The Hospice Soulful Caregiver as a Lightworker: A New Age Perspective

Lightworker. It is one of those popular terms that has been used a great deal in You Tube videos on spirituality and with teachers providing guidance for spiritual growth and development. Christina Lopes, for example, has a video titled, “10 Remarkable Signs You’re a LIGHTWORKER! (What You Must Know!).

So, what is a Lightworker and how does the concept of a Lightworker prove helpful in the spiritual care of those ending the journey of life on the Earth?

In her You Tube video on Lightworkers, the spiritual teacher Christina Lopes defines a lightworker as “A soul that has incarnated with a service mission to the planet”. A lightworker comes into this life with a great desire in their heart and soul to provide compassionate care for humanity.

The role of the Lightworker can be seen as a divine calling to a special form of spiritual care on the planet Earth. It is crucial to view this work of the soul as not simply a role that the ego takes on as something that a person desires or finds of real interest to them, but it is a caring that the soul cannot not do and still find peace in their life.

One true authentic “litmus test” of being called to be a lightworker is that you are not able to avoid being a lightworker. Being a lightworker is something that something that seems to almost “haunt” your soul and simply will not go away from your life, no matter how much you try. 

This calling to be a lightworker has parallels to the calling to divine work that we find with Moses, a prophet in the Old Testament.  As Moses confronted the bush that was burning and was not consumed (Exodus 3) there was the immediate realization that this was holy and sacred ground. As God says to Moses, “Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground”. There is a profound holy calling to being a lightworker that embraces the heart and soul of one called to do this sacred work. It is an institutive awareness of sacredness, and not easily explained to another person. 

The role of the Lightworker is to cooperate with the ongoing Presence of Divine Spirit in the world. It is not the person “doing their thing” as a bringer of light and higher levels of consciousness on the planet, but becoming a vessel through which, the power and grace of Divine Spirit is revealed. 

The question that Moses’ askes of God is the profound question that Lightworkers should ask: “Who am I” that I should undertake the task of being the bringer of hope and peace for others? The response of God to the prophet is “I will be with you”. The further message of Divine is, “I am has sent me to you”. Being a lightworker requires first the inner work of being aware of the true Self as eternal, divine consciousness.  Rather than seeing the Lightworker as simply another role or function that the ego adopts, the power and energy of the lightworker comes from awareness and cooperation with Divine Presence in our world.

Becoming a lightworker requires a spiritual awakening. It involves a shift of energy in the heart and soul.  The flow of energy with awakening is away from an independent self that stands over against the world. It is a dawning awareness that this self which stands alone in the world is an illusion in consciousness, or “maya” in spiritual traditions.

The awakening of the True Self is discovering that peace in life comes from living in the fullness of the Present Moment, being one with all that is. This is the move from the dualism of the self that finds the world as “out there” to the non-dualism of finding the world as an appearance in the consciousness of the True Self.

The inward shift of energy of spiritual awakening is living life not as something that the ego creates and tries to affirm in the world, but rather accepting the gift of life as it is bestowed as a gracious gift in the Present Moment. This shift of energy from a masculine energy (animus in Jungian terms) that asserts the ego in the world, to a feminine (anima in Jungian terms) energy that is open and receptive is essential to being a lightworker. The great spiritual truth is simply: “As inward, so outward”. It is the inward shift of energy that opens the door for the lightworker to be a vessel of the Divine Spirit that truly brings light, healing and wholeness into the lives of others and also shifts the energy on our planet. 

There are certain spiritual teachers, such as Christina Lopes, who suggest the importance of inward spiritual work as often necessary before becoming a Lightworker. She points out the importance of Shadow Work in the opening of the True Self as a channel of divine spirit. However, while Shadow Work may be of immense value in spiritual growth, it also can be simply another task of the ego.

Rupert Spira is an advocate of the” Direct Path” in the spiritual life. The focus is on awareness of the True Self as consciousness in the Present Moment. The spiritual awakening requires no work of the ego, and in fact the belief of ego making progress on a spiritual path is often a great determinant to spiritual growth.

The role of the Lightworker as a spiritual caregiver in hospice care may be seen as “Gatekeeper”. The hospice journey of the soul takes place shortly before the portal of death on the planet. There is great spiritual energy at both the portals of life and death. For those who are hospice companions with the dying, it is this profound sense of a beautiful spirit of peace that often draws them to hospice work. As a lightworker, there is the opportunity at the end of life with the actively dying to speak with compassion of the Eternal light of the soul and share that the light will bring peace for all eternity. 

An important role of Lightworkers with the family and loved ones of the dying is to enable those most close to the dying to share a “goodbye”. It seems to bring great peace to the soul to hear that our lives have been of value and importance in this life. It also is important to know that our loved ones will be o.k. and that our soul can leave this life when it feels that the appropriate time has come for our departure. The lightworker can bring great peace and comfort to both the dying and their loved ones in the role of being a spiritual presence that reveals the Divine Spirit.

Another important role of the hospice spiritual caregiver is that of the “Way Shower”. Death may be seen as the last great taboo in our modern world. It is something that is almost never mentioned and is often only encountered in times of great tragedy and distress. Through being open and accepting of the experience of death and all the feelings that accompany it, the lightworker can help to normalize the end-of-life journey on our planet. The acceptance of death can bring great peace and comfort to both the dying and their loved ones. The light worker can serve as role model for how a soul may embrace the reality of the physical body passing without overwhelming anxiety and dread. The lightworker can be a living example of a soul fully engaged in the Present Moment without denial and rejection of the end of life.

