Soul Joy: Ditch Burnout and Fall in Love with Life

Be Here Now: Why Mindfulness Prevents Burnout in Helping Professions

• Dr. Julie Merriman • Season 2 • Episode 23

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Feeling scattered in your helping role? You're not alone. The Crown Chakra episode of SoulJoy tackles mindful presence—that deceptively simple yet transformative quality that can revolutionize your work as a helping professional.

Mindful presence isn't about emptying your mind or becoming passive. Rather, it's a multi-dimensional awareness that encompasses truly attending to your client, noticing your own internal reactions without judgment, being aware of the dynamic between you, and keeping your mental energy focused on the now instead of wandering to past or future concerns.

When you cultivate this quality, the benefits ripple outward. Clients feel truly seen and heard, fostering deeper trust. Your clinical judgment sharpens as you pick up on subtle cues that might otherwise be missed. Most importantly for sustainability, mindful presence acts as a protective factor against burnout and compassion fatigue by keeping you grounded in the manageable present rather than ruminating or catastrophizing.

Dr. Julie offers six practical, accessible strategies you can integrate into your busy day: pre-interaction pauses, mindful listening, body scan breaks, mindful movement during transitions, single-tasking, and self-compassion practices. Each takes just minutes but can transform both the quality of your work and your experience of it.

Remember—your most powerful tool isn't your knowledge or techniques, but your presence itself. When you're truly present, you create a ripple effect that enables clients to be more present, fosters deeper connections, and ultimately elevates the profound impact of your work. Subscribe to the SoulJoy email list to receive the companion worksheet that will help you implement these practices in your daily routine.

Speaker 1:

Hey y'all, I'm Dr Julie Merriman, and welcome to SoulJoy. Today's episode is focused on the Crown Chakra and talking about a concept that is both deceptively simple and profoundly transformative mindful presence, because, y'all this is a very necessary component of holistic, sustainable self-care, also known as wellness. All right, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope y'all are doing great, as always this is, anyway. I just really appreciate y'all being here with me. So, quick home, catch up, catching up, not catch up, let's see. We just got back from Montana, where our oldest son lives, with his family, wife, precious wife, and two kids Teenagers. Now, my goodness, they've gotten big. My grandson, last time I saw him, wasn't as tall as I am, and now he's as tall as my husband, who's six foot two, and he has a very deep voice. They grow so fast. Anyway, though, when we were up there, cliffy did a ranch rodeo. My God, that was exciting. My son is so talented. He had such a great team. It was just. If you ever get a chance to see a ranch rodeo, I highly recommend it. Good times for all.

Speaker 1:

Okay, professional helpers, this podcast is dedicated to preventing and overcoming the occupational hazards of this amazing career we chose, and those hazards are burnout, compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma. They're real and in the demanding world of helping professions, it doesn't matter if you're a therapist, a social worker, an educator, a doctor, a nurse, any role where you're deeply engaged with others. Our minds are often racing, we're analyzing, we're planning, we're remembering details from the last client, we're anticipating the next meeting or worrying about an outcome. This constant mental activity, while sometimes y'all it's necessary, can pull us away from the very moment we need to be the most engaged the present moment with the person in front of us. As therapists, that's the most amazing gift we give our clients uninterrupted presence. But what if the most powerful tool we possess isn't a new technique or a specialized certification, but simply the ability to be fully here right now?

Speaker 1:

Mindful Presence, as we're going to explore today, is more than just a buzzword. It's a fundamental skill that directly impacts our effectiveness y'all. It prevents burnout and it deepens the very essence of the work we do. Today, we'll define what mindful presence truly means in a helping context, and we're going to uncover its immense benefits. We're going to address the common barriers that pull us away from this mindful presence and offer practical strategies, y'all, to cultivate this vital quality in your demanding professional life.

Speaker 1:

So let's clarify what mindful presence entails for helping professionals. Let's clarify that you know it's not about emptying your mind or becoming passive. Instead, y'all, it's about intentional, nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment, specifically as it relates to our professional interactions and our own internal states. So think of it as a multi-layered awareness. Okay, not just flat, there's multi-layers.

