Re-connection
This post is written for my fellow fresh social workers. :)
Life as a social worker is tough. Real tough. Yannie was saying she's real afraid and unsure of whether she would have the emotional toughness to handle it all. I said that when we enter the field, we actually discover that our hearts have more strength than we ever thought.
But of course, there's a limit to how much we can take also. In the face of adversity, especially adversity not belonging to us, when it starts to suck the life out of us, we can have one of a few responses. We can dig into our emotional reserves and empathise all we can. We can hate our jobs and hate those people we get into contact with. Or, most scarily, we can grow hard, numb, disengaged and aloof.
I told yannie, that to prevent our hearts from growing hard and indifferent, we need to constantly re-connect to love. The logic is simple. To receive love is one of life's most humbling experiences. Because deep down inside, when we receive love, we all know we don't deserve it. Not from our parents, not from our loved ones, not from God. That, if we were real with ourselves, produces humility.
Disengagement and indifference, to a certain extent, stems from a feeling that we are better and we can 'afford' to ignore suffering. Love which produces humility softens that hardness.
I know this all sounds fluffy. But it's applications can be very real. When we are tired, we need to reconnect with love. We need to meet people who will pour love into us. Our loved ones, our partners, friends. Isn't that what support groups are in essence? Spend time with people who accept us, with whom we don't have to be professional and try to phrase things properly, or try to be positive all the time. We need to be loved. Like I need to be loved right now.
Re-connect with love. And for Christians, we believe that God is the perfect embodiment of love. And we want to meet with Him for Him to pour love into our hearts. In a sense, that's our fuel for the days we live.
Life as a social worker is tough. Real tough. Yannie was saying she's real afraid and unsure of whether she would have the emotional toughness to handle it all. I said that when we enter the field, we actually discover that our hearts have more strength than we ever thought.
But of course, there's a limit to how much we can take also. In the face of adversity, especially adversity not belonging to us, when it starts to suck the life out of us, we can have one of a few responses. We can dig into our emotional reserves and empathise all we can. We can hate our jobs and hate those people we get into contact with. Or, most scarily, we can grow hard, numb, disengaged and aloof.
I told yannie, that to prevent our hearts from growing hard and indifferent, we need to constantly re-connect to love. The logic is simple. To receive love is one of life's most humbling experiences. Because deep down inside, when we receive love, we all know we don't deserve it. Not from our parents, not from our loved ones, not from God. That, if we were real with ourselves, produces humility.
Disengagement and indifference, to a certain extent, stems from a feeling that we are better and we can 'afford' to ignore suffering. Love which produces humility softens that hardness.
I know this all sounds fluffy. But it's applications can be very real. When we are tired, we need to reconnect with love. We need to meet people who will pour love into us. Our loved ones, our partners, friends. Isn't that what support groups are in essence? Spend time with people who accept us, with whom we don't have to be professional and try to phrase things properly, or try to be positive all the time. We need to be loved. Like I need to be loved right now.
Re-connect with love. And for Christians, we believe that God is the perfect embodiment of love. And we want to meet with Him for Him to pour love into our hearts. In a sense, that's our fuel for the days we live.
thanks liren for ur posts! i read some of them and i find that useful, insightful and thoughtful. keep writing...