Self-Care

I had a chance to visit, via Zoom, with a friend. His partner is experiencing profound Dementia, perhaps Alzheimer’s. He was doing relatively well, and had a good, in-the-moment attitude. I admired him, and what he is going through. As I interacted with him, I found myself thinking about self-care. I was particularly aware of how many people are drowning, while caring for others. We just don’t live in a culture, that prepares any of us for the rigors associated with caring for anyone suffering from a chronic condition.

Our hearts quite naturally go out to the one suffering directly, with a tragic condition, but little thought seems to go to the ones taking care of the afflicted one. A bad situation can grow, and become cataclysmic, when it takes down the family and primary caregiver. Very often, the primary caregiver has been sensitized and made more compassionate because of their caring. So, from my perspective, someone courageous via caring is at risk. That made me think about how risky caring is, and how much self-care it requires.

I have been involved with caregivers for over 20 years now. I’ve experienced a lot of caregivers come and go. The main thing they all seem to have in common, and when you think about it, it’s no surprise, they didn’t have much awareness of the value and importance of caring for themselves. They mostly thought the one they cared for was the one who deserved attention. Burnout is more than fatigue, but it is treated like a solely, physical phenomena. Even those that know better, are too often subject to the limitations of an insensitive culture.

People need to be mindful of the risks associated with caring. They need to be warned.  Not to dissuade them from caring, but to improve the chances that their caring hits the spot without peripheral damage. The caretaking realm, which is currently relegated to underpaid and marginalized women, is amongst the most blatant examples of the inhumanity of our market. If we truly cared, this would be a community endeavor, seen as an opportunity, rather than as an unfortunate obligation.

Caring is a big deal. It seems to come naturally to some, but requires a level of emotional sophistication that is earned. People learn the ability through experience.

Unfortunately, today, people are ill-prepared, mostly think their hearts are naturally ready, and learn the wrong lessons. We have a shortage of caregivers because we don’t prepare each other to care. We have as many broken-down caregivers, as we do ailing people. Caregiving is beautiful, dangerous, and hard to find. Self-care is a reason why.

Self-care isn’t just for caregivers, it is essential to anyone on a developmental path. It is a sure sign of self-regard, self-love — and is the most enabling attitude which allows one to actualize the gifts within. Some would say, as I do, that self-care, or self-love, is not narcissistic, but the root of all loving. Self-care is the most important ignored aspect of our obligation to ourselves, and each other, there is.

Self-care is a practice. A lifelong learning modality. It has depth, span, and changeability. It requires attention. You can’t grow yourself very much if you don’t take care of yourself. And, if you are looking for someone else to take care of you, then you are readying yourself to be taken care of how someone else chooses. Of course, all of us have to rely on others eventually. My experience, as a disabled person who constantly has needed to rely on others, is that the quality of care I have given to myself, has translated into the quality of care I draw from others.

Think about it — why should anyone care more about you, than you care about yourself? Because they are a caregiver. To grow themselves, they need to care.  Caring is the rarest coin of the realm. Self-care is even rarer.

I can only hope you know what I mean.

 

 

  

Aged Perfectly

Recently, a friend of mine, was telling me about a recent trip he took. He went back to where he had lived as a child. Deep in the Vermont countryside he visited his old home, and some of the little towns he knew when he was younger. As part of visiting the past, he ended up visiting the gravesite of his parents. He rediscovered that he also had plot there, and it already had an engraved headstone.  His grave stone read “aged to perfection.” This story set in motion the thought process that has resulted in this set of ruminations.

This revelation, the epitath already in place, was a source of great mirth and delight. It seemed such a good way to summarize a life. Everyone present, including him, laughed and smiled. A wondrous sense of justice and existential balance filled the air. The thought that Universe made his life just right, in the end, was just so soul-satisfying.

Later, I found myself thinking about it, and realized that I sensed that there was even more to it. In my mind, perfection didn’t wait until the end. I thought that he could die at any time, and at that moment he would be perfect. My thought kept going. It extended to — he was always perfect, even if he didn’t realize it, in any given moment. I found myself thinking that at same moment — he and all of us, are perfect. What if we lived in a state of constant perfection?

That thought ruptured some belief I had carried around for a long time. All the years of striving, the doubts about myself, the certainties about not belonging, began to melt away. I didn’t have to try to be better, I had already been perfected. All of my questionable attributes were part and parcel to what made me perfect. In fact, perfection wasn’t my doing, it was just part of Universal reality, part of the isness that prevails. I liked that mind-blowing thought, and I had a sense that there was something real about it.

After that, all I could do was just quiver. Currently, I am trying to integrate this perception. All of these years I have been playing out a rather macabre version of reality and my part in it.  I’ve been slinking through it, trying not to screw it up too much. I’ve had my false moments, when I thought I figured it all out. I’ve been up and down, always believing I should be something else, perhaps more holy, only to discover that where I am, just now, is another form of perfection. I am that I am. How could that be? Isn’t it reserved for subtler beings? Oh…..I’m getting the quivers again.

I don’t really know what I feel about all of this. I think I may be a mess of sorts. I don’t quite believe myself, yet on the other hand, I have this experience of perfection floating around in me. I am, and I am not, what I used to be. For sure, I’m more confused than I already was, but this time, I’m more confused in a positive way than I usually am.

In the back of my mind, there now lingers, a feeling of joy, a peace so still and profound, that no matter how rattled I am, I am not rattled at all. So, I write these words, knowing how preposterous they seem, but also knowing they contain some inexplicable perfection.

This moment is what it is, because it’s all here, perfectly mirroring the whole.