A Framework For Helpers
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Practicing Compassionate Badassery® is Caring for Self AND Caring for Others.
What is Practicing Compassionate Badassery?
Practicing Compassionate Badassery is shorthand for caring for yourself AND caring for others.
As a helping professional, it takes real courage to show up with an open heart in a complex world to care for those who are suffering. If we want to remain compassionate and keep trying (even when we can’t control the outcome of our efforts), we can't ignore our own needs, limits, or humanity. Our wellbeing matters.
Practicing compassionate badassery is based on the belief that animal welfare and worker welfare are inextricably linked.
We practice compassionate badassery by making intentional, sometimes uncomfortable choices that help us care deeply for ourselves and others, as best we can, even while we’re working and living in difficult conditions.
It’s about finding ways to build and use both internal and external resources, including our skills, boundaries, relationships, support systems, and community, to help us keep showing up without harming ourselves or those we serve.
And sometimes practicing compassionate badassery means recognizing the limits of what’s possible right now. We can’t always change the conditions around us, but we can look for the choices and sources of support that are available to us.
This framework exists to support anyone in a caregiving or helping role who wants to move away from empathy/compassion fatigue or burnout culture and towards increased well-being, joy, and ethical, effective, sustainable giving.
Be warned, practicing compassionate badassery may put you at odds with “helping” culture, in which a lack of boundaries, no self-care, over-giving, grinding productivity, and exhaustion are celebrated.
Sometimes, it takes as much (if not more) courage to care for yourself as it does to care for others.
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USING THE MATRIX
The matrix is a self-reflection tool for helping professionals. It can help you recognize where you’re at right now, notice patterns over time, and identify intentional choices that may help you move toward a more sustainable, ethical, effective approach to helping.
It looks at two things:
Caring for Self
Attending to our own needs and having access to meaningful care and support.
Caring for Others
Staying connected with the people around us and caring for others in our work.
It's crucial to note that where we find ourselves on the matrix is influenced by much more than individual choices. Unrealistic working conditions, social and cultural factors, available resources, past histories and present circumstances, and systemic failures can all affect our capacity to care for ourselves and others. We need to look at all of this critically. But in this tool, we're going to focus on what you have control or influence over right now.
The matrix is not a way to judge or label yourself. It’s not a diagnosis, personality test, permanent state, or measure of how well you’re doing. Think of it as a snapshot of where you are right now and a tool for noticing what you might need.
None of us stays in one quadrant all the time. Our circumstances, resources, relationships, responsibilities, and capacity change.
The goal isn’t to blame yourself for being in a particular quadrant or to force yourself into the "right" one. Instead, the matrix is meant to help you recognize what’s happening, consider what’s within your influence, identify sources of support, and make small shifts when possible, so you can be well(ish!) while you do good work in the world.
The Compassionate Badassery Matrix is a trademark of Jessica Dolce, LLC.EXPLORE THE MATRIX
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Compassionate Badassery
As helping professionals, this means caring for ourselves AND caring for others. We’re finding ways to care deeply for ourselves and others, as best we can, even while working and living in difficult conditions. It might look like growth, curiosity, connection, support, possibility, well-being, vicarious resilience, satisfaction, or empathic joy.
Intense Avoidance
May also be thought of as overwhelm or burnout. This can happen when we’re depleted and disconnected from others. It might look like numbness, apathy, lack of engagement at work, withdrawal, hopelessness, isolation, despair, or exhaustion.
Rigid Individualism
May also be thought of as cynicism, stoicism, or rigid boundaries. This can happen when we’re caring for ourselves while becoming disconnected from others. It might look like saying no to everything, refusing help or support, distrust, lack of empathy, judgment, fear of vulnerability, isolation, hypervigilance, or blame, with a failure to consider the impact of systemic issues on the individual.
Compulsive Helping
May also be thought of as compassion fatigue or empathic strain. This can happen when we care for others without adequately caring for ourselves (which includes getting the support we need). It may look like a lack of boundaries, over-functioning, rumination, resentment, irritability, guilt, or exhaustion.
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WHAT ABOUT ORGANIZATIONS?
Compassion in Balance® = Serving Your Community + Investing in Your Organization’s People.
Individual self-care is important, but it isn’t enough.
Compassion fatigue, burnout, moral distress, traumatic stress, and other occupational hazards are influenced by the conditions in which people work. Organizations have a responsibility to address those conditions and create workplaces where people have the resources, support, boundaries, and reasonable expectations they need to do their jobs.
The Compassionate Badassery Approach is not about teaching individuals to tolerate unhealthy working conditions.
It’s about helping people identify what they can influence, protect what they can, and care for themselves and others while we continue working toward healthier conditions.
That's why I created The Compassion in Balance Program to help organizations care for their people while they meet their mission.
