Healing Hand Workshop
Cantor Sue Knight Deutsch will teach from her book, “The Healing Hand: What to Say to the Dying While They are Still Living”.
Sunday, March 22, Healing Hand Workshop, 10am-6pm.
This will be a practical hands-on workshop with handouts and will help us to face our own mortality and that of those we love. Cantor Deutsch will create a safe environment and will give us tools to handle what life has to offer through her own experience, through stories, metaphors, and videos. She will also help us to develop our own tools. We will learn to be present in the moment through breathing exercises and meditation. To learn more about Cantor Deutsch’s workshops, visit www.CantorSue.com.
Cost for this workshop is $35 for BCC members, which includes lunch and snacks. Some scholarships are available. Enrollment is limited to 30 participants. To reserve your seat and purchase your ticket, contact BCC’s Education Committee Education@bcc-la.org as soon as possible.
Pencil Smile – The importance of facial expression
Smiling will rewire your brain to think positively. How to smile when you don’t feel like it.
Singer As Healer – Who you are and why you are here
You are a facilitator of healing, not just a singer. You have a voice to transmit the universal language of music and intuition.
Parking Yourself at the Door – Being present, preparing to go into a hospital room.
Breathing techniques
Centering/letting go
Connecting to Source
Connecting with the Patient and Family – How to
Assessing the dynamics
Physical and spiritual space
To touch or not to touch – use of hands
Voice – musical repertoire and prayer
Introducing the 5 discussions – Communicating positive actions
Making suggestions to the patient and family; taking yourself out of the equation in order to facilitate communication and healing
See excerpt from “The Healing Hand” for list of 5 discussions
Closure before you leave the hospital room
Be aware of boundaries
How may the patient and or family contact you?
How will you follow up?
Leave on a positive note, remember your smile offers hope.
We are all not as young as we used to be. If we’ve made it to middle age, we’ve likely walked the mourner’s journey. We may have faced our own serious illness or taken care of a dying person. Yet we are uncomfortable with, if not afraid of, the “D” word. Paradoxically, by facing our own mortality now, we can live fuller, happier lives, focusing our time on what matters. To help us do this, we need some tools and guidance.
The Jewish Learning Committee is proud to present, in cooperation with our clergy, a new Death, Mourning, and Living Series. Through classes with our own and visiting clergy, we will learn ways to help the dying while they’re living. We will explore rabbinic writings on what happens to the soul after death. We will learn how to write an ethical will to carry out our spiritual legacies. Finally, we will examine how to use Jewish mourning practices to comfort one another at the deepest level.
Our first workshop, The Healing Hand: Being Present for What Matters Most in Life and in Death, is scheduled on Sunday, March 22, from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. Cantor Sue Knight Deutsch (one of the performers at BCC’s recent cantors’ concert) will teach us to face our own mortality and that of those we love. In a safe environment, she will give us tools to handle what life has to offer using stories, metaphors, and videos, and her own experiences.
We will learn to be present in the moment through breathing practices and meditation. What shall I do, what shall I say, and who am I in the face of this? These are universal questions that often arise when we are faced with the illness or impending death of a loved one. This workshop is about more than dying or facing mortality. It is about connecting with the things that matter most in human life and relationship to self, other, and our work in the world. This full-day workshop is based on Cantor Deutsch’s critically acclaimed book “The Healing Hand: 5 Discussions to have with the Dying who are Living” that addresses these questions to transform your heart, mind, and soul. Together we will explore through spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational and emotional means how to find our own unique answers that are as close to us as our own healing hands, and how to be present for those we love and care about.
Cantor Deutsch has served as the spiritual leader and chaplain of an assisted living facility in Orange County, California for over 15 years. She counsels those who are ill or at the end of life, and speaks to a wide range of audiences. Originally trained as a psychiatric social worker, after raising her three children she studied music and liturgy, was invested as a member of the Cantors Assembly, and further trained in hospice care. With all her training, it was her experience of losing her husband to cancer in mid-life that deepened her calling and motivated her to reach out to help others beyond her pulpit and ultimately brought about her book.
