A Healthcare Professional's Real-life Experiences With Haitian Refugees

We Were Told It Was “A Local Problem”
It hurt when I recently read an op-ed by Author and adventurer James S. Gardner.  He was commenting on refugees from the Haitian earthquake. He said, “Make no mistake about it, they are coming.”

My heart sunk as I read that because I know the repercussions of refugees coming to our shores. I lived through it as a health care provider in the late 70s during the Mariel Boat Landing in south east Florida. I worked at Mt. Sinai Medical Center on South Miami Beach as an emergency room respiratory therapist. I was in regular contact with these “boat people,” as they were then called. We were their first contact after the EMTs, police or Coast Guard brought them to the hospital. We cared for their physical wounds, tried to comfort their emotional terror and watched helplessly as some of them died on our gurneys before we could even find out why they were dying. I held many hands back then and listened to their pleading in a language I couldn’t understand. But our eyes and clutching hands held a communication that can’t be expressed in words. The most heartbreaking complaint I made to my superiors was that we didn’t have anyone on our healthcare team that spoke the languages of the “boat people,” and they were afraid, sick and dying with no one who understood them.

There were Cubans and Haitian refugees. I heard recently that during the 70’s two thirds of the “boat people” drowned while trying to flee to freedom. Dade County processed 200,000 boat people back then. (That could possibly mean that 400,000 people drowned in the Mariel Boat event.) We pleaded with Washington to help us. Our health care and our educational system were bulging, splitting at the seams. Then President, Jimmy Carter continuously told us it was “a local problem.” We were unable to handle the sudden influx of people and the tragedy worsened.

Click the link below to continue reading my article.

Op-ed: Haitian Earthquake Refugees

Click "Leave Comment," below to share your thoughts.

--Barbara
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It's here! The Natural Soul Is Here Now!

My new book, The Natural Soul is now in!   If you order here, I will  autograph the book and ship it directly to you.  (Enter the name you wish me to sign it to in the space provided below.) You can also request The Natural Soul at your favorite bookseller or purchase it online through most retailers like Amazon.com.

Recipient Name for Autograph:

God has a Dream

And the Dream comes true

Each time one of us Awakens

BARBARA HARRIS WHITFIELD

You and I are on a journey of Awakening.  We're becoming the complete persons that we were born and meant to be before the troubles of the world tried to distract us.  Like an acorn growing into an oak, our Soul can grow and develop into the fullest and most complete that it can be in this lifetime.

It's quite a path, this journey of Awakening, and I'm glad to share it with you.

I hope that you enjoy this book and all of the warm energy that it offers as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Wishing you peace and serenity on your journey.

Barbara
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The Acorn and the Oak

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In my book, The Natural Soul, I relate a deep and hopeful truth: That you and I already contain all that we need to be whole and we have the potential to become fully awake in this lifetime, if we wish it.  That is the true nature of our Soul. 

Each of us was born with the seeds of realizing love, completeness, and finding our own Divine potential despite what our upbringing and sometimes crazy society might have taught us to the contrary.  Like the acorn growing into the oak, we can each develop, grow, and reach our highest potential in this lifetime. 

Nothing can hold us back from that great personal truth.

--Barbara

(btw: that's our wonderful granddaughter, Lily, and Charlie in the picture)
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Find Our Books Here Fast!

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We've made it easy and convienient to find and buy our books.  Click the arrow buttons below the carousels to rotate through the books. Click the books learn more about them and buy them now.
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Barbara Whitfield: The Natural Soul: A Journey Begins: Part 1

This is the first half of Barbara's story that she tells in The Natural Soul.

• What happens when we find out that what we've learned is getting in the way of living?
• Who really should be the Love of Our Life? (The answer might surprise you)
• How do we start fixing what's wrong in our relationships with ourselves and others?

Watch both parts and find out the answers to these questions and more.

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Watch Part 1 -- The Natural Soul: A Journey Begins. Barbara Harris Whitfield in Faith & Lifestyle  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
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Barbara Whitfield: The Natural Soul: A Journey Begin: Part 2

This is the second half of Barbara's story that she tells in The Natural Soul.

• What happens when we find out that what we've learned is getting in the way of living?
• Who really should be the Love of Our Life? (The answer might surprise you)
• How do we start fixing what's wrong in our relationships with ourselves and others?

Watch both parts and find out the answers to these questions and more.

