Internalization

When I decided to do the master's at DePaul, and when I decided I wanted to work in communications in organizations that focused on programs in the developing world, I knew I was going to face the problem of empathy and the resulting feelings of depression. The scenes in Jordan, mainly in Jerash, but also in the Bedouin community, are the first of many of the scenes I'm likely to see of places where there is simply a greater amount of need than there are solutions. I'm haunted by the faces and also by the seeming insolubility of the issues.

Since returning from Jordan, my emotions have been on the surface, on display for seemingly anyone to see. In past weeks, a fundraiser for an African nonprofit brought me to visible, embarrassing tears before the speaker was even on the stage and a police officer's story of Chicago's West Side violence also prompted me to inappropriate emotion (in the Starbucks line, no less). As my colleague Amanda characterized the feeling (thanks, babe), I am a 'hot mess.' I am trying to ask anyone who knows how it works and how to deal with it. I know it's normal and that everyone feels it. Michael Diamond, my professor who has accomplished more than I could ever imagine, explained to me that you don't want to get inured, and of course he's right- how could you do the work if you are inured to what you see and experience?

So the question is this - how can you keep feeling the love and the pathos and the sympathy and the empathy, but be super sharp and functional and effective? And then how do you go home at the end and still have enough fuel left in the tank to take care of your family and yourself? Who can give me the answer? This is what I'm trying to figure out now and I have seen for myself that there are lots of you who are really, really good at it and have worked through it beautifully. I want to join you.