Speaker 1:

First we have to attend to the client, the person, and, as y'all know, this is foundational. It means truly listening, not just waiting for your turn to speak. It's observing your client's nonverbal cues. We're looking at, not looking. We're listening for their tone of voice, we're looking for subtle shifts and we're picking up on what's unsaid. You know the underlying stuff, the unsaid stuff.

Speaker 1:

Then we have to attend to self. Simultaneously, while we are attending to the client, we're attending to self. It's about noticing our own thoughts, emotions, physical sensations as they arise during an interaction. I know you're aware of that urge to interrupt that flicker of impatience or that knot in your stomach, without reacting to them, but instead using them as information. Now, don't get me wrong, there are times we do need to interrupt because that is a therapeutic interruption. But I'm talking about when you just feel that flicker of impatience, if you will, Just noticing, but we don't react, we just use that information and then we have attending to the interaction, and this y'all is being aware of the dynamic between you and the other person, the flow of energy, moments of connection or disconnection, the unspoken atmosphere and finally there's being fully there. And so what I mean by this y'all?

Speaker 1:

This is the core. It means your mental energy is focused on the now, not mentally planning your next question, reviewing previous notes, thinking about your grocery list or judging yourself. Your mental energy is in the here and now. Your mental energy is in the here and now. See, in essence, mindful presence allows you to step out of autopilot and into a state of deliberate engagement and compassionate observation. Okay, the impact of cultivating mindful presence y'all it's profound, creating a ripple effect that benefits not just you but also those you serve. So let's dive a little deeper here. As always, I do some research for y'all before I prepare these podcasts and this next component, these next components, come from some of this research.

Speaker 1:

So when we're considering how we cultivate mindful presence in this profound manner, there's things we need to consider. We need to consider enhanced empathy and connection. When you are fully present, clients feel truly seen and heard and understood, and this helps foster deeper trust and it strengthens rapport and creates a more genuine human connection. Think of Yalom's tenants, think of Rogers, how he approached therapy. And next you want to consider improved clinical judgment and intuition. So this means you have less mental clutter, which helps you have clearer insights. It helps you have clear insights.

Speaker 1:

Mindful presence allows you to pick up on subtle clues, nuanced information and intuitive nudges that y'all it might otherwise be missed. When your mind is preoccupied, you miss stuff. Having a clear mind, being mindfully present, helps your discernment sharpen. And then you want to consider reduced burnout and stress. See, being present reduces the tendency to ruminate about past difficulties or make things feel very catastrophic, especially when you look at future challenges. It helps you stay grounded and manageable now, preventing the mental spillover of work stress into your personal life. It's a key strategy for emotional regulation and preventing that secondary trauma that goes into vicarious trauma and compassion, fatigue and all those kinds of things that we're impacted with in this field. The more you're able to be present, the less you have to deal with the burnout and stress.

Speaker 1:

And then we consider ethical practice. Mindful presence supports ethical decision-making because it allows for careful consideration. You're able to pause before you react and your responses are thoughtful and aligned with your values and what the literature says they should be aligned with. Talk about our codes and our rules and regs from the state board and just whatever theory you might be in. This happens instead of impulsive or fear-driven decisions. Yes, then you consider greater professional satisfaction. Y'all, when you're truly present, the work feels more meaningful, you're more engaged, you're less likely to just go through the motions, you experience the richness of each interaction and you better believe. Your client knows that difference. You know the difference at the end of the day. Your client knows that difference. You know the difference at the end of the day. And lastly, you want to consider powerful modeling for clients. You subtly model presence when you give presence. You model self-regulation when you self-regulate. You model non-judgmental awareness when you give nonjudgmental awareness, and this can be invaluable for clients learning similar skills, y'all for their own well-being.

