A rather delayed brief update

Several weeks have passed since I last wrote and I thought I would share with you the main reason for that. Some of you who have been following what I have been writing know that, as a complete technophobe and rather a luddite, setting up my blog has been a huge challenge. However, it is now really pleasing to see that there are quite a few readers and lots of visits to the blog.

I would like to increase the readership and plan to organise some more publicity including through Facebook. So, I have been trying, with mixed success, to create a form on the blog through which readers can subscribe and then be informed of new posts. Well, for the last couple of months this has defeated me as well as others whose help I have sought! I delayed writing my next blog in the hope that a form would be set up.

If you are reading this you will see that I have finally been successful and I hope you will subscribe.

Another reason is that I have been pondering whether or not to use the blog to generate some dialogue with those of you who comment on the site. Reading some of the thoughts about Mindfulness has made me think about my own Mindfulness journey so I thought I might share some of that.

I think I already mentioned that for some people there is an assumption that Mindfulness is all about meditation and the thought of meditating is intimidating and scary. After attending an 8-week course around 6 years ago, I started participating in a Mindfulness group. It became a critical part of maintaining my own emotional health and wellbeing and sustained me while I was caring for my mum. After my mum died, I found I could no longer participate in the group. Being alone with myself, which is what meditation feels like to me, became too painful. Others advised that it would be “good for me” but I could not get beyond the pain to experience the benefit they thought would be waiting for me. As a result, I am enormously careful about how I offer Mindfulness to anyone I work with. As Steve says, timing is all, and if the time is not right for a particular tool then so be it.  

I have found that some of the “tools” of Mindfulness, my terminology not theirs, can be a really helpful way to dip a toe in the Mindfulness water. For some carers I have worked with, those tools have been sufficient, others have gone on to dive right in! My guiding principle is that if I can offer something that works for you and does no harm, then it is worth pursuing.

I plan to get back into my routine of writing every couple of weeks or so and next time will probably write a bit about resilience and/or follow up some comments from you, the readers.

Balance – easier to say than to achieve?

In my last blog I introduced some elements of mindfulness and since then have had several conversations with carers about how scary it sounds to them. I would really like to make it easy for you to gain some of the benefits that are possible since I know what a difference it can make.

Last time I wrote, I spoke about what might be going on in your mind. It might be occupied going over things that happened in the past, it might be speculating or worrying about the future. Being in either of these places too much means that we might not be present when we need to be. Or we might miss out on some of the benefits of being “in the moment”. However, please don’t think I am suggesting that looking back over things or wondering about the future are bad things to do. Of course, they are not. But if they consume us or we struggle to escape from this kind of thinking then it might be worth trying to change things.

Before I write about trying to influence what is happening in our minds, I want to stress that reflecting on the past can be very useful. We can learn from it and think about different ways of handling a situation if it were to arise again. Maybe we think we didn’t handle a conversation with a physiotherapist or a nurse terribly well and found ourselves becoming very upset and unable to make our point. Thinking about what happened and perhaps speaking to someone else about it might help to work out how we could behave differently if a similar situation were to come up. However, if our thoughts focus too much on what we think should have happened or on something over which we have no control, for example, how someone else behaved, that will just drain our energy.

Similarly, there are times when thinking about the future is absolutely the right thing to do. A carer I spoke with recently mentioned that her mother would be having some surgery soon. She was spending a lot of time thinking about how to organise her house to make it safe and to manage the risks that might be around when her mum comes home. That is a really important thing to do, but she also found herself worrying about things which she could not control – what if mum has a lot of pain, what if the surgery really knocks her for six as they say? Well, these things are less easy to plan for and we just have to be ready for them if they arise. We need to cross some bridges when we reach them. One of the ways to make sure we are able to deal with whatever arises is to take care of ourselves and make sure we are not “running on empty”.  

What about achieving some balance? The first step is to notice what is going on in your mind and whether or not it feels as though you have any control over it. Sometimes it is possible to recognise what is consuming your mind and then to distract yourself. Other times it might feel as though whatever you do, these thoughts creep back in and take hold of you. Maybe keep you awake at night or distract you when you are trying to focus on something else. Trying to push the thoughts away generally doesn’t help. They just seem to push back! But switching your focus to something else even for a short time might provide some relief.

What could you switch your focus to? I wrote last time about being in the present and the relief that can bring. So really trying to be aware of the here and now can make a difference – what you see, what you can feel, what you can hear, what you can smell and what you can taste. It is easy to neglect the full range of our sensory experience.

