Healing presence

Visiting patients can be a really confronting experience. Besides their medical matters, in each and every patient there is the spiritual dimension waiting to be addressed.

As visitors we are there for the patients and not for ourselves. The patient is the centre of our visit. A fruitful visit is one whereby the patient's sacred place is respected. As visitors we can be a potential means for a person's healing. Our presence by the patient's bedside can act as a means of how that person might successfully recover or peacefully comes to terms with own mortality. The pertinent question that every visitor is to ask before visiting a patient is: How am I going to be a healing presence for this patient? Three important things are crucial: communication, connection, and communion.

Communication implies listening, speaking and silence. When visiting a patient, we are to listen to what is said and, most of all, "not spoken of" by the patient. To do that we need to be very attentive to what the other person is saying. Attentive listening enables us to respond and meet the other person where s/he is at. Thus, a beneficial and heartfelt conversation starts being built. Occasionally, silence can be fruitful for both the speaker and the listener. For the former it helps to say what presently truly matters for her/him, for the latter it facilitates the capacity to listen with the heart.

The meeting between the sick person and the visitor can be a healing connection. It is important that the visitor creates space, safety, and sacredness for the patient. A caring visitor opens up mentally to what is going on during the visit, specifically by being fully attentive to what the patient is saying. An emotional space is created when patients feel that their story is embraced.

This reassurance makes patients feel that they are welcomed for who they are and not for their appearance. Such a physical space instills in the patient the assurance of being in a "safe place". The visitor's confidentiality and empathy bless the encounter with a compassionate sacredness. To be fully present and respectful to where a person is injects hope within the patient. Patients are not alone in their own journey. In return, they slowly start to realise and accept that they are doing their best to cope. They begin to show gratitude for who they are and for their life story.

Through communication and connection the hospital visitation becomes an experience of communion. The Divine enters and imbues the relationship with His healing power. Both the patient and the visitor experience lightness, peacefulness, healing, transformation, and transcendence.

May our hospital visitations be moments of healing for the patients and ourselves. May they be venues where hope, empathy, attentiveness, love, intentionality, nourishment and gratitude are imparted and received with an open heart.