Compassion for Others, Bringing Mindful Techniques to the Workplace

As we entered 2025, you may have set a goal to take better care of yourself, only to find that the excitement of “New Year, New Me” has faded, and your resolution has taken a back seat. This is a common challenge, especially for those in the funeral industry, where the demands of the job can leave little time for personal well-being. The reality is stark: In 2023, the age-adjusted death rate in the United States was 750.5 deaths per 100,000, with a total of 3,090,964 deaths recorded (Murphy et al., 2024). As funeral professionals, we are expected to master emotional labor, which involves managing one’s emotions and expressions when interacting with others. In addition to physical labor, the emotional labor of our work often leads to burnout, compassion fatigue, and a range of stress-related issues.

Funeral directors and embalmers face immense pressure to provide impeccable service and manage personal and financial stress. These pressures can lead to emotional exhaustion, where compassion fatigue manifests as numbness and reduced empathy toward others. This is often a consequence of overuse of compassion skills and lack of self-care.

Likewise, burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged, repeated, and unmanaged stress such as unrealistic time pressures, lack of support, unmanageable workload, unpredictable work schedule, and dealing with heavy grief daily.

The signs of stress in this field are all too familiar: physical and emotional exhaustion, increased anxiety, headaches, stomach issues, anger, irritability, relationship issues, and negative coping behaviors, including drug and alcohol abuse, may emerge along with decreased job satisfaction.

This article will explore simple strategies to reduce stress and incorporate self-care routines that can help restore balance to your life. One such practice is mindfulness—where you connect with your inner awareness to identify stressors, explore healthier coping strategies, and use self-reflection to continuously recommit to your self-care throughout the year, rather than simply setting a goal and forgetting about it.

Stress in the Workplace

We’ve all heard about the adverse effects of workplace stress, and a quick online search will show how much it can impact a business. Chronic stress and constant pressure can lead to burnout, with signs like increased tardiness, forgetfulness, low morale, and a toxic work environment. This affects not only team dynamics but also customer interactions and, in the long run, employee turnover (Glomb et al., 2011).

The Cleveland Clinic (2021) points out that when stress becomes a regular part of our lives, it can cause problems like cortisol levels not lowering, leading to adverse effects such as a weakened immune system, headaches, digestive issues, and weight gain. Stress can change how we view things and affect our interactions with coworkers, customers, and competitors. While emotions come and go, our mood and outlook can be more challenging to shift, especially when stress becomes chronic. Recognizing ongoing stress is essential because it can lead to anxiety and depression and impact our ability to adapt to unexpected situations on the job (Centers for Disease Control, 2024).

While stress is a normal part of life, the constant pressure we face at work can make it overwhelming. That’s where practices like mindfulness come in. Taking time for self-care and creating a plan to manage stress can help reduce burnout and improve work performance and personal well-being.

Begin with your planned end in mind.

One of the best ways to start a self-care routine is to take some time to engage in mindfulness and find out what your stressors are and what self-care means to you.

Mindful self-compassion.

Mindfulness is paying attention to our thoughts, feelings, and emotions on purpose and without judgment of what is happening at that moment (Kabat-Zinn, 1994). To practice mindfulness, we can incorporate a more formal routine of activities like meditation, breathing, or yoga to help us become more aware of our thoughts and emotions when we are not engaged in formal meditative activities (Potter, n.d.). When we become more self-aware of how we go about our day, we can become more compassionate with ourselves and care for ourselves like we would our loved ones or families. The care we give ourselves by establishing boundaries for moments to reset helps generate the energy and compassion to continue supporting others (Neff & Dahm, 2017). Here are three ways to use mindfulness, play, and compassion to bring more self-awareness into our lives.

Visualize your care.

Visualization is a great way to bring a feeling of calm and help you come one step closer to putting some time between stress and work. Start by taking a slow, deep breath through the nose, holding the breath, and slowly letting the air out of your mouth. As a mindful practice, close your eyes and imagine what you see, feel, touch, taste, and hear during a hobby or activity you enjoy. What are some of the things that you find yourself doing to engage in fun or joy?

Affirm your needs and do... even a little.

