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It goes without saying that the experience of family violence and fleeing your home is incredibly traumatic and requires a lot of support, care and time to help overcome. We are so grateful for the likes of Tauranga Women’s Refuge who provide this support and care. But what we don’t think about is the trauma and emotional exhaustion the staff members take on as part of their role.
Emotional exhaustion seems to come with the territory of being a social worker - so much time is spent caring for others’ needs and working through intense situations, with little time to recoup.
The lack of sleep and low energy that comes with emotional exhaustion can make it difficult to get motivated to exercise, but movement is a key part of making you feel better - boosting feel-good serotonin and endorphin levels. It also provides a chance to reset your thoughts and is a form of self care.
Rachel, a social worker at Tauranga Women’s Refuge deals with a lot of trauma in her work, so exercise helps her to zone out and reset her thinking. Working out is really important for mental health. She shared:
“Self-care is really important. Often as women—especially mothers—we’re always putting others first, so [a gym] membership is a bit of self-care too.”
That’s where F45 Tauranga comes in. They know how important it is to keep active for both physical and mental health so along with their generous members they paid-it-forward $440 worth of gym memberships. These memberships allow three staff members from Tauranga Women’s Refuge to look after themselves so they can continue to look after their clients without burning out.
we’re trying to encourage our workplace to be healthier. We’re trying to encourage the women we’re supporting to exercise so we need to model that ourselves, which we don’t do very well. In social work, we get burnt out easily, we get low energy... exercise is really important and is a focus for us here.
Rachel
Social Worker, Tauranga Women's Refuge
F45, which stands for “functional training” (that’s fast-action interval and circuit training) for 45-minute sessions, offers classes to set your heart rate going and develop your fitness. You can find F45 at 134 Devonport Road in Tauranga if you want to check out some of the training that they offer. And when you do, think about paying-it-forward a small amount to help F45 to continue to offer such classes to women in need.
If you’re not in Tauranga, head to the marketplace to see what other generous businesses are in your region to pay-it-forward at. As you can see it makes a huge difference in people’s lives.
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