By Rhian Taylor, Social Worker and Author of Fosterboy
“Personally, I think social work saved my life and it’s totally ruined it at the same time… the problem is you can’t switch it off.”
Cook et al (2022)
The above quote is from a social worker who brilliantly expresses the dilemma of a job which draws us into doing.
Doing is vital; we are meeting pressing and important needs.
At the same time, it is very difficult to ‘switch it off’ and this affects our ability to just ‘be’.
Ideally there should be a deep connection and flow between ‘who we are’ and ‘what we do’. If we neglect either of these aspects of ourselves, we can become out of balance.
As someone who is perpetually drawn to busyness and more and more doing, I have always found the following quote by the late contemplative writer Thomas Merton very challenging:
“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork.
(Merton, 1966)
The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.
The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his (or her) work….it destroys the fruitfulness of his [or her] …. work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
This is a powerful challenge in fields where our work seems to be continually speeding up. Social care workers are increasingly reporting feeling overwhelmed and experiencing burnout.
Mindfulness writer Jon Kabat-Zinn defines overwhelm as when “our lives are somehow unfolding faster than the human nervous system and psyche are able to manage well.”
This is helpful in explaining the prevalence of overwhelm as a response to levels of busyness which don’t allow people to process their experiences.
If Merton is right and it’s very easy to lose our ‘root of inner wisdom’, then this is also likely to impact the quality of our thinking and therefore the quality of our professional work.
Merton was writing this in the 1960’s and the challenge of going inward and finding our inner wisdom is greater now as the internet, for better or worse, provides such a high level of external stimuli.
‘Stop rest and heal’
As Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, Dan Siegel says, ‘Everything in modern culture is pushing us to not see the mind.’ (Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education, 2012)
The late Zen Buddhist teacher and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh, says we must ‘Stop rest and heal’.
He uses an analogy in which he describes coming home after he has left open the windows of his house and finding his space and belongings disturbed by the wind. He applies this metaphor to our lives saying,
“Our senses are our windows to the world, and sometimes the wind blows through them and disturbs everything within us. Some of us leave our windows open all the time, allowing the sights and sounds of the world to invade us, penetrate us, and expose our sad, troubled selves”
(Thich Nhat Hanh, 1991)
I find this analogy profound as it shows me the necessity of ‘closing my windows’ at times from the distressing situations of my work and allowing a more peaceful space of recovery and rest.
We might also describe ‘closing our windows’ as professional boundaries.
I also appreciate his recognition of the senses, as it is through our senses and our bodies that we will experience this disturbance.
But our bodies can often find it hard to slow down.
We are used to high levels of stimulation and it is not easy to adjust to a seemingly ‘unproductive’ state. This might be particularly hard for those whom oppression has dictated that resting is not allowed, and in fact could even feel dangerous.
African-American writer Tricia Hershey, in her book ‘Rest is Resistance, ’ writes powerfully about how rest is a racial and social justice issue.
This is an important reminder to me, as a white woman, that there is privilege in my position where rest and time for creativity are at least an option for me, even though I don’t choose them very often.
“I want to work with people who are happy”
When my daughter was five years old, my husband and I tried to describe his job working with people with mental health problems.
‘Daddy works with people who are sad,’ I told her.
‘When I grow up, I want to work to work with people who are happy,’ she replied.
Her words sometimes feels uncomfortably resonant.
It is, of course, much more complex than this. In my current work in a CAMHS team supporting children in the care system I find huge strength and inspiration from the children and young people I work with. However, I also experience a sense of deep sorrow at the situations I encounter.
Reflecting on this sorrow can raise philosophical or spiritual questions which aren’t usually discussed in our reflective spaces.
Whilst supervision or training might touch on them, we know that the pressures and bureaucratic needs of our organisations make it unlikely that these spaces will allow for a depth of dialogue.
Yet these questions shouldn’t be ignored. The Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami says;
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional”
Our ability to make sense of the suffering inherent in our work can be changed and developed.
