URGENT - The Age of Dignity

Whatever your age - early 20s or late nineties, pushing the big 5-0 or past 100 - buy or borrow a copy of Ai-Jen Poo's, The Age of Dignity.  Clear & to the point, it focuses on opportunities to turn around our culture's current dunderheaded attitudes, practices & policies affecting aging.  

Get it.  Get it now.  Read it.  Discuss it with friends.  

Its timing freaks me out, in the best sort of way.  Ai-Jen has the experience & gifts to say what's been pinging around my heart for the past few years - that this moment in time presents remarkable opportunities to shake things up in ways that will benefit everyone - the aging (i.e. all of us), the physically dependent, the elderly, their families & loved ones, caregivers, our economy.  

What are you doing, still reading this post?  Run out to your local book store or order it online, but GET IT!  Get it NOW!  And share with us what you think about it. 

(originally posted on older2elder)

Fourteen Friends Guide to Eldercare

 

One great essential for helping spearhead change is to have A Great Idea.  A Great Idea whose time has come.  Alas, .The Fourteen Friends' Guide to Eldercaring was printed in 1999, 15+ years before its time.  With Ai-Jen Poo's just-published The Age of Dignity climbing best seller charts, hopefully this earlier gem will go into reprint, because it's a perfect companion read.  Better yet, now that they are in their 70s, the friends should update it!  

Confession:  I've only gotten about 30 pages into the book.  But already it has proven to be a treasure, a must-read book for all ages, from teens to octogenarians & beyond.  

The fourteen friends all graduated from the Yorktown High School, Class of 1962, but some have been buddies since primary school!  Every year, they reconnect for a week, celebrating friendship & sharing experiences advice expertise.  

One year, someone came up with the idea - let's write a book.

These are women I can relate to, making no pretense to any formal training in geriatrics or institutional elder care, but wise beyond what most specialists can offer.  Their great strength is their range of hands-on, heart-touched experience, offering real-life stories rather than empirical statistics.  

Sitting at my customary Thursday morning table at Hatboro Dish, tucking into the best french toast (sorry, Mom), with my constantly refilled coffee cup close at hand, kept smiling & nodding, reading their different tips suggestions stories.  Having been through the crucible of elder care, it was especially satisfying to see how the ladies treated the reader as one of their own, providing lots of lined journaling pages for notes memories stories.  

Stories stories stories - that is the soul of this book.  Not study-based data or scientific treatise or high-fallutin' expertise - stories & the lessons learned by from through them.

 

So far, the only bone I have to pick with the friends is that while they present simple, direct & effective "best practice" ways to approach elder care, being simple & direct isn't always going to turn out well.  Yes, it is ideal for families to provide mutual, if not equal, support when parents or other loved ones need a little TLC or a lot of care.  The reality is that all sorts of real & imagined, overt & covert barriers often hamstring families, making it impossible for them to talk about, let alone share, support for the loved ones & various caregivers.  

A lot of memories - most of them happy, all of them educational & ultimately inspiring - have been stirred over the past 24 hours.  The majority of the friends still live in or near Northern Virginia.  My first 2015 conference is in Falls Church.  Will I do everything possible to connect with at least one during my stay in Falls Church?  You betcha.

Stay tuned! 




(originally posted on older2elder)

entering No Drama Zone! - How To Be An Adult

Hands - how many were raised to believe anger is BAD?

A lot of people still are.  In my parents' day, it was a given that anger was a sign you were out of control, even that the hells had filled your heart.  

The reality is that anger has a use.  Feeling it rising gives a heads up that something is amiss.  Problems with anger happen when get swallowed in its drama.

 

It was startling how much better my relationship was with Mom after we reviewed David Richo's breakdown of True Anger v. Drama - together.  Helped my relationship with John when we did, too!  Reading the comparisons, discussing them & our personal experiences changed our understanding of & relationship with anger, how we related to it & to each other.

