The Healing Relationship: the Personal is Professional

I have been lucky or maybe guided by some greater force that has connected me to health care doctors and body/mind therapists who I consider quite amazing in their field.  When I found out that I had cancer, a condition in my body potentially life threatening, I think I automatically tuned into attracting the specialists I needed in my life to help me on this journey.  People who I would be able to completely be myself with and whom I could trust with my life.

Now into my 6th month of this journey, I am touched by the genuine connection I have with key specialists that are guiding and supporting me towards my complete healing.  It’s clear to me that healing from cancer or any disease is not just contained to the physical body, but very much a discovery of the self in the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects as well.  Healing into wholeness takes time.  It’s intricate, messy, confusing, and complicated. 

While the body needs so much love, care, and attention to right itself back on a cellular level, the mind needs help to deal with all of the new thoughts its producing and the emotions that are now felt. Not to mention, one wonders, what does all this mean on a spiritual level?  How can I accelerate healing on each level?

All of these levels, moving in and amongst the other present themselves in a jumbled order while sitting in front of the Oncologist, the House Doctor, the Naturopathic Doctor or the MindBody Healing Therapist.  Talking is always a component of the relationship, but there is also an energetic, non-verbal component that happens between the Practitioner and the Patient.  I ask myself, what kind of relationship makes for healing to have the greatest potential?

This was my focus without knowing any specific answers.  I just knew that I needed to feel connected in a non-verbal way, a heart-felt way with whomever I worked with. Regardless, of the fact that I didn’t already know anyone to work with, I wanted a connection, a bond, and a commitment that went beyond words. An energy that would be nourished not dependent on time or shared experiences.

I find myself thinking about what is too personal in a helping therapeutic relationship?

At Grad School, they teach you about transference and not allowing your emotions or the patient/client’s to get transferred into the professional relationship.  However, when I think about this concept, there is something in it that already sets up a boundary in me, a closing a part of myself off.  How can deep healing have a chance when I’ve already created a separation?  While I have always held the space for connection and openness in working with others when I have been the ‘helper,’ I am now experiencing a different side of this being on the receiving end of care.  I’m feeling how much more of a vastness of open space there can be for connection and thus healing, a pool of compassion. 

I am experiencing that it is possible to cultivate a genuine friendship in this practitioner – patient relationship and above all else, feeling a sense of trust and a deep connection that has its roots in healing.   “What friendship means has much to do with our willingness to relate openly and directly with people and situations just as they are.”  Saki Santorelli talks about all of us perhaps wishing to be related to in this manner. That we can just be open and frank about whatever it is that’s going on whether it’s tough or pleasant.  To me, this is the blessing of working with someone, knowing I can show up and just be however I am in that moment.  When going through chemo treatments it can be a mixed bag of how I respond from week to week and there’s nothing more welcoming than having my Oncologist be an active and interested listener in how I'm feeling. 

What is it that I look so forward to each week when I meet with my Oncologist?  My immediate response is: his handshake. When he greets me, his handshake is packed with energy, warmth, hope, commitment, and compassion.  Our conversation that follows just backs up all of these feelings.  

In Heal Thy Self: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine, Santorelli explores what the practitioner-patient relationship embodies and states, “It is possible that the entire healing relationship is actually founded on friendship.”  I know for myself, when counting on someone for their knowledge, wisdom, and expertise, friendship is fundamental to the healing process.  

I didn’t expect to have such profound connections with the main specialists I see every week. People at first who were total strangers. These same people who graciously extend their hand and heart out to me inviting me to step into this unknown territory with them. This is a compassionate invitation that says, ‘you are not alone and I know you are suffering.’  

My Oncologist willingly steps into my world every week and invites me to stay the course. It is an offering that says, ‘I’m here for you, I care about you, and I’m going to see you through this challenging time in your life. Then almost as an afterthought, we talk about a combination of things: blood levels, weight check, a re-cap of how I’ve been feeling, sharing fun things that I did during the week, concerns I have and looking ahead to the treatments and next steps.

I have been practicing mindfulness meditation for a few years and in the last year really diving into loving kindness and compassion practices.  These daily practices have helped me to treat myself with kindness, care, and to offer myself the possibility of feeling safe, living with ease and a sense of peacefulness.  I know that cultivating these qualities within myself have helped me to be more open to people who were not that long ago strangers to me and are now people that I care about and feel safe with. 

The line between practitioner and patient becomes blurred and is “not defined by role, knowledge, education, or status,” there is an equality about the relationship as Santorelli points out.  It is an exploration that asks for a commitment to openness and a willingness to be present with each other regardless of what presents itself.  Mindfulness asks us to be present with the moment, to be non-judgemental, and to be accepting.  These states of being are the basis for an intimate friendship that can carry one through the toughest of times.

I am experiencing these states of being everyday in a very real life and death health/life crisis and I can say from my experiences, that I am not the same person I was six months ago.