Preparation and the Healing Environment
Most practitioners in the healing arts are immersed in considerations other than client/patient care for most of their working hours.
Healthcare in these United States is a business.
Beyond the necessity of finding a base to offer your services and then attracting people to come to use them are the day-to-day considerations of management, including working within the structures and limitations of your own modality.
Often, by the time you actually get to sit down with someone turning to you for help, your head is so full of the minutia of the day; the mechanical rather than the personal.
It sometimes takes a huge act of will to become present with another human being.
Becoming present is the sort of thing that an act of will can attain, but not sustain.
Forcing yourself to be present usually means that any distraction can easily act as an excuse to get off-track again.
In a workshop I do with healers, the first night I pair participants up and then purposely set the stage by getting them involved in a head-based activity.
This mimics the general atmosphere of their working day.
I then throw them into an improvisational theatre game that asks they "mirror" each other's behavior, alternately.
At the end of that game (without reviewing what just happened), I then have them take a seat and I run them through an exercise that prepares them for working with others.
Technically, it's an exercise in shifting their consciousness to their hearts, but most important, it is an exercise that identifies the block of time coming up as a special time to connect with another human being in service to healing.
It is all about the application of conscious intent to a well-defined period that has a beginning, middle and end.
Then, I throw the participants into the same exact exercise with their same partners.
At its end, we circle up and discuss the differences preparation made.
They are usually huge! The "task" of the exercise involves mirroring observations of behavior.
The first round very limited and superficial observations are usually made.
The second round, however, participants discovered nuances of behavior (in themselves AND their partners!) that had seemed completely hidden before.
Their levels of intuition in the moment improved substantially.
Why? The only thing that changed was they took the time to become conscious.
I teach one form of attaining a state of being that is supportive of connection, and then encourage the participants to devise their own.
The bottom line is taking the time to become present with what you are doing before you begin doing it.
This may seem simple, but it's something most of us, quite frankly, don't believe we have the time to do.
But we do, if we make it.
And it doesn't demand that much.
A quiet, private place for just a few minutes where you can breathe, shake off the immediate tension, breathe some more and then silently say to yourself whatever moves you - an affirmation, a prayer, a poem - to remind you why you are choosing to be there with that person.
And then, you walk into the person's presence; ready to focus your full attention on the moments you are together.
In this particular phase of the relationship you are granting your complete and undivided attention to the person in front of you.
But it's just as important to establish that the time of this intense focus will be limited, both to you and them.
Many healers I work with make it clear to their charges, "I have (X) amount of time to give you my full attention, and then I will need to move into a different mode.
" This, too, is an integral part of preparation, for both of you.
We often fear that by summoning what amounts to the power of compassion we will not be able to turn it off and move on to the more head-centered necessities of our work.
It's simply not true.
We were designed to be able to move between both worlds.
This is a muscle you can exercise and strengthen.
At first it takes a certain degree of effort.
But as you get used to it, you'll learn how to snap to full attention just by making the choice, and then disengaging by making another one.
Healthcare in these United States is a business.
Beyond the necessity of finding a base to offer your services and then attracting people to come to use them are the day-to-day considerations of management, including working within the structures and limitations of your own modality.
Often, by the time you actually get to sit down with someone turning to you for help, your head is so full of the minutia of the day; the mechanical rather than the personal.
It sometimes takes a huge act of will to become present with another human being.
Becoming present is the sort of thing that an act of will can attain, but not sustain.
Forcing yourself to be present usually means that any distraction can easily act as an excuse to get off-track again.
In a workshop I do with healers, the first night I pair participants up and then purposely set the stage by getting them involved in a head-based activity.
This mimics the general atmosphere of their working day.
I then throw them into an improvisational theatre game that asks they "mirror" each other's behavior, alternately.
At the end of that game (without reviewing what just happened), I then have them take a seat and I run them through an exercise that prepares them for working with others.
Technically, it's an exercise in shifting their consciousness to their hearts, but most important, it is an exercise that identifies the block of time coming up as a special time to connect with another human being in service to healing.
It is all about the application of conscious intent to a well-defined period that has a beginning, middle and end.
Then, I throw the participants into the same exact exercise with their same partners.
At its end, we circle up and discuss the differences preparation made.
They are usually huge! The "task" of the exercise involves mirroring observations of behavior.
The first round very limited and superficial observations are usually made.
The second round, however, participants discovered nuances of behavior (in themselves AND their partners!) that had seemed completely hidden before.
Their levels of intuition in the moment improved substantially.
Why? The only thing that changed was they took the time to become conscious.
I teach one form of attaining a state of being that is supportive of connection, and then encourage the participants to devise their own.
The bottom line is taking the time to become present with what you are doing before you begin doing it.
This may seem simple, but it's something most of us, quite frankly, don't believe we have the time to do.
But we do, if we make it.
And it doesn't demand that much.
A quiet, private place for just a few minutes where you can breathe, shake off the immediate tension, breathe some more and then silently say to yourself whatever moves you - an affirmation, a prayer, a poem - to remind you why you are choosing to be there with that person.
And then, you walk into the person's presence; ready to focus your full attention on the moments you are together.
In this particular phase of the relationship you are granting your complete and undivided attention to the person in front of you.
But it's just as important to establish that the time of this intense focus will be limited, both to you and them.
Many healers I work with make it clear to their charges, "I have (X) amount of time to give you my full attention, and then I will need to move into a different mode.
" This, too, is an integral part of preparation, for both of you.
We often fear that by summoning what amounts to the power of compassion we will not be able to turn it off and move on to the more head-centered necessities of our work.
It's simply not true.
We were designed to be able to move between both worlds.
This is a muscle you can exercise and strengthen.
At first it takes a certain degree of effort.
But as you get used to it, you'll learn how to snap to full attention just by making the choice, and then disengaging by making another one.
Source...