Guiding Families to Mindfulness

The presentation will offer the attendees an understanding of contemporary hospice and palliative care (HPC), which focuses on personal growth and enhancing quality of life. Being present and mindful is a key skill for making difficult decisions for one's self or loved one. Helping patients and families achieve a mindful state enhances the process of decision making but may be difficult for some individuals to achieve through conventional meditation or MBSR approaches, especially with cognitive impairment. The presenters will provide case examples in adults and children employing integrative modalities and incorporating shamanic transpersonal healing approaches, which they have successfully used to guide over one hundred patients and families across the nation, referred for hospice care or requiring ICU care. The presenters will provide the attendees with two experiential opportunities for guided shamanic journeying (similar to guided visualization) accompanied by mindful rhythmic drumming to understand how the process takes place in the clinical setting and how the information obtained can be easily incorporated into supporting patient care.

By the end of this course, learners will be able to:

• Understand the process and goals of end of life care in contemporary, integrative hospice care.
• List several integrative methods to help patients achieve mindfulness as a key to developing personal insight.
• Experience the process of shamanic journeying as a method for accessing transpersonal healing.
• Explain the critical role that the healer's intention plays in the process of shamanic healing work to support integrative medicine.