Helping the dying
QUESTION: Masters, I have two very close friends who are both terminally ill and have perhaps just a few months to be here. How can I best assist them from afar, since I cannot be there in person due to their physical distance from me? Both women seem to depend on me, and ask me to call them once or twice a day to talk about their experiences. Some days I dread talking to one or both of them. I don’t know how to respond at times, and I want to avoid the pain they express. What can I bring into this experience that is positive and helpful? How can I protect myself from the negative and angry feelings/energy which they sometimes express? I am very sensitive and at times feel too much of their pain. ~Mary, US
ANSWER: You are engaged in some of your service work for this lifetime. Your friends intuitively know that they can talk to you when others find it difficult to speak to them or even to be in their presence. For souls to learn their life lessons, they must work through their feelings about those lessons. Until they have spoken out loud about what they are going through, it is not “real” to them. They must be able to discuss the thoughts and energy around their predicament.
There is a very special trait that some souls have chosen: that is to be a witness for others. Witnessing is the process of allowing others to use you to validate for themselves the processes that they are living. A witness does not have to participate in the actual proceeding but just needs to be available to see what the others are experiencing. You are their witness, and this is as positive and helpful as you can get.
In being there for them to vent, you are doing as much as you could if you were right there in the room with them. This is also lesson time for you, because you can get some of the same emotional experiences they are having without going through the diseases. In listening to their anguish you are living their current life.
You have freedom of choice, so you may stop your torment at any time by refusing to continue witnessing their decline. You also would be stopping the lesson you are having of dealing with the anger, helplessness, and frustration that you mirror. Take the pain you are feeling and go into the roots of it. Some early life experiences are firing in the background and you will be able to rid yourself of these unpleasant feelings once and for all.