Talia Goshen
Coping with serious, chronic, or life-threatening illnesses
What is dealt with and treated with spiritual guidance?
From my personal experience, I know that the moment we are diagnosed with a serious, chronic, or life-threatening illness is a destabilizing and frightening, life-changing moment. The confusion, anxiety, the shattering of our personal image, the loss of our sense of competence, the loneliness, the loss of meaning - all of these, and more, overwhelm us with difficult questions and emotions, and along with them, the multi-systemic challenges - medical, occupational, economic, bureaucratic, family, and functional - also rise in intensity.
In moments like these, we seek to hold on to our beliefs and find ways to help us grow stronger.
We find ourselves anxious, afraid of becoming a burden on those closest to us, dealing with questions we never asked ourselves before that now seem to appear out of nowhere, questions about the purpose and meaning of life, our personal life story, and our ability to cope. For many of us, desires, dreams, and fantasies that were hidden until the moment the disease was discovered suddenly demand the forefront.
We are trying to understand what brought us to the situation we are in and find answers:
Has the life I have lived so far been the "right" life? Can the discovery of the disease and the sudden sense of the transience of life actually serve as a lever for spiritual growth for me? Is there any meaning to life? To my life?
What is important to me in life? What will I leave behind? Why did I get sick? Why at this particular time? And so on and so forth.
From darkness to light, view from Dan parking lot to Frishman Beach, Tel Aviv 2017
The Spiritual Questionnaire or: What can the crisis teach me?
We will begin the spiritual guidance process by answering a spiritual questionnaire.
(All rights reserved to Dr. Ruhama Weiss)
Through a series of in-depth questions in the questionnaire, we identify, mark, and discover together what in your personal story can bring insight, fulfillment, acceptance, and even healing.
The close communication between us and the deep listening with empathy, asking and answering questions, and supportive, non-judgmental guidance throughout, allow, first of all, the presence of pain and the containment of difficult emotions, then the flooding of issues of the meaning of life, faith, and purpose, and of course the raising of daily hardships, pain, loss, and suffering.
Our encounter allows us to deal with the crisis in all its aspects without shame and without the need to hide in order to protect those dear to us.
Together we will learn to observe the crisis and use what brings up fear, pain, and suffering in us to improve the moment, the present, and the "is," to connect with the beauty in our lives and enhance it, to practice the fullness of life despite the feeling of destruction and devastation, to mark new paths within the fracture and walk along them with integrity, without fear, and even with happiness.What I do is to enable dialogue, collaboration, emotional flow, and the resolution of potholes and conflicts both within the soul and in creating optimal communication with the world. I offer deep and respectful listening and treatment through practicing consciousness with diverse tools in order to allow the person to identify within themselves the strengths and abilities that can lead them to deal with the crisis situation and find renewed meaning in their lives.
In our meetings, I use a variety of methods: conversations, guided imagery, mediation and enabling, meditation and mindfulness practice, journey therapy, Life Coaching (life coaching in crisis situations), Life Intervention (intervention in extreme situations), conducting rituals, listening to music, prayers, reading and writing texts, and bibliotherapy (therapy using the written word). If necessary, I will offer group work, intervention circles, medical treatments, mind-body treatments, and empowerment workshops.
I accompany you through listening, observing, and remaining non-critical. I am with you in the pain, in the crisis, also in and out of silence and beyond thought.
The essence of my work is identifying your complete place, of what is with you all the time, what is in you that exists permanently within the transient, identifying your unity, your constant being.
Let's sit down and have tea together with Nana, you and me, Ravid Plotnik, graffiti on 18 Migdal Street, Tel Aviv 2021