Yes to Life! Coaching

This is the fourth installment in my series of posts about self-limiting beliefs that hold us family caregivers back from reaching out for the love and support we and our loved ones need.

Like the beliefs we’ve already discussed, concern for you family’s privacy is very easy to understand and to empathize with. No one would choose to live in a fish bowl. Not even a fish!

The good news is that you can protect your privacy while allowing in the love and support you and your loved one need. This blog post will show you how.

For starters, you may want to view my Kitchen Table Chat video I made for Patient Power on this topic: Caregivers: How to Set Comfortable Boundaries and Get the Help You Need http://goo.gl/4OskW

In that video I tell the story of how my friend Betsy reached out to me when her husband Mel, a long time dear friend of mine, was dying. Even at that terribly trying time, she realized that what she needed was personal space, not company. And her strength in being able to tell me that was a true teaching in how we can respect our own needs and still have love in our lives.

So, there are two things to do here:

Decide what kinds of privacy are important to you and your loved one:

– What issues are to be kept private? Your loved one’s current prognosis? Your family dynamics? Your financial situation?

– Who do you want to be in the know about your loved one’s condition and the ongoing specifics of what is going on. You may think of a few concentric circles of people, with you and loved one in the center (and any other family members who belong there with you) with the outer circles reflecting who you want to connect with and with what level of intimacy.

Choose the easiest way for you to let people know how to respect your needs:

– Email – You can send a group e-mail yourself or ask someone on a list serve that you participate in (congregation, organization, community) to send it on your behalf.

– Caresites – These sites – caringbridge.com, lotsahelpinghands.com and carepages.com – are free websites that are very easy to set up and use. They make it easy to let people know what’s going on and what your family needs. More to the point here, they allow you to set your own privacy settings as to who has access to your site (anyone who hears about your needs or only people that you invite to participate) and what is communicated to them.

– Declaration of Interdependence – Use this tool, which is soon to be included in a Caregiver Gift Packet for those who sign up at www.yestolifecoaching.com. Meanwhile, it can be found in Coaching for Caregivers,(p. 40 ). It can help you let people know your preferences about the attitudes and behaviors that would be most helpful to you and your loved one. For example, “Please leave your worries on the doorstep.” Or, “We prefer your visits to be frequent but brief.” Or, “Please ask me first if I want to talk about the medical situation or not.” Or, “Please ask me how you can best be supportive of me right now.” If telling people your preferences seems too bold or off putting to you and you want to get past your reluctance, I recommend you get a copy of my Entitlement Learner’s Permit another goodie from my book(p.33), that Dr. Bernie Siegel and I created for this purpose in our earlier book, Help Me To Heal.

Don’t let the fear of intrusion get in the way of you getting all the love and support that you and your loved one are entitled to receiving.

I encourage you not to ignore this issue, but to manage it so that you and your loved one get what you need. I know you’ll be glad you did.

Two weeks ago I began this series of posts to explore the self-limiting beliefs that caregivers often have that hold them back from reaching out for the love and support that they and their loved ones need.

The first one I explored was: Nobody else can do what I do for my loved one.
The second one was: My loved one won’t accept help from anyone but me.

This week’s belief to explore is:
I’m too busy to even begin to think about doing anything more – even reaching out.

This belief is very easy to understand and to be empathetic with. When we’re exhausted or on overwhelm, how are we going to begin thinking about doing anything beyond what we’re already doing? And reaching out certainly sounds like a major bit of doing.

But, as you might suspect, I don’t see it that way. I’d like you to consider the idea that reaching out is not just another item on a “to do” list. It’s on a different kind of list, a “to be” list. This item on the list is about being connected. About being receptive to the web of connections that can make our tough times much more endurable and our better times much more enjoyable.

Since I said this is not another to do, but a to be, let’s let this be a very short blog.

Instead of my usual suggestions of things to do to move forward on the topic being discussed, how about simply taking a few moments and imagine yourself being open to receiving the love and support that is flowing towards you. Try this even if you don’t quite believe it right now. Relax into it. Imagine your antenna beaming out letting people know you are in receptive mode. Relax into it.

So be it. (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist saying this!). That’s all for now. I want you to take good care of yourself. And opening up more to love and support is a great way of doing that.

Stay tuned for my next week’s assault on other beliefs that hold caregivers back from getting the love and support that they need.

Last week I began this series of posts to explore the self-limiting beliefs that caregivers often have that hold them back from reaching out for the love and support that they and their loved ones need.

The first one I explored was: Nobody else can do what I do for my loved one.
The conclusion I came to is that nobody can necessarily do things in the same way you do, but many people can do those things in ways that would still be appropriate and valuable for your loved one. And, their ways could even enrich rather than detract from your loved one’s experience.

This week’s belief to explore is: My loved one won’t accept help from anyone but me.

First, to what degree is that really the case? How do you know? It may simply be that you’ve always been the one, so it’s assumed that ‘s the way it needs to be. Or it may be your loved one’s preference to have you provide all the care, but not their insistence on it. Maybe the idea has never come up. And maybe you are assuming this is the case. Maybe it’s time to have a conversation with your loved one to check it out.

A few suggestions about approaching that conversation. When considering bringing in other people to help out, you’re not considering bringing “anybody” in. Rather, you’d be thinking about what’s important to you and your loved one. This includes how comfortable you’d both be with that person, how respectful of your privacy they would be, how sensitive they would be to your loved one’s moods and preferences, and any other things that are especially important for both of you.

The two of you might be playful with this and consider this a casting call with both of you being the casting directors. Doing this in your own way will make it obvious to you both that you are making choices and that doing so is a good thing in itself.

If, however, it turns out that your loved one is not amenable to working this out with you, and is adamant about not being willing to accept help from anyone else, you’ll need to get clear about what you are willing to do. This was exactly the situation that Mildred, a reader of Coaching for Caregivers, recently found herself in. Her husband was demanding that she do it all herself. She felt trapped and angry about it and reached out to me for advice.

I suggested to her that even if I and every experienced caregiver would tell her over and over that doing it all herself would be a sure fire way towards burnout, she was the only one who could decide what was right for her. If she was not willing to comply with his wishes, they, as a couple had a conflict that they needed to manage. I suggested she consider enlisting the help of a clergy person, a social worker or a family counselor or therapist. Her loved one’s refusal to consider outside help most likely comes from fear of what that experience might be like for him. Utilizing a professional could provide a safe way for him one to express and work through such feelings and help her acknowledge and affirm that her needs are important here as well. From our conversation, I already had a sense that she was beginning to take her own needs more seriously and that, no matter what course she chose, she was no longer going to ignore those needs.

Meanwhile, if you have been in such a situation and have insights and successful experiences to share with other caregivers, let us hear from you!

Stay tuned for next week’s featured self-limiting belief: I’m too busy to even begin to think about doing anything more – even reaching out. I’m betting that you’ll somehow not be too busy to check it out!