Appreciate your role in helping patients face illness and death.

To be with someone as they move towards death presents a unique caring opportunity.

The shift from curing to comfort and supporting the transition requires a changed mindset,one of not doing, not fixing, and not needing to have all the answers.

Practice being present to the magnitude of your role, one which spiritual traditions refer to as sacred, a mystery in which you steward the dying person to the next world.

Utilize the power of music and silence, deep listening and intentional spoken messages.

Being with someone who is dying can be a powerful catalyst for developing your intutive faculties, especially when the person is beyond speaking or you just don't know what to say anymore.

The stories which arise from being with people during this time may be both difficult and beautiful. Both types of stories can be important to share.

If feelings come up, longheld attitudes around death, dying and loss- be it another person's or one's own- these feelings are normal.

Be willing to enter into conversation about these feelings and attitudes.
This conversation is a pre-requisite for providing optimal care at end-of-life.

While past grief is a personal issue which may or may not be acknowledged, unexpressed feelings have the power to influence the present.

Begin to acknowledge the losses in your own life, thus creating more spaciousness to be with other's in their losses.


Related Themes:

'Acknowledge', as in acknowledging
• that we are not in control of the major transitions of life and death
• death is not a failure
• we don't necessarily know, or have to know, what is the 'right way' for someone to die, as long as we grant space for 'their right way'.

'Acceptance', which comes in its own way and time.
Behind our ability to accept a patient's death is often the question,
are we able to accept our own mortality?