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Author: Jessica Hadari I’m not a goodbye-sayer. I enjoy heartfelt goodbyes with friends and family I’ll not be seeing for a while. In day to day interactions I tend to sneak out the back door. At parties saying goodbye feels like a waste of time; I’ll see everyone again soon, and the goodbyes can drag on for an hour or more if I connect with everyone. I’d rather leave silently and then follow up on loose ends with emails and lunch-dates later. Our 6th hospice training was this evening. We paired up; instructed to imagine that we are blind, cannot speak and cannot feed ourselves. Our partners instructed to feed us slices of orange, pieces of cake. One of us acted as a hospice resident (patient) the other, the volunteer caregiver. Blind, how does one know when to open their mouth for the very moment of the bite? How does one ‘hear’ a request for water or distaste of the food from a person who is mute? What does the blind one feel as invisible faceless strangers come and go? This was a look for me at the dark side of being a light-worker. The perception by the patients – that our volunteer service may not occur to others in the ways we might hope. One week later, Debbie Ford’s book titled The Dark Side of the Light Chasers rung through my head all week after this partnered exercise. I watched myself seeing examples of the dark side of good intentions, everywhere I looked. The dark sides of Thanksgiving, abundance, yoga moving through my mind. At the end of our partnered feeding, we were instructed to practice saying goodbye, as if we may never see this person, our partner, again. How do I say goodbye to someone who may die before my next shift? I had not said goodbye to Ben when I left my shift earlier that day…though my dance with him had felt so close. In this practice role play feeding, I felt a sinking feeling at thought that he might pass before my next shift. I would know that I shied away from saying goodbye. For the first time my no-goodbye preference, which had always seemed so fashionable, looked like a blind-spot. Looked pointless. Staying in my comfort zone on this one will not work for me anymore. The end of each shift might be goodbye forever. I want to honor my connections in this work with goodbyes.  Jessica Hadari is the founder of the Miracle Salon and the FEM Talks Alliance of Women Leaders, Educators & Healers.
Passionate about the "self-blossoming woman", for 15 years she has been privileged to lead countless women’s circles. Her greatest love? Watching women transform in the arenas of relationships, divine path and spiritual growth. Each month she produces the Miracle Salon, a celebrated woman's wisdom networking event, as well as Women's Wisdom & Prayer Circles. Jessica immensely enjoys producing and collaborating around any women's event centered on emotional freedom. She's a mother, writer, artist, hospice caregiver, master yoga teacher, holistic health practitioner, officiant, unconditional friend and voice of accountability in her Bay Area women’s communities.
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