The Love Theorist

There is a common misunderstanding that if you are burnt out you can’t cope, that you are weak, that you can’t do your job. Burnout needs to be re-defined so we don’t keep blaming ourselves when our workplace has betrayed us. In fact signs of burnout are not the end of your strength rather that you are needing all your resources to do your job in taxing circumstances. Burnout can be thought of as our bodies protesting when our hearts have been over-ruled or hurt too many times.

In this podcast I suggest that by recognising several key feelings, namely, anguish, hopelessness, despair and shame that we can then trace the source of those exhausting and confidence depleting experiences. Drawing on Brene Brown’s idea of institutional betrayal, I suggest our heart-of-heart feelings are warning signs that the workplace is hurting us by unfair and unkind actions, perhaps also sometimes by failures to act to show care and regard for us. Our values can be betrayed when we can’t act to uphold them due to workplace toxicity or extreme demands. There can also be a betrayal in not recognising our effort and contribution. And the betrayal of the broken promise that our caring work of others would be held, supported and honored.

When institutional betrayal is rampant, this is not about individual failings to do our job well or to cope better, this is about a culture of complicity and shame (Brown 2021). The purpose, whether intentional or not, is to control workers through fear and undermining through blaming people for workplace short-comings. Burnout is experienced in our bodies and is thus very personal. Burnout is not a personal experience only though as it occurs through relationships and the patterns inherent in the workplace culture. It is an act of strength to survive or flourish in workplaces when feeling burnout and being impacted daily by betrayals.

Thank you for listening to my podcast and for supporting my work. You can follow me on TikTok and Instagram. You might find my book - Broken-heartedness: Towards love in professional practice - interesting for ideas and skills to resist harmful people and places, by being guided by the love ethic. Available at https://www.revolutionaries.com.au/books/p/bh

Cited reference:

Brown, B. (2021). Atlas of the heart. London: Penguin Random House.

Do feel free to drop me a comment here or I can be contacted directly at [email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

These last months I have had the privilege of tutoring in two counselling courses which are about the nature of helping and the kinds of experience which cause people to seek out a counsellor, social worker or psychologist … and many other professions in the human services sector. We spent a lot of time looking at theories, models, techniques and resources to help people. I had an uneasy sense for most of the time that we weren’t considering the whole picture of what helping is about. I stood in front of my bookshelf one night puzzling over what was bothering me. I picked up the beautiful book by David Brandon - Zen in the art of helping - which he wrote in 1976. That’s how long I’ve been inspired by his writing.

Brandon is a social worker and a practising Zen Buddhist monk. He explores the nature of helping from both these viewpoints and in so doing gives us an appreciation of what the idea of Zen - about nowness (and more) - can bring to our practice and lives. This podcast belongs in my set of podcasts in this collection of From my bookshelf, where I read excerpts from the book and make some additional comments of relevance to me and hopefully you, the listener.

I find the idea of Zen - the presence that is shared between people who are of equal intrinsic worth - as being about love, really interesting. I hadn’t made that connection in my earlier re-readings of Brandon’s book. The place of compassion is an integral dimension of love in this Zen space and is where healing and connection can happen. Much of Brandon’s book recounts what gets in the way of helping that really helps. In particular, he uses his own experiences to caution about our own internal motivations, judgements, biases and vulnerabilities that can undermine the best of intentions. I also appreciate that he recognises the societal factors that make it so hard to really help another person.

From this reading, I now aim to include the idea of Zen into my theory of love with its call to be aware, to be willing to keep learning, especially with and from the person we might be seeking to help. And to also always be alert to power inequalities both interpersonally in our work and home places … and to act to cause no harm arises due to these inequalities.

Drop me a note in comments and tell me what you think.

Thanks for your support.

Information about the source book for this podcast:

Brandon, D. (1976). Zen in the art of helping. England: Arkana Penguin Books.

My theory of love is presented in my book:

Ross, D. (2023). Broken-heartedness: Towards love in professional practice. Brisbane: Revolutionaries.

Contact me:

[email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

I’ve had the beautiful book, Atlas of the heart by Brene Brown, sitting on my bookshelf for ages. I pick it up at times and find myself reading a section in depth or a quote in big print or just looking at the thoughtful pictures and diagrams. This is an inspiring book about the importance of connection through increasing our emotional language and building bridges with each other to know love. Lately I’ve been thinking about Brown’s book in relation to my work on building a theory of love to address issues of lovelessness caused by violence and injustice. I found some of the feelings Brown writes about - eg love, lovelessness, heartbreak - are directly ones I have used in a more socio-political way and in so doing I have understated the power of emotions in experiences of broken-heartedness.

In this podcast I share some examples of Brown’s work about emotions and focus on several that are directly related to broken-heartedness - such as anguish, betrayal and hopelessness. In so doing I am beginning the task of placing our emotions at the centre of my theory of love instead of our emotional internal world being largely absent.

Do let me know what you think! Thanks for listening!

You can support my work by grabbing a copy of Broken-heartedness: Towards love in professional practice via the publisher’s website - https://www.revolutionaries.com.au/books

You can also follow me on Instagram or TikTok.

