TRAINING THE CONTEMPLATIVE CAREGIVER
ABOUT US
Our world’s contemplative traditions arose to help people make sense of life’s challenges. Jonathan Prescott founded Wise Caregiving to help caregivers, patients, and seekers use this contemplative wisdom to become more effective, joyful, and sustainable.
Contemplative care leads with the heart and responds with expertise. It is rooted in an intention to serve, a commitment to explore the human condition, a willingness to be with suffering, and a desire to understand the nature of life and death. It is expressed in the most ordinary ways: kind speech, gentle care, patient listening, and with the skills unique to each caregiver’s history and life. There is no checklist of contemplative skills. Each act arises to meet the need at hand, even if that takes the caregiver outside their comfort zone.
Wise Caregiving offers workshops, retreats, and presentations to help professional and private caregivers thrive in today’s challenging environment. We consult with patients and families seeking to clarify goals, cope with losses, set boundaries, and find meaning in illness and end of life. Private consultations are offered by video conference.
Contemplative care leads with the heart and responds with expertise. It is rooted in an intention to serve, a commitment to explore the human condition, a willingness to be with suffering, and a desire to understand the nature of life and death. It is expressed in the most ordinary ways: kind speech, gentle care, patient listening, and with the skills unique to each caregiver’s history and life. There is no checklist of contemplative skills. Each act arises to meet the need at hand, even if that takes the caregiver outside their comfort zone.
Wise Caregiving offers workshops, retreats, and presentations to help professional and private caregivers thrive in today’s challenging environment. We consult with patients and families seeking to clarify goals, cope with losses, set boundaries, and find meaning in illness and end of life. Private consultations are offered by video conference.
Curriculum
Wise Caregiving curriculum is based upon The 8 Caregiving Foundations. Jonathan Prescott created these foundations to share what he'd learned from decades of contemplative study with many teachers, patients and families. They are voiced as caregiving aspirations to remind us that our skillfulness is always growing, no matter whether we're a seasoned professional or a kind-hearted family member. Each caregiving foundation begins with the words 'Living in the balance between' to remind us that contemplative care is built on a foundation of balance and equanimity.
The 8 Caregiving Foundations
- Living in the balance between self and other, I embrace healthy boundaries as a foundation for sustainable, compassionate care. I am open to seeing and transforming habits that undermine clear boundaries and lead me to feel swept away and burned out.
- Living in the balance between competence and compassion, I aspire to share myself along with my skills. I allow the infinite resource of compassion to arise in me and make my technical expertise meaningful and relevant. Even as I continually improve, I trust that right now, I am enough.
- Living in the balance between giving and receiving, I see that receiving is itself a generous act. I accept the healing energy of beauty, peace, and support that are available in all circumstances so that I can respond with gratitude and generosity. Those I care for are my precious teachers. Life is my school.
- Living in the balance between firm and soft, I will honor my limits firmly so that I can respond softly. As I learn to see and accept myself as I am, I know that I can remain flexible in dangerous winds only when I’m securely rooted in my own truth.
- Living in the balance between results and futility, I accept that not all results are measurable. I trust mindful awareness to guide my actions, knowing that when my actions are good, positive results ripple out in many directions, even when those results are beyond my view.
- Living in the balance between the ideal and the real, I embrace life as it is. I aspire to live in the fullness of reality without hiding behind ideology. I trust that even the most challenging moments invite me to respond with love.
- Living in the balance between well and unwell, I turn compassionately towards my own changing nature. I embrace decline in order to learn compassion. Aware that everything changes, I will bear witness to the fires of loss within and around me, knowing that I am well even when I am not.
- Living in the balance between life and death, I see that all things come and go in every moment. I will transform my fear of death so that I can offer a calm presence during natural cycles of birth and death, grief and joy.
workshops
Wise Caregiving offers in-person and online workshops to help professional and family caregivers become more effective, joyful, and sustainable. We listen to your group's challenges, then design workshops that are relevant and useful.
Since we all care for the world in some way, Wise Caregiving customizes our curriculum to meet the many styles of care, including:
Most clients start with the first Caregiving Foundation - Living in the balance between self and other. Caregivers often find it difficult to set effective boundaries, cycling between over-giving and burning out, so the First Caregiving Foundation provides an effective, easy to remember boundary model. The other Caregiving Foundations then expand that model to illuminate other common caregiving issues.
Since we all care for the world in some way, Wise Caregiving customizes our curriculum to meet the many styles of care, including:
- Healthcare providers (hospice, traumatic brain injury, addiction, cancer care, dementia, and more)
- Family members (care providers, loved ones, and those grieving losses)
- Clergy and religious groups
- Businesses (law, elder care, senior centers, care facilities)
Most clients start with the first Caregiving Foundation - Living in the balance between self and other. Caregivers often find it difficult to set effective boundaries, cycling between over-giving and burning out, so the First Caregiving Foundation provides an effective, easy to remember boundary model. The other Caregiving Foundations then expand that model to illuminate other common caregiving issues.
online classes
Wise Caregiving offers 10-week online courses that cover the 8 Caregiving Foundations in detail. This live course is taught by Jonathan Prescott and meets weekly for 2-hour sessions. Cohorts are small so that students can enjoy personal contact with fellow students and teachers. Each session enhances your learning with discussion, activities, and contemplative practices, all offered at a pace that is refreshing and spacious.
Here are some of the core concepts that you will learn:
The 8 Foundations Course is offered by request, so use the 'Contact Us' form below to let us know you're interested.
Here are some of the core concepts that you will learn:
- Loving boundaries are the foundation for sustainable, compassionate care
- Knowing that you are enough allows you to share your self along with your skills
- Sustainable giving requires conscious receiving
- Being firmly rooted in yourself allows you to flow gracefully with life
- Being guided by our own internal goodness is the surest measure of our results
- Compassionate action is based on embracing reality
- A sense of wellness is available to us even when things aren’t as we’d like
- Becoming intimate with birth and death teaches us how to love
The 8 Foundations Course is offered by request, so use the 'Contact Us' form below to let us know you're interested.