Phrases like “healing journey” aim to put us on a yoga retreat rather than in hospital with beeping machines, snoring room-mates and overworked staff. Some families are with loved ones not because they are on a healing journey, but because they are sick and dying.

If meaning is not clear, you can’t hold anyone accountable for failing to deliver your healing journey. The point of kinder-sounding words is they have two meanings. “Towards”, for example, means “don't hold me accountable for delivery, because I am still working 'towards' a goal”.

“Enable” translates as, “I promised to enable someone else to deliver. Hold them accountable, not me.”

“Be kind”, we learned, when it comes from authority, means “do what you are told”.

Josie's Post column