If you’ve ever felt emotionally drained from caring for others, especially during tough times, this conversation is for you.
Mary Kathryn Nader, Ph.D., LPC-S, PMH-C, is a licensed professional counselor in Texas who specializes in women’s mental health, including postpartum depression, anxiety, grief, infertility, mom guilt, perfectionism, post-divorce, perinatal mental health, compassion fatigue, imposter syndrome, and more.
She explains how compassion fatigue differs from burnout. It’s that sense of overwhelm that comes from witnessing others’ pain and struggles, and it can take a toll on both your mind and body. During the pandemic, she focused her dissertation research on women clergy, and the response was overwhelming. So many women in ministry opened up about feeling like they simply couldn’t give anymore. This conversation isn’t just about understanding the problem; it’s also about finding hope and practical ways forward. Dr. Nader shares insights from her research and offers heartfelt recommendations for how we can continue to follow our calling to serve others in ministry, friendships, and family life—without losing ourselves in the process.
The conversation shifts to imposter syndrome, a challenge more commonly experienced by women than men. Mary Kathryn notes that many women feel unqualified for their roles, a sentiment often rooted in a lack of female role models and societal support, particularly in environments that haven’t traditionally embraced female leadership. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing these feelings without letting them take over, focusing on strengths, and seeking support from mentors and peers. Additionally, Dr. Nader highlights the role of faith, reminding women that God is working through them and that they are not alone on their journey.
Ultimately, Mary Kathryn serves up a powerful reminder that even in the face of these challenges, support from others, self-compassion, and our faith can guide us toward healing and continued purpose.
Listener Resources:
- If you’re a woman in ministry, we’re here to support you! Explore our curated collection of resources and specialized offerings designed to empower you in your calling. Discover more at transformingengagement.org/womeninministry
- If you are a Christian leader or pastor seeking a space for support, growth, and transformation for yourself or for your team, we invite you to participate in one of our cohort programs, called a Circle. To learn more and to get on the waitlist to be notified when our next Circle is offered, visit transformingengagemeng.org/circles
- Each episode spotlights an organization making a positive impact. Mary Kathryn calls our attention to A Memory Grows, an organization that provides a space of healing and peace for parents who are grieving the death of their child. By bringing together those who have experienced a similar loss in a retreat setting we honor and celebrate our children while making connections with others who truly understand our journey. A memory grows where love carries on. Learn more at: https://amemorygrows.org/
About our guest:
Mary Kathryn Nader, Ph.D., LPC-S, PMH-C, is a licensed professional counselor in Texas. She is passionate about helping women find hope and healing. She has journeyed with clients dealing with grief, loss, anxiety, depression, and the many challenges life throws at us.
Besides private practice, she has also helped clients in nonprofit, church, and hospital settings. She uses a Christian perspective with a relationship-based, strengths-focused approach.
She has extensive experience working with grieving children and adults in my previous work at The WARM Place, leading retreats for parents after the death of children to suicide through A Memory Grows, and helping women struggling with miscarriage and infant loss through Gathering Hope. She is also certified in Perinatal Mental Health.
She leads trainings on grief, loss, communication in relationships, boundaries, and self-care. I have taught parenting classes and led support groups. See her speaker page for more details.
Mary Kathryn is married to her high school sweetheart and has two children. She enjoys reading a good book and traveling.
Episode Transcript
Rose: Joining us today is someone Jenni and I have been looking forward to having as a guest. Mary Kathryn Nader specializes in women’s mental health, postpartum depression, anxiety, grief, infertility, mom guilt, perfectionism, post-divorce, perinatal mental health, compassion fatigue, imposter syndrome. Whoa, this is going to be so good. Mary Kathryn is a licensed professional counselor with a PhD in counseling education and supervision. And an MA in pastoral counseling. Mary Kathryn Nader, welcome to Transforming Engagement.
Mary Kathryn: Thank you. I’m so excited to be here.
Rose: We are so glad you’re here. It’s going to be a great chat. So listen, why don’t you tell us what brought you to this work? Tell us about your work and what brought you to the work, and then we’ll get into some nitty-gritty.
