Скачать или смотреть The Power of Acceptance: Loss

When most people think of significant loss, not losing your keys, but heart wrenching loss, it is on the level of losing your house, your job, a loved one. Caregivers experience a different type of loss that 
intensifies as the caregiving experience intensifies. Running a few errands isn’t much of an inconvenience and it feels good to be helping, but helping a few days a week can slip into daily help without awareness. As the need for care increases, it is not uncommon to scale back on a hobby or exercise routine in order to be more involved in errands, tasks and doctor’s appointments. It is important to accept help and protect the interests that restore your energy. 

As life begins to revolve more and more around your caree’s needs, the losses increase. Losses while caring for a family member may include:
Your former relationship with your caree, I miss the father-daughter relationship that shifted to caregiver-caree roles. You may experience a loss of freedom, the ability to travel. You may miss having a carefree mind, the ability to be spontaneous. You likely miss friends and family who aren’t around as much as they used to be. You may feel like you have lost your sense of self. It can also feel like you don’t have anything to look forward to anymore, like your future has been put on hold indefinitely. Sometimes, it can feel like all hope is lost.

These losses can cause anger and resentment. They add to the overwhelm that keeps us feeling like we are spinning out of control. The losses are temporary, but they feel magnified because we don’t know the schedule. 

Reframing and resilience help us move from feelings of loss to accepting the situation and even becoming empowered by it. When we move from “Why me?” to “What now?, we begin to reframe the loss and experience. 

Resilience is our ability to recover and hopefully grow from the adversity. The greater our resilience, the greater our sense of overall well being.

Mindfulness increases our awareness of the present moment. Therefore, it is a powerful tool to help us reframe and recover.
The more we practice mindfulness, the more readily we learn how to manage negative situations in our lives.

Join me at SustainableCaregiving.com to learn more about accepting loss, reframing and resilience.

Everyday mindfulness will be our focus next week and the topic of our next series.