Recognising when you are stressed

One of the places I wander through from time to time is the children’s wards. Doing this I got to know some of the staff well enough to have a bit of a natter with. I bumped into one of them in A&E. She looked really poorly. I said I’d find her when she was on the ward. I supported her and the family through the next few months. She was diagnosed with cancer and died quite quickly.

The ward staff decided to hold a staff memorial and asked me if I would do it. We planned it and chose some appropriate pieces of music that the ward manager downloaded onto a CD for me. On the day of the service I was quite flustered. I was finding it hard jiggling everything as the only full time chaplain. I had been called out in the night and was dog tired. I was gathering everything I needed and couldn’t find the CD. I looked everywhere and was beginning to panic. In the end with 5 minutes to spare I had to admit defeat. I grabbed some of my own personal CD’s that I keep in the office and rushed over to the venue. When I arrived the room was packed. Her family were there as was the Chief Exec and many senior members of staff. I had to own up that I had lost the CD. I went through the CD’s I had and got everyone present to pick some other songs that reminded them of the staff member who had died. As we went through the service I talked about what songs had been chosen and why then asked why the new song had been chosen and what memories it evoked.

The service went very well. Afterwards the Chief Exec said to me that I was very calm and that she would have been very stressed by the situation. I told her that I was doing a good swan impression. Serene and calm on the surface but underneath paddling like mad. She said I pulled it off. I was really grateful for that feedback because I was really disappointed in myself for losing the CD.

When I got back to the office I decided to play a relaxing CD and chill out a bit. As I opened my CD player there was the missing CD! Seeing it there made me realise how stressed I was at trying to meet the demands of the service. I made a mental note to see my supervisor more often and use any support structures around me. It’s very easy to put the demands of the service ahead of your own support. I had cancelled some support sessions late in the day because I’d been dealing with tricky situations. If I left this happen too often I would end up paying the price.