How To Be Hopeful Season 1 Episode 10 ”I am an advocate of hope”

Welcome to my podcast about hope. This week is about how we find hope even when we are dying or keeping company with someone at the end of their life- if hope is possible or helpful at such a time. To speak with me about these matters I was honoured to be joined by Nikki Jones, a palliative care nurse and make up artist. We spoke specifically about the challenges and changes that have happened in her hospice during lock down, when “we are not allowed visitors in the hospice right now…. so, it feels that the soul is taken out of it … …. a patient is telling you something so profound and you put a gloved hand out… you think it’s just not good enough… but you know it is good enough because it is what we have to do, we have to be creative and find ways around it… I work with amazing people  and we support each other”

Nikki speaks about  how hope comes into her work: “I am an advocate for hope. If you walked in the doors of our hospice you would find the feeling of hope is tangible. Hope doesn’t have to be a massive thing hope, can be something tiny.” She talks about how hope exists in the moment, in the present, and that her and her colleagues look for “what we can do…  to make you hopeful for that moment… it might be just to smile again or for your relatives to see you smile again… hope is always there, and it carries a lot of people’s journeys”

We also spoke about the wonder of make-up, the power of simplicity, the importance of finding inner peace  and the beauty of a really great cup of tea.

Nikki recommended Kathryn Mannix’s talk “Dying Is Not As Bad As You Think” which can be found here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/dying-is-not-as-bad-as-you-think/p062m0xt

if you want to find out more or support Martlets Hospice in Hove you can go here: https://www.martlets.org.uk

More soon!

Love Bernadette

My book "How To Be Hopeful" published by Elliot and Thompson is due out September 2020. This podcast series is a chance for me to chat again to some of the people who I interviewed for the book, as well as some people who I didn't have the chance to. I hope you enjoy it. 

You can find me here www.bernadetterussell.com

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