Sustainable Activism Webinar, Thursday, July 23

As an animal activist, a shelter worker, or a practicing vegan, our work is sacred, making a real difference in the lives of sentient beings. Despite many rewards, we may experience deep heartache and loss while helping animals. Witnessing the cruelty, ignorance, apathy, and lack of compassion towards animals can burn us out. We may feel angry and frustrated, or awash in anguish, sadness, discomfort, and even grief.

However you choose to help animals, your work requires more than just a love of animals. It requires tremendous fortitude, resiliency, and a strong sense of physical, emotional, and spiritual self. When we give so much without practicing self-care, we can lose ourselves in the process. Compassion fatigue is what happens when we care for others more than ourselves and our sense of responsibility for others becomes out of balance.

You may be experiencing compassion fatigue if you answer “yes” to any of the questions below. Do you:

• Love and care for animals or others more than yourself?
• Feel the suffering of animals as if it were your own?
• Feel compelled to rescue every animal and feel like a failure when you can’t?
• Focus your energy on others’ pain and trauma to avoid healing your own?
• Feel almost “addicted” to helping and being needed?

Please join in Defense of Animals for a webinar on how to balance caring for others with caring for yourself; feeling the joy of giving and helping while living a balanced and fulfilling life. This free webinar is part of our Sustainable Activism Campaign, offering emotional support and self-care tools for animal activists. When you register for the webinar, you will receive a replay link following the event.

What: “Animal Care: Managing Compassion Fatigue & Grief” Webinar
When: Thursday, July 23, 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Registration Link: http://www.anymeeting.com/PIID=EB59DA89844D3B

Instructor:
Dr. Judy Scheffel is a practicing vegan and animal activist. Much of Judy’s personal and professional work centers on helping people and organizations through times of transformation, whether it be grief, abandonment, or business change. She’s served as a grief counselor in San Francisco and St. Louis. She researched and wrote her doctorate thesis on the meaning of home for orphaned and abandoned children in Romania and Bulgaria. Judy has led business transformation work in Russia, Silicon Valley, and now practices organizational development and leadership for a global financial services firm. The child of a mid-west pig producer, she’s lived first hand both the joy and anguish of farm life and seen the advent of even more cruel modern day farming operations. Through her own spiritual practice, and commitment to self-care, she has learned to mediate the two.