Tag Archives: hospice
Once, while working at Hospice, I was assigned a client (I’ll call her Judy) who had been in the hospital for several days, having outlived the doctors’ expectations that she would die within a day or two. They were considering sending her to a long-term facility. Each day, after seeing my other hospice clients at my office, I would head over to the hospital to sit with Judy. She could barely speak at this point so we usually just sat…..
This week has been particularly intense with the burning of the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the troubling political climate in the U.S. It’s also Easter week–for Christians around the world a time of dissolution and rebirth. It seems fitting to reflect on the gift of life and the importance of cherishing the present moment. All of us who were in Hawaii on January 13, 2018, will never forget that fateful day. That Saturday morning we woke up…..
Working at hospice (as well as in my own experiences of loss) I saw that many of us who have suffered a major loss often begin asking the deeper questions about life and death. As we search for answers to why it happened, grapple with our beliefs about life and death and try to find meaning in our losses, new dimensions of life are revealed to us. Our broken heart can become an open heart. We can become more conscious,…..
By now 2019 is in full swing. Did you start the year full of good intentions? Maybe it’s time to reconnect with them and re-energize them. Here is an intention from a few years ago that may resonate, given the tension and conflict swirling around in the world today: It was the beginning of January. Sitting down at my desk in my office at hospice, trying to ease back into work mode after the two-week Christmas break, I turned on…..
It is said that the final words of the Buddha to his followers, who were distressed at the prospect of his impending death were: “All manifest things will vanish. Strive diligently for liberation.” The fear of death comes from the belief that we are an individual entity limited to a body and mind, which are subject to disappearing. When we are liberated from this mistaken belief, we are free from this fundamental fear. I once heard a spiritual teacher say…..
Welcome to my blog and thank you for connecting! I invite you to join me on a voyage into the heart of life starting from right where we are—here and now in our everyday lives. Just like in my book, Simply Sacred, I’ll continue to share stories, questions, insights, and contemplations from my life as a spiritual seeker in India, a hospice counselor, a psychotherapist, and an ordinary human being navigating this wild ride we’re all on. I think we…..
