Watch the Episode Caring for others is something we value. We admire the person who listens, helps, checks in and turns up when somebody needs them. But what happens when being that person leaves very little room for you? In this conversation, Andrea Putting sits down with Oksana Samkova to explore compassion fatigue and the …
Watch the Episode
Caring for others is something we value. We admire the person who listens, helps, checks in and turns up when somebody needs them.
But what happens when being that person leaves very little room for you?
In this conversation, Andrea Putting sits down with Oksana Samkova to explore compassion fatigue and the complicated space between caring deeply for others and recognising when we have nothing left to give.
What’s Brewing in This Episode
Oksana grew up in Ukraine watching her grandmother care for the people around her. As a young girl, she would carry soup to elderly neighbours who had no family nearby. Caring became woven into the way she lived and, eventually, into the way she understood her own value.
Years of caring professionally and personally eventually took their toll. Oksana collapsed at work and suddenly found herself on the other side of care, relying on the people around her. Later, when war broke out in Ukraine and she desperately wanted to bring her elderly mother to safety in Australia, she again had to do something that didn’t come naturally: ask other people for help.
Their conversation opens a larger question about the people who are always there for everyone else. Can we care deeply without carrying everything? Why can receiving help feel harder than giving it? And when did so many of us begin believing that our own needs should come last?
Perhaps the question isn’t how to care less, but whether we remember to include ourselves among the people deserving of our compassion.
Meet Oksana Samkova
Oksana Samkova is a nurse, counsellor, educator and founder of Compassionate Hearts, with decades of experience working in healthcare and supporting people through trauma, grief, burnout and compassion fatigue.
Her own experience of reaching a point of complete exhaustion changed the way she understood caring. Today, her work explores how people in caring roles can recognise the signs of compassion fatigue and continue to care for others without losing themselves in the process.
https://compassionatehearts.com.au/
Brew the Change
Think about someone in your life who is usually the one helping everyone else.
The person who checks in, organises, listens or quietly carries more than most people realise.
This week, reach out to them when you don’t need anything and ask:
“How are you really doing?”
Then give them the space to answer.
Sometimes the person who notices everyone else needs to know that somebody noticed them.
Watch on YouTube
Grab your cuppa and some chocolate and join Andrea and Oksana for a conversation about compassion fatigue, receiving care and remembering that the person doing the caring matters too.
Join the conversation on YouTube
Let Love Be the Loudest Voice.
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