Website design By BotEap.comIn this article, I will summarize the key points that my palliative care teammates and I have observed in our daily work. I have worked for 12 years as a spiritual counselor in palliative care. Each person teaches me something, even though I am supposed to minister to them in their final moments. For my colleagues and I, working in a hospice is an ongoing challenge and learning experience that introduces us to learning of the deepest kind, on a soul level. In this article, I share with you the perspectives of my colleagues, and myself, at a Hospice Center in Northern, IN (USA). We work together as a team and these are some of the ideas from my colleagues.

Website design By BotEap.comThe hospice is not a place. It is a concept of care. Hospice staff go into people’s homes and provide care for mind, body, and soul. Much of our work is to free people from physical pain, so that a patient can be mindful to live until he dies. This is a time when many patients reflect on their lives. This integration occurs naturally and is deeply embedded in an individual’s psyche/soul.

Website design By BotEap.comMuch of the work we do at the end of life is transitory. We are supporting a dying patient as he becomes more soul than body. It is work that challenges and changes anyone who is touched by a person who I like to say is “awakening to their truest self.”

Website design By BotEap.comThe president of our hospice wanted me to remind physicians of the need to have appropriate referral points for hospice care. Early referrals allow all hospice care services to establish themselves and integrate holistic care. In addition to doctors, hospice centers are staffed by volunteers, social workers, nurses, grief counselors, and spiritual advisors who work to establish care, creating the opportunity for patients and families to share their deepest concerns.

Website design By BotEap.comMy coworkers in the social work department wanted me to share the importance of good listening. The patient is dying to everything he has ever known. As he begins to die, he becomes very reflective and may want to share his reflections with his caregivers.

Website design By BotEap.comThrough these reflections, a patient gives meaning to his life. When we listen to a patient share his story, we are being invited into his soul. The tears that emerge are symbols of the love that a person recognizes and finds in the course of his life.

Website design By BotEap.comMy nursing colleagues wanted me to remind healthcare professionals to be generous with pain relief medications. It is vital to give the patient enough medication to prevent pain. Hospice nurses measure this daily on their patients. The doctor/nurse team in palliative care is so important that the cooperation and good communication that are needed between members of the health care team to do what is best for the patient cannot be underestimated.

Website design By BotEap.comWhen a patient’s pain is under control, the ability to focus on living creates hope in the midst of death. This ability to have quality of life in the midst of death gives the patient a sense of control that illness takes away. Our ability to create this quality of life for a dying patient is a wonderful use of our medical abilities to bring healing comfort to those who need it.

Website design By BotEap.comThe grief counselors on my team wanted to share with medical professionals the importance of taking the time to understand and comfort family members, especially those caring for the terminally ill. It is vital to the grieving process that doctors and nurses take the time to share with caregivers that their loved one is dying.

Website design By BotEap.comBe careful with technical medical language, or jargon, when talking to family members. It is not always understood and, in fact, has a way of blocking a sense of personal closeness that family members need to fully participate in what their loved one is facing.

Website design By BotEap.comIntellectual understanding of a patient’s prognosis is important. In addition, a family member also needs to know that her loved one is personally cared for until her death. Here, we enter a realm of care that transcends the body. This is where we care for the souls of all family members who are involved in caring for a patient. How we care for the family system of a patient’s life at this time can promote or hinder the grieving process.

Website design By BotEap.comMy fellow Spiritual Advisor and I believe that our ability to be open to a patient’s personal faith is what leads to a sense of peace after death. Earlier I spoke about the deepening of soul awareness, which the dying often experience. Also, many of our patients have religious thoughts of God, since he or she understands God.

Website design By BotEap.comA person’s ability to believe in a higher power beyond themselves is a vital part of the dying process. Here, a patient simply moves through what she has been taught about her Creator to a more intimate and direct experience of what is beyond concepts, labels, and formal religion.

Website design By BotEap.comThe dying have much to teach us about life. For many people, facing the end of their life may be the first time they have faced this issue. For others, it may be something they have thought about intellectually but must now face through experience. Regardless of the path people have taken to get to this point, for almost everyone, endings become a moment of spiritual awareness.

Website design By BotEap.comMy first Hospice patient taught me something I will never forget. She wanted me to sit quietly with her and pray meditatively. Our time together was filled with space: space to feel eternity reach through the experience of dying and surround ourselves with inner peace. This gave her much more meaning beyond anything she or I could have understood in purely intellectual terms about death.

Website design By BotEap.comEven to this day, I remember his words: “What matters in life IS NOT matter.” It was his way of telling me that there is more to life than what we see and touch. And as he neared the end of his life, it was the inner, spiritual aspect of life that was taking on a life of its own.

Website design By BotEap.comRegardless of your philosophy, if you are a health care provider caring for the terminally ill, it becomes important to respect the idea of ​​the soul, even if you don’t believe in it yourself. By soul, I don’t mean something specific to a particular religion. I mean, rather, an awareness that can be experienced among people of all walks of life and religions.

Website design By BotEap.comAs professionals who care for those who are dying, it is vital that we remember that we are caring for a person’s soul and body.

Website design By BotEap.comAs part of the process of turning to non-material things, a person begins to let go of the various roles that he played in life. At that moment, the need to find meaning and hope beyond this existence becomes vital to the well-being of a dying patient. As caregivers, the need to look through our eyes and no longer be with them allows us to see our patients as more than just a disease in a state of disease. It is here that we connect with them soul to soul and forge an everlasting relationship with them that will never die.

Website design By BotEap.comAs a dying patient begins to shed his/her personality, an identity with something within him/her begins to emerge. This surge is a clear conscience that has been with him/her all his/her life. It is the part of us that is not attached to the experiences of the world. It is an identity with an aspect of ourselves that transcends even death itself. Somehow, this perspective on death allows the dying to awaken to eternal life.

Website design By BotEap.comThere are many definitions of the word soul. But almost everyone agrees that it refers to something invisible, and yet we know it exists. Within us there is a landscape of the soul. It is the part of us that knows without a doubt that an experience is true without having a tangible experience of it. This part of us guides us through some of life’s most difficult circumstances. It gives us hope beyond our present circumstances by transcending us from self-centered awareness to life-centered awareness. This part of us is the same part that a dying person begins to identify with at the end of his life, giving him a sense of peace beyond anything he has been able to conceive of up to this point in life.

Website design By BotEap.comAs the dying person makes his journey to his end and beyond, he embarks on one of life’s most sacred journeys. As the spiritual aspects of a person develop along this journey, it becomes an opportunity for others to learn from them. As a healthcare provider, you are in a unique position to not only comfort people as they make this final journey, but also to learn from and deepen your patients.

Website design By BotEap.comThe spiritual awareness that can develop within you as a result of the peace that grows in a dying person can be a lesson that you take with you and share not only with other hospice patients, but with all of your patients, family, and friends.

Website design By BotEap.comSamuel Oliver, author of “What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons About Life”