Melanie Esparza - Week 6

The article ‘You are here’: locating ‘spirituality’ on the map of the current medical world by Parameshwaran Ramakrishnan deals with the combination of spirituality and medicine. Ramakrishnan specifically details clinical pastoral education (CPE), which focuses on teaching nurses and physicians spiritual care skills. He describes that the spiritual care process requires both “deep and empathetic listening to the patient’s thoughts and feelings” as well as the “ability to be mindfully aware of his/her own ‘self’, thoughts, and feelings.” Ramakrishnan further explains how a spiritual care process can help patients heal by teaching them how to connect to their inner self allowing them to reach ataraxy, or a state of serene calmness. In this way, chaplains can serve a great purpose by teaching patients how to use themselves as a therapeutic tool thus becoming self-sustaining. However, this article notes the importance of these chaplains becoming CPE certified in order for them to learn how to identify their own ‘self’ and by extension how to transcend their conscious self to be able to help others. 

This has been one of my favorite articles this quarter because it reminded me a lot of the specific therapy system that I work with. I have personally seen how effective it can be to establish a relationship with the inner ‘self’ and how it allows for healing through compassion, self-love, and empathy. For a long time now, I have not considered myself to be a religious person, and I struggled to find faith and to understand how it is that others held such unwavering faith. This article allowed me to see things from a different perspective, and now I see that spirituality and religion are interwoven in ways I did not understand. Although I might not specifically believe in a single god, I have found some peace by acknowledging that there is something larger than myself and my consciousness at play. I realize now that it’s not so different from religion at all.

Source: Rita Loyd 2007 

sourced from: https://tinybuddha.com/blog/unconditional-self-love-looks-like/