For example, many religions and spiritual practices address these questions directly, pointing towards beliefs and practices which help people live better with the pain and transience of life.
The Importance of meaning making
Psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, Carl Jung developed an interesting framework for understanding the developmental processes throughout life, and this could be applied to our professional lives.
He talked about the first half of life (this isn’t necessarily about chronological age, although it might be a factor) being where we develop security, identity, and competence in completing the tasks of our lives.
These are all important things we need to master to thrive in the world.
However, as people mature, these imperatives are often replaced by a desire to go deeper and the focus of the second half of life should be on finding meaning and purpose.
Jung says, “Meaning makes a great many things endurable- perhaps everything ‘ (Jung, cited in R and C Winston and Winston (1989))
If applied to the caring professions we could think of professional training, the development of a positive identity, and having confidence in the skills and tasks of the job as first half of life priorities.
These are all good things, yet they might not be enough to sustain people through a long career when questions of meaning and purpose need to come to the forefront.
“One cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening become a lie”
(Jung, 1960)
In a recent Messy Social Work podcast Rich Devine and Tim Fisher talked with Andrew Turnell about how we often discuss profession in the social work field, but we rarely explore the issue of vocation.
Vocation is an important term as it turns our attention to why we do the work we do and what meaning it has for us.
A focus on vocation draws us towards deeper ‘second half of life’ questions, and these are questions primarily explored by going inwards and deepening our self-awareness and interior lives.
This again brings us back to the question of how we stop, slow down, and give time to go inward, so that we have a clearer sense of what we are actually feeling.
Moving into ‘being’- practices to slow us down.
To enable us to make slowing down an ongoing part of lives it is likely that we will need practices.
Practices, as the word suggests, give us a structure and pattern of making behaviours a sustained reality in our everyday life. They also often recognise the role of the body and the importance of calming our nervous systems if we are to move into more ‘being’,
The question of what helps us slow down is one I’ve been thinking about lately as I’ve been developing materials for a residential retreat on integrating doing and being alongside a colleague who’s a qi-gong teacher and artist.
I was also curious about what spaces encourage us to feel and think deeply.
My initial plans focused on facilitating silence and meditation, but as my thinking developed, I realised the individuality of each person’s path towards inner reflection.
Some people will find physical movement or a body-based practice helpful, for example yoga, dancing or running.
For others, a creative outlet through art or journaling provides a way to process their feelings and thoughts.
I was also challenged to remember that going inwards doesn’t necessarily mean being alone. Supportive collective spaces can be particularly helpful in making us feel safe enough to explore and process experiences.
For me silence, walking slowly, journalling, meditative music, and regular retreats are all important.
I am often helped by poetry as it speaks directly to emotions rather than to my overthinking mind; it is a ‘language’ David Whyte writes, ‘for which you have no defences’ .
I find meditation ongoingly challenging, but I think it is the most important way to properly pause, consciously put all else aside, and seek an experience of pure being.
‘Living the questions’- The opportunity to grow
Austrian poet and writer, Maria Rilke challenges people to approach life from a perspective of ‘Living the Questions’ and I love this invite to a life of curiosity and as an approach to being a social care practitioner.
The complexity and sorrow of the work become an opportunity for growth; we grow because of our job, not in spite of it.
There are many ways this can happen.
Observing the feelings and reactions that come up for us when we work with our service users helps us be more aware of ourselves, of our own issues, biases and needs.
We can also be inspired and resourced by the service users we work with and gain resilience from their strength.
If our teams are well functioning, we can enjoy a positive sense of belonging and community from our relationship with our colleagues and our teams.
We grow from the privilege of bearing witness to people’s lives.
We can slowly learn to hold life’s griefs at the same time as its joys. As pointed out by psychotherapist and writer, Francis Weller we can ‘let grief be the medicine’ that enables us to give back to our communities, rather than something that makes our hearts embittered.
“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them”
(Weller, 2015)
Additionally, the complexities and sense of ‘not knowing’ inherent when working in health and social care are an excellent training ground for embracing paradox.
Jungian psychoanalyst and writer James Hollis encourages us to lean into this.
