Preventing Secondary Trauma and Compassion Fatigue with Laura van Dernoot Lipsky

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Education, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2022

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With so much suffering going on in the world that’s worthy of our compassion and engagement, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by it even as we have the desire to remain engaged. Secondary traumatic stress is the stress we are exposed to when we interact with other people’s stress, and it manifests at both an individual and societal level. When not managed effectively, it wears us down and diminishes our ability to contribute in a positive way. On this episode of Being Well, Forrest talks with trauma expert Laura van Dernoot Lipsy about how we can better manage secondary traumatic stress, how to avoid burnout and overwhelm, and what it looks like to stay hopeful and live fully in the face of daunting societal challenges. About Our Guest: Laura van Dernoot Lipsky is the founder and director of The Trauma Stewardship Institute and author of Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others and The Age of Overwhelm. She is a widely recognized pioneer in the field of trauma exposure and has worked locally, nationally, and internationally for more than three decades. Laura is also the host of Future Tripping, a podcast about navigating overwhelm. Watch the Episode: Prefer watching video? You can watch this episode on YouTube. Key Topics: 0:00: Introduction 1:35: Laura’s personal experience 4:10: How secondary trauma shows up for people 6:45: Martyrdom and the responsibility of organizations to create sustainable environments 10:30: Concern with how trauma is normalized within communities 14:10: Internalized oppression and overwhelm in the broader culture 17:40: The broader systemic context and the ineffectiveness of burning yourself out 21:50: The necessity of taking breaks 26:40: How to feel okay taking time to unplug from discourse on charged topics 33:35: Differentiating between spheres of control and acknowledging grief 37:45: Finding ways to stay hopeful 40:35: What Laura is grateful for and stressed about 44:35: Recap Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Have a question for us? Email: contact@beingwellpodcast.com to submit questions or potential topics you'd like us to explore in future episodes. Sponsors: Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month! Want to sleep better? Try the Calm app! Visit calm.com/beingwell for 40% off a premium subscription. Try Splendid Spoon today and take meal-planning off your plate. Just go to SplendidSpoon.com/BEINGWELL for $50 off your first box Connect with the show: Subscribe on iTunes Follow Forrest on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Follow Forrest on Instagram Follow Rick on Facebook Follow Forrest on Facebook Visit Forrest's website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Being Well, I'm Forest Hanson.
0:10.4	If you're new to the podcast, this is where we explore the practical science of lasting
0:14.2	well-being.
0:15.2	And if you've listened before, welcome back.
0:17.6	There's often more than enough stress in our own lives, but these days it feels like
0:21.5	we have much more than our own lives to worry about.
0:24.8	There is so much going on out in the world that's worthy of our attention, our compassion,
0:29.6	our support, and our engagement.
0:31.9	And that caring that give a shit factor is a beautiful thing.
0:35.9	It's how movements are perpetuated, it's how changes made, it's how we improve society
0:40.2	as a whole.
0:41.2	But there are also costs to our ever more connected, always on society, to the seemingly constant
0:46.6	barrage of suffering that we're always just a few clicks away from.
0:51.0	Repeated exposure to the pain of others, which is sometimes referred to as secondary traumatic
0:54.6	stress, adds up in our system over time.
0:57.3	It wears us down, and it diminishes our ability to contribute in a positive way.
1:01.7	So the trick then is to learn how to stay present, open, and engaged without, to quote today's
1:06.0	guest, surrendering the ability to live fully.
1:10.2	Today I'm joined by the founder and director of the Trauma Stewardship Institute, Laura
1:14.2	Vanderneut Lipski.
1:15.8	Laura is the author of the wonderful books Trauma Stewardship and Everyday Guide to caring
1:20.0	for self-hull caring for others and her newest book The Age of Overwhelm, Strategies for
	...

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