Speaker 1:

So if mindful presence is so beneficial, why is it so often so challenging to maintain? Well, there's some reasons. First, I want to invite you to be gentle with yourself. We're human. We're not going to be 100% all the time with anything we try. We're human beings, we're not robots, and we have days where we're more on point than days when we're off a bit. But, giving yourself some grace there, I do encourage you to look at where you've set your bar and could it be raised just a little bit when it comes to mindfulness presence. So these are some things, as I looked at the research, that appear to be present when it comes to challenging the maintenance of mindful presence. So let's look at having a high cognitive load. We often juggle an immense amount of information, and this information isn't just flat-lined information. These are human beings we're working with. Thus, this requires complex cognitive processes constantly, throughout the day.

Speaker 1:

Then there's performance anxiety. There's a pressure to fix or find the right answer because, right, we have insurance companies coming after well, not coming after us, but having expectations. Clients are paying us money to do our job. I mean, there's expectations and this can create this performance anxiety. You know, as I said, to fix or I want to find the right answer, and this pressure creates a mental urgency that pulls us away from observation, pulls us away from the mindful presence. Then there's emotional reactivity. It's really easy to get caught up in a client's distress or our own emotional responses, from a client's distress or trauma stories, and this could lead to enmeshment, countertransference or withdrawal. And first I'm going to put a period right there we want to seek consultation. If we find ourself in this place, it's not we've done anything wrong. It means we have some things that would be well served, seeking some supervision or consultation, but knowing that this emotional reactivity also pulls us from the ability to have mindful presence.

Speaker 1:

And then there's internal and external distractions. Our phones God. Do you remember when phones were hooked to the wall and didn't follow us around all day? I'm of a certain generation, certainly remember that. Oh, that was. I mean, I long for those times. But this is here to there. Our phones aren't extracted. Our distractions overflowing inboxes, be it hard hard mail, snail mail or electronic mail. Our own thoughts and worries constantly vie for our attention and this can pull us from mindful presence and habitual mind wandering. Our brains are simply wired to jump from thought to thought, planning the future or living the past. Our brains are wired to seek out danger, to seek out things that might be threatening to our ability to stay alive. Now, this is our limbic system. Our polyvagal system gets triggered, but it's online, and this habitual mind-wandering is part of that. Now I'm talking about jumping from thought to thought, but if you look at our ancestors, this mind-wandering were things that kept our ancestors alive. So our brain is wired for this and it pulls us from mindful presence.

Speaker 1:

The good news is that cultivating mindful presence is a skill and, like any skill y'all, it can be developed and strengthened with practice. But you've got to make the 10 to 15 minutes a day to do it for yourself. It's not going to happen by magic and I'm speaking, I'm talking to myself, really. So I say that I signed up for a meditation channel, I don't know, three weeks ago and I've listened to it twice, and you know better, take care of my business before I start talking to others. Huh, we have to make time for ourselves. So I've started the last couple of times, the last two days. I've been good about it. I set a timer on my clock on my phone and it goes off and I just, whatever I'm doing, I put my earphones in and I do my meditation, whatever y'all need to do for yourselves to make it happen.

Speaker 1:

First, I want to normalize. We know it's good. Right, we're in the field of helping. We know the things that help. How often do we not do it for ourselves? So I just invite you to figure out a way to make that happen for you. So we need to cultivate mindful presence and, as I said, it's a skill and we can strengthen this skill and I'm going to give you some accessible strategies to help you integrate into your demanding professional life as I have a demanding professional life strategies that can help you be more comfortable in your skin, enjoy your clients more, enjoy your home life more. These are simple things to commit to. It's a commit, it is. I had to commit to setting that phone timer and doing my meditation. Okay.

Speaker 1:

So, number one, there's the pre-interaction pause. So how this works before each client session, team meeting or significant interaction, you simply take one to two minutes. Or significant interaction, you simply take one to two minutes. You simply close your eyes. If you're in an appropriate location, it feels good for you, you can keep your eyes open, you focus on your breath and you set an intention to be fully present. You release any lingering thoughts from the previous task and you arrive present, y'all. The benefit here is that this clears mental clutter and signals a transition to your mind, to your amygdala hey, we're transitioning here and helps you into focused attention. Okay, number two mindful listening, deep listening, how this looks. You consciously dedicate your full attention to hearing every word, tone and pause. You observe nonverbal cues like body language, facial expressions, and you notice when your mind wanders and you gently bring it back. The benefit here is that this is going to improve rapport, it's going to ensure you gather accurate information and it's going to reduce assumptions.