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Watch Part 2 -- The Natural Soul: A Journey Begins. Barbara Harris Whitfield in Faith & Lifestyle  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

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Barbara In Person! -- Book Signing and Talk In Atlanta

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Barbara will be appearing in-person for a short talk and book signing in Atlanta!

She will be talking about The Natural Soul and will be sharing her thoughts on a newly published book, Kundalini Rising.  Barbara and her husband, Charles Whitfield, M.D. have written chapters in this new anthology that explores the energy of Awakening.

Location, Date and Time:

• The Phoenix and Dragon Bookstore
• 5531 Roswell Road, Atlanta, Georgia 30342  (1-800-597-6800)
• November 17, 2009
• 7:00 PM-8:30 PM
• Admission is FREE

Map and Directions

 Visit http://www.phoenixanddragon.com/

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Barbara's Interview with Writer's News Weekly

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Watch Barbara's interview with Writer's News Weekly while she was a guest at the giant Book Expo America in New York.  She answers questions about The Natural Soul, near-death experiences and other close-to-the-heart topics that she explores in her books.

Click Here To Watch The Interview

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Barbara Talks About Synchronicities and Little Miracles

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Many of us didn’t have a dramatic Spiritual experience that awakened us. Many awakened through the grace of synchronicities. We started to pay attention to something deeper and quieter that was sending us a wake-up call.

Synchronicities tweak us into remembering that there is more going on than our egos are willing to believe. When enough of these incidents create a thread of continuity, these “meaningful coincidences” become synchronicities. I turn on the radio and the words in the song are speaking to what I was just thinking about. I think of one of my children and the phone rings. Guess who?

I think of these as "Cosmic Postcards."

When I worked in research, the Near-Death Experiencers I interviewed told me about their synchronicities, and I would share some of mine with them. We ended the interviews with bright red cheeks and sparkling eyes. There’s something so magical about something happening that is against all odds --all intellectual odds that is.

As I move even deeper into my authentic self, my Soul, I let these synchronicities come in and move on without telling anyone anymore because they really are hard to relay. In a momentary flash something comes in that is so meaningful to what is going on that it seems to pierce our hearts. We suddenly are paying attention to the Universe and how it weaves into our ho-hum life. I smile, say a quick “thank you” and go on.

"Little Miracles"

A few years ago, Charlie spoke at a conference in Las Vegas at the same time Steve and Barbara Rother were having a Spiritual gathering on the other side of town. I skipped one morning’s meetings and left the Las Vegas Hilton in a cab. By the time I got to this other meeting, my cab fare was extremely high. The meeting I went to that morning was all about little miracles. The premise was that we shouldn’t ask God for anything specific. All we need to do is be willing and then have the awareness to see little miracles when they occur. We heard wonderful stories. When it was over the other nine people that were there exploded into what can only be described as pure joy. As we were getting ready to leave, a woman offered to drive me back to my hotel as she put her jacket on. It was a great looking satin baseball jacket and the emblem on the front said, ‘Las Vegas Hilton.’

“Where am I taking you?” she asked.

“To the Las Vegas Hilton!” I said laughing.

There are too many hotels to count in Las Vegas. This might not be considered a miracle, but it definitely got our attention.

I recently wrote the foreword for Robert Perry’s new book about synchronicities. Perry’s book explains a detailed model for identifying meaningful coincidences and allows us for the first time to get a deeper understanding on the potential usefulness of paying attention to synchronicities. They may have more messages than we realize and this book shows how to listen in a deeper way.

Signs: A New Approach to Coincidence, Synchronicity, Guidance, Life Purpose, and God’s Plan By Robert Perry. Semeion Press, Sedona,Arizona,2009

Do you have stories of synchronicities, little miracles or, “meaningful coincidences” that you would like to share with us?  Please share them with us here.  Click the "Comments" link, below to start.

--Barbara

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Barbara Defines: What Is Real?

As I relate the stories in my book Final Passage: Sharing the Journey as this Life Ends, I occasionally pause and explain this difference that happens as someone is preparing to make their transition.  Their ego is becoming weaker and their Soul stronger.  Observing this helps the reader to recognize the switching back and forth between their Soul or Real Self and their ego or false self.  The longer I have worked with transitioning people the more aware I have become of an almost “flipping” mechanism that happens.  When unsafe people are around, my patients stay in their ego.  Bring in someone they deeply love and feel safe with and they move over and settle into their Soul.  As a caregiver I can usually help them to remain in their Soul when we are alone or with safe others.