If you would like to be interviewed for a podcast on what love means to you, please reach out to me on [email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

Tropical Cyclone Alfred provides an opportunity, albeit unwelcome, to make some comments on my experience and gives me a chance to also comment on a concern I think needs some attention. As one of 4 1/2 million people in the direct line of threat as the cyclone approached the south east area of Queensland, my own experience is perhaps indicative of others, even though the impact directly on me and my home was limited to heavy rain. My main concern is that there is perhaps not enough credence given to the extreme, intense emotions people went through in the mainstream media. The reporting was very comprehensive in terms of the weather system and how it was impacting the built and natural environments. Yet I had trouble finding a sufficient acknowledgement of the extreme threat, profound unsettling and deeply exhausting emotions many people would be experiencing. This can lead to a misfit between what we are feeling and what is being acknowledged in public. As a result we can underestimate the stress, emotional strain and even trauma we are experiencing that more than likely needs us to take extra care of ourselves and each other at this time.

I share some of my emotional intensity and challenges as an example of what I have not communicated yet to anyone, in the days after the cyclone reaching landfall. Not to take away from many people wishing me safety during this time. That matters but it is probably the case that thousands if not millions of people are still grappling with the trauma, if not from their own circumstances, then because of what we have witnessed happening to others.

Disaster upon disaster can take its toll and erode our resilience. Enquiring how others are and being willing to acknowledge the depth and severity of their experience is something we can all do going forward.

You can support my work by following me on TikTok and Instagram and my book, Broken-heartedness, gives other examples of harm and trauma that causes our hearts to break, and what we can do about this.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

I am interested in exploring the ethics and skills that should comprise a theory of love that can help us address all types of lovelessness and violence. I keep coming back to empathy as perhaps the most central skill for all of us. It was a skill I learnt about in my first year of undergraduate study as a social worker - then as now it was presented as a core communication skill in helping others. The word love wasn’t mentioned alongside empathy back then but I do think it is not possible to express love in safe and respectful ways without the skill of empathy. At the same time empathy is not sufficient on its own to respond to complexities such as interpersonal violence, trauma and crisis. But without it we may be missing the opportunity to value the person and our relationship with them, and be rushing to give advice or to pass judgements, or control and inadvertently offend and harm the other person.

This podcast introduces empathy, suggests when to use it and not to use it, and outlines what makes it hard and what makes it easy to empathise. I then extend on the idea of empathy to encompass Jan Fook’s (1993) idea of social empathy. The issue of empathy deficit is identified (Bradley Nelson, 2019) and the vision of an Empathy Charter is outlined (Bazalgette, 2017).

Email me on [email protected] if you would like any of the cited authors’ details.

You can support my work by following me on TikTok or instagram and can purchase my books from Revolutionaries - see the link on my webpage dyannross.com

Thank you and do let me know what you think!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

In this podcast I want to share with you another dimension of my evolving theory of love which seeks to guide us in how to respond to peoples’ experiences of broken-heartedness. I proceed by sharing some ideas from Peter Marris’s 1974 book - Loss and change. His main argument is that the meaning we make of loss deeply affects how we negotiate bereavement. He suggests that for some of us we might not be able to make sense of what has happened to the extent our own ability to keep going is compromised. Marris refers to loss and change in our personal relationships and also in our community and the world. The meaning making process we each undertake is influenced by socio-cultural factors as well as our own life experiences, including how secure we feel in our relationships (attachments) with others.

I find these ideas help me understand why some types of loss - eg. where there has been unfairness and/or violence - cause deep wounds in our hearts. Further, our personal experiences of unfairness and how we try to grieve and address that treatment can be compounded by our awareness of, or direct involvement in, social issues and events where there is unfairness and violence. For individuals, whole groups and communities where injustice is rife, there can be a collapse of ability to make meaning of what is happening, sufficient to maintain hope and a sense of fairness being possible. An implication is that seeking to understand the meaning people attribute to their experience can help us be more relevant in how we might seek to support them. Additionally, where people are experiencing compounding loss and change their grief is likely to be complex and deepen into broken-heartedness.

Thank you for your interest, do let me know what you think of this post.

You can follow me on instagram - @drdyannross - and TikTok - @drdyannross. My book, Broken-heartedness, provides more details on the causes of broken-heartedness and how love practices can be drawn upon to address lovelessness.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

As 2024 draws to a close I wanted to share with you my current reading as it encapsulates so much about what love is and isn’t and how everyone has a love story to tell if we would only listen. The author, Trent Dalton, creates an inviting space for passer-bys on a street corner in Brisbane city. He sits at a little table with an old fashioned type writer and a spare seat beside him, the sign propped against the table says “Sentimental writer collecting love stories”. As someone passes or spontaneously sits down beside him, he asks “do you have a love story?” Then he listens (and types). He crafts together a tapestry of love stories weaving in fragments of his own life and loves without taking away from the story teller. There is no one answer. There is no prize winning story, better than all the others.

The collection of love stories from people from all walks of life is inspiring and sometimes heart breaking. Dalton shows how listening and being with a stranger is an opportunity to give love and he notes that the passer by usually gives far more love to him than he offers in return.

