condition for love in its Christian understanding
When we hear the word “border,” we immediately associate it with some kind of separation, fencing off from something. But this is by no means the only function of boundaries. Oddly enough, they are the ones who create the possibility of interstate relations, agreements on mutual assistance, trade, and cooperation. If there were no borders between states, the states themselves would disappear as subjects of these relations. In the same way, any relationship between people is possible only where there is me, there is another, and there are boundaries that determine where I end and where the other begins. Where these boundaries do not exist, relationships disappear, giving way to unconscious servicing of other people's feelings, needs, whims and sins, which a person begins to perceive as his own.
Paradoxically, personal boundaries allow us to maintain freedom, without which even love turns into a faceless fusion, when one person becomes part of another, losing its independent existence.
Christian writer C. S. Lewis directly called this “devouring love” demonic. Here is how Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh comments on his thoughts: “...When we say that we love a person, what does that really mean? There is an English writer Lewis, who wrote a book of letters from an old demon to his young nephew... This is really about spiritual life, only inside out; and this old devil gives professional advice to a young devil who has just been released into the world, about how to treat people, what to do in order to seduce and destroy them...
And by the way, he says in one of his letters with bewilderment: “I can’t understand... Christ says that He loves people and leaves them free. How can we combine this?” And he continues: “I love you, but this means that I want to take you into my claws, hold you so that you don’t run away from me, swallow you, make my food out of you, digest you so that you won’t leave me.” there would be nothing left outside of me. This is what I, says the old devil, call love. But Christ,” he says, “loves and sets free...”
So, respecting the personal boundaries of another person is a necessary condition for love in its Christian understanding. This means that we can show Christian compassion for our neighbors only by respecting other people’s boundaries and not forgetting about our own.
Thesis two: Behind a request for help, completely different human needs can be hidden.
People often need compassion, sometimes asking for it almost openly. However, behind such a request there may be very different needs, which I would like to briefly talk about, dividing them into several categories.
1. Real need for emotional support.
It is experienced by people who are in trouble and feel that they themselves can no longer cope with their grief. It probably doesn’t make sense to describe in detail different options for difficult life situations here. In addition, people's psychological resistance to stress varies. Someone is able to courageously experience the death of loved ones, loss of health, divorce, betrayal of friends. And for some, a protracted quarrel with parents or a bad grade in a grade book may become an unbearable test. Therefore, without being specific, let’s simply accept it as a fact that this category includes everyone who is feeling very bad right now.
2. Unmet need for communication.
Sometimes a person simply does not have enough attention. There is no one to talk to him, no one to listen to him, no one with whom he can share his feelings and thoughts. Why this happened is a separate conversation, but this is how a person’s life turned out. At some point, he learns a simple truth: people are much more generous in their conversation with those whom they want to feel sorry for. And now any everyday problem turns for him almost into a disaster, malaise into the beginning of a terrible illness, fleeting grief into depression. And every time the next “trouble” becomes a convincing reason to call your family or friends in order to inform them in a dying voice about how terrible everything around and inside is. Well, then you can allow your anxious interlocutors to calm yourself down, listen to their sympathetic, encouraging words, and feel that you are still needed, important and interesting.
3. Overt manipulation that allows you to get what you want from people, against their will.
Actually, the previous category can also be classified as manipulation, with the only difference being that a person seeking communication and warmth most often manipulates his neighbors unconsciously. However, the same principle can be used if you clearly understand what exactly you are doing now and for what purpose. For example, start a conversation by describing your own troubles and suffering, making your interlocutor feel guilty for being so happy and prosperous in comparison with you. And after this, carefully negotiate for yourself all kinds of preferences and bonuses in the relationship. After all, an imposed feeling of guilt, like a thief’s master key, is one of the main tools that forces a person to do for you something that he had no intention of doing of his own free will.
With the first point, everything is obvious: a person needs help, which means it should be provided competently. But with points 2 and 3 the situation is somewhat more complicated. Although, it would seem, it couldn’t be simpler: manipulation is an unworthy thing, and if you discover it in a relationship, you should immediately stop communicating with such people. However, what if the manipulators suddenly turned out to be not some station swindlers who trade in fortune telling, but the people closest to you - your mother, grandmother, grown children, or simply someone whose communication you value?