Mary Kathryn: Sure. So I am a licensed professional counselor, like you said, and I specialize in women’s mental health. I have my master’s degree in pastoral counseling from seminary. But then after having our second child, I myself experienced postpartum depression and I couldn’t find anyone who specialized in that. And so I really saw the need for that and started doing some research on my own. I decided to get a certification in perinatal mental health and then really wanted to focus my studies on women’s needs and women’s issues. So I only see women in my private practice. And then because my master’s is from seminary and my husband is a pastor, I have lots of friends who are pastors. And I was invited to be part of Women Thriving in Ministry, which was funded by the Lilly Foundation that Asbury Seminary. I was invited to be the mentor coach for that project, so I got to meet with the mentor clergy women, and then they had groups of new clergy women who had recently graduated and then covid hit.
So I was walking with them through all of that and seeing what they were experiencing and hearing, and really wasn’t able to find any research on clergy women and how to help them as I was trying to help. And then also seeing in my own practice, the things women were struggling with, I decided to focus my dissertation on the experience of compassion fatigue in clergy women after COVID-19, and did a lot of research on compassion fatigue. Another thing that I experienced and couldn’t find help for, I actually was working also at a hospital on the traumatic brain injury unit for children during COVID-19 and doing private practice. So I was just seeing a lot of suffering. I was seeing kids who had been in really bad accidents, paralyzed just worst case scenarios, families walking through nightmares during a pandemic. And I actually went to a counselor through the hospital, EAP, assuming this person can help me.
I couldn’t understand what I was experiencing. I was having trouble sleeping. I was just feeling really fatigued. I was feeling just kind of overwhelmed with empathy for these families. And I went to this counselor and I said, I’m just watching these children suffer, and it’s just really difficult to process. And she said, oh, surely they’re not suffering. And she just kind of dismissed it. And I was like, no, they’re suffering. I’m watching them suffer. And so that spurred me into looking in and studying compassion fatigue and finding there’s really not any, I couldn’t find any research. I could find one dissertation, not specifically for clergy women on compassion fatigue and just the need that was there. So yeah, so I’ve just really enjoyed getting to help people through it.
Jenni: I’d love to dive into this a little bit more, Mary Kathryn, because as a pastor, I remember covid hit and I couldn’t see people, and so many of them wanted hugs. They just wanted, and some of them live by themselves, and isolation is the worst thing for people that are already anxious or depressed. And there was a lot of that going on. And so I remember in the first four months, I think I didn’t take a Sabbath. I didn’t take care of myself because I was so worried about others. And I’m not saying men don’t do it, but there’s something about women in these positions in leadership positions where all of us we’re just, all the screens are open and we are multitasking and we can run ourselves into the ground. And so much of what you’re saying kind of hits whom. So I want to dive a little bit deeper into what you’ve researched and more about what compassion fatigue is. For our listeners who maybe have only heard it for the first time and maybe have experienced but don’t know that they have. Can we talk about that a little bit?
Mary Kathryn: Sure. So compassion fatigue is different than burnout. A lot of people think it’s the same. Burnout is more related to bureaucracy, paperwork schedules, compassion fatigue is really related to watching people suffer, specifically watching people and go through traumatic things, which clergy women, I mean clergy pastors do on a daily basis. And especially during covid, nobody was able to go visit people except for clergy, right? A lot of clergy were able to go into the hospitals and see this. They were doing funerals, they were doing all kinds of things that other people were not exposed to. And so compassion fatigue can have mental effects, physical effects. A lot of the women I interviewed experienced digestive issues, sleep issues, headaches, fatigue, just overwhelming fatigue, lots of physical things, mental things. I mean up to depression, suicidal ideation for sure, intrusive thoughts because there’s just this sense of the overwhelmingness of it all.
And it’s really one of my participants in my dissertation that I interviewed. I loved it. I asked each of them to define compassion fatigue, what it meant for them. And by the way, when I sent out my recruitment letter, it usually takes a while to get, and I could only interview eight people. That was what my dissertation committee limited to me to. I sent that letter out one week later, I had finished all eight of my interviews, and I was turning people away. I had so many clergy women and none that I knew. I just sent it to people I knew and said, I can’t interview you, but send this out to other clergy women who might be interested. I was turning people away. Everyone was so excited to participate because they said, our voices are never heard, and there’s no studies on this. We need more research on clergy women.