Being with someone who is dying provides an opportunity like no other to help us learn how to practice being real and feeling connected. Whether we are the person dying or the person assisting in the transition, this process is a chance to step out of our egos and practice being our Soul.

A Course in Miracles says in its introduction:

What is real cannot be threatened;

What is unreal does not exist.

Herein lies the peace of God.

What is real is God and God’s world — the world of the Soul and Sacred Person.  The ego and its world is not real, and therefore, in the grand scheme of the Mystery, does not exist.  Herein, when we make this differentiation, lies our peace and serenity.  By learning to differentiate between identifying with our True Self and our false self, we learn the way to peace and serenity.  We might even say we are learning to “stand in the Light of our Soul.”

Some of these ideas may be hard to grasp.  Identifying with our Soul, our Real Self — and not our body — is a strange concept in a world in which we are being bombarded with messages about the way we look.  Magazines, television, and movies tell us that we’re not young enough, thin enough or firm enough.  Our society bombards us with materialistic messages that keep us locked in our body and our possessions as our only identity.  In our world today, there are many people who don’t know about their Souls.  They have become distracted by materialism and the media which defines for them what reality is.

They have fallen asleep to the Real World.

Much of the time people who are “asleep” find that, when they are preparing for their transition, they wake up to their true identity and realize that they are not just their body before they die.  They let go of the image of themselves as just their body and at the same time realize they are not their ego.  They wake up to their Spiritual nature, which is their Soul.  Sometimes, as I meet a patient for the first time, they will tell me that.  There is a sense of joy at the knowledge that this worn-out or diseased body is going to drop away and release them back into wholeness.

From The Natural Soul Barbara Harris Whitfield 2009
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Barbara Talks About: Comas and Consciousness

At an IANDS support group meeting (International Association of Near-Death Studies), identical twin boys, 19-years-old, came with their mother to tell us this experience: The twins were in a bad auto accident a few months earlier.  One had severe head injuries. The other was barely hurt.  They both were in a coma for several days.  The twin who was barely injured said he knew he had to stay with his brother on the other side because he was afraid his brother wouldn’t come back.  He was afraid to leave him because it was so pleasant that he might go on and not be able to return.  When I asked the mother what she felt during the ordeal, she said she knew her boys well and realized that one was staying to keep the other one from going on.

"His Children Helped Him Come Back"

When I worked at Mt. Sinai Medical Center on South Miami Beach, we had a young father in ICU in a coma from a severe heart attack.  His wife tape-recorded the children at the dinner table and brought the tape in with a boom box that we placed just beyond his head, taped to the headboard.  We played the tape of noise and chatter of the children 24 hours a day until he awakened.  He told his wife days later that he was in the tunnel the whole time but couldn’t go on because the sounds of the children’s voices kept bringing him back.

"My Own Father Says Good Bye"

And finally, there was my own father’s coma.  His doctor said he was in a deep coma and would die within 48 hours.  Talking to him, and stroking his hair, brought him out of the coma after about a half hour.  He stayed out of the coma long enough to talk to us and give us stories from his memories that we could cherish.

When he died in the middle of that night, I was sleeping on my parents’ sofa in the living room.  I heard someone breathing in my sleep so I opened my eyes, trying to see in the dark if it was my mother or my brother.  I was alone.  The breathing went on for six or more breaths and then it stopped.  Within five minutes the phone rang and I knew my father had died.  I wasn’t with him so he came to me for his last breath.

"No One Dies Alone"

I have experienced people coming out of comas many times just before they die.  And most of them tell me about deceased relatives meeting them, either standing at the foot of their bed and communicating with no words — heart to heart — or seeing them in heavenly landscapes.  Perhaps this is why I believe/know that no one dies alone. It doesn’t matter if there isn’t another physical being anywhere around.  There are Spiritual beings greeting them with the intention of guiding them, or, as my grandmother did, letting me know she’d be there when I returned.

Over the years many people have asked me to talk with them about death and dying. Sharing real-life stories like these with them and hearing their stories continually confirms to me that we neither live nor leave this life alone; even though it may not feel like it, you and I are never really deserted and without hope.

From The Natural Soul, by Barbara Whitfield

Do you have a story about near-death or similar experiences yourself or with others?  Click on the "comments" link, below, and share them with us.

