Journal of Sacred Work

Language has the
power to change reality.
                       -Karen York, VP, Alive Hospice
   

   Language reflects how we think
toward ourselves and others. It can also have an enormous impact on our
physical state. This effect is dramatically under-appreciated. 
   I can change your physical
energy with only four words. Imagine that you are exhausted after working a
double shift. You feel unable to even stand up from the comfort of the sofa
where you rest. Four words will energize you instantly: “You won the lottery!”
If you believe me, you will jump from the sofa as if launched.
   Caregivers need an exquisite
appreciation of the impact of words like "You have cancer." The most loving caregivers also learn a deep understanding of the altered reality their patients or clients may occupy during illness and how to be present to them when they may occupy a different state of reality…

   Reality? What is that? At this
moment, exactly at this moment, a
significant portion of the world’s
population is in an altered state of
consciousness. This means that they are seeing a world different from the one
you and I may see right now. They may be dreaming, or soaking in an
alcoholic haze, or disoriented by dementia, or caught in the jaws of schizophrenia or living with the dull pain of
chronic hunger. At some moment, we may be semi-conscious in a recovery room
following surgery, the world around us a blur of images unconnected to the
“reality” that supposedly occupies our days. Our state of mind will change if we learn
we have a terminal illness even if, physically, we feel well.
   Plato said that all of life is a dream. What are we to make
of the time we spend in another consciousness? Is there anything we can learn during our own experiences in altered states that will help us in the world we call real?
   Imagine just a few of the levels of consciousness in the following overly simply categorization:

Level 1 – Daily
Reality. The first level represents the bridge across which you and I are
conversing at this moment. We use words we learned in school as a way to
communicate. I read comments from you at the same level. Even here, there are
nuances of interpretation that make communication at Level 1 problematic.
Furthermore, Level 1 holds many other levels within it and can be complex
depending upon the intimacy, trust and commitment of our communication. Relationships
at Level 1 can be as superficial as a store clerk transaction or as intimate as
a good marriage.

   In a given hour of the day, a good
book may dramatically alter our perception in Level 1. In the middle of
a Dickens novel, we may imagine ourselves transported to 19^th century England. At one level, we know are in the library reading. At another, we occupy the land of Oliver Twist. The same, of course, is
true of movies, plays or a deep experience of any art form. The difference in perception is the proximity of everyday reality. In other words, when
reading, we can easily be drawn back to Level 1 consciousness of the world around us.

Level 2 – Dreams.
At this level, we don’t communicate with each other. Or do we? The wife of a doctor I
know dreamed a discussion with her sister and mother that, the
next morning in Level 1, they all agreed they had experienced the night. Each of them had dreamed seeing the other and all of them were flying!
Were they communicating in the middle of their dreams? Our Level 1
consciousness is skeptical of stories like this. Yet most of us have experienced communication with
others at Level 2 including the common experience of the dead appearing to
us in our dreams. My father, who passed away in 1995, often appears to me in my Level 2 state in ways that are very comforting.
   Our minds have extensive
capabilities to create different "realities.” Which is real, the dream or our
everyday experience?
   
Level 3 – Distorted
Reality. At this moment, a certain percentage of the world’s populations
are living in a consciousness triggered by alcohol or drugs. Through the lens
of alcohol, cocaine, or meth-amphetamines, they see “reality” through a clouded
lens. If, in these altered states, we intrude on society’s boundaries, we will be judged by those occupying a
Level 1 consciousness.
   There are other levels of awareness
too complex to explore in a brief essay and can only be posed as questions.
Level 4 – Unconsciousness –
Who are we as babies? This has implications for caregiving. Because adults in Level 1 awareness presume that babies have no memory, many male babies are not anesthetized when circumcised. "They’ll just forget," caregivers tell mothers while their babies scream.

• What is our reality when we have
  been hypnotized? Clearly, the mind can be taught a different response to pain.
• What is real for those in the midst
  of dementia? Patients with Alzheimer’s may imagine they are in an entirely different time period in their lives.

   To be a loving caregiver requires that we appreciate,
more deeply than most of us do now, that those for whom we care are seeing us
from the state of mind they occupy at that moment. This is
another reason why words are so important. If a caregiver calls a patient suffering from
schizophrenia a “wacko” it may affect the way they give care to someone who cannot control his or her reality. To demean
a homeless alcoholic in the Emergency Department as a “frequent
flier” may trigger discriminatory behavior. Patients are cared for. Frequent fliers may be ignored.
   
Level 5 – Acute Pain Consciousness – Physical pain creates a
consciousness none of us wants to revisit. Agony brings before our eyes an ache
so severe that we wonder why our fellow humans are not reaching out to rescue
us. At Level 5, we may feel so desperate for help that we can think of nothing other then our pain.
   Hypnosis and yogi techniques demonstrate that pain is entirely perceived in the mind. By the skillful use of words, we can be hypnotized not to notice pain. And there is the enormous power of the word-based placebo effect. Caregivers need a special presence to those in acute pain.

Level 6 – God Consciousness?: In the midst of deep pain or
great joy we may draw nearer to Love, the power that is always near but
that we often can’t see in ordinary Level 1 reality. At a low point in the midst
of her chemotherapy, lying nauseated on her couch, my dear friend and former
assistant, Rhonda Swanson, shared with me how she felt from that state of her
consciousness. A gracious person and
gifted church organist, she told me one day: “when you sink this low it is profoundly
lonely. I feel like shit. The only presence with me down in this pit is God.”
   
   From my own Level 1 consciousness, I have
offered a description of different realities in an effort to enhance understanding of the altered states we may each experience. Our everyday consciousness may cause us to be
cynical instead of respectful toward other consciousness.
   But it is in our darkest hours, and
in our greatest joy, that we touch the hem of God. Only then do we sense what
may await us after we travel pass beyond this veil we call life and into another level of consciousness we don’t yet know.

-Erie Chapman