Jun 08 | CPE Journal #9 – June 7th

Today is the feast of the Sacred Heart.

I felt it today as I went about my unit. One patient wept beside me because they didn’t want to weep in front of their spouse and make them worry. Another fell asleep as I prayed for their healing. Another said, “I quite like talking to you. I shall think of you when I go home.” Another one, suffering from a vast multitude of problems, had me wanting to sing that old song about them being the most beautiful one “in the…room. In the whole wide room.”

The bizarre thing, though, is that I found myself using the skills I have learned in another area of my life today…but doing so, in a sense, under protest, which is to say that I tried my hardest to listen, empower, and affirm in order to build rapport and trust (brokenly) but inwardly wanting to scream. It’s not easy, but it’s certainly more effective, so it won’t be the last time I do so. It did mean that I wept a bit and called my mother later.

My prayer for anyone that finds this kind of work bleeding into their personal lives (and it will – trust me) has the courage and possible foolishness to not scream.

Love is the answer. (I have been writing this at the bottom of every entry in my CPE journal).

-Clarity