Interview! Jennifer Blough, Compassion Fatigue Expert and Author

"Self care—it's not selfish; it's really charging your batteries so you can go out and have the energy to do what you love to do, which is saving animals."

Jennifer Blough, a licensed therapist, compassion fatigue expert and author of the bookTo Save a Starfish: A Compassion Fatigue Workbook for the Animal Welfare Warrior, was initially with us on Episode #78of the Community Cats Podcast. Since that time, Jennifer feels that we are starting to make some strides in awareness around compassion fatigue. Still, she thinks we have a long way to go in terms of addressing the in-fighting and "us vs. them" mentality often found between different groups of people working within animal welfare—all of which contributes to compassion fatigue.

To help with this, Jennifer started the Compassion Fatigue Podcast. One of her goals is to interview people from all different roles within animal welfare to expand understanding of the different approaches to helping animals. She wants to help people realize that we are all working toward the same goal; we just have different ways of getting there.

In spite of her work in the compassion fatigue field, Jennifer does not consider herself an expert at self-care, however. She herself tries to take baby steps (like deciding to stop checking her email right before bed), and urges others to do the same. She wants to make sure that people know that self-care is about finding what works for you, however—not about what you're "supposed to be doing"—and that what works for you can change over time. It's important to recognize that self-care is a process, and that you will need to manage your compassion fatigue for as long as you're in an environment that leads to it. She recommends a combination of pro-active self-care to help you build up resiliency and reactive self-care when you find yourself stressed and triggered.

Something new that Jennifer is offering to help those struggling with compassion fatigue is the Rescue Me retreat, an idea that came to her during a retreat for business owners where they were encouraged to slow down in order to spark innovation. The idea behind the Rescue Me retreat is to get people to slow down, learn about self-care, reconnect with nature, and be with a group of people that get you and share your passion so that you can go back recharged and ready to re-engage with your work. The retreat will have a therapeutic component as well, and Jennifer hopes it will help people heal from compassion fatigue.

Jennifer wants everyone to know that compassion fatigue is very normal, and that if you're struggling with it, it likely means you have a lot of compassion. It's just a matter of being aware of compassion fatigue and having the strength to do something about it with a self-care plan.

To learn more about Jennifer's work and her Rescue Me retreat, visit compassionfatiguepodcast.com.