Let’s try a little practice. You might be sitting having a cup of coffee and notice that your mind is trapped worrying about some event in the future – a doctor’s appointment, an assessment by care management, or a trip that is concerning you. See if you can turn your attention to really noticing how the chair you are sitting on feels. Is it firm or soft, do you feel it on the backs of your thighs, is your back resting against the backrest? How about the room you are in? Is there any air moving, perhaps from a window? Does it feel drafty or is it pleasant? What can you hear, what can you smell? Are you warm or cool? Are any parts of your body tense? Just notice. And if the thoughts creep back, that’s OK, think of them like clouds that will pass and then go back to noticing your chair and the room.

For a few minutes you may well have gained some relief from the worry. So now you know that it is possible to have some control over your thoughts. I will continue next time and help you to see how this little technique can be used more and therefore provide you with more relief.

How often does your mind take a rest?

Apologies for the long gap but an extended holiday means I have fallen behind my target of writing every 2 weeks!

After a recent conversation with one of the carers I am working with, I thought I would change the topic slightly. Almost at the same time, a mindfulness session I attended reminded me that it might be helpful to write about ways to bring some calm to both your mind and body. Don’t be alarmed. There is a lot in mindfulness which is very easy to use and doesn’t require you to meditate. I know that many of the carers I have worked with assumed that mindfulness couldn’t offer them anything. Their assumption was that you have to sit and meditate for long periods every day and they just don’t have the time for that. Apart from that, meditating sounds as though it would be very difficult. They told me – “As carers, we want our lives made easier, not more difficult!”

Does your mind ever feel as though it is going 19 to the dozen? Does that sometimes result in you feeling physically exhausted? Maybe as if there is a motor running constantly inside your body?

What is your mind occupied with when you feel this? Is it going over things that have happened and wishing they hadn’t or that they had been different? Or is it consumed with worrying about what might happen tomorrow/next week or even further into the future?

Through mindfulness I learned that our minds can be in one of 3 places – the past, the present or the future. If you can be aware of what your mind is doing, you might discover that it spends little time in the present. It might be consumed with going over the past or worrying about the future. However, it is the time in the present that can be really valuable. Being in the present might help us to restore our emotional energy, it might help us to discover new insights and solutions to problems, and it might just mean that we enjoy what we are doing rather than clockwatching and worrying about what we have to do next!

A lady I worked with a short while ago cared for her young daughter who had some really challenging problems and needed a lot of physical help all day every day. Through the work we did together this lady became aware that she was never actually “in the moment” with her daughter. Her mind was always occupied with what she had to do next and she was constantly watching the clock and worrying that she might run out of time to tackle all the things that needed doing. She learned to be in the moment with her daughter and what fun they had together!  

So how can we change and be in the present more? As you can imagine this is a huge topic but here is a tip to help you get started. First, notice what is going on in your mind, what is it busy with? Then try to be aware of and connected to whatever is going on right now. If you are hanging out the washing – taking time, noticing the birds, the smell of the grass, feeling the breeze on your face. If you are walking to the shop – take a little time to chat to neighbours or the shopkeeper, notice the beautiful colours and smells of the gardens as you pass, notice the cool or warmth on your face. Notice anything going on around you and appreciate it rather than rushing and watching the clock. Being in the present might be just being in the moment while doing whatever needs to be done – washing or dressing the person we care for. Or it might be about making some time, even 10 minutes a couple of times each day to be in the moment. Sitting down, drinking a coffee, enjoying some music.

The first step is to notice what your mind is doing and if it is repeatedly occupied with any of the Ws – worrying, wanting, wishing, waiting, wondering – then it might be worth staying with my blog. Next time, I will try to help you to discover how to create some balance across the past, present and future and to feel the benefits. 

There’s always a choice

In my last blog I wrote a little about making choices and perhaps thinking that at times there is no choice. It might be that the alternative to the way you are managing things is too awful to contemplate. It might go against what you believe is best for you and for the person you care for. As I have written before, it might be easier and quicker to do what you have always done. Or it might be really difficult to think through an alternative way.

Whatever the reasoning, there is always a choice and surprisingly, there are nearly always benefits to making the choice yourself, even if you choose to make no change. It is the choosing which can bring benefits. Choosing means taking responsibility and taking responsibility means taking some control. If you are in control then others are not and that can be a great feeling. Some carers that I have worked with have described their life as feeling more free when they learn to choose what to do and how to do it.

It’s important to be clear that taking some control is not the same as being controlling, although they are linked. Being controlling is needing to be in control even if it is not the best thing. Taking some control is different.  

