here is something to be said about being on a spiritual path because, as a result, I (sometimes) look at difficulties in my life differently. Not always but sometimes I’m more likely to look for options rather than defending my position.

Within a few days we will step out of the way so that a contractor and team can begin tearing out our kitchen counters, preparing the way for new counter tops, sanding and painting cabinets, and installing a new range.

That means we need to get it in gear, emptying the cabinets, removing the clutter, and preparing to go kitchen free for a week.

When we found out the timeline today, I had other things lined up and it put me in a bad mood to try to fit in beginning to get ready for this kitchen project. These sudden, new demands were an aggravation – an imposition on my time.

I knew my control issues were up. I wanted to do most of the work and direct all of the work involved with getting us out of the kitchen and out of the contractor’s way.

I didn’t want to go about my day as planned, even though we have at least two more days to tackle the kitchen, because then Joseph might take over and make decisions without me there to “contribute” to (i.e. “control”) the decision making.

In the middle of huffing and puffing and sighing as I began the work of moving us out of the kitchen, I realized I had this thing backwards.

Rather than focus on controlling things, I needed to focus on getting a new kitchen and what a blessing it will be! Turn my attention away from anticipating power struggles and get excited about the fact that no matter what we do with all the kitchen stuff and getting it out of the way – think about how much fun it’s going to be to put it all back in the fresh, new kitchen!

That shift in thinking is a direct result of spiritual growth…

…because it wasn’t that long ago that the way I would have handled this would have been to huff and puff my way into a truck load of guilt for my ingratitude, as well as creating a tussle with Joseph over who’s decision making in this arena was better.

Today, I didn’t feel guilt. I felt gratitude for thinking of and feeling around this distinction of hassle-to-undo-the-kitchen on the one hand or enthusiasm over the new kitchen on the other.

Instead of getting bogged down in guilt and frustration, I did a number of things towards this project and then I got back to my original plans for the day. Over the next couple of days, Joseph and I can work together to get it all done with no tussles and no guilt.

And as someone for whom relationship is the most valuable thing about being human, the success of our interactions during this project will matter as much, perhaps more, to me than the new kitchen.

That title doesn’t indicate the original intention of the blogger who posted the list as an example of the payoff that comes from doing the work of spiritual growth. Their concern was to address the 40% that attend Al-Anon meetings who never return. It was meant as an encouragement to keep coming back, keep doing the work.

The original blog is found at http://recoverytradepublications.com/blog.html?entry=12-symptoms-of-a-spiritual.
(I would post the author but as it comes from the recovery community, his full name isn’t available.)

I love this list! I believe that those who “Like” the renamed version on Facebook mostly love it because they either see themselves there or see what they hope to become. It is an encouraging list for those on an intentional spiritual path as well as an eye-opener and encouragement for those who are growing spiritually as a by-product of living.

Life does grow us up even if sometimes in spite of ourselves.

Here’s the list of the payoffs for doing the work of spiritual growth:

1. An increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.

2. Frequent attacks of smiling.

3. Feelings of being connected with others and nature.

4. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

5. A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience.

6. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

7. A loss of ability to worry.

8. A loss of interest in conflict.

9. A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.

10. A loss of interest in judging others.

11. A loss of interest in judging self.

12. Gaining the ability to love without expecting anything in return.

You see? Isn’t that an amazing list? It makes me want to go through my days being more of all of THAT!

By the way, every other one on the list is in bold just to make the list easier to read…no hidden agenda to highlight some over others intended.

Lately I’ve posted some heavy blog entries ~ so today I wanted to offer up something lighter yet deeply profound and…encouraging!

Then I thought I must be angry. Isn’t depression masked anger? So, in an effort to ease the depression, I made a list of everything about which I was angry or ashamed. It seemed to clarify things; until the following day when I got angry again over something inconsequential.

It had begun affecting other people. So I felt guilty and tired of the whole thing.

Then we went to the movies and in the middle of “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” I got it.

I’m not depressed or angry. I am grieving. Furthermore, it is neither anticipatory grief nor grief from past losses. It is current, present-time grief. And it hurts.

Two of my beloveds are struggling with life-challenging health issues. One is now on the upswing and life is winning. For the other, there will be no upswing. Next steps will inevitably lead to transition.

In the process of dealing with these life-challenging health issues, these two nearest and dearest had to pull their focus away from me and onto themselves. They needed to put their attention on what was necessary to either heal or release. I supported their shift of attention because it was the best way to support them.

Yet, as a result of this shift of attention, the relationships changed and I found myself feeling more and more untethered, adrift, and uncomfortable in my own skin. It frustrated and angered me because I felt I didn’t have any recourse. I couldn’t make the relationships go back to the way they were and so I could not create a comfortable place within which to feel safe and secure.

One of the relationships has no hope of ever returning to the way it was. The other shows definite signs of getting back to how it used to be – even better – but as few as three weeks ago; I couldn’t know for sure that the new normal of all the focus being on the other wouldn’t last forever.

