Grief, Gratitude, and Meditative Awareness
A reflective writing session for Medical Students, Doctors, Residents, and Health Professionals
When we talk about being grateful, it sometimes feels like an attempt to override the grief we are also living with. Like telling ourselves to eat our peas because they’re good for us, a finger wagging into appreciation. But why is gratitude useful, and how can we experience it while feeling the pain around us and within us? This session uses poetry, conversation, and a meditation practice to tap into the well-being gratitude can sometimes offer, even now.
No experience necessary. Please have a pen and paper, a notebook or whatever you like to write with on hand.
Wednesday April 28, 2021
5:30PM-7PM
You will receive a link when you register
Goals
— Learn five rules for writing that can be used to reflect on one’s work, relationships, and life
— Listen to poems and experience them as prompts for reflection.
— Engage in a meditation practice aimed at opening the heart in pain
— Explore poetry and writing as practices of self-care
Workshop leader:
Ronna Bloom is a poet and teacher. Her most recent book, The More, was published by Pedlar Press in 2017 and long listed for the City of Toronto Book Award. Her poems have been recorded by the CNIB and translated into Spanish, Bangla, and Chinese. She has collaborated with health care professionals, filmmakers, academics, students, spiritual leaders, and architects. A frequent guest in the faculties of Nursing, Medicine, Public Health, as well at teaching hospitals, she brings 25 years of psychotherapy practice to her work as a poet and facilitator.
Ronna developed the first Poet in Residence program at Sinai Health. She is currently Poet in Community to the University of Toronto and Poet in Residence in the Health, Arts and Humanities Programme. Her “Spontaneous Poetry Booth” and “RX for Poetry” have been featured in hospitals and fundraisers in Canada and abroad. She runs workshops and gives talks on poetry, spontaneity, and awareness through writing.
Ronna Bloom, M.ED
Poet in Residence, HAH, University of Toronto
Poet in Community, University of Toronto
Open to all U of T Medical Students, Residents, Physicians and Learners from other disciplines. Register here.