Why Hospice? Part 1: People Pleaser

In honor of National Hospice Month, I'd like to share some thoughts percolating in my mind. I want to reflect on why I am a hospice chaplain. Today's theme is about being an emotional caregiver.

I am a minister and emotional caregiver because I took to heart something a counselor told me as a teenager. She told me that the personality traits that appear as weaknesses or flaws can become our greatest strengths as well. I know, it sounds like self-help yoda-like drivel. And yet, it wouldn't sound so cheesy if there weren't truth to it. People say those things over and over and you just roll your eyes... until that one day when your soul is exposed and your heart emptied, waiting to be filled. And for whatever reason that bit of wisdom which you've heard with your brain is finally heard by the deep well within your heart. In other words, it is an "AHA!" moment. And she was the one to give me the wisdom at the exact time I was ready to hear it with my heart.

I truly believe that my vulnerabilities are my greatest strengths now. And the one that helps me as a hospice chaplain is sometimes called being a people-pleaser. There are other names for it: being a chameleon, being  co-dependent, sometimes it manifests as being an over-functioner or a clingy hover-er. But I think it all comes down to the gift of empathy... or perhaps an intuitve emotion-reader.

So, I took to heart those words and transformed my empathy (that had once converted me into a introverted invisible ghost) into a useful tool, an instrument towards changing and shaping the world for the better. When I was a child absorbing the emotions in a room, I had no clue how to analyze, interpret and respond to them. Whether you call it an intuitive gift or a keen sense to the subtle clues like body language and voice inflection, it is something that has always been a part of me. I would become overwhelmed by it and the only way I knew how to protect myself was to either keep the people in the room happy or to shut down emotionally.

But since seeing that counselor in high school, I have continuously strove towards understanding how people interrelate -what makes each person tick and what happens when 2 or more people are in a room together as well as the how and why of it all.  Most of all, I aimed for goals to understand myself better, to strengthen the gifts I have and challenge myself to overcome obstacles.  I now know boundaries and have channeled my gifts towards easing the emotional burden of those facing death and/or experiencing loss. It takes advantage of my strengths while helping me transform something that could be harmful (pleasing people to the point of self-harm) into a beautiful tool to help others.

The journey towards personal transformation is a lifetime pursuit. While I feel good about where I am, I also know that the people I meet can teach so much more than I can imagine.  I feel blessed by the fertile ground hospice provides for transformation and serenity. The next installment will answer why am i a spiritual care provider.

Memory books and gender roles

The past month or so I've been working on the curriculum for the 6 session grief group I'm facilitating starting in Sept. I have to say that I missed this part of ministry... the education and facilitation of discussion. I've grown lazy the past 6 months or so when it comes to keeping up with my profession and the ideas and theories out there. So, dredging up the content from seminary and CPE and putting my own twist to it has been fun.

I'm putting in several parts to it, education, sharing/discussion, and activities. I'm not the most artistic person in the world, but I enjoy artsy-craftsy things and trying to find simple low-budget things to do with them.

Not surprisingly I've found most of my ideas in kids bereavement group suggestions. We don't expect kids to be as cerebrally focused as adults. I'm not going to have them create masks of their feelings or sing songs about being sad. However, I did like the idea of including the choice of drawing activities in the assignments at home.

I'm also giving them a simple folder/journal and suggesting activities they can do on their own. I've found some really neat ideas. One of them is based on creating a memory book about the deceased. I've read ideas before about encouraging people to take up as a project interviewing people for stories about the loved one. But this one suggested creating a cook book of favorite food memories, stories intermingled with recipes. I love it!

This springboarded (is that really a verb?) my brain into thinking of other variations... find the person's favorite hobby and focus the memory book around that... say chess or bridge or quilting or puzzles or gardening. So many ways one could spin off from that.

I'm also contemplating working up one of my group study plans for the corporate office. Some of the stuff (ok, most of it) they put out for us to use is so outdated and based on stereotypes that contemporary pyscho-social theory don't take as seriously anymore. It makes me gag... I'm mean, seriously. One of them is on how men and women grieve differently. Yes, a valid conversation.

However, the language was very definitive and authoritative on stereotypical gender roles... as if all men are introverts about ready to burst from bottled up emotions and all women are extraverts who have to gush their emotions all over everyone else in order to function in emotionally stressful situations. PUH-LEEZ. Let's take into account some contemporary thoughts on gender roles and emotional development/personality.

I do have to remember that my hospice doesn't require an MDiv or any CPE to be a chaplain and bereavement coordinator. And so much of the bible school and church school training would reinforce viewpoints I disagree with.

With that in mind, as I was planning a grief group session on why/how people grieve differently, I'm not only covering basic introvert/extravert stuff, etc. I'm using Rev. Gary Chapman's Love Languages... because I know not everyone in the world is jonzing to use psycho-social tools to understand his/her journey. Not everyone has to think like me... I SWEAR!