So they were all so excited to participate, and all of them were able to define compassion fatigue. One, what I was going to say, defined it as being crispy around the edges. She said, you just get a little crispy around the edges. You just get to a point where you can’t. Another one described it as it’s when you start saying your people, Lord, your people like Moses, Moses does kind of with your kids where you’re like your kids to your husband, you just get to this point where you just can’t give anymore, and you’re almost resentful of having to give more or of those needs that need to be met. And you’re right, I think women, the research shows women are way more prone to compassion fatigue. We empathize a lot more. We’re more likely to be caregivers at home, not only as a parent, but maybe for our extended family members. We’re expected to be more of a caring presence in our professional lives than maybe male counterparts are. So there’s a way higher likelihood for women to experience compassion fatigue.
Jenni: I can imagine so many women listening to this right now feeling seen and heard because they felt so is it just me? And it’s this thing of, especially in the Christian world where if it’s negative, oh, are you actually, have you prayed through it? Are you taking your time with the Lord? Are you, it all becomes about us. And we forget, all of us went through a pandemic that was incredibly traumatic and we’re still not okay from it. And so for our listeners, now that they’re putting some pieces together of, oh, that might be what I’m going through, how do we continue to do the things that God has called us to do without resentment? And let’s be, I think still I’m having a hard time getting people to counselors because there is a shortage. Even counselors, therapists are burned out and they are tired and they’re going through their own things. And just so many people are now realizing, oh, I need counseling. So there’s a huge waiting list. What are some things that we could do to care for ourselves to just kind of hold on?
Mary Kathryn : Sure. So I would say because I am biased, but also from my research, that was the number one thing that people shared that was helpful was therapy. Going to a non-biased professional who was confidential. You can share anything with, you could be as frustrated as you want to about things that you can’t share with anybody else. So that was really helpful for them. And I interviewed eight women, six different states, six different denominations from, I think it was from five years to 30 years in ministry. So the average was like 17 years in ministry. And it was like I was playing repeat on each of these interviews. All of these women, some single, some married, some widowed, some with kids, some without, but they were all in six different states from California to the south to the northeast, all sharing the same thing, which really shocked me to be honest.
I just thought different denominations would have different experiences or you’re living over there, it might be different. No, and so I would encourage what you’re saying, Jenni, that they’re not alone, but that our voices just aren’t being heard. So to find a support group, and if you have to make one yourself, that was another big one, find a support group of women. One of the participants I interviewed didn’t even know another clergy woman, didn’t even know one couldn’t even tell me one because she just went to seminary and didn’t know any other women at her seminary. And then, so finding that network somehow to have a group of women that you can talk with maybe that are outside of your smaller community so you can talk about things that are going on there and not feel like it’s going to affect. I think that was really helpful in that women thriving in ministry project that we did.
It allowed people to really be honest. They weren’t with people they were going to work with. Another thing I mentioned, the empathy is there’s been lots of studies on empathy, but kind of noticing when you are taking empathy more as personal empathy and then there’s more empathy. That’s others focused empathy. So self-oriented empathy was what would be when somebody was experiencing something. And you take that on for yourself. Here’s how I’m feeling. You really identify with them, and women are way likely more likely to do that, and that’s more likely to lead to compassion fatigue. So other oriented empathy, it’s kind of recognizing they are suffering, they are going through something difficult, but it is not mine to take. It is theirs, and it’s actually not helpful for me to take that on. It’s not helping them for me to take that on. It’s not helping me.
It’s not helping my family. It’s not helping the other people I’m serving. So allowing it to stay as difficult as that is because as women, we think we can help by taking it on, but we’re not helping them. We’re not helping ourselves. We’re not helping anyone else that needs our help. And recognizing God is there with them, was there with them before I was with them, and will be with them after this person leaves me. This is not my burden to carry. And kind of reminding yourself of that. So having some sort of reminder of that can be helpful, whether it’s some sort of a touchstone, whether it’s some sort of a cross that you keep in your pocket, some sort of a file that you close, a prayer that you say after you meet with that person, but something that’s just a reminder to go with them. I used to work at a nonprofit that did grief work, and there was just kind of a little prayer that was posted on the door that we would just kind of touch as a way when they left of just a reminder, they’re going with God, God’s got this.
So that’s something that’s hard to do that can be helpful to practice. And then along with the rituals, just having some sort of a ritual at the beginning and end of your day, which is hard as a pastor. I know the hours stuff can pop up at any time, but having some sort of a prayer this day is yours, Lord. Or when you open your office door, when you close your office door or turn on your lights, turn off your lights. Something that’s just kind of a reminder for me at the hospital, it was like I would put on my badge, my name badge, and I would just be like, okay, I’m going in. And then at the end of the day when I got into my car, it was like, take off the badge, put it down. I’ve just pictured all that stuff going into this badge and now I’m taking it off.