Thesis three: Manipulators do not necessarily need to be indignantly excluded from the list of people worthy of sympathy, pity, and compassion.
They also need help, just of a different kind. And here you need to be able to recognize their true need in order to give them exactly what they are waiting for. So, for example, it is not at all necessary to console or encourage a person experiencing a lack of communication by listening to all his groans. Instead of participating in a performance about imaginary sorrows imposed on you, it will be much more productive to carefully shift the conversation to topics that are truly interesting to the person.
After all, he just wants to talk, he wants to be listened to and shown attention. Therefore, without reacting to his tear-squeezing story about the futility of existence, you can ask him about his grandmother’s unique borscht recipe, what kind of bait is best for perch in winter, or who was the vocalist of the band Deep Purple in 1975.
Talking about what is interesting to a person, what he has succeeded in and can share his experience is the best recipe for such cases.
With obvious manipulators, the situation is approximately the same: having skipped the “suffering” introductory part of the conversation and having found out what they really want from you, you should think about whether you are now ready to provide this help to the person. If so, then in plain text you can say in response something like the following: “I understand that you want to ask me to replace you during the holidays and come out to work on your shift?” It is very important here that the person himself voices or confirms the true content of his request. Then, from manipulation, your relationship will turn into a normal conversation between two adults, each of whom takes responsibility for their behavior. If for some reason you cannot or do not want to provide the expected service, you should also first clarify with your interlocutor what exactly he wants from you. Then calmly and politely refuse him.
It would seem that all this has nothing to do with compassion and pity for one’s neighbor. But, unfortunately, many cases when sympathy is expected from us turn out to be ordinary manipulations, where they are simply going to use us “in the dark” to satisfy their needs, while completely ignoring our desires and capabilities. Indulging a manipulator in this is an obvious sin against one’s neighbor, who, like Lewis’s demon, seeks to deprive freedom and make part of himself everyone he “loves.”
Thesis Four: Christian compassion cannot be forced
This is where personal boundaries come to the rescue, allowing us to determine where our needs end and where the needs of another person begin. A person can consciously sacrifice his time, mental strength and other resources only when he clearly sees that these resources belong to him and he himself decides to share them. But if, instead of such awareness, a vague feeling of guilt arises in which you no longer understand whose need you are going to satisfy - your own or someone else's - then we can safely say that your personal boundaries have been broken by a manipulator who skillfully controls your emotions and behavior.
In such a state, any manifestations of your compassion can hardly be called the fulfillment of the Christian commandment of mercy: Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6: 1-2). After all, you can take on these hardships voluntarily, or you can just suddenly find someone else’s luggage on your neck, which they attach there without your permission, simultaneously cooing in your ears that, they say, this luggage is actually yours, you just used to be do not know.
It is obvious that even with good intentions one should not participate in someone else’s deception, which is trying to put on the clothes of compassion over ordinary human weakness and lack of will.
Jesus Christ, giving His life as a sacrifice for people who had fallen away from God, said: No one takes it from Me, but I myself give it. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to receive it again. I have received this commandment from My Father (John 10:18). Every Christian receives such power—to voluntarily sacrifice oneself for the sake of others—in holy baptism. And this is indeed power, which must be treasured, not forgetting its high origin. Christian compassion cannot be forced; it is always the fruit of a free choice in favor of love. Where they try to squeeze out this compassion through deception and manipulation, it is time to remember how the Pharisees tried to deceive Jesus Christ by asking him for spiritual guidance. And how they eventually received this instruction, but only after the angry words of the Teacher: Why do you tempt Me, you hypocrites?
Thesis five: Compassionate people can also have different motives, sometimes having little to do with actual participation in the pain of another person
These are, for example, the motivations for helping people with weak personal boundaries. Next to someone else's misfortune - real or imaginary - they always feel guilty and with their compassion they seem to try to atone for this guilt, although they have not done anything wrong. The absence of personal boundaries turns the soul of such a person into a passageway into which anyone can invade and behave as they please. Such people more often than others become victims of manipulators; they are unable to refuse anyone, because in case of refusal, the feeling of guilt can become unbearable.
