Engaging the Cultural Particular
When you think of your own culture, are there feelings and emotional characteristics that are rooted in the history, geography, economic or social status of your culture?
Assessments, Metrics, and Accountability
Have you ever considered types of emotional behaviors as being connected to particular groups of people? How have these perceptions of emotional displays impacted your care strategies?
The Connectivity of Emotions and Spiritual Expressions
In your practice with care-seekers, do you have different approaches when discussing religious experiences as opposed to other emotions?
Arts-based Feeling and Healing
Have you used artistic expression in your chaplaincy practice? Visit the Discussions tab and post a story about it, and read others' posts as well.
Chaplaincy Strategies: Feelings or Emotions
If you could not ask someone, “How are you feeling today?” to assess for an intervention, what could you say instead?
Empathy: An Ability or an Inclination?
How has your understanding of your own empathic behavior changed over time? What has affected your understanding of empathy?
Constructs for Engaging Emotions
What emotions do you encounter as a chaplain that are still challenging for you to engage authentically? What resources might you need to find out why?
Unique Emotions Emerge in the Wilderness
Are there community trails and parks in your area that may need a chaplain on the weekend to assist with the epidemic of loneliness?
Choosing Chaplaincy, Choosing to Serve
What do you need to let go of? What do you need to add to your life to do a better job of taking care of yourself? What is getting in the way? Who can help?
Learning about Feelings from Random Objects
What would you do with your glass of suffering once you have it? Can we help care-seekers really "see" or understand their suffering using the embodied metaphor of the suffering glass? What are the risks of making suffering metaphorically visible?
Knowing and Feeling: A Tug of War
Some chaplains do not hand out tissues when people cry. What do you think about this choice, and why?
Biology, Bodies, and Temperament
Do you assist careseekers in distinguishing between emotions and feelings?
From Cultural Competency to Cultural Humility
Assessing the Value of Rituals Used
Have you ever designed or participated in a ritual or symbolic act that reframed how you considered assessment tools?
Expanding the Cultural Horizons of Ritual
Think about your own culture (this includes white, western dominant culture): What are some aspects of the culture you grew up in? Think below the “tip of the iceberg.” What ways of thinking, doing, and being define you? What would you keep? What would you let go of?
Art As Care Tool
Find out from careseekers what medium of artistic expression they connect to. Finding and sharing that image of a painting they remember from a museum, or listening to and contemplating the lyrics of that Gen X Hip Hop song or that Baby Boomer Joni Mitchell song can become powerful means of connecting with your careseeker.
Rituals for Different Needs and Occasions
How comfortable are you with incorporating new forms of ritual into your care practice? How do you navigate your own learning curve?
A Closer Look at Movement Chaplaincy
If you find yourself in the middle of a protest or a civil disturbance and people are confused crying, distraught and fearful, might your chaplain muscles kick in to serve in this public sphere of uncertainty? Why or why not?
The Power of Presence in Ritual
Do you have spiritual practices, hobbies, or other secular interests that could inform an innovative approach to ritual in your care context?
Finding Sacred Inspiration Anywhere
What texts have careseekers shared are sacred to them that have surprised you?
Caring for Colleagues and Co-Workers
What rituals have you created to address the special needs of your colleagues? What worked? What didn’t? Do you need more support?
How to Develop A Ritual
What types of ritual are more or less useful in your care practice?
16,000 Paper Cranes and COVID Senbazuru
Are there rituals from your cultural identity that you feel called to adapt in your care setting?
Rituals of Honor in Hospital Hallways
How does your care setting feel about ritual or symbolic acts of care?
Culturally humble, always curious.
Cultural humility requires openness, self-critique and a commitment to lifelong learning. Where are the gaps in your humility with specific cultural/economic groups? How might you address these gaps in your chaplaincy practice and in your personal life?
How to capture meaningful moments.
What Is working or not working in your assessments? What are you looking for when you assess someone? Create a new assessment tool.
Spirituality, religion, and philosophy: related yet distinctive.
How do these spiritual/religious/philosophical narratives land with you/? What parts of these narrative case studies might guide you to specific care concerns? Is there a particular insight you gained that might cause you to dive a little deeper into a topic?
Experience the artistic side of chaplaincy in a fresh approach to spiritual care.
When a careseeker mentions a visual artist, make some copies of that artist's work and bring color copies to the careseeker. Ask, “Is there a song I could play on my phone that would make a difference for you right now?” or, “Would you like some materials to draw with?”
Overcoming patient resistance in palliative care.
Have careseekers write six word stories about an issue or theme. How would you use these stories in your practice? How would you present this exercise to a careseeker as a care modality?
Decoding life through narrative.
When was the last time you spent some time on your own narrative? What stories are you telling about yourself these days? How has being a chaplain changed the stories you tell about yourself?
The powers that shape our stories.
As you engage in conversations with careseekers, listen for themes of agency, redemption, contamination and communion. What happens when you put a spotlight on these themes as careseekers search for meaning?
Feed first, ask questions later.
What are the unmet needs in your institution? Where are the interdisciplinary opportunities for partnerships with chaplaincy?
Embrace this gospel: take a nap.
Chaplains spend a lot of time asking others how they feel. What does your self care look like these days? When was the last time you did a serious check in on how you are doing? How Are You Really?
A Fine Chaplain Someday
How do your previous careers show up and inform your practice as a chaplain? What gifts, skills, and experiences from other parts of your life are applicable in your chaplaincy context?
Your brain loves good storytelling
According to studies, 65% of our daily conversations are based on storytelling. Listen deeply to the conversations you take part in today with careseekers, family, and friends. How many stories did you hear? How might you utilize stories from literature, pop culture, the news, folk- and fairytales, and other narrative sources in chaplaincy?