[janetbooth15]

I am sorry to miss the call on Fri. 7/19, but will be in the middle of a wilderness retreat in Saguache, CO with the School of Lost Borders.
I enjoy reading what others have written — this kind of conversation is a gift.

[janetbooth15]

My mind goes to the early years of my work as a hospice nurse, and how I experienced working with others at a soul level. I didn’t always have the words, but I got to know the territory fairly well at the bedside of people who were dying.
We communicated beyond our roles of ‘nurse’ and ‘dying person’…beyond our backgrounds and differences in gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic position, health status, and on. At first I thought it was our being together as human to human with each other…that’s already a different level than the usual ways we communicate with other people. And that’s beautiful and humbling in itself.
But there was something more — a recognition of something deeper, ageless, timeless, without identity. AND coming from a place of what I can only call peace, love, kindness, stillness. Inexpressable. I started to call that caring for another person on a soul level.

So it’s interesting to discern how best to talk about this with other health care professionals, for those of us who do teaching and training of people who are doing the work of healing and health…how do we talk about this and why does it matter?
How do we recognize this place, this source of soul within ourselves — and then know it well enough that we can be with others more consistently out of this place? How do I know I’ve moved away from that place…and what are my practices to shift back into it? And, again, why does that matter?
I know from experience that this is an authentic place, so it can’t be simply put on like a pair of new scrubs or a new technique. It’s probably more a practice of taking off behaviors and practices to reveal the simple, humble levels of soul-directed caring.

What’s your experience of working from this soul-directed place?