From the outside it may seem that this is real sacrifice. But in fact, people of this type, through compassion, only serve their painful dependence on someone else’s emotional state.
The main sign of such “wrong” compassion can be considered the feelings of the helper himself after providing help. A persistent feeling of guilt, of being “drawn in” to someone else’s problem to such an extent that a person thinks about it all the time, forgetting about his own affairs, as well as the slight irritation caused by all this, which constantly has to be suppressed - this is the picture of compassion, which, instead of helping another, can destroy the most compassionate person .
Thesis six: You cannot get carried away with realizing your ambitions under the guise of help and compassion.
Another option for substituting motives is an unrealized thirst for power, control over other people. A person crushed by grief can be very defenseless. In this state, he may feel like a small child in need of adult help. And if the helper has a hidden desire to manage and dominate, in such a situation he should be very attentive to his feelings, so that, under the guise of help and compassion, he does not get carried away with the realization of his ambitions.
There are also other “benefits” for which a person is willing to endure the pain of others, for example, confirmation of one’s own importance or a feeling of being needed and in demand.
There is nothing terrible about this. To do good for the sake of good itself is the work of perfect and dispassionate people. And to do good, also with our own benefit in mind, is the lot of most of us. The Venerable Abba Dorotheos in his “Soulful Teachings” writes: “In three ways... we can please God - or we please Him, fearing torment, and then we are in the state of a slave; or, seeking reward, we fulfill God’s commands for our own benefit, and therefore we become like mercenaries; or we do good for the sake of good itself, and then we are in the state of a son.”
And if we suddenly discover that our compassion is not entirely disinterested, this only means that in fulfilling Christ’s commandment of mercy we are still like a slave or a mercenary.
But such compassion, according to Abba Dorotheus, is also pleasing to God. It is only important to be aware of these “side” motives in yourself and try to keep them under control, remembering that the main task here is still to satisfy the needs of the person in trouble.
Thesis seven: One of the main rules in communicating with a grieving person can be formulated as follows: if you don’t know what to say, it’s better to remain silent
The price of an empty or thoughtless word in a crisis situation increases many times over; instead of support and consolation, it can cause another wound to an already suffering person.
Although staying silent next to someone else’s grief is also oh so difficult. After all, compassion is shared suffering. And it happens that a person first sincerely wants to help, to support his neighbor in trouble. But, having approached his pain, taking part of it upon himself, he cannot stand it and tries to escape from this pain by any means. It seems that conscience does not allow leaving the grieving person completely (although it also happens: a person, out of fear of again experiencing someone else’s pain in compassion, simply stops picking up the phone, does not visit, does not answer letters).
And then, alas, the formulas of “consolation” that have already become traditional begin to escape from him as if of their own accord: “Don’t cry, others have it even worse than you,” “Now he (the deceased) is better off than us,” “It’s good that There’s more than one child of you.” All these and similar phrases are not born of compassion, but of the exact opposite feeling - the desire of a frightened heart to devalue someone else’s pain, and only after that take on part of such “neutralized” suffering. Of course, these attempts do not bring any relief to the grieving person, since they are aimed at satisfying the needs of the frightened “pityer”.
Another way of avoiding someone else’s pain under the guise of sympathy is a direct ban on grief: “Why are you limp? Cheer up, control yourself,” “Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” “You have to endure it, you have to move on.”
And, finally, the most “noble” option is a comparison with oneself as a loved one: “When my mother died, I almost went crazy,” “I know how difficult it is for you now, I went through it myself.”
All these words, seemingly intended to console, actually fulfill only one task - to stop a person from experiencing his grief, or at least to reduce its strength. Because being around him hurts us. And we want to not be hurt.
Thesis eight: A grieving person needs help to go through all stages of grief.
Meanwhile, a grieving person has a completely different need. He definitely needs to give vent to the emotions that are now literally tearing him apart. If they are simply suppressed (and this is what the “pity” options described above suggest), they can subsequently cause a lot of trouble, becoming the cause of neuroses and psychosomatic diseases.
Therefore, a grieving person must first of all be helped to go through all the stages of grief, feel the pain of loss, cry, get angry, simply whine and complain, cry on the shoulders of those who are ready to listen to all this without breaking down and without interrupting this vital process.
