Training day........... A Sequel...........

I promised to share about my experiences with the Compassion In Action training, and I want to because I want you all to know how beneficial and helpful it was. The experience was SO SPECIAL, that there is a part of me that also wants to keep it all to myself. Our trainer, who I will call Jim-Bob, often made reference to sacred space/sacred moments, and that is exactly what this training was/is to me. Watching people open their box of pain and share it with others is indeed sacred, and will be respected as such. Still, there are many things I can tell you about the training, that will show it's value and make you want to experience it whether you want to work with Hospic people or just gain some insite into your own personal feelings regarding death and dying.

My tale begins with the big meeting of "You know who you are." Remember, we had never actually met, and had only shared one e-mail. After checking into my room, I thought I would call her room and let her know I was "in the building." Problem............. I only knew her first name. I called (my) Mister (Again I have to say "WHAT DID I DO BEFORE CELL PHONES?") and came up with a last initial through her e-mail address. The fact that she has an uncommon first name helped, and I was able to call the front desk and find out her room number. I called her, and we agreed to meet in the lobby before heading to the first session.

Don't ask me why, but as I headed down the elevator to the lobby, I felt like one does as they are about to meet a blind date. Will they like me? Will I like them? Will we get along? Will I be sorry I agreed to do this?What will that first instant be like? I am pleased to tell you that it was all good. We had an instant connection as we shared a "hello hug," and felt like we had know each other for years. Throughout the weekend, we learned that we have many things in common, and share many of the same values. Now that I know her, I am giving her a new blog name. From now on, "You know who you are" will be refered to as "Heart." For many reasons, but mostly because heart sums up the essence of her being.

Heart and I headed to class, and as we walked in I noticed two things. All of the chairs were arranged in a circle (pretty nomal for a class of this type) and there were boxes of kleenex located next to every other chair. (Pretty abnormal, but gave me a glimmer of where we were heading.) As we began, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had met Jim-Bob somewhere before. (It was probably a soul connection I was picking up, because by the end of the weekend, I was feeling it from most everyone in the room.) I had forgotten how comforting and wonderful it was to be together with like minded people, and as we set the ground rules for the weekend, I knew this was going to be great.

The first activity we engaged in was a listening,"getting to know you" in pairs of two. I partnered up with "Shoes," (explaination of her name to come at a later date.) and again, it was one of those "meant to be meetings." Once we had shared with one another, Jim-Bob explained that we were now going to introduce our partners using the information we had learned. This was really great, because there was none of that worry about "What am I going to tell people about myself" stuff that one always goes through. By the time the exercise was finished, the ice had been broken, and we were on our way to becoming a close knit group.

A big part of the weekend was about making sure to take care of yourself. We all logically know that one cannot take care of another if they first do not take care of themselves, but we also know that in the real world this is also the first thing that we forget to do. The environment was set up so first and formost we took care of ourselves, and then so we remembered to take care of each other. Activities were structured to be private and personal, and sharing the outcome of the activity was totally optional. To wrap up today's post, I would like to share my feelings about one of the activities we did.

First we were handed twenty cards. Then Jim-Bob ask us to write down different things, like name four people that are important to you, four items, etc... Once this was done, he began to read us a story about a guy that had been sick for some time, and began to get sicker. At certain points in the story, Jim-Bob would stop and have us pick one of our cards to loose, representing the losses that the guy in the story was experiencing. Of course it was easy at first, and I had no trouble giving up my material items. Then he came to a part of the story in which the character felt like he had no control over things, and Jim-Bob told us to let our neighbor pick two cards for us to loose, as a way to experience the sense of having no control over what was happening to us. After our neighbor picked them, we could look and see what we had lost. I don't even remember what the first card I lost was, because when I looked at the second card, I experienced an actual phyical pain in my heart. According to card number two, I had just lost my youngest child! I can't tell you how well this brought to life what a dying person must feel like as they loose more and more as a result of their illness. Powerful stuff! When I shared the experience with (my) Mister the next morning, I still teared up when I told him about loosing my youngest.

I have a few more things I would like to share about the weekend, but enough for today. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the weeds are growing, all for my enjoyment. I'd best get out there and enjoy it all, while the day is still young.