Avoiding "Burn Out" for those in the helping professions.

1. PERSONAL WELLNESS
For Professional Helper Louis R. Bridgeman

2. MIND, BODY, & SOUL

3. MIND
• Meditation
• Education
• Maturation
• Vegetation

4. MEDITATION
• For me, meditation is vital in my pursuit of achieving and maintaining personal
wellness as a helping professional.
• It allows me to clear my mind from internal as well as external stressors and to
center, expelling the debris of we and me.
• It allows me to listen to the unspokeness where so much is said.
• It allows me to hear with an elusive third ear.

5. EDUCATION
• Education is going to be key in my pursuit of personal wellness as a helping
professional.
• It may be cliché, but knowledge IS power. The difference here is that the power is
being used to help.
• Education is the foundation that supports the art of helping. It gives it wings.
• I believe that when preparation meets opportunity then true service can be
achieved.

6. MATURATION
• Maturation is going to be vital in my pursuit of personal wellness as a helping
professional.
• For me, maturation simply means it's time to put my big boy pants on and realizing
that, as a helping professional, it's not all about me but who I can be to others.
• There is a difference between having character and being a character.
• Authenticity. Get real... and stay that way.

7. VEGETATION
• For me vegetation is vital to my maintaining personal wellness as a helping
professional. Not eating but, being.
• Setting aside time to do ABSOLUTELY nothing.
• I know I can be a do-a-holic. Always feeling that I have to be doing something.
That is just a recipe for burnout and a serious case of the...well, fill in the blank.
• Allowing myself to just be is a gift. It benefits me and those around me.

8. BODY
• SOAP
• SLEEP
• SWEAT
• SUSTENANCE

9. SOAP
• By soap, I mean to take care of my physical appearance, grooming, presentation.
• I believe that we only get one chance to make a first impression. As a helping
professional, I believe a professional appearance helps in building a viable "holding
environment" for the clients' we serve.
• I believe it helps inspire confidence for ourselves and to others.

10. SLEEP
• I believe that proper rest is integral to my maintaining personal wellness as a
helping professional. Burning the candle at both ends just leaves me burnt. Power
naps leave me powerless. I need REM sleep damn it! Eh...sorry.
• But seriously, proper sleep rejuvenates. It replenishes the reservoirs of physical,
mental, emotional and spiritual stamina that effective helping will surely deplete.
Being a helping professional is joyous yet draining work.
• Proper sleep biochemically restores, and cognitively sorts. It allows the
subconscious to solve what puzzled the conscious.
• Without, proper sleep, I believe no program of self-care can succeed.

11. SWEAT
• By sweat, I don't mean naturally, but on purpose. Physical exertion with intention.
• I am not an exercise fanatic by any stretch of the imagination but I do believe
physical activity that produces sweat is crucial. It releases toxins. Mental, emotional,
spiritual and chemical.
• It also releases endorphins which can positively alter mood and attitude.

12. SUSTENANCE
• By sustenance, I mean to eat and drink as well as I can. To cook in, more than I eat
out.
• When I cook I tend to make better choices which means better nutrition.
• When grocery shopping I've learned to start from the outside-in not the inside out.
• Helping is joyous but depleting work. Better nutrition, I feel, translates into more
physical, mental, emotional and spiritual stamina.

13. SOUL
• Respect
• Release
• Receive
• Rejoice

14. RESPECT
• Respecting the importance of my soul, spirit, I feel is essential in my maintaining
personal wellness as a helping professional.
• By respecting my soul I acknowledge that it too needs maintenance. It is the art part
of me that I feel that I bring to the helping relationship-my best self. For me such
maintenance requires connection to what feeds my spirit, my soul. I find it in
connection. Connection to GOD. Connection to my reality. Connection to others.
Connection to myself.
• By respecting it in myself, I can respect in others.

15. RELEASE
• By release, I mean to let go of what is not working. In the pursuit of maintaining
personal wellness as a helping professional, it will be crucial for me to let go of what
I can't control. If I am stuck, then I am not being of the best service to the clients I
am trying to help.
• Bureaucracy runs rampant in the helping profession. If I stay stuck in an idea,
attitude, emotion or mindset I am grasping too tightly with the hand, that upon
release, could receive the help needed.

16. RECEIVE
• It is ironic, that in my experience, the helping professional is usually the last person
to ask for and more importantly ALLOW themselves to receive help. I can't do it all
and thinking I can drains the soul.
• Allies are important. There is a symbiosis that happens in the pursuit of a common
goal.
• I must allow myself to receive critique. We all have blind spots.
• In the pursuit of giving help I must be able to receive it as well, as a helping
professional.

17. REJOICE
• By rejoice, I mean to remember why I am doing this in the first place. In helping
others I truly receive what makes life important to me. That is why I chose this
profession, or it chose me...I am still figuring that one out. To take time to recognize
that I have the opportunity to do my hearts’ art.
• In the helping profession I have learned to rejoice in the journey because the
destination may not always be clear. And really, aren't we helping people on their
journey? The destination is their own.