Step One
What’s Most Important
What’s most important when you are visiting someone dying or their family is to be committed to bringing your attention to listening to them. Just like if you were bringing a casserole; you are bringing your attention. Above all else, the most important thing you can do with your energy is to focus with the intention of HEARING and ACKNOWLEDGING what they say, NOT in trying to figure out a solution or make things better.
Step Two
You Are In Another Role Right Now
Remember that you are in your supportive role right now. You are not in your normal role of best friend or sister or cousin or whatever you are in normal days. In my training with end-of-life doulas we refer to this as “wearing your doula shoes.” So, when you go over, take your shoes off at the door and slip on your doula shoes. This signals to you that you are in an elevated role right now. You will shift out of your regular automatic pattern. Your regular pattern may be fine, it’s that just we want to make sure you are in an elevated, supportive state right now.
Step Three
Commit to Taking Conscious Breaths
Make a commitment to take intentional deep breaths as you are visiting. Find your own way to make sure you are doing this regularly when your doula shoes are on. Deep conscious breaths goes hand in hand with wearing your doula shoes. It’s just like when you pour the water in a cup knowing you are going to drink it. The conscious habit of deep breathing slows YOU down. It stops YOU for a moment. This will cause you to be more aware of yourself. The deep breaths remind you to stay quiet and deeply listen to your person.
Step Four
Intentionally Pause 5 Seconds
When the person you are talking with stops talking, they may be just trying to get air. Wait 5 seconds and see if they are gathering their thoughts. Wait 5 more seconds and see if they are relaxing (as you don’t fill in the space with your words). Let the silence be. Let the pause be a pleasant break. The biggest gift you can give right now is to be quiet. Check in with yourself. Do you feel an overwhelming need to fix a problem or fill the space of silence or to save them from their feelings? Are you ok, or are you aware of your own growing discomfort? Work on this with each visit.
Nest. What these steps help you do is create a nest for them, a container for them to spill out what is inside of them. The silence and the pausing is doing that. It is creating relief, space, and trust. It is slowing everything down. This practice is helping to create a huge relief valve for them.
Segue Phrases. When conversations feel awkward to you, try using some of these phrases to get you through it or to redirect the flow or to kickstart a new direction.
- Tell me more
- What happened then?
- Please go on
- Is that right?
- How did that make you feel?
- What I’m hearing is…
- Would that help with…
- What it sounds like is…
When It Gets Heated. Sometimes the conversation may get heated. Someone may misunderstand you or through no fault of your own, take offense. Some ways to verbally reroute the situation:
- excellent suggestion. Thank you. I know you have a lot going on. I leave you to get on with your day.
- Thank you for sharing your wisdom. I really benefited from that. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go back to the office now.
- Well, I wish I had more time to explore this with you, but I just received word from the office that they need me.
- I see you’re upset about this. Perhaps when we both have had some time to think about what just happened, we can have another talk.
- (another trick is to replace “but” with “and”. Insert ‘and’ where you would normally say ‘but’ (you need to practice this one.)
- I apologize. I meant no harm.
Assignment:
- Write down some thoughts about what you just read.
- List 3 things in yourself you may need to address/fine tune for you to be able to handle these kinds of situations.
- Do you feel comfortable when someone else you are talking with has strong feelings or is upset? Write about this.
- Overall, if you are interested in serving professionally in the end-of-life field, are there skills you may need to develop?