Soulful End of Life Caregiving:The Contribution of Eckhart Tolle
What is so soulful about being at the end of life with those completing life’s journey on the Earth?
I would like to lift up three fundamental dimensions of soulful hospice care that we can pause to reflect on, while there are many other soulful dimensions of this work. This certainly does not encompass the fullness of soulful hospice care, but perhaps it is a beginning point.
First, the call to be in the Present Moment.
The spiritual teacher Tich Nhat Hahn has said, “The Present Moment is my home”. As hospice patients make their way through the stages of Kubler Ross, such as the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, the key to being of value to the patient is being in the Present Moment with them. If a hospice caregiver brings their own agenda to their personal care of the patient and imposes this agenda on the patient, then the result will be, at best, the patient finding no value to the caregiving and at worst the patient becoming stuck in a particular stage at the end of life. We do see hospice patients coming to end of life and becoming stuck in a particular stage and dying in this stage.
The key to moving through the stages for many is encountering a compassionate soul that will enable the patient to fully embrace the stage they are in without judgement. This provides the opportunity to bring a “Yes” to this experience in the Present Moment, instead of a deep “No”. So, saying “Yes” to the unfolding of the Present Moment is a soulful dimension of hospice care.
As the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle has shared so beautifully, all suffering in life comes from bringing a “No” to the Present Moment. A “Yes” does not mean that you like or want or even desire what is in this Moment of consciousness, but it does mean that you come to an ACCEPTANCE of the Present Moment as it unfolds in this time and space.
The path to the end of suffering in hospice care, as in all other aspects of life, is always through the Present Moment. It is the acceptance of how life is unfolding in this Moment that brings peace. The deeper the “No” to this Moment the deeper is the suffering. This is a firm spiritual law of the Universe. Hospice care is profoundly soulful because of this opportunity on the part of health care professionals to embrace the Present Moment the patient is experiencing as a path through the suffering of life.
Second, the soulfulness of hospice care flows from allowing patients and families, as well as fellow professional staff, to be your teacher.
The spiritual teacher Pema Chodron expresses this so beautifully in her Buddhist teachings. The attitude of allowing those we ecounter to share with us the journey of their soul truly creates soulful work in hospice care.
As a hospice chaplain, I see each patient I encounter in hospice care as another reflection of the Divine Mystery of life. It is like white light that is refracted into a multitude of colors through a prism. One color has unlimited possibilities for how it may be manifest in the world.
The great spiritual mystery is that the eternal has become finite in the world and the finite is forever reflecting the eternal. In hospice care you can encounter the Divine presence in each patient as they share their spiritual journey to the end of life. It is in this encounter that a new teacher enters your life with a new message from Divine Source.
Third, hospice is soulful in allowing the hospice caregiver to embrace their place as soul within the Divine Cosmos. It is in this “connecting up” with an Eternal Spirit, power or energy that gives hope in hospice work.
People often seen care of the dying as a sad and depressing work that they would avoid at all costs. For those who feel a calling to hospice care, the opposite is true. The hospice worker stands at a portal, a gateway to all eternity. In this portal a window is opened that connects with what is beyond the self and gives meaning, purpose and value to the finite self.
Soulful hospice care is truly a spiritual adventure that can awaken the soul and present unlimited opportunities for spiritual growth on planet Earth. It is a divine calling to compassionately explore the Present Moment with another soul as they come to the end of the journey of life. Each moment of life can be a teacher, as the eternal, divine consciousness is revealed in this finite world of form.
