When Doing Nothing is the Right Thing to Do
image by Natalie Maxson
by Celia McBride
“I’m done.”
These words, spoken by Lana who works on the front lines of long-term care, are common place these days. As a spiritual director working in long term care with residents, families and staff, I hear them spoken a lot. Many of us are feeling “done.”
As Lana’s spiritual director, her words also initiated a rising sense of inner panic. Like “doneness” this feeling is also a known quantity in me but for a different reason. As a recovering fixer, controller and perfectionist, the inner panic is borne out of the false belief that I need to do something to make everything all right.
Because I bring these dominating impulses to supervision, I know enough to let them spin without acting on their determined drive to “make it right.” I know enough to let silence do the job. In the quiet, the wise Inner Voice consistently comes, calming the fear and giving me guidance: “It’s not your job to fix her.”
I watched as Lana pulled up her face-shield and wiped her tears. After waiting long enough to see if she would keep talking and hearing no indication that she had more words, I asked, “Does your “doneness” just need to be heard and validated or do you want to talk about what tools you can employ to help you move through it?”
“Both,” she said.
Both. Such a knowing answer. We need to be heard and validated and we need action steps to keep going. We might feel done but we are not done by a long shot. The wily virus, unstopped and unstoppable, keeps finding its way into our susceptible host-bodies and the pandemic continues to force its hand despite our collective doneness. Just like in spiritual direction, we want to fix it and we can’t.
“I hear how done you are,” I said to Lana. “I see it in your tears. And you’re allowed to be done. This work is overwhelming and challenging. Pandemic fatigue is real.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m not even treading water anymore. I’m drowning.”
I nodded, letting silence do the job again. Nothing to fix, nothing to do. Only after it felt like Lana was ready to move into action, did we start to talk about what spiritual tools she still had in her depleted toolkit.
We talked about giving her Higher Power the things that she couldn’t handle, letting her Higher Power reassure her and rock her like a baby, and taking mini-pauses to breathe before tackling the next insurmountable problem. We talked about returning to the beginning of spiritual practices every time we feel like we’re at the end.
“It was tremendously helpful to talk with you. I can’t thank you enough for your support,” Lana emailed me a few days later.
Doing nothing was just the right thing to do.
Celia McBride
As the pandemic continues into its second year, we are grateful to Celia for her timely reminder that a loving, listening presence is not doing nothing (double negative intended!) A listening presence has a positive impact on us and our world.
As part of Celia's spiritual direction practice, she provides spiritual care for residents in long-term care as well as for the staff and the families and friends of the residents. Her work includes palliative care and accompanying people through the MAiD process.
Read more about Celia’s spiritual direction practice here.
