finding a greater place of calm

What do we do when emotions swirl around us? In hospice, we feel emotions of our patients and families, and, at the same time, we feel the stress of our own realities, the stress in our own lives and those of our friends and co-workers, the stress of the regulatory process, the stress of an under funded Health Care system.

There is a major economic recession, Global warming and terrorism. Uncertainty brings fear, fear lapses into anger and we can be drained.

Reiki is not a faith, it does not replace our religion, it is a method to help ourselves, to help our patients, and to project compassion into the world.

While Reiki healing is seen as Spiritual energy coming from our hands, how do we access it? We start by controlling the most basic of functions, our own breathing. By controlling our own breathing we can find within ourselves a place of greater calm. Before we heal, before our Intuition reaches out to feel and touch Spiritual energy, we "ground ourselves" in a place of calm. Mikao Usui taught a method that begins with simple precepts : 1) i will not worry just for today 2) i will not be angry just for today 3) i will be thankful just for today 4) i will try my best just for today and 5) i will give compassion to others just for today.

But the defining moments of hospice sometimes require a different formulation of those precepts. I recall, on a visit to Ireland, talking with our Inn Keeper about the changing weather, and how in Ireland, the changing weather really focused me on "one day at a time." He started laughing and said, "here it isn't one day at a time, its one hour at a time."

And so it can be in Hospice. We can face so many currents of emotions, be buffeted by so much fear and anger, that in helping others and giving them the gift of compassion, we must center and ground ourselves by "slowing down time" - in keeping Usui's precepts in mind we must breath and seek a peace that states: 1) i will not worry just for this moment 2) i will not be angry just for this moment 3) i will be greatful just for this moment 4) i will do my best just for this moment and 5) i will emanate compassion just for this moment.

After 30 years of doing end of life care, what i can reflect on is that, if only in the moment, i can find my place of inner peace and emanate compassion, that, the effort of the moment will not drain me, that, somehow, there will be energy to face the next moment. Helping one patient at a time, one family at a time, one moment at a time.