And so I felt bereft; grief stricken over how disease had stolen the attention of my beloveds and robbed me of the comfort of the relationships we’d created. At the very least I lost who they used to be. I had the potential of losing them altogether. And I’d lost the comfort of our relationship as it had been. I missed them.

Though acknowledging the anger, frustration, and depression didn’t seem to do much good; once I experienced the grief, shifts began to occur. First of all, I then had the freedom to express my grief – even if mostly to myself alone. Simply being able to name the real emotion that is stirring in the deep is helpful.

Then, with the one who cannot get better, I found I had more stamina for appreciating just being in the present moment with them. I had more energy for needing to be the one who gives more, attends more, sees and hears more, is better able to express love more. I experienced renewed pleasure for just being in their company.

With the one who is getting better, I was able to share my process, even as I monitored not over doing it. This beloved was able to meet me in the process, sharing as well. We got to re-experience our relationship as container for emotional honesty and seeing and hearing one another. We got to re-experience the intimacy that means so very much to us. We got to reacquaint ourselves with “us.”

That freed me up to stop interpreting this one’s present needs as taking-me-for-granted and, instead, allowed me to experience myself as happy to serve.

It seems long term illness, even when healing is involved, is a process for the one who is ill and for those who love them. Everyone involved needs compassion and understanding – most of all from inside their own dear selves.

~ James Taylor

The first time I volunteered in a nursing home it was 1976 and I was 16 years old. I’d never been around so many elderly people in one place. My first night after working there I couldn’t sleep as images of the residents, how they lived, the lighting, and the way the place smelled fired through my imagination all night long.

In hind sight I can tell you that in 1976 in that place there were very few residents with dementia. Part of the campus was assisted living and where I worked was the nursing home. So its residents were folks who, in their elder years, had come to terms with how they would finish out their lives. Most of the residents in the nursing home started out in assisted living, coming to the nursing home when they needed the extra care.

I had one resident who was 41 years old and had multiple scleroses. I remember his age because even at 16, I knew 41 wasn’t that old. He was much younger than the other residents. He had a devoted wife who refused to divorce him, even though he wanted to take the high road and set her free. They had a daughter who was graduating college that year.

My maiden name was “Walls” and this particular resident loved my visits because he would then anticipate telling the next person who came to his room that he’d been talking to the five walls. I liked his sense of humor.

There was another resident, bedridden, who would keep me for over an hour, if I let her, regaling me with stories of her childhood. Her mother had died when she was young. She was then raised by an emotionally distant father and a step-mother who didn’t like her. The details she shared from her life came from an era my great-grandparents knew. It was fascinating listening to her.

There were other residents who were not confined to their beds, so I visited them at the side of their wheelchairs, reading to some, writing letters for others, and listening to one talk about her granddaughters – bragging on the blond one and dismissing the redhead! I once saw a photograph of the two and the redhead was actually prettier than the blond. But the blond had blond hair and that had won her a spot in her grandmother’s heart for life.

The following summer gave me fond memories of helping with parties, music, and a field trip to the zoo. I have no memories of working with dementia patients back then.

Presently, I work part time in a nursing home where the vast majority of the residents have some form of dementia. There are only a few who don’t have it. Working there in 2012 is a whole different ball game from 1976. Residents routinely insist that they have homes elsewhere and need help getting home. Or they have a job somewhere else that they need to get to. If you try to argue with them on the basis of reality, there are a number of responses you might receive.

The resident might get angry, insisting they’re right and you’re not only wrong, you’re stupid, rude, or insulting. The resident might become confused and get their feelings hurt. You may hear language you’ve never heard in your life coming from people who have never heard or said these words ever in their lives. You might get hit – even get your ears boxed. Or the resident might momentarily acquiesce only to pick up the very same conversation about where they work or live a moment later.

I use a technique called Validation, developed by Naomi Feil. It is more effective than another technique I’m familiar with called “therapeutic lying.” Working evenings, every time I bring an activity to an end, one resident says, “Well I don’t know how I’m going to get home tonight.”

I say, “Actually, you have a room right down that hallway.” Then I tell her the room number and assure her that her name is on the door and that she’ll recognize her belongings when she gets inside.

In my conversation with her I never confront her with the fact that she’s been living in this nursing home and had that room for many years now. When her question begins with a statement about how her house is right across the road, implying she merely needs help crossing the street; I never address that. I talk about her room at the nursing home as if this is something extra in her life and assure her that staying there this night is the thing to do. And every time we have this conversation my tone of voice communicates this is the first time we’ve had this conversation.

One night I realized I sounded like a cruise director as if the nursing home was a cruise ship, their rooms were their cabins, and with the end of the activity we’d just drawn the evening’s entertainment to a close.

These days with the rise of dementia, most of my conversations with residents at the nursing home involve using the Validation technique.

I’ve also learned something about dementia from my own mother who suffers from it.

Why dementia attacks the brain the way it does is random. What’s stolen from the person’s memory makes no sense. It isn’t just memories that go missing, how to behave so that social interactions are as successful as possible can disappear. It is that type of disappearance, even more than the missing memories, which steal a loved one right in front of your very eyes, ears, and heart.

