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Oxygen for Caregivers
A great many nurses report that the hospitals they work for require them to
leave their hearts at home. As it is increasingly recognized that love and
immunity are closely linked (Scientificamerican), it is hardly surprising
that nurses are among the first to suffer “compassion fatigue,” “empathetic
hyperarousal,” and burnout (Private communication from Simon Fox).
Oxygen for Caregivers is one of the several innovative programs developed
by Adventures in Caring Foundation (AICF) that addresses the specific
challenges of burnout among health care professionals and volunteers. It has
identified five precipitating factors in the psychology of burnout: (1) no control
over circumstances, (2) cannot predict what will happen next, (3) facing it
alone, (4) no escape, and (5) no hope of it getting better. AICF’s remedy is
three-pronged: (1) enhancing control by reestablishing work/life balance
through a program of self-care, (2) developing foresight by training to warning
signs, and (3) establishing connections through narrative and social support
(Adventuresincaring).
The BHI state of heightened vitality, empowerment, perception, balance,
and flow is a precise antidote to this set of conditions. When you feel truly
powerful and alive, you do not care very much about controlling circumstances
because you are happy to surf the wave. Similarly, without struggling with
what will happen next, you are focused on what is happening now. Since
you have a palpable sense of being deeply connected to the rolling world,
you rarely feel alone and even if you do, you know that such feelings are
impermanent and that every day brings a noble chance. There is a famous koan
by the Chinese Zen master Yu ´nme ´n that aptly describes this state of being,
“The whole world is medicine” (Wikipedia-B).
How might these principles be further enhanced by designers and architects?
One interesting approach, reflective of BHI principles, might be to begin
conceiving a building less as a static physical structure, the end of a story
(“frozen music” is how Goethe described architecture), but rather as an
invitation for new engagement, exploration, and discovery.

Big Heart Intelligence Process
If we begin to look at a building or other physical space as a dynamic
process, there is a striking parallel with negotiation. Drawing upon the second
definition in the Webster’s dictionary, a building becomes the initiation of a
continuous process of exploring and meeting of challenges as in “negotiating”
a river or a mountain. BHI has a special contribution to make here because the
combination of the Heart and Mind is a far more reliable Global Positioning
Satellite than a system that operates solely on the brain or the mind. Moreover,
a cardinal tenet of BHI is to translate the sense of vitality, empowerment, and
gratefulness with continuous acts of “paying forward”; in other words, it is the