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Barbara on: The Dying Process

My colleagues and I have interviewed hundreds of Near-Death Experiencers and we all say the same thing.  We were not upset to lose our body and this incarnation once we realized that we were still who we are and that the “thing” we were leaving behind was painful, cumbersome and inhibiting.  There was often a sense of “Oh! So that one’s over!  Now I can get some rest while I heal and start again anew.”

If our death was not sudden, if there was sufficient time to realize that we were dying, then, yes, it often was painful detaching from the people we love.  But once we had left our bodies, we were not so upset about leaving.  Many of us reported being joyful.  We felt peace.  Many of us became ecstatic as we moved toward the Light.

Our problems began when we had to return to the physical plane.  We liked leaving our toxic pain or egos behind and coming home to our Self/Soul; we felt real again and we felt the connection to our Higher Self and God.  We liked more fully experiencing who we really are — our Sacred Person.  Once we were back here on Earth in our body, however, we had to struggle because our loved ones and our society wanted us to resume our old roles, which meant putting our egos back on or being our false self.

Sometimes, when people are dying, this mechanism of dropping the ego and being real begins long before the dying process is complete.  Those of us assisting them have an easy time because all we need to do is be real.  Being real invites our attention to focus on the Divine Energy that is really orchestrating everything, and we can release into the dance of life and death.  We become aware of the cycle that the Eastern religions have always referred to: birth-life-death — learning, resting, healing — birth-life-death.  Souls come in and Souls go out.  The ego and the body die, but we — our Essence that we here term our Soul or True Self — continues our journey of growth and transformation.  Physics confirms this in the first law of thermodynamics, which in part says that energy can be converted from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed.

Birth is an experience of celebration. Death can be, too.  I am not trying to get your hopes up about what it is like to die.  My book, Final Passage, is realistically written, containing some stories about people who never transformed to anything higher.  At the same time, however, it also contains stories of what is possible when Spirit transforms suffering. When we are being real we share our Truth.  Being real and sharing our Truth “flips” our consciousness into a deeper dimension that is Spiritual, where suffering is only what is happening to the body, not to us.  Suffering is about fearing our pain.  When we make room for Spirit, we stop fearing and the suffering dissolves.

The stages of birth-life-death cycle are beautifully designed to occur at exactly the right time with the assistance of God’s Divine Energy.  Each one of us creates or designs our timing so that it is not one minute before or one minute after the appropriate moment. Our ego can do none of this.  Our Soul/True Self, in concert with our Higher Self and with God, is creating our timetable.  Our ego is the victim of our dying.  Ego is the pain of trying to hold on.  Our Soul can orchestrate our death with grace.

Our Soul’s nature is to create.  There is a formless part of ourselves, like the part of the acorn that holds the oak tree, that creates our personality, ego and image.  Its nature is to create.  If we identify with the creation — our bodies, ego, image — we will suffer in life and in death.  If we identify with the creator — our Soul, our Higher Self and God — we will end our suffering.  At this level, we go behind the ego chatter and we are free.

No matter how Spiritual or free we become, as we move toward death there may still be some moments or elements of physical pain if we decide not to take any medication.  We may experience the pain, but not the suffering that we created by resisting the pain.  If we examine our pain closely, what emerges is the knowledge that, in part, pain sculpts who we are becoming.  We are “becoming” throughout our entire life, and this includes every moment of the dying process.

--Barbara


From The Natural Soul Barbara Harris Whitfield 2009

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The Role Of Transition Teams and The Divine Mystery

Making one’s transition is so much bigger than any other ritual on this planet.  Souls come in.  Souls go out.  Birth is a joyous event. Death is beyond our comprehension.

We live in a material reality that limits our ability to experience the sacred and celebratory side of death: the final passage from this reality to a nonphysical and eternal one.

This nonphysical reality is Spiritual, ineffable and a part of the Divine Mystery.  It is the reality of God’s world, not our earthly world, and sometimes we can only sense it through our hearts.  As the Little Prince said, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.  What is essential is invisible to the eye.” (Saint-Exupéry, 1943)

The enormity and elusiveness of this nonmaterial reality can perhaps only be understood in metaphor.  As a respiratory therapist, I used large tanks of oxygen.  Each tank contained enough compressed oxygen to make the pressure on the inner walls of the tank 2,200 pounds per square inch.  That is an extraordinary amount of pressure.  Yet we hooked the tank up to a patient who was receiving the oxygen in a gentle slow stream.  The oxygen at the patient’s nostrils felt like a soft gentle breeze because of a little device we used called a “reducing valve.”  Twenty-two hundred pounds per square inch went into the reducing valve, which brought the pressure down to a gentle stream going through the tubing that went to the patient.

