Spirituality Religion and Self-Care

Dying, death and bereavement are universal experiences that call us into profound connection with questions of meaning, purpose and the human spirit. And yet for those both within and without traditional religious orthodoxy, questions of spirituality in death and grief are too often marginalized, with death being managed as a primarily medical event. How do we reintegrate the personal and transpersonal aspects of dying and grieving back into the experience? And how do we tend to our own deepest selves as we sit with suffering?

In this interactive two-day workshop, we will explore ways of relating to and reclaiming soulfulness in the work of spiritual care in end-of-life and bereavement, both for our clients and ourselves. In day one, through a mix of didactic and contemplative, experiential, non-denominational practices of presence, reflection and inquiry, we will explore our own spiritual and/or religious orientations in working with the dying and bereaved, various approaches to the art of bearing witness, practices to support meaning-making with the dying and bereaved, and considerations supporting an anti-oppressive orientation when working across difference and in complex conditions. In day two, again through both didactic and contemplative,  experiential practices, we will investigate how to care for ourselves as we carry the work of being with dying and grief. Through a centering of our own experiences, explorations of the personal impacts of our work, reviewing the neuroscience of empathy and empathic distress (commonly called compassion fatigue), understanding the resilience-enhancing role of compassion and self-compassion, and learning new strategies to strengthen our resources, we will each build a concrete plan for self-care that can be used to enhance or revise our existing self-care paractices.