Drama is frightening, meant to silence others.  It blames others for our own feelings.  It's out of control, even when it seems like its not.  It represses true feelings - our own & others'.  It creates stress, holds onto resentment, vents frustration.  

 

On the other hand, True Anger informs us about something that disturbs us.  It can contain sadness or disappointment, but these are acknowledged.  True Anger takes responsibility for whatever feelings it brings up.  It asks for change without requiring it.  Rather than holding on until it brews into resentment, True Anger is brief, released, with a sense of closure.  While Drama demands others acknowledge it's justified, True Anger needs no response.

Because the person is focused on hearing & understanding rather than being acknowledged as being right, True Anger is never belligerent infuriated indignant.

David calls anger a secondary emotion, masking another feeling, such as sadness or fear.  Unlike Drama, True Anger never masks those feelings.  

You can't hold onto True Anger, because once it is expressed, it is released.  Drama keeps replaying whatever brought up the original anger, often morphing it into something totally unrecognizable.  

Am remembering long-ago talks with Mom about anger, how it felt caused by an event, but was actually rooted in our belief or interpretation of what happened or said.  

It was powerful to realize that both of us had thought everyone responded to a same situation with the same emotions.  If something makes me angry, it must make others angry too.  

Not necessarily.  Yet it felt so right, so good to lay that assumption on others.  We talked over hot tea & generously buttered cinnamon bread about how different people experience the same thing in different ways.

That was a radical thought for Mom, who assumed that the way she viewed things would naturally be the way others would too.  This new information about True Anger & Drama gave her pause.

So much happened in my mother's life that would make any of us disappointed frustrated.  For most of her life, she responded in the only way that made sense - with denial repression suppression.  It helped her cope with doing what she deeply believed needed to be done.  

Psychologists & counselors might say that of course Mom had the ability, even the responsibility to feel the anger & constructively express it, but I could totally understand why she never had - the person on the receiving end would never have been able to process it.  So, she stuffed it down, slapped on a smiley face, and forged ahead.  

Am forever happy that in the last few years of her life, Mom was able to feel sadness disappointment frustration, experience them as True Anger, and work with it rather than deny them.  Pretty darned WOW if you ask me!

  

three little words - How To Be An Adult

 

For examples of the havoc wreaked by fear, no need to look any further than my own family.  And no further than my John for the blessed oil that soothes the soul troubled by fear!

My oldest brother is utterly focused on producing perfect results in all he does, all the time.  Anything less than perfect is unacceptable.  Perfection or nothing.  Naturally, since perfection is as rare as Alexandrite, not much luck in producing hoped-for outcomes!  

Even the most casual observer can see my brother's life seems put on permanent hold.  Not by his desire to achieve perfection, which could spur him to do incredible things as he strives for his goal, but by fear of anything less, which keeps him at a virtual standstill.  The result of insisting on perfection, rejecting anything less, is that you do nothing.  The fear engulfs rationality need action.  

Contrast that with my John.  The first time I made some glib, offhand remark about seeking perfection in something or other, my beloved said those words forever engraved on my heart, "Perfection equal paralysis."

Did my jaw actually drop, or did it only feel that way?

ZOWIE!  Three little words from John that made my heart zing almost as much as "I love you."   Paralysis caused by the FEAR of anything less, the opposite of the kick in the butt of authentic inspiring desire.  

Where it once frustrated me, my brother's heartbreaking expectation only makes me feel deep compassion for such a tortured view of what we are put in this body, in this life, on this planet & at this time to do.  

Making perfection part of a complex marking system - rather than simply doing the very best you can - is a devastating example of negative excitement.  Rather than seeing himself shackled to an impossible expectation, my brother took immense pride in only accepting perfection.  

 

As I learned from David Richo, negative excitement fuels our ongoing drama, boosts our energy level, and gives a sense of purpose, however false.  Perfection is right at the top of the list of crippling negative excitement, feeling so good & creating such misery.  It's rooted in, creates & embodies fear.  Perfectionism is high octane for ongoing drama, fills us with a sense of soaring great purpose, while blinding us to the reality we're at a full stop.  Insistence on perfection is more than "the enemy of great" - it's the enemy of acceptable & good, of mediocrity & instructive failure.  

