Breathe Deeply

Be it at home or in a care community, adults with dementia need spaces that cater to their emotional and physical needs. Creating that kind of space will give you a lot more flexibility and freedom going forward. It also saves you from having to entertain your loved one or resident with dementia all day, because they have spaces to occupy their time. They can take care of a baby doll, spend time in the garden, or relax in a comfortable chair in the living room. These all count as activities, because they are all meaningful to the person with dementia. My gifts eluded me for the first five decades of my life. I still showed up as that drive to assist others dominated my life. I established my foundation of credibility by pursuing an education that gave me the legalities to show up and be visible to someone in need of help. But the validity of this craft must be acknowledged from the inside out or you may find yourself burdened with self-doubt. The lessons, theories, and models of peers can offer guidance for you as a leader, but the miraculous gift of learning who you are as a healer comes from the inside out, by showing up, acting on the inner drive, and allowing the experiences to teach you. For me, it began with me hearing the needs of those I served, seeking to learn the methods necessary to lead them to healing, and hearing the feedback from the clients I served. Then it required me to self-reflect and check from within how these messages resonated with my call. The most resounding epiphanies and clarity I received came from the feedback shared by my clients as they recited back the words I gave them. The insight and answers were wisdom beyond any learning or mentoring that I obtained. They were marvelous words and works of wonder. Let's look at this a bit more closely. Most people have morning cortisol levels of approximately 16 to 20 mcg/dL. However, a cortisol level of 10, half of what most people run, or 8, or even 6. To technically have adrenal insufficiency, your morning cortisol needs to be less than 6 mcg/dL. Shockingly, a cortisol level of 6.

But a level of 5. This method of evaluation goes from normal to deadly in just . Unfortunately, the testing equipment is not all that reliable. I've frequently seen as much an 8 mcg/dL variation on two cortisol levels accidentally done on the same tube of blood. Simply put, this rigid interpretation of test results doesn't make sense. You sincerely hope that your actions, your feelings, your beliefs, and your preferences are accepted. You feel terrible and sad if they do not approve of this. Passive behavior causes you meaningless and induces loss of self-esteem and self-confidence. Being more caring for others than yourself is a sign of pleasing people. You have been told that putting yourself first to receive love is directly opposed. Being in self-support is somewhat far from being self-serving. You ignore your own emotions while you think more for another person's emotions. You evaluate yourself and your decision with other people's points of view while always ignoring your emotion and feelings. You have to avoid worrying about what other people thought and get a winner's mindset. You need to cool down in your mind. Caregiver Stress Dan found me after class one day. I'd been teaching at a local university in an older-adult learning program. Dan had taken my class the semester before and had been struggling with his father's care. He and his wife had been keeping his father, Jonathan, at their house while he healed after hip surgery, but the caregiving was becoming too much to bear.

Jonathan's dementia was progressing, and so was his poor mood. The husband-and-wife duo took turns staying home with Jon so that he would be safe. They took turns getting up in the middle of the night to care for him when he woke up to use the bathroom. They took turns taking Jon to his doctors' appointments, making sure he ate and bathed, and generally caring for him, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Not surprisingly, this took a deep toll on the couple's life. This stopped me in my tracks as I realized this was my work all along. I learned that I was looking in all the wrong places for validation of the yearning from within. My learnings, wisdom, and healing abilities came from realms far beyond either one of us. Yes, this was an infinite calling in process. In a nutshell, my most prominent healing gift of claircognizance became apparent. I have a clear knowing. I found comfort in having a term to attach to how I work, as well as an explanation of how this talent escaped my awareness as I was seeking it from the outside-in versus the inside-out viewpoint. So, why is it important to have a label for your gift? Maybe the best reason is for offering a sense of confidence, as it offers clarity and vocabulary in sharing the how and why you are called to be a healer. It may be the first and key ingredient in combating the fear of posing as healer and second guessing your inner knowing. Salivary cortisol levels can supply helpful information, but they have their own problems as well. Instead of relying only on testing, if symptoms suggest low adrenal in anybody without high blood pressure, I consider a treatment trial of adrenal support. Why We Are Seeing More Adrenal Fatigue If you think back to your biology classes in high school, you may remember something called the fight-or-flight response. This is a physical reaction that occurs during times of stress.

During the Stone Age, when a caveman met an animal that wanted to eat him, the caveman's adrenal glands activated multiple systems in his body that prompted him to either fight or run. This reaction helped the caveman survive. In those days, however, people probably had a couple of weeks or months to recover before facing the next major stress. Today, people often experience stress reactions every few minutes. For example, when driving to work, a woman is delayed because of heavy traffic. Too many people are making critical choices in life depending on the views of others. You worry too much about what your mother, family, brother, or friends think you are enabling them to control your life actions. You may assume after years that you are such a good guy. Yet when you ignore and overlook yourself, obviously you are not. It is hard to behave bravely in Self-service, so you would not be pretending to be a decent guy anymore. You will be appreciated for who you are and not who you want to be. So, try to avoid judging yourself and do what you like. When you are nervous, you feel insecure about whether you are healthy enough for it. Fears about conceptual risks cause both anxiety and uncertainty. This may be challenging to find a clear trigger behind these feelings. Although they were both retired, they had previously been quite busy during the day. Now, with the concern and constant care for Jon's life, Dan and his wife were unable to leave the house for very long at all. It put undue stress on them as individuals and on their previously happy relationship. Now, they fought over the silliest things. Dan and his wife had raised two children together--they assumed that caring for his father would be a snap!

Dan had bought my article and attended each class of the course I had been teaching, sitting dutifully in the front row, taking notes. At the end of the course, he had asked me for some advice. I love my father, he said, but the man is driving me insane. I don't know what to do. You talked a lot about where someone with dementia could live, and my wife and I are considering moving him to an assisted living community around here. Grow in the Confidence to Exclaim Now that I had a cognition attached to my gift, I had clarity. This clarity gave me a footing to address the negative mantra that most dimmed my light in shining the brilliance of my calling. The negative I am statement of invisible could be erased and replaced with the truth from infinity. This proved to be a far easier evolution than I imagined. Although, it makes perfect sense - as I replace a lie with a truth, I am brought into alignment instantly, as this is the natural course of energy travel. Unbeknownst to me, this simple process proved to be my therapy work. Once I knew my truth, balance could be restored. I was unable to capture sight of what I already knew when I was living a made-up story. Once I knew who I was out of the gate, I understood all the misplaced feelings, mistaken viewpoints, and outlier lies. While sitting behind the wheel, she frets about the consequences of her walking into the office late. Every time she hits a red light or pulls up behind a car that has slowed down, her adrenal glands' fight-or-flight reaction goes off again. In addition, the speed of modern life is rapidly accelerating. Whereas it used to take six months to send a letter and receive the answer by ship or Pony Express, it now takes minutes by email. Meanwhile, and perhaps most important, our news media seems to confuse drama and news.