Courage to Care?

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Courage to Care?

• The Realities of Sustaining Yourself as a
• Professional Caregiver

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• Mary Matthiesen, Director
• Conversations for Life

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Who is there in all the world who listens to
us?

• Here I am-this is me in my nakedness, with my
  wounds, my secret grief, my despair, my betrayal,
  my pain, which I can t express, my terror, my
  abandonment. Oh listen to me for a day, an hour,
  a moment lest I expire in my terrible wilderness,
  my lonely silence. Oh God, is there no one to
  listen?
• -quoted by Saunders, C.
• Spiritual Pain of Pall Care
  1988 4 (3) 29

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How Are You In Yourself Today?
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The Reality

• Study of carers
• Professionally
• Changing Systems
• Personally

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Death is..
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Woody Allen

• I know Im going to die, I just dont want to be
  there when it happens.

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• For our patients, death is a singular event.
• For the care professional, it is repetitive,
  moving from one patient to the next and the
  next.
• excerpted from David Kuhls
• What Dying People Want

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Self-Care is.
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Is This Self Care?
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Time for You

• Explore where you are now.
• Consider the benefits of sustaining yourself.
• Inspire you to take even these moments completely
  for yourself.
• Choose to support yourself in ways as unique and
  personal as you are.

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Benefits

• Listening
• Patient-Centered Care
• Connection and Meaning
• Sustaining Your Practice

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4 Step Strategy

• Assessment
• Diagnosis
• Consider Treatment Options
• Review and Revise

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Self-Care Strategy

• Where Are You Now?
• What Matters Most
• Tools In the Moment
• Breathe
• 3 Perspectives
• Going Out of Your Mind
• Personal Care Plan
• -Self
• -System

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Where are you now?

• Original Intention
• 0----------------------------X
• Circle of Life

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• Inside every older person is a younger one
  wondering what the heck happened.

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• Our past does not predict our future
• .Unless we do nothing.

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What Matters Most

• 4 Things.
• One Incident
• One Inspiration
• Reflection
• Journaling

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Tools to Consider

• Breathe!
• 3 Perspectives
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• C. Longaker, RN Tonglen
• Neurolinguistic Programming
• Going out of your mind
• Relaxation Response,
• H. Benson, Harvard

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• How are you in yourself right now?

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The Practice of letting go

• Every hour
• Every day
• Every week
• Every month
• Every year
• Practice!

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Practicesfor Closure and for Self-Care

• Mind
• Music
• Journaling
• Body
• Speaking
• Connecting
• Movement
• Spirit
• Honoring
• Practices

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Sustaining Yourself

• Connect to what has meaning regularly.
• Nurture your own mind/body/spirit practices
• Set a daily healing intention
• Honor those who youve cared for, who have
  died, who have taught you in your day.
• Release what you cannot control.
• Make time to celebrate life.

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Sustaining Your System

• Seek out mentors/teachers
• Support each other in ways to serve patients
• Learn and/or be part of creating services to
  support
• you and your patients/families Nursing/Social
  Services/Chaplaincy
• Remember, you are the essential healing
  connection for the person before you
• you are the key
  and you are not alone.

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Your Courage to Care Plan

• Mind
• Body
• Spirit

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Benefits of Self-Care

• For Self
• For Patients
• For System

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Self Care is Not Superficial
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Whatever Supports TheUniqueness of You