So how can you learn to make choices when life is rushing by and you are familiar with the way things are? Well the first step is to be aware of what is going through your mind and what emotions you are experiencing. Carers have described to me how they feel resentful, irritated, even angry. Also worried, anxious and fearful. It’s OK to feel any or all of these things. If you can manage to notice your thoughts too, you might notice yourself wondering about doing something different. You might be thinking what if I did things a different way.

I will tell you another story. A lady I worked with cared for her husband with dementia. She loved him dearly and wanted to do everything right for him and never left him alone or with anyone else. When I met her, she was angry with herself for starting to feel resentful and irritated with him. She told me that there were several people offering to sit with her husband to let her go out with her friends but she said to me “I don’t have any choice, I promised I would take care of him.” Through speaking about the situation and what she was feeling and thinking she discovered that she kept saying to herself “What if I allowed our friend to be here once a week?”  And then she kept telling herself that she couldn’t possibly. But speaking about things helped her to realise that going out with her friends occasionally did not mean she was no longer taking care of her husband. 

The story has a happy ending. Once she started listening to the “what if” voice in her head, she was able to work out what she needed to do to make her feel assured that her husband would be safe while she was out. It worked for her. However, I have worked with other carers in a similar situation who made the decision not to go out. For one carer that I remember their decision was based on the risk they thought their husband wold be exposed to. For another they felt that the consequences of going out would undo any benefits. The fact that they had considered an alternative improved how they felt, because they had consciously made a decision.

You may not relate to this story but you might recognise where you could make some choices. You may care for a child or a sibling and have forgotten how to slow things down and consider making a choice. Paying attention to what you want and need is OK – you probably spend much of your time paying attention to what everyone else wants and needs. Not just the person you care for but perhaps the wider family who might all have different views on what ought to happen!

I haven’t looked today at choices about how we behave and what we say but they can be important too. Perhaps a little more difficult. I will look at that in a future blog.   

Trapped by how we like to do things!

In my last post a couple of weeks ago, I touched on how we like to do things as being something that might get in the way of taking care of ourselves. Some of the feedback I have received suggests that I may have struck a chord so I thought I would follow that up today.

One of the biggest challenges can be to trust that someone else will do things the same way we like them done. That might be looking after things in the house to give us a break, or it might be looking after the person we care for. Either way we can sometimes fear that if things are not done in the way we are used to doing them, then we bring some risk into our lives and make things less manageable.

The risk could be just small and inconvenient – they might put things away in a different place and I won’t be able to find them quickly and easily. If we are running on empty then our tolerance for these “small” things going wrong can be really diminished. Some days not being able to find something is just a nuisance. On another day it can feel like the end of the world! And our ability to cope with that “end of the world” feeling is also reduced if we are running close to empty. The emotions leak out and all of a sudden, we are feeling guilty about something we have said or done in haste!

The risk could be more significant. They won’t be able to support (either physically or emotionally) the person I care for in the same way that I do. So, what will I come home to? It can feel quicker and easier to do things, everything, ourselves. That feeling of it being quicker and easier, can even influence how we relate to the person we care for. We might be reluctant to allow them to do things for themselves or even to make their own decisions.

I hope you won’t mind me sharing some of my own experiences about taking care of my mum. I would often be rushing and it seemed easier and quicker to make decisions for her – what she should wear or even what she should eat. Asking her to decide what she would like to wear or what she would like to eat often resulted in a lengthy discussion which I felt I didn’t have time for. Why might we imagine that the things that are important to us now – being independent, making our own choices and decisions – should suddenly no longer be important just because of some loss of ability? I had to keep remembering that the need for dignity, independence, feeling valued had not disappeared just because my mum was in her 90s and needed help.

Sometimes stopping and looking, as if an observer, at our day we might realise that we spend a lot of our time rushing from one task to another, maybe not even speaking to the one we care for in any depth. What is the message we inadvertently convey if we don’t sit down, maybe don’t even take off our jacket yet do the washing up, empty the bins and do the ironing?

Time, or lack of it, has come up again as I write today. However, in my working life and my personal life I have frequently been reminded that we all have time to do the things we think are important and the things we value. I have also worked with many clients, carers and managers in organisations, who make the time to do things which I might think are not worth spending time on. Conversely, things that I make time for, they would see as wasteful. So, making choices about what we do is a very personal thing. Unfortunately, it can be easy to forget that we are actually making choices all the time. How many times have you said “I don’t have any choice”? Maybe there was a choice but the alternatives didn’t seem feasible or practical.  So, our choices can trap us in patterns and these patterns can result in problems in the longer term. 

I plan to post something new around every 2 weeks and next time I will continue today’s theme by writing a bit about trying to keep things in our lives manageable and the choices that might lead us to make.