Changing our Perspective in Caring

Last night at a reading I met a woman caregiver who had left her full-time job to be able to be home with her growing children. At eight and sixteen, they are now just at the point where she does not have to worry about them being home alone for varying periods of time, the youngest being able to be home for a short period if needed and the older for longer. She, and they, have been enjoying spending these swiftly passing years of childhood together.

Enter her mother with Alzheimer’s which has progressed to the point where she needed to move in with the family to have the right level of care in her mid-stage journey, and this perfect family plan was suddenly strained by the weight of unexpected complications and the responsibilities of caregiving. Grandma cannot be left alone even for a short period of time without much worry and stress. There is a dire future to prepare for and walk through.

No one expects or welcomes Alzheimer’s. It is a major interruption.

And interruption is exactly what had happened in this family. Trying as well as she can, bringing all her energy and skill to the task of reconciling and integrating caring for her mother into her plan of raising her family, this caregiver was stumbling over the interruption; apologizing to her children and feeling badly for not having the time and energy she had planned and felt she owed them as a stay at home mom, worrying and planning over daily schedules for her mother, and conveying fear and worry to her children about relationships with others as all of their grandmother’s close friends and confidants had disappeared when she needed help and support most, leaving her alone.

I was listening to a video of Frank Ostaseski that very afternoon. He is a Buddhist teacher and leader in contemplative end-of-life care, and author of The Five Invitations – which intrigues me as in Reiki we honor the five precepts.

One of his invitations is: Welcome everything, push nothing away.

One of my early teachings from my Reiki teacher, Libby Barnett, MSW, is what she calls the Reiki Resolution Technique. Stating that “Sometimes it can be difficult to extricate the mind when it is gripped by a negative mental/emotional pattern.” she advises a process I have shared many times since. Even without the practice of self-Reiki it is a powerful stand-alone tool:

• “I acknowledge you” Acknowledge the existence of the situation – give it your attention
• “I accept you” look at the feeling associated with it in a detached observational way as if you set it out on a glass dish and were looking at it. Just allow it to be, don’t push it away.
• “I embrace you” Here you comfort yourself like mother caring for a hurt child. This opens the way for welcoming with a warm comforting embrace that which you would otherwise push away.

As you can see, the two techniques meld with one another quite well, and are my recipe for receiving the challenges of life, walking through them with spiritual strength, and being a source of blessing to yourself and others as you do. In other words, how to walk through Alzheimer’s with emotional healing.

My suggestion for this caregiver? Try looking at caregiving for your mother as an invitation from the universe to bring yourself and your daughters closer together as you care for her. Include them and teach them not that this is a sad interruption taking away from your lives together, but an enrichment to the experience of life by walking through the end of life with a loved one together. Stop apologizing.

So many times in life we want to change the situation.

What we can change is our outlook and relationship to it, or as Frank Ostaseski puts it we can “Relax and relate differently to the conditions in which we find ourselves.”  Changing our perspective is a powerful tool for transformation. It allows the energy of a situation to shift. This can result in clearer decisions and better outcomes. I frequently see this type of result when giving Reiki to clients. Reiki activates the relaxation response and often helps a client see themselves, others and situations from a different perspective.

One further observation on the frailty of friendships and relationships: It is not only friends who can fail when Alzheimer’s knocks at the door. Many families experience great division and many caregivers find themselves alone in their task when there is a great deal of family around  who choose not to be involved. Alzheimer’s is a great leveler. It is not friends who fail and family who prevail. All fall upon the same sword of the truth of caring till death and not many rise to take it up.

That being said, the vision of a family working lovingly together to provide a circle of love and care around their matriarch is a much happier, more fulfilling one than that of a family broken apart by the stresses of having to provide for a member whose needs have interrupted their plans and disrupted their dreams. It is all in the way we relax (accept) and relate to (welcome) the situation. When we change our perspective by resolving a negative mind-set, we allow the energy of love to flow and guide us. This caregiver was relieved and intrigued by being able to view her situation from a new perspective. It is my hope she went home with arms open to embrace her new understanding and create a new, wider emotional space for her family and herself in their journey through Alzheimer’s.

Join me for more readings and sharing as we continue the caregiving journey together.

From chapter 14,  At Home with Alzheimer’s Disease

Caregiver Lament

Oh, where has my loved one gone?

Oh, there I am gone to as well.

Our lives are turned off

Upside down, Inside out.

This was not the path I had planned.

This was not the design of my heart.

Oh, help me, help me, to do my part.