"It's in you."

Twice in the last week I've heard those words, "It's in you."  The first time was at the Hospice training when Rachel Naomi Remen's talked about service. One of her arguments was that serving others was an innately human desire, we learn early on in our lives that we are connected to others, that what we do affects others, and that we share feelings with others.  Our desire to serve stems from this idea of connectedness, this instinct to stand beside another.  One of the other points Remen made was that we all have stories to tell, that our stories make us who we are.

Today, I heard a gerontology colleague/friend, Anne Basting, interviewed on NPR. I've mentioned Anne's work on storytelling before. Her project, Timeslips, encourages creative storytelling among people with dementia.  She argues that rather than be frustrated by memory loss we should focus on the creative energies that may still be present in a person.  When talking about using her storytelling approach, she points out that no special training is needed because "It's in you." 

We all are storytellers and it is that storytelling that creates in us an ability to see beyond, to reach past, to connect.  It's in you.

A Life of Service

A few years ago I posted a note about Rachel Naomi Remen and her views on life and healing.  She is a physician who specializes in end of life care, and in training doctors to think more holisitically about their patients.  In that post, "Exactly what's needed,"  I told her story of the beginning of the world and how each of us has the ability to restore order in the world.  Whoever we are, whatever we are, we are exactly what is needed to help restore wholeness.

Today I attended a short seminar called "A Life of Service," which featured Dr. Remen.  She repeated her story, but then went on to talk about how these ideas can be applied to medicine and hospice care.  I'll talk about two ideas here: fixing and witnessing.

Fixing:  In the world of medicine we are focused on fixing things, we see the world as broken.  An alternative approach, Remen argues, is to see the world as hiding the goodness, the wholeness. Rather than fixing, we can help restore that wholeness, seek it out in everyone and everything.  She gives this equation: We help by using our strength, we fix by using our expertise, but we serve by using our "self" (our heart, our soul...).  We should spend less time on trying to fix something and more on trying to see the hidden wholeness in each other.  Since we are all human, and all connected, service is something we are, not something we need to learn.  Our own human suffering gives us common ground with others in pain.

Which leads to witnessing.  In service we don't take on someone else's pain, we don't take their suffering as our own. Your pain is your own.  But, we can recognize that the pain matters.  We can not dismiss it.  We can be beside someone in the face of pain. It is not our job to fix it, but to stand with it.

The Power of One Hour

What's the value of one hour?  I've been thinking about that a lot since I've started volunteering with Hospice.  My first few experiences were not particularly satisfying.  Unfortunately, most people don't enroll in hospice until the last week of their lives.  By the time the case has been evaluated and the needs identified, it is often too late for a volunteer to help.  Families receive the medical care and support they need for those last few days, but, I think, there are many more things a hospice organization can provide.  So, my first few hospice patients died before I could even see them.  Maybe the coordinator was feeling bad for me, it can be discouraging to go through the training and be eager to go out and "do good" and find that nobody needs you!  Maybe she felt I had some patience or tolerance that other volunteers might lack.  Maybe I was just the next up on the list. 

For whatever reason, I was given the assignment of  visiting an individual in a group home.  He is blind and non-verbal.  I sit with him and gently stroke his head and hand for an hour, once a week. Is it worth it?  I found myself wondering that the other day.  Does an hour of attention a week make any difference?  But, then I reframed the question and thought of all of the "one hours" I experience in a week and how valuable they feel to me.  For example, about once a week I have lunch with two friends.  We go out for a slice of pizza, take a short walk if the weather is nice, and are back in our offices within 60 minutes.  I enjoy our time together, look forward to those days.  Once a week I have lunch with an old colleague who has dementia.  We make sandwiches, eat, chat, and take a walk or play cards.  He certainly seems to look forward to those 90 minute visits.  Seeing my counselor every few weeks for 50 minutes is some of my best spent time.  Sitting down to watch "House" with my son on Monday nights is a time I anticipate with pleasure.  My Thursday morning hour with a personal trainer feels worthwhile.  Why should my one hour of attention mean anything less?

If we think about all the things we do in a week that take one hour, that hour seems like a much more powerful unit of time.  So much can happen in 60 minutes.