Exhaustion

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, been busy with other things that I'll talk about sometime next week.  But to sum it all up since last week it has been this sort of feeling.

Exhaustion.

You have no idea about the sense of exhaustion you go through spiritually, emotionally, and physically every day.  It's not hard, but the job as a chaplain is demanding because you are always there for another person.  which means that you don't focus on yourself.  Sometimes it means putting on a smile when you don't feel like it (though I've never experienced that because i smile at everything).  Sometimes it means feeling the same emotions your patients are going through.  Sometimes it means going from one end of the hospital to another.  The focus not on one's self always puts you in a place to always give yourself to others, and always placing you in a trajectory towards exhaustion.

The first day we were told that for extroverts you will be exhausted by the emotions, the amount of people you have to talk to and sometimes deal with, the suppression of your own triggers of memories/emotions, etc.

I'm not an extrovert...i'm an introvert (high level), which means that all this drains me quicker. 

People ask me how i'm doing, I tell them I'm tired.  Which is true, but not in a bad way, I tell people that it is good to be tired because it means you did something which was probably meaningful.

But I must watch out for exhaustion because it will lead to me being burned out.  and i've felt it for the past week or so.  I feel like i can get into a schedule, and then a code blue or a death comes up and puts me behind. 

I just need to slow down, breathe, take my full lunch, rest, relax, and be ok with not getting through the entire list.  This is the advice given to me by the resident chaplains, Nancy, Ron, and Joy, as well as Chaplain Francis.