Having some sort of a ritual or even when you come home, just changing clothes, just something that’s like I’m letting that part of me go and transitioning. Another thing too, I think that’s hard for pastors is defining your role, especially when your family is involved in that church, when you maybe have friends at the church, really in each situation when we’re likely to take on compassion fatigue, stopping and saying, okay, am I here as a pastor right now? Okay, so that’s my role here. Or am I here as a parent? This is something to do with the kids. Okay, so I’m in that role as a parent picture, putting on that hat. Am I here as a spouse? Does somebody do as much whatever it might be. Just kind of defining that role because as women, we’re so multifaceted in things, but sometimes really choosing, this is the hat that I’m wearing right now.
This is the role that I’m acting in and approaching it in that way. And then I would always say, if you need to take medication, if you’re not sleeping and you need sleep medication, take sleep medication. It is important to sleep. If you need medication for anxiety or depression, take it. It’s going to a big difference, and it can be really helpful. I know we have stigmas against that, but I think that’s getting a lot better. So I would encourage people to do that. And then having a hobby that does not involve ministry, that does not involve church, something that’s just fun for you that you just enjoy, whatever that might be, whether it’s a physical activity, a sport, whether it’s a crafting thing, something that takes your focus, that takes your mind, that really lets you switch that channel in your brain from ministry to this.
For me, I love to play tennis because it’s like if you’re not totally focused in there, you are going to get hit by that ball. So you have to be ready. But finding something for you, that’s a total break, and that gives you that mental break. And then just taking a break, being protective of your time off, taking a sabbatical, taking a vacation. I was thinking about this interview a couple of weeks ago, and I was like, oh, I’m feeling kind of crispy realty edges right now. And I thought about it and I was like, well, gosh, I canceled my dentist appointment last week. I canceled my PCP regular appointment because I felt like I really had to see those clients. I canceled two lunches with friends because I felt like I needed, and I was like, well, no wonder I’m feeling like this. I’m not taking care of myself.
So just overall taking care of you is taking care of other people. You think of a battery on your phone when it’s dead, it’s dead. It’s not going to work anymore. So picturing yourself as having a battery, I have got to go recharge or else I’m not going to be helpful for other people, for my kids, for my husband, for my congregation, a clergy woman’s, their mental health, their physical health has a ripple effect around them. So taking care of yourself is not selfish. It’s actually taking care of other people and really changing the perspective on that.
Rose: That’s really good. Okay. So much goodness in all that you just said. There’s so much to take in. I am struck Mary Kathryn, compassion fatigue, where it fits sort of when we talk about vicarious trauma in many ways, as you were describing compassion fatigue, I kept thinking, oh, when you’re in, you’ve taken on the suffering of others. People in helping professions, pastors, counselors, healthcare workers. I have a friend that is a trauma care nurse, and she said to me, I don’t think I can keep doing this. And nowhere in her training did they teach her about vicarious trauma and what do you do about it? So I think it’s so important because I think especially, again, it happens for men, but we’re just talking about mental health right now. How much we are empathetic, how much, and so I like it when you describe Crispy, you’re at the end when you just have zero patience for, I don’t know if you guys are old enough to remember Bob Newhart, what about Bob?
And just slopping him. Get over it. You start getting to that point. And so just really understanding, I love that you talked about the therapy support group, being in a group where you can absolutely tell the truth about where you’re at, sleep and exercise. Because when we are so dysregulated, being able to move our bodies to slough off some of those hormones, the stress hormones that just will turn to sludge in our system. So all of this seems so very important. But can I just say one thing? Duke’s faith and leadership in all the lily thriving in ministry stuff, pastors, clergy, having a hobby is so important. It’s, it’s a signal that they are leaning into wellbeing if they really do have a hobby that takes them outside. So I play poker, I play Texas, hold them tournaments. In 2009, my daughter invited me to a tournament, and now that has become a group for me. And I mean, honestly, it’s exactly what you say it is someplace where I play hand, hand in a seven hour tournament where I am thinking about nothing else but those cards in front of me. Isn’t that crazy? Yes.
Mary Kathryn : That’s awesome. I love that.
Rose: But I really do love this. Would you just say a couple more for our listeners symptoms that they might be experiencing that would say, yeah, you might be suffering from compassion fatigue. Could you say a couple more of what symptoms we’re looking for?