“Learning to live with ambiguity is learning to live with how life really is, full of complexities and strange surprises“
(Hollis, 2009).
Moving towards love and connection
Engaging our full selves in our work can also bring us to a place of greater connection in our lives.
Contemplative writer Richard Rohr’s contends that there is a universal growth pattern for people who what want to make things better in the world.
We usually start with a sense of anger about injustice, a fuel which makes us want to make a better world. Then, behind this energy of anger and outrage, is deep sadness and pain- he calls this ‘the tears of things.’
However, Rohr says there is a third stage; after we move from the stages of anger and sadness, we move towards greater love (Rohr, 2025).
I’m not sure what love means in contemporary social care, and how we balance that with our tasks, our targets and our necessary professional boundaries.
However, keeping compassionate and tender-hearted in our work, in spite of our flawed organisations and systems, seems a vital, ambitious and worthwhile challenge.
The more we can soften ourselves and feel a deeper empathy with others, the more likely it will be that we will be better connected with those we work with and the world around us.
This state of good connection is described by Thich Nhat Hanh as ‘interbeing’.
This is an experience of deep interconnection and interdependence with nature and with people and is at add odds with the cynicism and alienation so often felt by people in our modern world.
But, before we can experience interbeing, we need to learn to just be.
I find it so hard to shift from compulsive doing and giving. I think this is partly because of my conditioning, and partly because I enjoy the praise and reward that being a person who gives to others provides.
Yet I also know that when I allow time to nurture my inner life and my ‘being’, I am more likely to be giving from a place of fullness and generosity; a place where I can hold both awe and sorrow for the predicaments young people face without becoming overwhelmed; a place where I can offer all of myself while acknowledging the limits of my desire to help; a place where I can tolerate my own contradictions, and those of the people I work with.
This authentic relating seems to be most likely when our inner and outer lives are in some kind of harmony.
Without this integration, we will likely find ourselves torn like the social worker who felt both saved and destroyed by the profession.
And we are unlikely to experience the connectedness and sense of interbeing that will enable most flourishing in both our personal, and professional lives.
By Rhian Taylor (17.10.2025). She is running a retreat which can be found here: Integrating Doing and Being | Othona West Dorset
Rhian Taylor is a social worker in a specialist CAMHS team for children in care and a part-time trainer and consultant. Rhian has a particular interest in supervision and ways the social care workforce can be best supported and encouraged.
If you have found this interesting/useful, you may wish to join a growing community of 1200+ others by signing up for free blogs to be sent directly to your inbox.
References:
Buzzsprout. (2025). Professor Andrew Turnell (Australia) on Safety and belonging in child protection – Messy Social Work. [online] Available at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2073535/episodes/16876558-professor-andrew-turnell-australia-on-safety-and-belonging-in-child-protection [Accessed 23 Sep. 2025].
Cook, L., Carder, S. & Zscholmler, D. (2022). Retaining and supporting experienced social workers in child protection. University of East Anglia. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/89334/1/Retaining_and_Supporting_Experienced_Child_and_Family_Social_Workers_in_Child_Protection.pdf
Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education (2012). Dan Siegel – ‘Being’ Versus ‘Doing’ With Your Child. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGUEDtGSwW4 [Accessed 23 Sep. 2025].
Thich Nhat Hanh (1991). Peace Is Every Step. Toronto Bantam Books.
Hersey, T ( 2022) Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto. Little, Brown Spark: New York
Hollis, J. (2010). What matters most : living a more considered life. New York: Gotham Books.
Jung, C.G. (1960). The structure and dynamics of the psyche : transl.by R.F.C.hull. New York: Pantheon Books.
C. G. Jung, recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffe, translated by Richard and Clara Winston, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Vintage Books: 1989), 297.[4] Ibid., 340
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2019). Overwhelmed. Mindfulness, 10(6), 1188-1189
Merton, T. (1968). Conjectures of a guilty bystander. Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books.
Rohr, R. (2025). The Tears of Things. London: SPCK Publishing.