Once upon a time in the villages there was such a special profession - mourners. These were women who were invited to funerals to create a mournful atmosphere. The mourners acted as a kind of “detonator” of emotions, which in grieving relatives could be suppressed by the shock of the misfortune that had befallen them. Next to the inconsolably sobbing mourners, it was easier for the grieving person to finally give free rein to tears and sobs, freeing himself from the formidable consequences of unprocessed stress at the bodily level. Today there is no such profession, and many people consider crying, even in sorrowful circumstances, unacceptable.
Meanwhile, this is an absolutely natural movement of human nature, and the best proof of this is the tears of Jesus Christ, meeting the crying relatives and friends of the deceased Lazarus. Moreover, Christians have a direct commandment about precisely this kind of help for those who grieve: ... weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15).
If you don’t have the mental strength for this, you can remember how righteous Job’s friends, who came to support him in his grief, had compassion: ...And they sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights; and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great (Job 2:13). Next, Job suddenly begins to get angry and curse the night of his conception, the day of his birth and his entire life. He speaks long and passionately, but his friends again do not interfere with him either by word or gesture. Only when Job has finished his angry cry do they very delicately enter into a dialogue with him: ... if we try to say a word to you, won’t it be hard for you? (Job 4:2). The Book of Job is very ancient; the events described in it are more than three thousand years old. However, the behavior of the friends of the suffering Job can still be considered today as an important practical recommendation for those who are compassionate. They were simply nearby, with their silent support helping the sufferer go through the first two, very difficult stages of grief - the shock of what happened and the ensuing anger.
Thesis nine: The defining sign of correct compassion is awareness, a clear understanding of the picture of what is happening in one’s own soul
But here we need to repeat once again that being close to other people’s tears and other people’s anger is not at all an easy matter. Two very different psychological processes help us realize compassion—empathy and fusion. The practical result of our actions will directly depend on which one we use.
With empathy, we sympathize with another person, that is, we feel with him, understanding what is happening to him, what he needs. However, at the same time, we also continue to perceive our feelings, we understand what and why is happening at the same moment with our soul.
That is, we are again talking about the presence of personal boundaries that allow compassion without identifying oneself with the grieving person, while remaining oneself. If there are no boundaries or they are too blurred, we also feel together with the other person, but we seem to merge with him, “losing” ourselves. The most striking signs of such a merger are an irrational feeling of guilt and responsibility for the consequences of other people's actions. When merging, it is immeasurably more difficult to withstand the burden of someone else's pain. Therefore, such compassion most often ends either in flight from an unbearable burden, or in the rapid depletion of one’s own resources, when the helper himself will need someone’s support.
The famous Austrian writer Stefan Zweig surprisingly accurately described the duality of the human desire for sympathy: “There are two kinds of compassion. One is cowardly and sentimental, it is, in essence, nothing more than the impatience of the heart, rushing to quickly get rid of the painful sensation at the sight of someone else’s misfortune; This is not compassion, but only an instinctive desire to protect one’s peace from the suffering of one’s neighbor. But there is another compassion - true, which requires action, not sentimentality, it knows what it wants, and is full of determination, suffering and compassion, to do everything that is humanly possible and even beyond it.” Probably, only the last phrase of Stefan Zweig could be argued: taking on something that exceeds your strength is still a risky business in any case.
Otherwise, everything here is correct both from a Christian and from a psychological point of view. The defining sign of correct compassion is awareness, a clear understanding of the picture of what is happening in one’s own soul, which “knows what it wants.”
It is the conscious experience of someone else's pain, the desire to help and the willingness to endure this someone else's pain that allows a person to remain compassionate and act for the benefit of the sufferer. Or, more simply put, they allow, according to the apostolic word, to cry with those who cry and, as Berdyaev said, to be a suffering and compassionate being, wounded by pity. That is, a person.
Collages by Maria Ivanova
Let your friend know that he is a great person
Emotional burnout forces you to literally plunge into an ocean of internal complexes: here you have 24/7 self-flagellation, impostor syndrome, and other joys of life. During this difficult time, let your friend know that he deserves more: remind him why you started being friends with him, and tell him why you value your friend.
