CPE The Next Installment
What I am learning in my second unit of CPE
I didn’t think I would type out the sentence I am about to type, but this unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) has been precious to me.
I also do not think anyone has ever said that about a unit of CPE. For those who don’t know, CPE has often been thought of as a grueling process in which we are confronted with our biases, learn how to provide spiritual care and meet goals about self-understanding, social circumstances, power dynamics, teamwork, and a variety of other categories. When I say grueling, I mean grueling. There are probably more horror stories out there than I’d prefer to know about, more cycles of shame, trauma, and, unfortunately, spiritual abuse than anyone would want to admit. And yet, this unit has been a safe, restorative process to learn, grow, and experience compassionate care.
Here are a few of the highlights for me as this unit is drawing to a close:
Things can suck. I am not sure what it was about the term “suck” that my last educator didn’t care for, perhaps a hyper literalism, but naming a painful situation as something that sucks to go through is profound and essential. If this emotion were on the emotion wheel, it would be under sadness, tucked between grief and anger or rage. Over the past few months, I’ve seen some of the hardest traumas, loss of life, and devastating diagnosis, and, to my surprise, many of my patients, families, and other caregivers each said, “Gosh, that sucks.” I don’t think emotion is a bypass but perhaps a profoundly articulated truth about the pain and grief we carry.
The power of assessments. In CPE and chaplaincy in general, we talk about spiritual assessments and interventions based on what we gather from the assessment. There are a LOT of assessment tools out there, and most of us use a blend of things we like about a lot of them. So, what is an assessment? A spiritual assessment is a series of questions that chaplains can ask a patient to understand better their social setting, values/orienting system, sense of purpose, and faith tradition. For some, these are all blended into one arena - such as Christians who believe in God, go to church, and believe their life contributes something to God’s kingdom. Then comes the challenge - how do I make sense of my diagnosis, illness, or dis-ease amid my faith tradition, values system, or belief in God? Can personal values, spiritual insight, or biblical principles get in the way of compassionate care? That’s where the chaplain comes in.
Special note: not everyone shares my same faith tradition or even general religious heritage; the learning here is how to offer quality spiritual care even when it extends beyond my own training and tradition.
The Three E’s: Encouragement, Education, and Empowerment.
When we share a ministry reflection or verbatim (think case study on our spiritual care encounters), we can offer each other words of encouragement and what we did well. It doesn’t just end there, though; we get to repeat what we heard others say about what we did well.
We then get to consider education for each other; this sometimes involves a book recommendation, paradigm shift, reframe, or question about an intervention. Interventions are the tools of the chaplain that help move a patient along in their spiritual care plan based on an assessment. An intervention might be a prayer, blessing, word of encouragement, silence, nodding along (not nodding off!), laughter, and even tears.
Then empowerment. We get to call out the strengths and invite the chaplain to lean into their giftedness. This is sometimes a summary of everything we’ve heard. I quickly type out a short blessing for my peers on what I see in, for, and within them. These are the moments I have held precious and close. My chaplain peers and educator are some of the most wonderful people.
New Ways of Being. One of the things I admire about this program is the unique and robust exposure to ways of providing spiritual care. We are learning about death doulas (who knew that was a thing?), being present in grief, navigating and holding space for each other’s grief, and learning how to do hard things with compassion. I am so thankful for my peers, educator, and the person I continue to become as a result of this learning.
Perhaps one of the most complex parts of this unit was completing the mid-point evaluation, during which we had to set goals for ourselves. I used to be a productivity person, always planning things out to try and maximize my time. Then, I had a kid who radicalized my way of thinking. Perhaps it was the lockdowns during 2020 with a newborn or just the way that we millennials are rethinking our values, but honestly, I am finding ways of being comforted and content in the moment without the need for more. There are thoughts of one day doing a PhD, getting a second master’s to join Kristen in her counseling practice, and all the grandeur better and more. And I wonder if that vision of more is just capitalist thinking finding hold in spiritual malformation.
What if instead we focused on those early words of the creation narrative where “good” is good enough? Not in that we have to “be good”. No, I think the call there is the opposite of perfection, grandiosity, and hype. Good is good enough for the spirit of the creator, surely it can be good enough for me.
So in that spirit, here are my updated goals:
Take a class on the river bugs of western Montana. Try to be better at becoming a fake bug to fool fish into thinking I am operating a real bug so I can catch said fish. I.e. Improve as a fly angler.
Give the best of all that I have to offer to my family, Kristen and Z. May Z have the gift of a regulated nervous system.
Offer support, kindness, compassion, and generosity more freely.
So many of the folks in my circles feel like they are failing if they aren’t leading, at the top, or with some other metric of success. I am guilty of all of these things. And I am here to offer these words:
It is good enough to be enough.