Mary Kathryn : Sure. Okay. Well, I can read some of the specific things that my participants described. That’d be great. Yeah. Staying in bed for an extended period of time, just noticing a difference for yourself, whether it’s like, I just don’t want to get up in the mornings, or I just feel like I want to be in bed all day, or I just really want to go to bed early. Just a general feeling of malaise. Any digestive ailments. I had all kinds of descriptions of digestive ailments. Almost every participant said, this might be TMI, but blah, blah, blah. And any sort of physical manifestations of stress. So shoulders really tense, headaches, any just sense of feeling it in your body. I don’t think we take enough time to just notice how our body is responding to things and just general tiredness and just fatigue. And then emotionally, almost symptoms that are similar to depression.
So that’s why it can be harder to diagnose, but just noticing anxiety, not having as much pleasure and things that you used to enjoy resentment about things that you need to do. For me, this was funny. I was going on a silent retreat as a way to kind of process and deal with compassion fatigue. I was trying all these things, and the person leading the retreat texted me and said, Hey, could you send me your favorite worship song? And I was honestly annoyed. What? You want me to send a worship song? I thought, would you just do this retreat? Lemme go. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is definitely compassion fatigue. I’m resentful of her asking me to send my favorite worship song that’s bad. So just to shortness our impatience with people feeling dumped on feeling overwhelmed, feeling like you just don’t have the capacity to handle everything that’s going. Feeling guilty for not being able to do everything you feel like you need to do. And even just final shutting down and withdrawal. I had a few that participants described just shutting off their phone, just hitting, just going into a total cave. They were feeling so overwhelmed. And just this sense of never feeling like it’s enough. A lot of crazy women describe that. It’s just never enough. No matter what I do, it’s never enough. And so, yeah, feeling overwhelmed in general.
Jenni: That’s really so good. I have felt all those things in the last three, four years. And it’s crazy how you’re talking about how when you get into your car, you take the name tag on off when you go in, and for me, it’s coming home and I put my phone away, or I turn off notifications. I do not disturb. That’s specific to certain people and don’t look at my emails. I take my shoes off. All the things that would just, obviously you work shoes all day, so you take it off and you just stand in your front yard. And the grounding is so important too. And just some of those things where you’re like, clearly I would not do this at work. But I think Covid really, the pandemic really just threw us for a loop because we didn’t know when it was work and when wasn’t. I think we talked about this, rose and I talked about this before, but I had to shift my whole house. So there was an office, and then I left the office because I’m home and I’m working all at the same time. We did that for a year plus. And so trying to get out of those habits is probably an important thing too. This is such a good conversation.
Rose: Yeah. Let’s talk about imposter syndrome for women in ministry. That’s one of the things that you work around. So tell us about how that manifests, where it comes from and what do we do?
Mary Kathryn : So imposter syndrome is, again, way more common in women than men and imposter syndrome. A lot of women, when I’m working with them, I’ll call it out to them. I’ll say, well, that sounds like imposter syndrome. And they’ll say, I’ve never heard of that term, but yes, totally. And it’s this sense of not feeling like you are qualified to be doing the job that you’ve been given. It seems to be more common in women who have grown up where maybe there’s not as much encouragement of women to be in leadership positions, or they haven’t had as many role models, which who hasn’t had basically all of us. That’s everybody. And that’s another thing. Most women don’t have a mentor who’s a clergy woman, and they’re having to constantly prove them. They are. They’re constantly having to prove themselves, whether it’s to their own congregation, whether it’s to the community around them.
I had so many women say, my congregation is supportive, but then I go to the local clergy lunch and it’s all men, and they’re all looking at me. What are you doing here? Who are you? But sometimes even the congregation isn’t supportive. They don’t want to have a clergy woman as their pastor. So there’s this sense of always needing to prove where you are, and that’s not unreal. That seems to be very real for women. So of course, it’s going to start to make you question, wait, what am I doing here? So there’s a few sayings that I say to myself that I’ve picked up along the way from other friends and readings, but if you’re given the opportunity, you’re not an imposter. So even with this podcast, y’all inviting me, I looked and saw some of the other people you’ve interviewed, and I was like, what?
