Caring for Self while Caring for Others: From Survival to Resistance; From Resistance to Empowerment

Presented by:  Harry Zeit MD and Irina Dumitrache CYT 

We are living in a period of unprecedented and overwhelming change. Underneath the veneer of our everyday dialogues lies a deep sense of threat and uncertainty.  We feel alone and uneasy. An uncomfortable number of articles describe the disconnection and alienation of contemporary life as traumatic.

After seven years of presenting on many aspects of clinician distress and the effects of unremitting stress on our field, the time has come for our series to take an ambitious next step. Can we rise to the challenge of fully facing this time in which our terrors, hopes and dreams lie embedded?

As health care providers, we realize we are not alone in facing endemic burnout and crippling anxieties. This month, an Australian nurses group posted: “I believe many professions face similar issues as we are all connected by human experiences. It’s not who we identify as, be it lawyer, doctor, nurse, teacher, construction worker, police, paramedics etc., humans are connected by suffering & adversity. We’ve all fallen.”

In his preface to Savage Grace: Living Resiliently in the Dark Night of the Globe, Jeff Brown writes: “Truth is the gateway to the moment. It’s also the portal to transformation. At this tenuous and horrifying moment in human history, nothing less will do. We either fiercely confront our challenges, or we slip noisily into the night.”

Who are the ones who will lead us through these challenging times – do they appear from the centre or from the fringes? How do we constellate our impulses to join in pursuit of a better collective dream, one grounded in truth and in sacred activism? Let’s listen to the voices of those who are giving thought and energy to insights at the edge and tap into our inner voices in forging a possible path out of fear and survival physiology and into community, action, vision and empowerment.

In this presentation, attendees will:

·         Review the origins, nature and cost of living in survival physiology.

·         Familiarize themselves with current leading edge thinking on collective trauma, sacred activism and possibilities for collective empowerment and transformation.

·         Actively reflect on how contemporary challenges in healthcare intersect with challenges of ecology, global economics and social transformation

·         Review and define resilience practices appropriate to our time and the immediate future

·         Engage in a somatic practice in keeping with a time of uncertainty and the need to resource strength and open-ness.

For more information on the series, please e mail: drharryzeit@gmail.com  or 

https://www.eenetconnect.ca/to...le-caring-for-others

To RSVP, please e mail michaelpare@rogers.com

There is no charge for this presentation.  Our program is supported and complemented by our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WhileCaringForOthers/