Healing and resilience retreats: views from participants

Several participants in our Healing and Resilience Retreats have generously offered to share their experiences with the Lab audience. We pass those words along here as examples of the comfort and growth that can come from chaplains connecting and resting in space and time set aside for their healing:

For the past 2 years I have provided emotional and spiritual support to patients, families, residents, staff, and a team of volunteers across our healthcare system, including an acute care inpatient hospital, two rural critical access hospitals, and an in-patient rehab and long-term care facility.  On most days, I was the lone chaplain and, for many months of COVID, the lone spiritual care provider able to enter patient rooms.  I also provided support to many hospital teams and provided resiliency training and to mitigate staff burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, and moral injury.  I constantly stressed to team members the need for self-care; “put your own oxygen mask on first” was a standard exhortation I gave.

I realized after 2 years that I needed to make sure that I was putting my own oxygen mask on, that in caring for others I was not forgetting to care for myself.  The Healing and Resiliency Retreat sponsored by the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab was a true balm for my weary soul and body.  The setting at the Guest House Retreat Center in Chester, Connecticut was excellent.  The sleeping and meeting accommodations were high quality, meals were well prepared and the beautiful grounds were ideal for both group activities and private reflection.  I was able to learn much both from the facilitators and from my fellow participants.

I appreciated our facilitators, Ylisse Bess and Trace Haythorn, who provided content to guide us through the healing process and plenty of space for us to rest and to foster personal healing and reflection.  In many ways I was given the space to “practice what I preach” through meditation, breathing, art and music, spiritual walking, sharing in small groups, and simply reconnecting with my deeper self.  I have returned to my work with a deeper sense of self and the ability to draw strength from this time of intentional rest.

I am grateful to the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab and the Henry Luce Foundation for making this opportunity available to me, and I encourage other spiritual care providers to access the powerful resource that is the Lab.

Joseph “Jeff” Fletcher is a chaplain with Valley Health.