Speaker 1:

Number three one of my favorites body scan breaks. So this would look like you take short breaks between clients or tasks one to two minutes to quickly scan your body head to toe. I've, if you go back to my first few episodes in season one, I take you through body scans through the chakra system. Every time I do a body scan, every time I have a client do a body scan, I'm also seeing where that physical sensation is landing, what chakra that's landing in, and that gives me a lot of information. But you do your scan from head to toe. You notice any areas of tension, relaxation or sensation without judgment. The benefit here is that this is going to ground you in your physical experience Somatic, right, this is very somatic. This is going to help release accumulated tension and it pulls your awareness into the present moment as you're scanning. You cannot be anywhere but present. Again, I highly encourage you to go back and listen to my two episodes on body scans and chakra systems I think that has some really good and listen to my two episodes on body scans and chakra systems. I think that has some really good information that could help you with those body scans.

Speaker 1:

Okay, number four there's mindful movement transition moments. What this looks like when you're walking between offices to the break room, up to get your client to your car. Pay attention to the sensations of your feet on the ground, your breath and the sights and sounds around you. The benefit here is that this transforms mundane transitions into opportunities for mindful practice and it brings you back to the present opportunities for mindful practice. And it brings you back to the present. Side note if you have a client that really escalates in your office, I use this mindful movement to help them become more grounded. Now I might have them walk around the office. I might have them name five things they can see, name four things they could hear and things like that to try and get them grounded. But I believe the more somatic we can be ourselves and help our clients be, the more we live in our bodies and that gives us some just a presence knowing who we are being able to be grounded and alive, knowing who we are being able to be grounded and alive. The benefit for this mindful movement also is that well, I told you, it transforms transitions and it's going to help you stay more in the present.

Speaker 1:

And number five one thing at a time, single tasking. So what this looks like is for you to deliberately commit to focusing on one task completely before moving to the next. That gives you a sense of accomplishment. It feels for me, it feels so damn good to mark something off my to-do list, feel like I've accomplished something. And it helps close unnecessary tabs and silence notifications. The benefit here is that it reduces cognitive overload, it helps you improve focus and it enhances the quality of your attention. And finally, number six I talk about self-compassion a lot because it's eminently important and I will continue to talk about self-compassion a lot because it's eminently important and I will continue to talk about it. But mindful self-compassion break.

Speaker 1:

So what this looks like when you notice yourself judging yourself or in judgment of others, when you feel frustrated with self or others or you feel overwhelmed, creeping in, I want you to pause, place a hand on your heart and offer yourself words of kindness and understanding. This is a moment of difficulty. May I be kind to myself. You say something nice to yourself. I even pat my face sometimes. I might have one hand on my heart and pat my face. I want to release some oxytocin, too, to help me feel more grounded and satiated. The benefit here is that you're regulating your emotions, you're creating inner safety, and this allows for greater presence by reducing self-criticism.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so there's six completely free strategies you can employ when you're really trying to bring mindful presence into your life. See, cultivating rather mindful presence is an ongoing practice, right? Nothing we do is one and done, and we're not going for a state of perfection. There's going to be times, as I said earlier, we're human. We're not 100%. There's going to be times when your mind wanders, and y'all that's okay. The practice is simply noticing that wandering. You want to notice when you're wandering, when that mind is going elsewhere, and then you gently guide your attention back to the present moment. As helpers, your most important tool isn't your knowledge or your skills although those are very important, don't get me wrong but your presence, your very presence is the gift you bring. When you're truly present, y'all, you're creating a ripple effect. You're going to enable your clients to be more present, foster deeper connections and ultimately elevate the profound impact of your work.