John is right - it does mean paralysis, keeps anything from being done - inferior, acceptable, good or great.  Praise be I married a man of few, but insightful words!  

Fear is the very essence of negative excitement, the dark heart of the belief that only perfection is acceptable.  Love - embodied in my John - is its opposite.  Love liberates includes supports.  

Connecting to the love I feel for - instead of  frustration with - my brother has opened wonderful opportunities to connect with him, without getting wigged out if things don't go perfectly.  

Peter, here are the three little words that truly empower life - I love you.  Where our relationship once felt paralyzed, now it's free to be whatever blessed imperfection it is! 

 

Integrate, don't disintegrate! - How To Be An Adult

 

It can be a challenge to help older friends & loved ones spotlight the integration in their lives rather than the disintegration.  Yet that's what they - and we - are called to do!  But it can be a challenge. 

Until reading David Richo'sbook, I'd never heard the term "negative excitement."  (Didn't take a lot of psych classes in college.)  Negative excitement - when we fear & desire the same thing at the same time -  is something I've experienced over & over with older friends.    

Negative excitement can keep any of us pinned down, stuck for years in life-sapping - even snuffing - places.  It can be mistaken for purpose.  It feeds our “ongoing drama,"  yet in reality serves up a double whammy, apparently energizing as it quietly enervates.  

 

It can be tempting for older people to hold on tight.  Negative?  Positive?   For many elderly men & women, it's tempting to just welcome negative excitement
because it lets them feel something.

Unfortunately, there can be a down side to releasing negative excitement from their lives.  It's not usual for people who succeed to be swept with depression & a sense of abandonment.  Too often, they find that when negative excitement goes, so does a sense of purpose.

Why give up negative excitement when it feels as comforting as a cozy quilt in its familiarity (typically rooted in long-time emotional baggage) & fuels a hungered-for sense of drama in our lives?  It might hold us back, but it can feel SO good!

Go into any senior community or center & just listen to the people around you.  So much is rooted in the past - especially memories - or offers a litany of complaints & criticisms.  Sad to say, I have quite a few older friends who are open about their dominant trait of grousing & even back biting – “What else is there to do?”

That's a challenge - boredom is a prime breeding ground for negative excitement.  And negative excitement might look bright & shiny, but it's ALL about fear, darkness, no-end-in-sight despair.  

How can we help older friends & loved ones trade in negative excitement for a brighter outlook & experience?  

I'm not a psychologist or counselor, but it seems to me that a key first step is to acknowledge that there are challenges in their lives. Too many elders feel dismissed by youngers telling them how they have it so good.  Let them know you realize & respect what they're facing.  Then, help them move past it, to fear not.

It's tough for a lot of friends & families to hear this, but a key way to help lift anyone out of the lure of negative energy is to keep boredom away from their door. 

And that is NOT easy.  But boredom is the #1 breeding ground of negative excitement.  

In my experience, older people who feel their families & friends appreciate them, who take time to be with & enjoy them, are better able to cope with tough times, even boredom, & are less likely to fall back on alluring negative excitement for a phony sense of purpose. 

 

Above all, do NOT model negative excitement! If you want others to step away from fear-spawning negative excitement, take care to not be critical of others, not look on the dark side, bitch & moan about world affairs or national events or local happenings, or pick apart other people.  No matter what the age, the best motivator is always a good role model who shows, rather than just tells.

Perhaps the best way to loosen the power & hold of negative excitement is with love, the opposite of fear.  Where negative excitement excludes & condemns, loves includes & supports, comforts rather than isolates, integrates rather than unravels.  

People who feel truly loved always have an all-important purpose in life, a purpose that can help reveal negative excitement for the destructive sham it is.  They can love in return.