We will now consider the traits of a lightworker who a spiritual caregiver in hospice is.

First, the lightworker in hospice work has a deep interior spiritual life and feels drawn to the light themselves.

The desire of the Lightworker is to know the power and grace of Divine Light in their life, and constantly live as the Presence of this eternal light. Regardless of the pain and suffering of life, the light remains a present reality. To paraphrase the great spiritual teacher Tich Nhat Hanh, for the lightworker “The healing peace of the light is my home”. 

The hospice lightworker feels drawn to the light of Divine Spirit and has a constant desire to live out the fullness of this light. There is the old Baltimore Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church that stems from 1891. It states in answer to the question, “Why did God make you?”, that the purpose and meaning of life is found in knowing that God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the next.

We could paraphrase this reflection of faith to ask the question, “Why is the hospice lightworker in this world?”.

The answer is that the lightworker is incarnated on this planet Earth to know the light of the Divine Spirit as it manifests as our consciousness, to love the light, and to be of service to the light that is transforming lives and the entire planet. The Divine light is not limited to the world of space and time but is eternal and has no beginning and no end.  In this light is perfect peace.

Second, a hospice lightworker is an empath.

The lightworker has the natural capacity to understand and feel what another person is experiencing from their frame of reference. As a lightworker, you can place yourself in the position of another person. A hospice lightworker can accept the feelings and concerns of another with compassion and not reject or deny those life experiences.

A simple test to see if you are an empath is to simply reflect on a pleasant conversation you had recently with a friend or loved one. Who did most of the talking? Was the conversation mainly about you or the other person? Was the other person free to talk about their needs or concerns, or did you focus the time on what interested you? Was the tone of your conversation friendly and accepting, or judgmental and rejecting?  An empath makes space in their heart and soul for another, and naturally creates a safe holding space emotionally and spiritually.

Third a lightworker in hospice care is a person who feels drawn to the energy portal of the end of life.

Rather than finding the subject of death something to avoid at all costs, the lightworker finds this incredible experience we label death brings a beautiful presence of the Divine Spirit in their life. The end-of-life journey with others is a blessing in life and not a curse. Feeling that you naturally belong with those at the close of the life journey is a trait of a hospice lightworker. This energy portal at the end of life seems to draw you to it in some mysterious way that you simply cannot put into words, but truly know in your heart and soul.

Fourth, a hospice lightworker desires to be of service in the world. 

The great passion of life for the lightworker is to care for others in the service of Divine Spirit. The lightworker naturally makes themselves available to be an instrument of peace in the world.

The hospice lightworker feels drawn to the light of Divine Spirit and has a constant desire to live out the fulness of this light in service with the dying and their loved ones.

Fifth, lightworkers in hospice care find a natural, intuitive ability in their life to shift spiritual energy.

They truly find an innate capacity to bring light in darkness, hope in the midst of despair, and healing presence in the midst of brokenness. Without engaging the ego, the lightworker finds that they naturally transmute spiritual energy. The shift is from a lower energy of darkness that brings suffering to a higher energy of light that brings peace.

We may end this reflection on the spiritual role of the Lightworker in hospice care with a brief story to illustrate the role of the lightworker.

As the chaplain serving on a hospice Inpatient Care Center, there was a young person with severe pain from bone pain. He had been a U.S. Marine earlier in his life and seemed to have a personal philosophy of life that it was “manly” to deny all pain and suffering. He would not share his deep cancer pain and distress with a physician or any of the nursing staff. The end result of this deep denial was a soul trapped in a body and mind   that had a great deal of pain and despair. 

The staff requested a chaplain visit. As I walked into the patient’s room, the patient turned over in bed to greet me.  I noticed that the patient winced as he turned over. I smiled and said to the patient, “I noticed that you really winced as you turned over in bed.  I don’t know for sure, but it looked to me like you had a lot of pain as moved”.

The patient smiled back and said, “Yes, I really hurt. You got me”. I asked the patient where the pain was in his body, how bad it hurt, and could he describe the nature of the pain to me. After the patient finished reflecting on his pain, I asked if I could share what he said with a physician who was outside in the hallway. The patient agreed to the sharing.

To make a long story short, the patient was provided morphine pain medication on the ICC, and within 30 minutes the patient found relief from his long-time pain and distress. It was the simple sharing by the patient of what was occurring in the Present Moment that quickly shifted the energy of the patient. A lightworker simply acknowledging the darkness in a person’s life allowed the shift of spiritual energy to occur, and this resulted in physical relief on the body.

It is a basic spiritual law of the Universe that a spiritual problem can never be solved at the same level at which it was created. The role of the hospice lightworker is to acknowledge the pain and suffering of lower-level darker energy, and as an act of Divine Grace, allow for the Divine Spirit to shift the energy to a higher level. Being called to be an instrument of this spiritual energy shifting is truly the role of soulful care as a hospice worker.

The hospice spiritual caregiver is called to stand at the portal of death on our planet and transform the dark energy at the end of life to a light of peace and comfort. It is a beautiful and blessed calling to be a lightworker in hospice work.

Perhaps being a hospice worker is one of the most soulful things that a soul can be called to undertake on the planet Earth.  It is a divine calling that is full of mystery, wonder and awe to stand at the portal of eternity at the end of life.  In the name of the Divine Mystery of all Creation, the hospice lightworker has the awesome mission of shepherding souls to their place in the great Cosmic Consciousness

Lightworker. What an amazing calling in life. It truly is soulful care that is the heart and soul of hospice work.