When it comes to interacting with your own parent and his or her internal governor is taken by the dementia, you can hear painful and embarrassing things that deny or confirm the stories you’ve made up in your mind about your parent. If your parent was always supportive, you might hear non-supportive, even damaging, rhetoric aimed at you for the first time in your life. If your parent wasn’t there for you in any way or even abusive, you may see and hear things that make you want to indulge in some, “Oh, yeah, I just knew it!” type conversations with yourself or loved ones.

At fifty I still believed my mother and God were one! In other words, she seemed indomitable. I never, ever knew or understood the pain she’d suffered in childhood because of how her primary family members had treated her until, with the dementia, she got stuck in a loop processing how they’d made her feel all those years ago.

I knew it hadn’t been an easy childhood for her. But I did not know the extent to which her self-esteem and sense of worth had suffered or how she carried those negative limiting beliefs about her with her throughout her entire life. And then with the dementia, though she processed the memories and the feelings almost constantly, she could not help herself (nor could anyone else help her) get to the other side to experience new, positive, and life giving beliefs about herself.

Trying to teach Mom positive self-talk falls in the short term memory category that went missing a long time ago.

These days conversations are short. They cover a bare minimum of subjects. We talk about the weather and I answer her question about how Joseph’s doing many times in a single phone conversation as if it’s the first time. On the phone with her I realize in a manner of minutes that she’s anxious to get off the phone because, even though she can’t talk about it, she’s aware of her limitations and it causes her stress.

Sometimes, because I want to feel as though we had a real good visit and I also think my calls give my step-dad a bit of a break, I’ll turn the T.V. on to the same channel she’s watching and we’ll talk about what we see there. If she’s got the Animal Planet on, that’s fun.

How my mom is now isn’t who she was and it isn’t who she is. Her internal governor being gone doesn’t reveal anything about the real woman. If she had been able to process her family stuff throughout her adult years, I don’t know if that would have made a difference now. Although I wish she could have removed the tapes inside her head that told her she was less than and unworthy; when receiving therapeutic counseling became popular in the 1990’s, she was proud of not “needing” counseling back then. That proud part of her personality is still there and when she expresses it, we celebrate it.

Whenever a resident invites me into their room at the nursing home, I love to see pictures of them when they were younger hanging on the walls because it gives me insight into who they were when all their mental faculties were intact. When I practice the Validation technique and relate to the person I’ve seen in the photograph or the person I knew my mom to be, I get smiles and even laughter as they have an opportunity to feel seen and heard in a way that feels familiar to them.

Dementia is hard. It makes no sense. It is all around us. The number of people it affects is growing. As with all chronic and terminal diseases, it makes life with the patient all about them. Your own needs and desires get routinely swept aside.

If I may offer some advice born of my own experience ~

Whatever techniques you use to handle the loved ones in your life who have this disease, the answer is always, always love. The only thing to do is just love them.

Meet them where they are and when doing that makes you really uncomfortable, find someone to process the experience with afterwards. Get up close. Sit, bend, or squat so that you can make direct eye contact. Touch them. Squeeze a hand, pat a shoulder, give a hug, stroke their hair. Try to make sense of what’s being said and when you can’t, just hang in there.

You don’t have to feel sorry for them. If you do, don’t let feeling sorry for them keep you from connecting and don’t let it shut down acts of compassion. Just be present to them, follow your intuition; and if you make a mistake, you’ll probably get an opportunity for a re-do in the same conversation.

You’ll grow patience you never knew had and you’ll come to respect yourself for being there for them. Sometimes loving someone only happens in the ways they are capable of receiving it. But when it’s all said and done, it is all about the love and that is all that matters.

Today the stand arrived. As soon as he brought it inside, he opened the box in our breakfast nook, took out the disassembled pieces, found the directions, and got to work building it.

I walked through in the middle of the construction where he proudly inquired, “Guess what arrived today?”

“Your wheat grass growing stand!”

“Yep.”

I smiled and kept walking to find something else to do for the moment. That right there was my action step of being a good wife today.

As I walked away, the thoughts in my head churned along something like this:

“I wonder where he wants to put that thing? I can ask him but I’d really like to figure out where I’d like to have it and suggest that’s where he put it.

Or I could go in there and ask what I need to move out of the way for his stand as if I’m already on board with wherever he wants it. But that is a ploy to open up the conversation so I can get my way about it.

OK. Let’s not do any of that. Let’s just get busy doing anything else and stay out of it. I’m gonna let him lead the way on this.”

That right there was my thinking step of being a good wife today.

As he finished up the project, I helped tighten a screw when asked for help, and I can’t remember which one of us opened the conversation about where it would go. Which probably means I did.

I bet I asked, “Where do you want to put it?” But I know I asked the question without agenda.

Turns out he had a number of ideas and was happy for me to have some input. We both like its placement. And just as important, it got accomplished without me getting my controlling energy in there dampening the excitement of the stand arriving today!

That right there was my feeling step of being a good wife today!

Such gratitude when I have the presence of mind to let my heart come first and refrain from trying to control details that invariably communicate “I only trust me” and instead communicate, “I love and respect you and let’s have fun!”

Cheers!