Wednesday, January 29, 2020

A New Workshop: Chronic Sorrow: The Recurring Grief of Family Caregivers ...





Sometimes you just need a good cry in the shower.

Anonymous






Hi Everyone!

I'm excited to announce the launch of a new Caregiver Wellness Community Workshop -  Chronic Sorrow: The Recurring Grief of Family Caregivers.  It will be held on Saturday May 30th  from 9-4pm (registration at 8:30) at the Granville Island Hotel in Vancouver, BC. The tuition is $210 (includes handouts, continental breakfast, light lunch, breaks and GST).  Brochures with registration forms are available at caregiverwellness@shaw.ca.

Family caregivers grieve many losses and they tend to grieve alone - in the shower, in the car, in the laundry room, on solitary walks. You grieve because your loved one's serious, permanent illness or injury has changed everything. And with each change comes loss and with each loss comes grief.

Studies, so far, suggest that up to 80% of family caregivers experience recurring episodes of variably intense grief continuing from the time of their loved one's diagnosis until that loved one's death. This grief does not necessarily diminish over time like grief after death. Rather, it can increase in intensity and frequency as time goes on. This caregiver grief is called Chronic Sorrow.  (Chronic Sorrow is also experienced by people who have a serious permanent medical condition, but in a slightly different way.)

Chronic Sorrow is a normal response to loss without a foreseeable end. It is not depression or complicated grief though it is sometimes misdiagnosed as such. It includes not only feelings of sadness but all the emotions of grief - anger, guilt, envy, anxiety, fear, loneliness and others. These grief emotions are triggered whenever something reminds you of the discrepancy between how things are and how they "could" or "should" have been had the illness or injury not occurred.

Chronic Sorrow  cannot be "cured" but you can learn to live with it more comfortably and that's what this workshop is all about. It had a "test run" with the family caregivers at the Children's Organ Transplant Society and the Starlight Foundation last spring to very positive reviews and now it's here for you - anyone who provides physical or emotional support to a person with a serious, permanent medical condition, physical or mental.

Space is limited so please register early to avoid disappointment. The registration deadline is May 15th.  

If you have questions, you can contact Jan at caregiverwellness@shaw.ca or (604) 297 0609.

Hope to see you there!



*** I'm sad and disappointed to say that all Caregiver Wellness workshops are postponed until at least the fall due to COVID-19. ***




Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Re-dedication ...


It's never too late to be who you 
might have been.


George Eliott





Happy New Year, Everyone!

Today, the beginning of a new year and a new decade, is an opportunity to re-dedicate ourselves to the things that matter most to us.  In this threshold space, we can take a moment to remember - or reprioritize - the core values by which we want to live our lives.  And, having done that, we can set an intention to act in accordance with these values throughout the New Year.

Caregiving can greatly limit your ability to pursue the external goals you've set for your life, to live the life you were "meant to live". In fact, this can be one of the major losses underlying a family caregiver's Chronic Sorrow. However,  the inability to pursue external goals needn't keep you from re-dedicating yourself to inner goals. Do you ever wish you could be kinder, more compassionate with yourself and others, more honest, calmer, more loyal, more open-minded, more balanced, more trusting, more trust-worthy, more patient, more empathic, more courageous, more consistent, more loving ..? The list of possibilities goes on and on, depending upon the things you hold most dear.

Why not take a moment, now, to recall all the values by which you would like to live. Then look at your list and choose the top one or two you would most like to guide your life in the coming year.

Once you have chosen these core values, allow yourself time to consider how they would look, acted out in your day-to-day life. What, exactly, do you want to re-dedicate yourself to doing or being? What baby steps might you want to take toward strengthening the expression of these values in your life?  The answers to these questions will become your intentions for the New Year.

We know that rituals can help to solidify, strengthen and sustain our intentions, so you might like to go on to create a simple ritual to formalize your re-dedication to living by your values. One such ritual might be to:
1.  Find a quiet space
2.  Light a candle
3.  Notice the pattern of your breathing for a few minutes and then imagine your chosen values filling and strengthening you on the in-breath and pouring out into the world on the out-breath
4. After you've been sitting with your breath and values for sufficient time, make a positive verbal and written re-dedication of your intentions for this new year. Keep the paper close at hand in the days ahead as a reminder to act congruently with your values.

And as a way of following through with your New Year's re-dedication, you might also begin to  briefly ask yourself the following questions at the end of the day:

1.  Where were my actions in line with my values today?  Where were they not?
2.  Where they were not, how might I adjust things tomorrow?
3.  What more can I do, in baby steps,  to bring (your chosen values) more fully into the world?

(Now, being a human being, don't expect yourself to be able to  act according to your values 100% of the time. When you  mess up, just gently forgive yourself, apologize where necessary and then begin again.)

Just thinking through a conscious process of re-dedication like this will help you to live a more authentic life in 2020 and to notice more quickly when compassion fatigue, burnout, accumulated grief or moral distress are drawing you away from what matters most to you.

A very Happy 2020 to each of you!