To lead and coach means to hear, feel, and sense the emotional energy of others, unfolding what lies within. Compassion is an essential aspect of what we do. Yet at times, the intensity of this work can make it challenging to maintain healthy boundaries – to keep from drowning in the pain of our clients and those we lead.
Leaders and coaches that I train, coach, mentor and supervise have wondered about how to create an empathetic and compassionate space for those we serve, without doing a deep dive into the same emotional space ourselves. They ask – how do we hold space for heavy emotion without carrying it with us?
Why are compassionate boundaries needed?
As Daniel Goleman wrote, moods are contagious. We can become more aware and intentional in what we catch and spread.
In becoming curious about how to hold this space, I first sensed into the anxiety behind the question and felt momentarily anxious that I couldn’t help. I noticed I wanted to remove my discomfort with their discomfort – to provide an answer. I even worried that these coaches and leaders might be asking the wrong person.
I am quick to sense, feel, reflect and express emotion, sometimes in a big way. Yet the intensity of an emotion doesn’t linger long. Rather than dwelling on one note, I tend to experience a full ranging melody as it passes through me. I’m not saying this is a good thing, though it seems to support the work I do.
Sometimes I judge my felt response to big world events and small collective events to be too small, too cold, too mechanical. Many show their care through suffering in solidarity. While I care, my instinct is to sense it, feel it, express it and then decide what I will do – if anything.
At the very start of my career, I quickly had to decide what was mine to do.
When does compassion tip into the danger zone?
I was working for a Tanzanian environmental NGO, living and working in a village in the biodiverse forests of the East Usambara Mountains. Need was all around us. As forest flora and fauna continued to become extinct, loss was echoed in the village as people died of maladies including AIDS, malaria, and complications of childbirth.
The NGO had the only vehicle in that village and those surrounding it. On days that I planned to drive to town, I would awake to find many people at my back door, hoping to gain transport. The villagers soon learned what my list of questions would be.
First – who needed to go to hospital? Then – how many children, chickens and bags were to come with each person? The hospital – sometimes two hours, sometimes nine hours away, depending on the condition of the road – was our first stop. Even so, I am saddened to remember that over the four years I lived in the village, we had two people die in the back of the all-terrain vehicle before we could complete the drive to a graded road and access help.
Many of my colleagues worked for NGOs focused on environment, health, and refugee support. Many came from overseas and stayed for months or years. Others are still there.
I noticed that some struggled with burnout. Sometimes the need to help or be helpful became dangerous, with those we contemptuously called the ‘bleeding hearts’ morphing into having a saviour complex.
They had come to help, but weren’t clear within themselves of their role and purpose. They didn’t hold good boundaries, and so made choices that could be dangerous.
Here then is the question – how do we hold that tension between compassion and overwhelm? It\’s the topic of the second part of this reflection.
Kerry Woodcock PhD, PCC, ORSCC, ACTC, EIA-SP, ITCA, ESIA, develops core, collective and change leadership capacity in leaders, teams and organizations, coaching pioneers and influencers to amplify the power of relationship and lead over the edge of change.
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