Why are they asking me? I don’t have anything here. And then my husband and my kids were like, mom, you’ve done all this research. And I know that. And even sometimes even with my clients on the couch, I have behind them my degrees. And that’s not because it’s like, oh, yeah, but sometimes literally they say things to me and I think, oh man, you need help. Oh wait, that’s me. Okay, hold on. And I have to look up there and be like, okay, wait, I can help them. I know what to do. That’s so good. There are moments where you’re like, what am I doing? And also, God, help me guide me here because it’s an not all me. And that’s, I think the big thing for us as women of faith is just knowing that it’s not all of us. We do have God who is working through us. Thankfully we’re a vessel. But I think that’s the thing with compassion fatigue and with imposter syndrome together, they can be a difficult duo.
Jenni: Yeah. I really love what you had to say there. Thank you. Yeah.
Rose: I have worked with women when you talked about maybe they grew up and they didn’t grow up in a place where women in leadership was acceptable. So I have actually worked with several young women who grew up in very, very fundamentalist homes where women were not able to lead. And as adults, they found out, oh, I am called to lead. They step into it. And it’s so entrenched in them that the imposter syndrome thing just is really hard, even though they’re doing it. So what would you say to women who just really, really struggle with this self criticism, that they step out in leadership and then they’re just barraged with all kinds of negative thinking? What would you say to ’em?
Mary Kathryn : I think that what I’ve come to with it in my own experience and then in working with women is when we think that it’s going to go away, we’re just going to be constantly frustrated. So I think of it as, it’s kind of like we just have to accept it in a way, but recognize, I can give it as much attention as I want. So with my clients, what I do is I use my cup, I always have a watering cup, and I say, I can just look at that thought and give all my attention to that thought and just constantly recognize that self-criticism and that thought. Or I can say, yeah, that thought’s there, but there’s also these other thoughts. It’s not going to go away. It’s still here, but I don’t have to give it my full attention. Does that make sense? Yeah.
So it’s like when I think constantly that, oh no, I have that thought. It’s got to go away. It’s got to go away. I’m just constantly, I mean, I have lots of thoughts in my day. I have a thought like, oh, wouldn’t it be great to go to Hawaii? Does that mean that it’s true? And that’s going to happen? No, it’s not. I wish it was, but it’s not. So just recognizing it, okay, that’s another thought I’m having. It’s a self-criticism. Does that mean it’s true? No, it doesn’t. Does it mean I have to give it a lot of attention? No, it doesn’t. There are lots of other things I can think about, and sometimes that just helps to quiet it a little bit just to recognize Just because it’s there doesn’t mean I have to focus all of my attention on it,
Rose: So good.
Mary Kathryn : No, no. If that makes sense. Yeah,
Rose: No, it’s really good because honestly, I don’t know, many of us, were not taught how to talk back to ourselves and have a choice. None of us were taught like, oh, instead of trying to repress and suppress all of this negative energy, when then it’s coming out all different ways. I love what you said. You acknowledge it, you name it. But you have choices now to make around how much you’re going to dwell on that negativity or entertain the other things. So I like that it’s really good.
Mary Kathryn : Sometimes I’ve even had clients that I say, let’s give that voice a name. What if you call her Sally? What if you call her Phyllis? Like, oh, there’s Phyllis again. She’s telling me I don’t know how to preach. But that’s just one opinion. Moving on. All these other people are saying that it was really helpful what I shared. All these other people are saying that God really spoke to them through that sermon. So just kind of recognizing that you don’t have to give all of your attention, but also that it’s okay to recognize that. Okay, so if I’m going to think about that for 10 minutes. Okay, self-criticism, 10 minutes. Okay, set your timer. Alright, now for 10 minutes, I’m going to think about all the things that I did well. So just as much time as I spent thinking about the worst things, I have to think about the best because they are just as true as these. So that kind of gives a little more control over it.
Jenni: You know what this is? I’m not going to gate keep this one. I actually, I have imposter syndrome pretty badly. I’m an Enneagram three. And let’s be honest, as women growing up, we are told to take less space. So it’s still a new idea for us to take the space that God gave us. And so I’m trying to do better at that. But when I preach, my imposter syndrome really kicks in probably the 12 hours after it’s given. And I have a couple of good friends that will have heard it, and they know this about me, and they call or they text me all the great things that they got out of the sermon. And it’s not necessarily as women, we think, oh, that’s just us trying to boost our own. No, we actually need to be reminded. Our mind has already gone down to the gutter of, oh, I’m so embarrassed.
