Free Resources
Talking to kids about death.............here's how
How can you talk about death in your family? Need some clues?
Talking to kids about death........here's how
Pondering....Compassion the Workplace
Pondering: Compassion in the workplace
Molly Carlile
We all work with people we like and people we just don’t like at all. For those of us who work in the health and community care sectors, we are so focused on being “person –centred” when it comes to patients/clients and families, but how make sure that we don’t just “switch off” this person- centred approach when we leave the patient’s room? Are the people we work with entitled to receive empathy and compassion from us too?
When we work in diverse teams, there’s always going to be people we have to collaborate with on a daily basis who annoy the hell out of us. You know the ones I mean? The colleague who is rude, though not enough to report in terms of aggression or bullying. The colleague who whinges all the time. The colleague who won’t lift a finger to help someone else. The colleague who questions your every idea or decision. The colleague who simply gives you the “pip” (to put it nicely).
The danger to teams of this type of dynamic is that these poor relationships slowly and surely begin to erode the cohesiveness of the whole team. People begin to avoid each other, then “gangs” form within the team supporting one or other of the factions. You end up with a dysfunctional team that in turn impacts on the job you’re there to do. Patients, clients and families suffer……….and don’t think they don’t notice what’s going on!
Imagine you’re lying in a hospital bed........................read on
What the hell is Palliative Care?????
Death and You......The Elephant in the room
We often put off thinking about death until someone close to us is sick or dying................often we leave it too late.
Death and You......The elephant in the room
A conversation about grief
Pondering...."But I don't have time for that!" Part 1
In all of the public speaking and workshop presentations I do for health professionals, there is a recurrent response I get from participants when I talk about holistic care of patients and families and self awareness, self knowledge and self care for health workers.
“That’s all fine for you, but you have no idea how busy we are!” OR
“I just don’t have time for that!”
Of course my response is a constant one………………”I don’t have time for that” is code for “I don’t think that is important”. My rationale being, that if you personally believe something is important you find time for it. Let’s face it, we find time to have a shower every morning no matter how late we might be running for work. We find time to cook dinner every night (aside of course from the occasional ‘take away’). We find time to........Read more
Anscar McPhee launches his book
My uncle Anscar (Pat) McPhee is launching his book on aboriginal stories and language on August 12th 2011 at Middle Park.
Come along and hear an amazing man speak about his life in a remote Aboriginal community in the Kimberly./userfiles/files/BookLaunch.pdf
Pondering......Who are YOU?
As I’ve grown older (and hopefully a little wiser), I’ve begun to find deeper meanings in things I took for granted as a younger person. Each day we are bombarded with enormous sensory information. Things we see, hear, taste, touch and smell. This information becomes part of our life experience and often we accept its superficial meaning, never spending time to look beyond the obvious to see if there’s something more profound lurking underneath the simple explanation.
Some time ago I found myself humming the tune of the Pete Townshend song “Who are you?” I always understood it as a simple, catchy pop song, but as I hummed away I began to wonder whether there was a deeper meaning tied up in these words for me and if there was a reason for it popping into my head on that particular day. Read more
What is 24/7 disaster coverage doing to our kids?
As you all know I’m a great believer in being honest and upfront with our kids and young people in all things. I firmly believe that this is the basis on which we build trust relationships, so that when life gets difficult our young people have confidence in talking to us about what’s bothering them, knowing that we’ll show our respect for them by giving them an honest answer to their questions.
2011 has started with difficulty for many communities across our world. War, political unrest, natural and man made disasters have been the constant rather than the exception. This is reality and should be addressed as such, however we need to ask, what is the “tipping point” where media coverage moves from factual reporting of these events to blatant sensationalism in order to gain an increased viewer market share? And at what point do we as consumers move from a healthy and empathetic interest in world affairs to a voyeuristic obsession with the suffering of others? And what message is this sending to our young people? Read full article
Why are people so unkind???
Australian singer Kamahl was famously attributed with posing this question years ago and though he has consistently said it was taken out of context, I think it a question worth pondering.
As a global community, it seems to me that we value the ‘lofty’ virtues, courage, generosity, bravery, justice, self control, altruism, fortitude, morality, loyalty and so the list goes on. We see this reflected in mainstream media where, if we take courage for example, it can mean anything from a person risking their life to save a pet from a burning house, to a footballer running on an injured leg and kicking the winning goal in a grand final. Sure, these things may well be courageous, but if we allow our wisdom and morality to be dictated by the five o’clock news, we run the risk of undervaluing the gentler virtues. Those virtues that aren’t newsworthy enough to hit the headlines, and kindness, in my view, is top of the list. Read full article
Pondering Christmas, holidays and the EMPTY Chair
As the countdown starts to Christmas, the end of the year and hopefully a few days off, we seem to be bombarded with distractions. In Australia we’ve endured a long drawn-out federal election process that seemed to take forever to resolve. In Victoria, we’ve just had a state election, and again, no clear result, so we look forward to days and maybe weeks of recounts and negotiations about which party can form a government. Read full article.
Dead and Buried
I went to a funeral recently where there was no burial. The coffin was simply leaded into the back of the hearse and driven away. I must say, I felt a little "incomplete" for some reason. Download full article/userfiles/files/Dead and Buried.pdf
Why does living with a terminal illness have to become a battle?
I always feel sad when I hear the consistent media rhetoric applied to stories about people who are trying to live with a terminal illness.
The language is always about conflict......Download the full article.
Articles and podcasts
A range of articles and podcasts will appear here over the coming months.
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