Speaker 1:

Okay, commercial break. Subscribe to my email list to get the weekly podcast emailed to you. It's going to arrive in your inbox. It's going to arrive with a link to the podcast and it's going to arrive with a free PDF that I create each week to go with the activity I'm about to take you through. Just hop on over to wwwjuliemerrimanphdcom. Check out the website. You could pick up my books In Pursuit of Soul Joy. You could hop on my calendar if you want any coaching or therapy. There's all kinds of goodies. I've got a self-care challenge. It's worth a hop over. So, juliemerrimanphdcom. Okay, back to our program.

Speaker 1:

The activity I created for you this week is called the Presence Check-In, a practice for helping professionals and y'all. I designed this activity to help you actively engage with the concepts from this episode of Soul Joy. Y'all, through guided reflection and a short practical exercise, you're going to explore your current level of presence in your work and develop strategies to deepen it. Okay, so you know you can think through this as you're driving or walking or doing your laundry, or I know I like to listen to podcasts when I'm cleaning house or cooking or whatever. You can think through it. But I highly encourage you to get on the email list, get this PDF and re-listen to this episode and work through the PDF. So if you do that, you want to find a quiet space. You want to be able to focus without interruption. Re-listen to this episode and, as you listen, pay close attention to the descriptions of mindful presence that we just went through and the benefits of mindful presence as well as barriers that can pull us away from mindful presence with clients, with patients, with students.

Speaker 1:

Identify two to three specific patterns or situations where you notice times you feel highly present. What contributes to your presence? Times you struggle to be present. What pulls you away from the moment? And an example might be I feel most present when a client is sharing a significant emotional moment. I struggle to be present when I'm feeling rushed or behind schedule. I relate to that, but I've really tried to get better with my self-talk and take a deep breath and tell myself it's okay, I'm doing the best I can. The world's not going to come to an end.

Speaker 1:

If I'm a couple of minutes late, my grandmother raised me. And how many Raise your hand? Boom. My grandmother raised me to believe if I'm not 15 minutes early, I'm late and I have run my life by that. But as I'm older now I'm really trying. I mean, I want to respect other people's time and I'm not going to run way late. But if I'm there at five till instead of 15 minutes till, I'm going to give myself some grace and I invite you to do the same.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so that's step one. You identify patterns where you are present and where you struggle to be present. Then, step two you explore the impact For each pattern you identified in the first step. Explore the impact of your level of presence, or lack thereof, on both yourself and your work. So I want you to consider the impact on you, the helper. Do you experience stress? Do you experience energy? Is there a sense of connection to the work? Is there overall well-being? The impact on your clients, your work, your helper's role. What's the quality of rapport? What's the depth of understanding? What's the effectiveness of the interventions you're using? How's your client progressing? You want to explore the impact. You were looking at your presence or lack thereof. You want to explore the impact of your presence or lack thereof.

Speaker 1:

And then, step three, the mini presence practice. You choose one situation from the very first step where you struggle to be present. I want you to close your eyes and bring to mind a recent example of that situation, and then I want you to spend two to three minutes practicing mindful presence in this imagined scenario. So you're going to focus on your breath, sensations in your body, sounds in your environment, any thoughts or emotions that arise, observing everything without judgment. Once you do that, I want you to note your observations, write them down. I want you to note your observations, write them down. What did you notice about your ability to stay present? What challenges arose? What strategies helped you to return to the present moment? And then, in step four, as I usually sum things up, you're going to do an action plan. You're going to commit to that. You're going to choose one specific strategy from the podcast this podcast that you're willing to commit to, when and where you're going to do it, and a brief statement of your commitment to integrate this practice.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's all for this episode. Again, there's a beautiful PDF to go with this activity. I really encourage you to sign up on my email list. Thank you so much for listening and thank you for your dedication to being fully present for those you serve. And until next time, embrace the power of now and keep thriving in your helping role. Subscribe to my podcast, leave a review to help me reach more folks and, until next time, take care of you.