A Deep River of Meaning
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes,
but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust
Author's note: I am not a grief counseling professional but I am a registered
nurse. I wrote this article for anyone in the healing professions because there is a relationship between the mind, body and
spirit that effects our overall health. I believe we need to nourish our spirits for our minds and bodies to be whole. Thank
you for your dedication. May you find sustained meaning in the high calling of your daily work.
Resources for the Grief Professional
Meaning comes before commitment. When we find meaning in our
work it is easy to make a commitment to it. Our work as professional healers can lose meaning because it is draining to listen
to people’s problems, witness their pain and suffering, or care for medically complex patients all day long. When our
work centers on people with problems, be they physical or emotional, we become vulnerable to the loss of meaning.
If we’ve been health professionals for a while, we may find ourselves heaving a sigh of relief when the day is done.
Or worse, muttering that we no longer care: “I must be crazy to make my living this way!” Maintaining the commitment
to help others takes a conscious effort on our part.
The meaning of our work as healers is found in its human
relationships and the quality of its human dimension. Yet, if we pursue work in any helping field, we may disconnect from
the human dimension. We don the armor of disinterest to protect our own psyches.
We need to learn
to pursue meaning in our work as healers the way we pursue technical expertise or knowledge of our specialty--recognizing
it for the resource that it is. To protect our work from the erosion of time, we may have to rediscover the core purpose and
values that have motivated healers/advisers since the beginning: the meaning of helping someone else is not profit, but service.
Service is not a technique. It is a relationship, and it is more than a relationship between a health expert and a
problem. Service is a human relationship. It is recognizing that we are working with individual human beings with souls—-not
cases, clients or conditions. There is another beating heart in the room with us, after all.
Service is, in my
opinion, the most powerful antidote to the cynicism, depression and burnout so widespread in the helping professions today. There is a deep river of meaning that runs through our daily work as healers.
Tapping into the wellspring of meaning through service is not complicated. Simple tools will offer us profound results.
Keeping a journal is the simplest tool to restore meaning to your work as a healer. Make an entry at the end of the
workday. Review your day by starting with the evening and ending with the moment you got out of bed. Do this three times.
As you go through the events of your day the first time, ask yourself, “What surprised me today?”
When you come to something that surprised you, write it down. Then start your review again and ask, “What moved or touched
me today?” Write it down. The third time that you review your day, ask, “What inspired me today?” Make your
final entry. It takes about fifteen minutes to write three entries for the things that surprised, moved or inspired your day.
At first, you may not be able to answer these questions. The secret is to look at the day, not as a health care
professional, but as a writer, novelist, journalist or poet. Look for the stories. In the beginning, you may find
that you can see life only hours after it happens to you, that is, as you’re making an entry in the journal.
As the capacity to find meaning through service begins to grow, the gap between your life and the realizations about your
life begins to narrow. And then one day you will realize that you are surprised, touched and inspired at the very moment
that life is happening, including the time you spend in the service to others. A commitment, or re-commitment, to your noble
work will soon follow.
Citation:
Many years ago, before online magazines existed, (yes, there really was life before
the Internet), I read an article in a medical journal about service and finding meaning in our work. I have long since discarded
the writing in question, and I can't remember in which journal it appeared, but I know the article influenced this piece.
My apologies to the author. I wish I could be exact.
Resources for you:
Professional Education and Online Seminars (Military Survivor Grief)
Preventing Burnout: Signs, Symptoms, Causes and Coping Strategies
Books:
(Amazon links)
Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy by J. William Worden
Guiding People Through Grief: How to Start and Lead Bereavement Support Groups
by William G. Hoy
The Understanding Your Grief Support Group Guide: Starting and Leading a Bereavement Support Group by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.
Barnes and Noble:
And
especially helpful for pastors and faith-based counselors:
Death and Grief: Healing Through Group Support by Harold Ivan Smith (Author of A Decembered Grief)
Encouragement for your daily life and work from a Christian perspective.
Go
to next page, The Road to Burnout: Help for the Helper
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