Once you imagine these activities or ideas, write down statements or affirm that you deserve a few moments of care. Affirm aloud or to yourself with statements like, “I need a 10-minute break so that I can show up the way I want to for myself and my family”, “I’m taking a walk, and the warm sun and a breath of fresh air is what I need right now,” or “Planning time for myself, is just as important as the plans I make for work.” 

Saying these things or writing statements that resonate with you is the second step in moving closer to better self-care and reducing chronic stress. The last part of this is to do what you are affirming. Even if you don’t put these things into practice right away, you might take that break eventually, so try one of those activities you imagined.

Commitment and beyond.

The true goal is to have more mindful self-compassion and self-care for yourself which can improve your work life and, hopefully those around you (coworkers, families, clergy, etc). While these ideas are great, they require action and continual commitment because life can become complicated, and we might lose sight of our personal goals. According to the change cycle, slipping out of new practices within the maintenance stage is common and may be frustrating. Setting regular times to reflect on your work-life balance, understanding why you stopped your practice, recommitting, and sharing your experience with a trusted person can ensure that the change becomes a permanent part of your lifestyle (Salerno & Brock, 2008).

Here are a few other mindful activities to explore for your mindful self-compassion and care:

1. Try a yoga session, mindfulness course, or self-compassion training.
2. Write journal entries about what you are grateful for. Or reflect on times you’re hard on yourself and what advice you have given to a friend under stress, and see if that might apply to you.
3. Try breathing practices or guided meditations.
4. Connect with a friend or family member when you’re overwhelmed. Sometimes, they help remind you of the self-care you committed to, or they can listen.
5. Try talk therapy with a mental health counselor if a friend or loved one is not an option.
   

September is Self-Care Awareness Month, so there's no better time to take steps today to take care of you. This post from from Dr.s Dickinson and Redmond is filled with ideas to help you get started, even with a busy funeral professional's schedule. Looking for more? The monthly calendar from Action for Happiness offers daily inspiration. Dr. Redmond offers free, guided meditation and other resources on her website. Finally, explore the referenced sources below for more information.

This post is republished from an article in Vol. 61, Iss. 2 of The Cremationist magazine. Members can read this article and any other advice in The Cremationist archive. Not a member? Consider joining your business to access this and all archives of The Cremationist plus the many resources referenced here to help you find more resources for your professional success – only $539!

Dr. Lucia Dickinson is a dedicated professional in funeral service and higher education. She works for the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education and is an adjunct professor at Northeast Texas Community College. Licensed as a funeral director and embalmer since 2011, she has extensive experience in various funeral home and cemetery roles. Dr. Dickinson holds an MBA in Human Resource Management and a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Research interests in funeral service, leadership, organizational theory, and intersectionality.

Dr. Chez Redmond, a seasoned higher education practitioner and mindfulness advocate, currently leads the TRIO Student Support Services program at the University of Central Oklahoma. With over 16 years of experience in higher education and a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Dr. Redmond possesses a strong foundation in pedagogy, federal grant program management, and personal development. Her areas of interest include contemplative practices, federal guidelines, and mental health and well-being.

References

CDC. (2024, August 16). Providing Support for Worker Mental Health. CDC: Mental Health. https://www.cdc.gov/mental-health/caring/providing-support-for-workers-and-professionals.html
Cleveland Clinic. (2021, December 10). Cortisol: What It Is, Function, Symptoms & Levels. Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22187-cortisol
Glomb, T. M., Duffy, M. K., Bono, J. E., & Yang, T. (2011). Mindfulness at work. Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management. (30)115-157. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0742-7301(2011)0000030005.
Kabat-Zinn, J. Wherever you go there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life. New York, NY: Hyperion; 1994.
Murphy, S.L., Kochanek, K.D., Xu, J.Q., Arias, E. (2024). Mortality in the United States, (NCHS Data Brief, No. 521). National Center for Health Statistics. https://dx.doi.org/10.15620/cdc/170564
Neff, K. D., & Dahm, K. A. (2017). Self-compassion: What it is, what it does, and how it relates to mindfulness. In B. A. Gaudiano, Mindfulness: Nonclinical applications of mindfulness: Adaptations for school, work, sports, health, and general well-being (pp. 495–517). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
Potter, D. (n.d.) Palouse Mindfulness: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. https://palousemindfulness.com/index.html
Salerno, M.A and Brock, L. (2008). The change cycle: How people can survive and thrive in organizational change. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.