As a caregiver, a lot of thoughts go through your mind while you minister to your family member or loved one. Much of it comes down to worrying and anguish over what actions you should have taken in the past to maybe prevent what is now before you. An equal amount of stress is generated over concern with the future. We find ourselves drifting away from the present with what could have and what should have questions over the past and what if and suppose that questions regarding the future.
Choosing to stay grounded in the present moment with your patient or family member is actually a more simplified and doable mission if you take to heart the following mindset.
Science fiction aside, the past has already taken place and is a completed action. It is not subject to retrieval or alteration. What has already happened in your life and that of your patient is now out of your grasp and control. Stop trying to skewer air with a fork.
The future has yet to occur and is by no means certain. Many outcomes are possible, and, subject to influences and events that you cannot anticipate. Since we are not deities, we cannot foretell that which has yet to come.
The present is where you and your patient currently exist. It is the only place that you can really have an impact with while you are there. You stay engaged and attached to the present moment by retraining your mind not to wander off it’s assignment. Think of it as training your mind to operate on a leash. You hold onto the leash. It is your responsibility to give a firm tug on the leash when your mind begins to wander; to call it back to the present moment. This is doable but requires discipline.
I work at it every day. My own tug on the leash is to invoke the sound in my mind that occurs from an old time stereo record turntable needle or stylus skipping across the top of a record album. That unique sound, which I call up when I begin to feel my mind wander, serves as my attention getting device. It causes me to stop and recall my inner attention back to the present moment.
Your patient or family member will respond to you better, seeing that you are fully aware of them and acting towards them in a heartfelt authentic manner. They will sense that you are giving them your full attention and not just partially engaged. By not appearing distracted or mentally elsewhere, chances are that your patient will not have a reason to think that you are upset with them or that they have done something wrong. It follows then that they will feel more comfortable with your presence and interactions with them.
While many people with Alzheimer’s struggle with loosing their language, reading and comprehension abilities, they often are able to compensate for the loss of those skills by zeroing in on reading the emotions and body language of their caregiver and family members. For some reason not yet understood, the area of the brain where emotional memories and interpretive skills are stored is one of the areas of the brain that is spared and not destroyed until the very late stage of AD.
Choose to make tomorrow the day that you discipline yourself into remaining in the present moment with your family member or patient. What happened with them yesterday, or last week, doesn’t matter today. It is now over and out of your grasp.
What might happen tomorrow or next month is only a possibility but not a certainty. This too is out of reach.
Use your imagination and be creative at coming up with your own alarm clock sounds in your head that you hear chime, scream, honk or blast away when your mind begins to wander away from your patient and the present moment. Or how about using the experience of what your cell phone feels like when the ringer is silent but the phone is set to vibrate?
Every day will be different for a person stricken with AD. Overall, there will be good days and there will be very bad days with a lot of variation and unpredictability. You adapt and reeducate yourself as a caregiver by remaining grounded in the present moment. After all, the present moment is all that you can actually experience at one time anyway.
Further reading as it applies to living and staying engaged in the present moment.
Eckhart Tolle’s, A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. The Penguin Group 2005.
Jeff Dodson
November 12th 2010
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