Difficult Seasons

I’m just a work in progress.

Sometimes I forget that.  I get busy dealing with situations, trying to help others, and don’t work on Jim, or more accurately,  allow God to work on Jim.

That’s been happening lately.  What brings it to consciousness is usually a combination of emotional and physical symptoms: feeling tired, struggling to get things done, feeling overwhelmed, wanting to pull the sheets over my head, looking for things to keep my mind occupied.

When this alarm goes off and I become conscious of what’s going on, I know pretty quickly what the problem is and what I have to do to reverse course.

I have to very intentionally turn control of all of the things that are weighing me down over to God. It’s not that I haven’t prayed often about all of the situations and all of the people, or that I don’t have faith that God will provide exactly what’s needed. It’s just that I have unconsciously retained a portion of the responsibility for the outcome.  I haven’t completely given these things to God, robbing myself of the peace that comes from doing so.  And of the joy of watching how He works and allows me to participate.

So today I began the day intentionally by doing just that — naming names, and listing situations, verbalizing my trust in Him to provide and lead. And I feel more peaceful, more able to respond to His urges for these situations and these people.

I’m adding “Turn Over Control” to my daily calendar.  I need daily explicit recognition that I am not in control, but that the One I serve is.

A lot of our problems as care givers are of our own making because of our style of communicating with the person we’re caring for.

In the last several posts, I’ve written about the importance of not assuming the role of parent to the one you’re caring for.  It turns out that we often sound like a parent because of the way we attempt to communicate.  We can avoid that by intentionally adopting a different communication style.

Here are some general guidelines that will help you.

1. Avoid phrases such as:  “You should …”; “You need to …”;  “You’re going to have to …”;  “If you don’t … then …”;  “Why didn’t you …?”  “I can’t believe you …”
2. Use phrases such as:  “I’m concerned about …  Would it be okay if we talked about that?”  “I’ve noticed that you’re not …  Would you be willing to discuss why?”  “This doesn’t seem to be working very well.  How do you feel about it?  Can we explore some other options together?”

This works for several very simple reasons:

• You’re showing respect.
• By asking permission, you’re restoring a feeling of control to someone who likely is struggling with feeling that they are losing control of their own life.
• Stating your observations, feelings, and guesses leaves the door open to further constructive discussion.

This approach does take more effort and thought.  And asking permission always carries a risk that the other person will say no.  But in my experience, care givers who follow this communication strategy find that it lowers the stress levels on both sides and results in achieving good outcomes.

When you become a care giver, the relationship with the person you’re caring for and even with other family members can become stressed.

Just becoming someone’s care giver changes the relationship because of additional tasks and responsibilities you have taken on and because of tasks and responsibilities that the care receiver is having to allow someone else to handle.

This situation very often leads to the care giver adopting a parental role and attitude.  This in turn tends to force the care receiver into a reactionary child mode.  We turn to this model of relating because it’s the most familiar way we know for one person being responsible for and providing for the needs of another person.

Here’s what it looks like.  The care giver gives orders.  The care receiver balks by refusing to take her medicine or maybe doing his rehab, fights back, or maybe pouts.  The care receiver gets more forceful, or tries a bribe, or attempts parental-style logic, something like, “It’s for your own good.”  The care receiver cries or throws a fit, or maybe complies, but with sullenness.

Relationally, it just doesn’t work because adults are not meant to be in parent-child relationships.  And if we act like a parent with another adult, even if we in fact are, the other person is going to respond as a child.

The relationship will suffer, and maybe even be lost.  There will be constant stress, and likely constant arguments.

So how do we as care givers preserve and nurture the relationship.  By making it our goal.  Here are three principles that will guide you well:

1. We go out of our way to not sound or act like the stereotypical parent.  We therefore don’t give orders or ultimatums.
2. We focus on respecting the independence of the person we’re caring for, even if that means that person makes some bad decisions.
3. We recognize that his or her situation has resulted in a loss of control, so we do everything within our power to restore a measure of feeling in control to them by asking permission, by offering choices, and by asking how they feel about things, how they would like to handle things.

Yes, there may be times we are forced to intervene for their protection or even the protection of others.   But even then, if we follow these three principles, we will be able to preserve and nurture the relationship.

It’s simply living by the Golden Rule, paraphrased for care giving:  Treat the person you’re caring for the same way you would want them to treat you if the circumstances were reversed.  If you do, you’ll both be blessed.

Hospital Room

You lose a lot of important things when you’re a hospital patient.

Privacy:  People are in and out of your room day and night.  In fact, some studies show that an average patient has people come into their room 20 times a day.  You have to tell about everything, including your bathroom habits.

Modesty:  Hospital gowns are not made for modesty.  They’re made for the convenience of the medical staff.  They do a good job of making you want to stay in bed and out of the hallways.

Control:  From the moment you check in until the moment you get out of the wheel chair into your car after discharge, people are telling you what to do.  And that’s on top of realizing you’re not in control because of the disease that has put you there in the first place.

So when you go to visit someone who’s in the hospital, it makes a huge difference when you go out of your way to give her or him some of what has been lost back.

Knock on the door.  Ask if this is a good time to visit.  Introduce yourself unless you know the person well, and introduce yourself to others who may be in the room.  Ask if it’s okay to sit down.   Sit or kneel by the bed so you’re not towering over the person you’re visiting.  Keep your questions general instead of probing for specifics (they’ll tell you what they want you to know).  Excuse yourself if medical personnel come in to do a procedure that might compromise the patient’s privacy or modesty.  Ask if the patient would like to pray.  Ask what he or she would like to pray about.

These may seem like just common courtesies, but in fact, they are great, thoughtful gifts that you can give to patients.  You’re showing them respect.