As we take in reality, our brains work the same way as the reducing valve.  Reality is huge.  Its pressure is too big and too much for us to handle.  Our brain, our reducing valve, allows reality to flow in a gentle stream so we can handle it without exploding ourselves.

Helping someone die is as close as I can get, as close as any of us can get, to the huge reality that is beyond our individual ability to perceive. Ultimately, all this is a mystery, but we can get closer to the mystery by allowing ourselves to experience death with openness, loss of ego, and willingness to be aware of and open to our subtle experience.

When someone calls me and asks for help when someone they know is dying or has died, I help them to learn what it is to be open to the experience and I model a safe and supportive environment in which to learn and practice this deeply important soul skill.

I talk about these ideas in-depth and share more of my experiences in my books.  You can read more about them here.

What are your thoughts and experiences with transitions and the Divine Mystery?  Click the "Comments" link, below, to enter your comments.

--Barbara

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Flipping Between Ego and Soul

The ego suffers

By resisting pain.

The Soul learns

By metabolizing it.

The ego believes It will die.

The Soul knows

It returns to another reality.

The ego ages in linear time;

The Soul becomes radiant Here, in Eternal time.

The ego is isolated and

Feels alone.

The Soul knows it is part

Of something much Bigger.

The ego lives stressed.

The Soul relaxes into life.

The ego is addicted to drama.

The Soul lives with peace of mind.

The ego believes enlightenment

Is not real.

The Soul knows that a new enlightenment

Comes with each resolution

Of each problem that life brings us.

The ego suffers.

The Soul celebrates.

Ego and Soul have one thing in common:

When they are in action

They grow more of themselves.

It’s our choice Every single time.

From The Natural Soul

©Barbara Harris Whitfield 2009

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Barbara Defines: Entrainment

Science tells us in the First Law of Thermodynamics that energy doesn’t dissipate; it transforms.

When a person gets ready for their transition, as their physical body becomes weaker, their bio-energy weakens.  At the same time, their Spiritual energy strengthens.  For days or weeks before they leave, they are transforming, taking the energy from their physical body and moving it to their Spiritual energy/body.  The increasing strength of their Spiritual energy entrains us — the caregivers that are the closest, and sometimes even the next tier out of close people — into the same space.  We move into the Spiritual vibration of the dying person.

This process is called “entrainment.”  Perhaps entrainment is best explained by the example of tuning forks or clocks.  When one tuning fork is struck and starts vibrating, other tuning forks nearby will also begin to vibrate.  If you have several clocks with pendulums in a room and you start all the pendulums swinging at different times, when you later return to the room, all the pendulums will be swinging in sync.

When we sit in an audience and listen to a compelling speaker, we become entrained.  The speaker holds us with their content and delivery.  The same thing happens at a musical concert.  Then at the end, when we applaud, we break the entrainment and leave as our single self again.

We, the transition team, family members and caregivers may find ourselves entrained during the dying process to the extent that we go through the beginning of the journey with the dying person. Sherry’s husband, her best friend and I experienced the Spiritual peace that Sherry was feeling.  As her energy became less physical and more Spiritual, the power of her Spirit entrained us.  When Sherry’s husband and I sat up all night watching her breathe, we soon were breathing in the same pattern she was.  We were experiencing entrainment.  We were fortunate to experience this state for the entire weekend.  Her husband said he continued to experience it for several days after.

Others attending a death often become aware of entrainment, and sometimes even of a Spiritual Presence, moving into the experience of helping someone to let go and transition.  We are able to talk about it, to share our feelings and to get a sense of relief for the time being.  We know painful grieving may happen afterwards, but for now, there is a strong sense of timelessness and eternity that insulates us from worrying about later grieving.  I reassure those that are experiencing this for the first time that this is all right, and I tell them I have written books, below, that explain the experiences and the processes.

I discuss this in more depth in my book, The Natural Soul.

What are your thoughts or experiences with entrainment?  Click the "Comments" link, below, to enter your comment.