I probably said something that’s canceled myself 10 times over. Yes. And what we need are those friends that will say, no, when you said this, this made such a great connection and very specific things. And those actually get me through. And I’ve noticed that because of community and people that love me, well, this way that I get out of that imposter realm quicker than normal. And I’m not saying I don’t feel it anymore. I just get out of it quicker. And so I love what you said earlier, Mary Kathryn, of if you’re doing it, if you’re here, if you’re a pastor, you’re already qualified. So there’s no need to question whether you belong or not. And so that is a very good reminder. So thank you for that.
Mary Kathryn : Sure.
Rose: And Jenni, I think what is very important about what you just said is for some women, they might shed it and not have it, but for some women it might be something that just keeps following them. And so again, instead of being ashamed, except this is a part of me and I need help with this. And so I love that because I think a lot of times if women can’t just get over it, then it cycles them down into something else. So I love that.
Mary Kathryn : And that’s great that Jenni, you said you can expect it in a way that’s kind of great. Then you just know, oh, okay, it’s time for that imposter syndrome to kick in,
Jenni: Right? It’s just part of the schedule. You’re just used to the schedule. And here’s the thing, if you are shining light on the darkness that it can’t fester in the darkness, that’s because it’s fall in the light, right? So no one’s going to find out because you just already outed yourself. Hey, yeah, I struggle with this. And then you’re like, okay, worst case scenario, they already know because I just said it. And so it’s so important, and I really love this conversation with you, Mary Kathryn, because just understanding that we as women are built different and it’s beautiful, but it’s also a way the enemy can tap in to make us burn ourselves out or just take ourselves out of the game because we have this compassion fatigue or we have imposter syndrome, and then we disqualify ourselves and he no longer has to do much. And how much more powerful is the kingdom if both men and women are working together in it? And so being aware of this is so important.
Rose: Yes. Yes. Well listen as we sort of wind down the conversation, Mary Kathryn, thank you so much. This is so helpful. But I just want to go over the things you said. Just to recap for women, our listeners, and also if there’s people listening where you have women on staff, pastors on staff, I’m hoping that you also will listen to the things that we need, therapy, spiritual direction, a support group, a female mentor that a woman could absolutely tell the truth to. Even in the preaching thing, I think having a mentor that I would send my sermons to, and she would tell me what I did really well, and if there was any area of growth, I could hear it from her. And so having a mentor, the empathy part, what’s personal, what’s other practices, rituals, defining your role. I mean, Mary Kathryn, because of the Lily grants that the Seattle School, the Center for Transforming Engagement has one. We have discovered streams of resilience for clergy are who are your people? Meaning who you have to have people supporting you, therapists, spiritual director, friends, all the different people, the practices. You talked about having practices and also purpose, knowing what your purpose is in any given situation. I’d love what hat am I wearing in this situation? Because we wear lots of hats. So valuable for our listeners. Thank you.
Jenni: Thank you. I could talk about this forever. Just the intersection between theology and psychology is so important.
Rose: Yes, it really is.
Jenni: And it’s still so new to us, understanding the need for both. And so I just want to encourage our listeners what Google, Mary Kathryn Nader, connect with her, see what we could do there. And really the things that we don’t understand, let’s lean into those more. Or let’s not be afraid of those things. Let’s dive in and ask the questions. Yeah,
Rose: And if you’re, you’re a woman alone doing ministry, find support. I like that you said make your community ask, be brave and ask a couple of women if you can talk with them that you maybe know. I mean, to me the answer is always no unless you ask. So don’t be afraid to ask. So Mary Kathryn, we are so grateful for the time you’ve spent with us. We really, really are very grateful. And so we want to end by giving you space to shout out to an organization that you see doing good work. We’ll make a donation to them, and then we’ll put a link in our episode notes and encourage our listeners to also donate.
Mary Kathryn : Well, there’s so many great organizations, but the one I thought of was started by a friend of mine who is a clergy woman, and it’s called A Memory Grows. It’s based here in Texas, but there’s people from all over the country come and they provide grief retreats for parents who have had a child die. So they do specific retreats for infant loss, suicide loss. I helped with a couple of those retreats, adult children who have died. And it’s just such a special organization, I think. I don’t know if there’s any other like it in the country, honestly, which is why people come from all over. And it was started by a clergy woman. So I feel like that would be appropriate.
Rose: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Mary Kathryn : Thank you. I enjoyed it.
