Ageless-Sages

Are you pastrami on rye? Tuna melt? Hummus and sprouts?

If you’re part of the sandwich generation, someone caring for children or grandchildren while tending to the needs of aging parents, you’re no doubt redefining your everyday life.  Yes, of course there are challenges, as with any phase of life, however like any phase of life we can choose to see the problems or savor the myriad flavors.

When you think in terms your life’s flavor, what kind of sandwich best describes the taste?

I’m a post-Thanksgiving-Dagwood-Bumstead sandwich, better known in our family as the Uncle Ed special.  Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, Uncle Ed piles every leftover available inside a bulky roll and enjoys the blended flavors even more on the day after.

This sandwich signifies the rich complexities of all the relationships, responsibilities and obligations I choose to take on within my family.  My kids are the stuffing, the turkey and gravy, the tradition and stability of our life together.  The sauerkraut and cranberry sauce pinpoint the pungent and unique flavors that my mother, in her world of dementia, conjures.  Turnip and squash are the bittersweet flavors of the 26 years I’ve had a husband and in-laws and the gravy merges all the layers together, like my sisters and their families merge all my layers.

So what is your sandwich?

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Florence passed away last week.  Although hanging around nursing homes lends itself to being around those ready to transition, the sense of loss that emerges can still surprise me.

100 years old, she was a strong woman, a former phys-ed instructor, with a musicians soul.  She played the one song that remained a part of her active memory the day we launched Lavender Ladies, and required us, with her stern look, to applaud after each rendition.

The humor, the connection, the love and the often times gut busting laughter that accompanies my visits to United Helpers Nursing Home are sometimes hard to describe.  I know I would have a hard time understanding how someone could love, really love spending time this way if I were not doing it myself!

How might I engage, inspire, enlist others to do the same?  This is not some charitable contribution I’m talking about.  This is life affirming, love enhancing, self-reflective, coming of age stuff!

I invite you to spend time with an elder and have no agenda, no expectations of what might transpire.  Simply allow yourself the freedom to sit and be.  Let the profound influence of connection wash over you.  As a headline in a Gannett News Service today reports “Alzheimer’s Diagnosis Brings Some Couples Closer”, you can create closeness with your aging friends and relatives.

Florence will be missed, for sure, however the fond memories many of us carry and share can spread to others and take on a life of their own.

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A client of mine, diagnosed with breast cancer in the spring, took very much to heart the new science which reinforces the power of the mind and emotions to heal your body.

Yesterday she informed me her tumor has “disappeared” and the doctors are only saying that “It’s rare, but it does happen from time to time.  You’re one of the lucky ones.”

“Like hell I’m lucky,” she responded, “I did this!”

In just a matter of a few months, through affirmations, increasing high vibration words and decreasing low vibration words, vigilant visualization of a healthy body, she dis-integrated the cancerous tumor.

Check out Gregg Braden’s Spontaneous Healing of Belief.

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There is plenty of information available online for navigating the practicalities of everyday life with elders.  Where to look for housing, which nursing homes are most appropriate for your specific needs, how to care from home, etc. etc.

Through all these changes and challenges, there is a wonderful opportunity to redefine your relationship with your aging parents, relatives and friends.  After a lifetime of interactions, some patterns are more obvious than others.  You may replay the same scenario day after day without even realizing it!

Today, make a point of becoming aware of these habitual interactions.  The ones you judge good or bad or anywhere in between!  Resist the temptation to think the relationship dye has been caste, because if there is one thing we can change, it’s our perception.  And once we delve into the meaning of a changed perception, miracles in relationships happen!

So what would you like to see improve or enhance in your relationships with your elders?  Do you automatically become three years old around your Dad?  Does your Mom spend too much time critisizing you?  Are the same arguments and tensions played out over and over?

These are opportunities for you to attune to your own reactions.  What emotions emerge?  Do you feel sadness? Anger? Frustration? Hopelessness?  Where do you feel it in your body?  Does your stomach hurt, your chest feel heavy, your cheeks redden your throat close up?  Becoming aware of how you react is your first act of freedom.

For more information as to how to transcend some of the patterns, visit AskNatalie .

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There’s been news lately of the effects of “elderspeak“.  The way we speak to our elders can have an affect on their health if they feel talked down to or disempowered because of it.

The solution is simpler than you might imagine. Ask.

Your elders can let you know how they want to be treated.  Ask.

It’s easy to assume we know what’s best, but I urge you; Ask.

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Mothers. Much has been written about, dedicated to, analyzed, scrutinized and attributed to this pillar of our existence. Over the years, the cliché of the patient on a couch being asked “Why do you hate your mother?” has become as familiar as Toll House® cookies and Goodnight Moon.

We blame the ‘refrigerator mothers’ of the 50’s, working mothers in the 70’s, we point fingers at coddling, aloofness, guilt, rigidity, permissiveness. Mothers it seems, have fought a losing battle over the years.

I admit, I did my share of “mother blame” through the therapy-laden decades in which I raised my children.

In the early years, I designed my parenting based on what I perceived as having been “wrong” or “bad” in my own upbringing. I consciously eliminated every negative and replaced it with its antithesis.

This was happening contemporaneously in the now adult relationship with my mother who I concluded lived her life in denial. (Yes, I bought into the 80’s like a kid with a Cabbage Patch Doll). Yet another reason to look for the antithesis!

As time went on, and I was fairly pleased with the way things were progressing with my own daughters, something very strange was happening. My daughters began to engage in a dialogue with me (no hidden agendas in THIS household!) that let me know how some of the things I did on behalf of the family might not be in everyone’s best interest.

WHAT?

Could this be so? How cruel of them! How unfair! After all I’d done for them…….oops.

Many a mother reaches this precipice: We can choose to hear what’s being said or go into defense mode and confuse the issue. Well, I have to say, deflecting did cross my mind, but that would go against what I set out to do in the beginning. Antithesis.

Turning points can show up at the most unexpected times, and this was one of them. Suddenly, I felt a true sisterhood to my mother. It became clear to me that creating a family life that you desire is more than eliminating what didn’t work, but remembering that there were some wonderful things that happened, as well. Plus, antithesis is not always an improvement.

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I’ll be leaving for Northern NY in a couple of days to visit my mother and her buds at United Helpers Nursing Home.   In addition to just general fraternizing, my heart tingles when I think of the games my mother and I will make up as we walk through the halls and visit with other residents.

The last time I was there we made up rhymes for everyone’s name.  Some were silly, so were bland, others were downright racy!  Being racy with the 80+ set is always fun as it seems there is little concern of what others think.

I’d love to get there sooner than 80, so they are able to mentor me in such matters.

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