--Barbara

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Barbara On Practice: Hands-On Healing Meditation

This type of hands-on energy work is easy to use with people making their transition. The one receiving the energy lies down and is usually covered with a light blanket.  Other members of the family, friends or health care team (whom the receiver feels are “safe”) gather around and sit with their hands gently and lightly touching the receiver.  Before we begin, I always say a prayer to connect and unite us all in what we are asking to do. I say something like, “Dear God (or Dear Holy Mother, or whatever my patient feels most comfortable with), please may we be instruments of your healing energy and your Oneness.  Please help us to get our egos out of the way so You may come through.”

This works with one person as an instrument, or as many as six.  The main principle is that the people that are doing the hands-on-healing feel safe to the patient receiving the energy.  I have worked with children as young as three in a healing circle, and adults as old as 90 who may be dying themselves.  In one such case, when we had finished the first healing, we covered that patient, and then a 90-year-old laid down on the floor a few feet away, and we repeated the healing on her.  Then something extraordinary happened. One of the people helping with these two hands-on healings was an eight-year-old girl who was also in the family.  She was suffering from repeated stomach aches and asked if she could be helped.  We then did a healing on her. Her mother called me a few weeks later to tell me that she was going through a painful divorce and since it had started, her little girl had stomach pain to the point where they had taken her to a medical specialist for tests.  The tests were normal.  And, since we did the healings that day her daughter has been pain free.  This mother was in school to become an acupuncturist and after experiencing that day with the healings she now believed more than ever in energy work.

It doesn’t matter if the people giving the healing believe in all this.  All that matters is that they have the intention of wanting to help.  Many times the person receiving healing tells me afterwards that their pain medication is now working or they no longer feel they need it.  Their coloring improves, they feel more relaxed and they feel loved.

Hands-on-healing can be done twice a day, or more, if the patient requests it.  The givers have often told me that they calmed down from the experience.  It not only helped their bodies to relax, it also helped their hearts to know that they were giving “something” to the person in need.  This is especially important for loved ones who may have been afraid to touch the patient for fear of hurting them.  This gives them a safe way to express themselves that bypasses words.

Whether the patient is going to get better or is going to die doesn’t matter in these hands-on circles.  We are not looking for a “cure.”  We are looking for a sharing that brings comfort to the receiver, and usually spills over into the givers.

We do this together for about 20 minutes.  It feels like a meditation.  We clear our minds and sit in a peaceful way, placing our hands gently on the patient and sharing a current of Energy that envelops all of us.  We naturally come out of it within 20 minutes or so, feeling more relaxed and at the same time energized, because the energy we shared didn’t come from us but through us.

We close this healing circle with a prayer of gratitude: “Dear God, Dear Spirit, thank you for allowing us to be instruments of your healing Energy.  Thank you for allowing us to feel your Oneness.  Amen”

--Barbara

From The Natural Soul by Barbara Harris Whitfield 2009
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Barbara Defines: The Sacred Person

This relationship — True Self (soul, Child Within), Higher Self (Buddha Nature, Christ Consciousness, Atman, guardian angel, etc) and God, Goddess, The Universe, Higher Power — is such an important relationship that we can view it as being one person, which we can call the Sacred Person.
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When we are in alignment, when we are our authentic True Self connected to our Higher Self and God, we are no longer a human being hoping for a Spiritual experience.  We are a Spiritual Being — a Soul living through a human body.  We may even experience the presence of God’s Divine Energy, which some call Holy Spirit, Chi, Ki, or Ruach Ha Kadosh. Each religion has a name for this Divine Energy.
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Regardless of whether we are or are not religious, this Divine Energy is always with us, patiently waiting for us to realize Its presence. During births and during deaths, Its presence is easier to recognize if we are being our Sacred Person: our Soul connected to our Higher Self, which is then connected to God.  And, every time we need Divine Energy’s assistance, all we need do is ask.
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My experiences have shown me time and again, this Divine Energy is always with us.  All we have to do is ask for help and get our ego out of the way so the Energy can come through and work through us.  Many others have told me that, even though they didn’t believe any of this, they had the intention to help someone else and were then surprised to realize “something” was working through them.
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From The Natural Soul Barbara Harris Whitfield 2009

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Barbara on Healing "Depression" or Sadness

There’s a big difference between being depressed and being sad. When we grieve, sadness overtakes us and rules our life for quite a while. But there is movement in our "depression" when we grieve our losses in a healthy way, with safe and supportive people.

Eventually we move through sadness and make meaning out of our loss. When I am depressed, I am numb and there is no movement. I have what’s called "stuck grief." Over the years I have worked with many people who have been told that they are "depressed," and in most cases they had losses to grieve. When they identified and worked through their grief, their "depression" lifted.