I read just one chapter, “Buried treasure”, to convey the beauty of peoples’ stories or in one instance - Crew cut man (they didn’t get to exchange names) - his not following through with a threat to smash Trent’s head into the concrete.

It is not a theory of love that matters most. It is each person’s way of expressing love and making sense of their lives in terms of what it says about love, that matters always. At the same time Dalton’s book reminds me of how we are all theorists of love.

Full details of the book are:

Dalton, T. (2021). Love stories. Sydney: Fourth Estate.

Do share your thoughts in the comments section. It would be good to hear from you.

You can follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@drdyannross

and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drdyannross

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

You might be surprised to know that love is not part of social work as shown by its absence in official documents about social work’s values and social justice mission. This is not to say it is not integral to how some social workers practice but there is little research-based evidence of love in social work. This podcast puts the argument that love is needed for social justice to matter. Further, that social workers’ professional integrity can be enabled by adopting a love informed ethical positionality to address oppression (injustice) of all kinds.

I conducted a systematic literature review with Dilip Karki, a colleague of mine, to ascertain if other social workers were researching and writing about love in social work. We found 16 articles met the search criteria of English language, using the words love and social work that were published in the last ten years. I provide a summary of many of these articles to show the diversity of ways love is thought about and practiced. For example, in Norway, the national government has passed legislation whereby social workers need to use love in how they engage with young people. A Catholic University mandates that all its programs are premised on caritas which is the Latin word for love. This article explores how students in a Master of Social Work program understand caritas in a case study as part of their assessment. Articles by social work educators, a social work student, community development practitioners, child safety workers, criminal justice lived experience co-researchers provide just some of the diversity of ways love is used in social work.

Potential challenges in adopting love are identified such as the risk of blurring professional boundaries, the extra pressure on already over stretched practitioners and the potential for misunderstanding of how to practice with love in unequal relationships.

If you are interested in any of the mentioned articles, please drop me a note in comments and include a contact email address.

You can follow me on Tik Tok @drdyannross and Instagram @drdyannross

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

The podcast brings a focus to indications that a workplace culture may be creating conditions of unsafety and unfair behaviours. The example of scapegoating is about one worker being targeted in the team at any point in time. They will be bullied by usually the supervisor or manager, and this builds into a pattern of other workers mobbing with persistent micro-aggressions until the person is sacked or resigns or goes on sick leave. If this is happening it is a serious indication that the workplace is not working. Typically once one person has been bullied out of the team, another person becomes the target and thus the pattern can repeat.

By recognising this issue we can be proactive to avoid actions and words that add to the problem. Further, we can enable collective, team efforts to understand the underlying factors creating these unsafe work conditions. Part of this involves identifying who is responsible for occupational health and safety matters, down the hierarchy of roles and responsibilities. Failures of responsibility can be spread across many workers and lead to a compounding lack of actions to ensure the workplace is safe and any issues are addressed respectfully and adequately.

Once we understand the nature of our workplace culture we can find positive ways to contribute to any needed changes. This culture building work must not just be left to the person being bullied, it needs to be a shared and a team effort to be most effective.

My web site is

https://www.dyannross.com/

You can also follow me on instagram - @drdyannross and Tik Tok - @dr.dyann.ross

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

An interest in love and nonviolence brings me to the focus in this podcast on the issue of bullying in the workplace. Whatever form bullying takes it is violence and most workplaces have policies backed up by occupational health and safety legislation that makes it unacceptable behaviour. It is about lovelessness as a power strategy to gain favors with the boss, survive in an unsafe workplace and so on. The example of gossiping or back-biting involves often hidden micro-aggressions against an absent colleague. While commonplace, the harm cannot be over stated. For example, reputational harm occurs when a person is repeatedly talked about in negative ways behind their backs. This behaviour is hard to confront but is felt by the absent person when they are typically not included in key events and opportunities. The exclusionary behaviour and judgemental attitudes can cause heartache and serious health impacts for the person.

The podcast brings a lens as well to myself, and you the listener, and asks us to carefully reflect on whether we are complicit in these micro aggressions against another colleague. Good people can bully and be bullied - which is not to say that bullying is ever ok even if you think you are a good person - and this complexity can be further compounded by an unsafe workplace culture. It can be unsafe to call out the back-biting in such situations. A negative halo is created not only around the target of the back-biting, but also around the person doing it. Our professional integrity can be seriously compromised by how we act and also by the reality of having to work in a workplace that is not proactively addressing the issue. Getting safe, preferably external, supervision and in its absence, keeping our own counsel if we need to support others are two ways to begin to resist the harm caused by back-biting.

The YouTube videos I refer to are:

Jordan Petersen (2023) The power of gossip and the cost of reputational damage;

Galen Emannele (2022) How to shut down toxic talk and gossip at work; and

Glenn Rolfsen (2016) How to start changing an unhealthy work environment.

You can follow me on instagram - https://www.instagram.com/drdyannross

and TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@dr.dyann.ross

My book Broken-heartedness: Towards love in professional practice (2023) provides more details on how love and nonviolence can be practised in unsafe contexts and places.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com