Creative Ways to Transform Challenges:
Developing a Support Team /
Allowing Others to Help You

Making Caring Visible  Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
 
For more than twenty years I have offered a very simple yet powerful ritual to people before their radiation, chemotherapy, or surgery. I suggest they meet together with some of their closest friends and family the day before their procedure. It does not matter how large or small the group is, but it is important that it be made up of those who are connected to them through a bond of the heart.
 
Before this meeting I suggest they find an ordinary stone, a piece of the earth, big enough to fit in the palm of their hand, and bring it to the meeting with them. The ritual begins by having everyone sit in a circle. In any order they wish to speak, each person tells the story of a time when they too faced a crisis. People may talk about the death of important persons, the loss of jobs or of relationships, or even about their own illnesses. The person who is speaking holds the stone the patient has brought. When they finish telling their story of survival, they take a moment to reflect on the personal quality that they feel helped them come through that difficult time. People will say such things as, "What brought me through was determination," "What brought me through was faith"...When they have named the quality of their strength, they speak directly to the person preparing for surgery or treatment, saying, "I put determination into this stone for you," or, "I put faith into this stone for you"....
 
It is usually a moving and intimate meeting...After everyone has spoken the stone is given back to the patient, who takes it with them to the hospital, to keep nearby and hold in their hand when things get hard.
 
From Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., Riverhead Books, a div. of G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1996, pp. 151-153.

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