Our societies used to make room for the grieving process. We had periods of time where we were supported on many levels by our group. Now, grieving has been reduced to a few days off work and then back to business as usual. Rather than honor healthy grieving, our society, as exemplified by drug companies, has convinced us that we are depressed and that drugs will relieve our pain. Prescription drugs only put our grief work on "hold" where it will remain until we stop the drugs and let go into feeling the pain.

It takes courage to face our losses, but from that process can come new ways of being that are our gift.

If you have been labeled or feel that you are "depressed," you could consider whether or not you may have loss or grief that needs to be addressed. I talk more about depression and sadness in my book, The Natural Soul and my husband, Charles Whitfield, M.D., talks at length about it in his books, The Truth About Depression and The Truth About Mental Illness.

I wish you the best in your quest to heal your sadness and grief. It can be done. I help others to discover how to make that happen and, because I see their success, I can assure you that there is hope.

What have your experiences been with healing depression or sadness?

Click the word "comments," below, and share your thoughts.

--Barbara

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Barbara On Healing Shame or Low Self-Esteem

Another thing I’ve learned from helping people grieve and my own grief process is that while we are in the thick of it, our self esteem drops. Another word for low self-esteem is shame.

This is an inevitable part of grieving. In contrast to guilt, which makes us feel bad for doing some-thing wrong, we feel shame for being something wrong or bad. Thus, guilt seems to be correctable or forgivable, whereas there seems to be no way out of shame.

Shame is universal to being human. If we do not work through it and then let go of it, shame tends to accumulate and burden us more and more, until we even become its victim. I had to write about shame in my book, The Natural Soul, because of my own experiences and because our patients share their bundle of shame and grief with us so often. What I’ve learned along the way is that there is a way out.

Talking about our shame or low self-esteem to safe others is a way to alleviate it. Support groups are also a safe place to express this type of pain. Be aware that, as long as we are in the grieving process, we will have an underlying sense of low self-esteem. It’s a part of grieving that seems to stick around until the end of the process.

My experience and the experience of others I have helped most often shows an increase in self-esteem when we have completed our grief work. We don’t return to the same life because we are not the same person as when we started. Life is different because we are different. There are sometimes hidden gifts we receive in our life from the losses of our past, and in the event of the loss of a loved one.

Charlie and I both hope that, as you work through your shame and feelings of low self-esteem, that you will be compassionate toward yourself, and understand that you are doing important and healthy work that can both increase your self-esteem and help you to leave suffering behind.

Have you had experience working with shame and low self-esteem?

Click the word "comments," below, and share your experiences and thoughts.

--Barbara

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Barbara on Grief Support: Support Groups For Grieving

After an all-night vigil, I sometimes feel I have “shrunk” inside to “make room” for the dying person.  It’s a feeling of almost losing one’s self. I am able to leave and go home, take a soothing bath and relax in my own bed.

Many times, the primary caregiver is sharing their bed with the person we have been helping to transition.  The primary caregiver has no place to go to get themselves back.  The close or primary caregiver, who is often the significant other, and who is living, painfully, through this process of escalating illness and dying, is living this loss 24 hours a day.

Counseling primary caregivers during their loved one’s transition and after it is over contains this common thread of loss of self as well as loss of the other.  Often primary caregivers are afraid to complain for fear of feeling selfish or guilty for a number of reasons that only continue to damage them inside.   Of course, they want to be everything they can be to their dying loved ones.   But we are all still human, and we all still have needs.

We can gently help them to remember that they, too, are losing a partner, or parent, or friend, so part of them is dying also.   One of the best things we can do to assist them is to help make a plan to leave for a while when they can, even if it is only to take a walk or to sit in a park.

I have often been a speaker for a group called “Compassionate Friends.”   This group is for parents who have lost children. Some members have lost a child only a month earlier; others may have been attending this group for 20 years.   You might want to find out if a similar group is available in your area so that you can refer your friend or client’s families. Self-care is important. Let the caregivers know this.   There are local support groups for caregivers in every large city and even in small towns.   Local cancer societies are a good source for finding them.  If caregivers cannot leave home, help them to find a support group online.

Do you have experience with supporting others or being supported yourself during the grieving process?

Click the word "comments," below, to leave a comment and share your ideas with us, please.

--Barbara

I write more in-depth about grief, loss and support in The Natural Soul and Final Passage.

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