Fly You Fools – Blog 2: When the Work Becomes the Wound
🎧 Featuring BREAD songs: Everything I Own, Baby I’m-a Want You, It Don’t Matter to Me
☕ Metaphor: Coffee too bitter to swallow
🥁 Drumming Metaphor: Playing through pain blisters the hands
🌐 www.strongerwomen.com | © Dr. Brooke Jones
“There is no shame in being tired. There is only shame in thinking you have to carry it alone.”
— Dr. Brooke Jones
The second step in understanding trauma stewardship is facing the moment you realize the very work meant to help others has begun to harm you. You show up. You pour out. You patch everyone else’s wounds. And then one day, your own soul whispers, “I’m bleeding too.”
This is not burnout. It’s soul erosion. It’s a slow, silent unraveling of hope that happens when caregivers do not feel permitted to care for themselves.
⚠️ The Warning Signs (Trauma Stewardship, Van Dernoot Lipsky & Burk, 2009)
As discussed in Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others, the 16 warning signs of trauma exposure include:
-
Inability to empathize
-
Chronic exhaustion
-
Addictions
-
Inflated sense of self in work
I had checked yes to all sixteen.
In this second installment, I want to talk about something vulnerable: soul fatigue masked as success. There was a season when I was the expert in the room, the counselor for others, the leader of Stronger Women—and I was falling apart quietly behind a professional smile.
“Fear is the mind-killer.” – Dune
And fear had become the invisible hand at my back. Fear of disappointing others. Fear of resting. Fear that the trauma I was witnessing might reach inside and change me. And it had.
💡 From Trauma Stewardship to Soul Stewardship
The idea of stewardship is not merely about what we manage externally—it’s about what we honor internally.
-
Stewardship means you are entrusted with something sacred.
-
Your soul, your nervous system, your hope—all of these are worth protecting.
-
Trauma Stewardship is not just a practice. It’s a lifeline for those of us who are called to the work of healing and justice.
📊 Why Caregivers Hurt Themselves
Many caregivers and advocates carry their own deep trauma. According to the CDC-Kaiser ACE Study, higher ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) scores directly correlate to increased risk of burnout, mental health struggles, and health disorders.
Dr. Brooke Jones’ ACE score is 9 out of 10.
Without trauma-informed soul care, first responders with high ACEs are more vulnerable to retraumatization, compassion fatigue, and internal collapse.
💥 False Bridges
In the wilderness of trauma work, we build false bridges to cope. These might look like overworking, numbing, or spiritual bypassing. But they can’t hold the weight of your healing. False bridges are dangerous to recovery. They promise relief but collapse beneath your grief.
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” – John 8:36
(Real freedom begins when we choose to stop performing strength and start practicing honesty.)
☕ Coffee, Music & the Sound of Healing
In this blog, we highlight three BREAD songs to underscore the emotional truth of caregiving:
-
🎵 Everything I Own – what parts of yourself have you sacrificed?
-
🎵 Baby I’m-a Want You – who do you rescue, and who rescues you?
-
🎵 It Don’t Matter to Me – how long can you ignore your own needs?
When we don’t recognize our own pain, we play through the blisters like a drummer who refuses to stop, bleeding onto the snare. The song keeps going, but we become the instrument breaking beneath the beat.
☀️ 4 “Jolt Awake” Takeaway Tips
-
Name it to tame it. Admit the work has become your wound—there is no shame in naming it.
-
Assess your warning signs. Print the 16 signs of trauma exposure and circle what’s true for you.
-
Create a pause practice. Even one minute of stillness interrupts the burnout pattern.
-
Say this aloud: “My soul is sacred. My story matters. My healing is allowed.”
🧭 You are not alone. You are not broken. You are human. And you are allowed to come home to yourself.
📌 For domestic violence professionals, caregivers, and first responders—let this blog be your invitation to rebuild, not just endure.
Stronger Women | Stronger than Espresso®
📍 www.strongerwomen.com
💌 Contact: [email protected]
