Ellen's book will strengthen and guide you in your role as caregiver to an elder parent or relative, and help you understand your own physical, emotional, mental & spiritual needs.Now available at
Selfcare Category
Whether our parents or important others in our lives modelled it, or if we came out of the womb with our personalities already shaped, most of us have perfectionistic tendencies, at least in some areas. While it’s great to do whatever we’re doing well, the stress that develops in us if we always push ourselves towards higher achievement in each and every area of our lives, can reach unbelievable heights. This takes an enormous toll on us physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
In Saturday’s Vancouver Sun, Jennifer Newman puts a different spin on an old exercise, one I’ve described before from the Martha Beck POV. Newman suggests that when beginning a project, we make a list of the most important tasks, going downward to the least important, then categorize them according to the standard they require: E for excellent, S for Satisfactory and G for Good Enough. Then we can allocate tasks not in the excellent category others. We’re now not micromanaging, in that exhausting way that burns us out and that others find extremely annoying and erodes their confidence in themselves.
Striving for “good work” rather than “perfect work” in every little aspect of our lives allows us to relax, to let down a little, something that many of us find difficult nowadays. Developed to help mothers involved in the child welfare system, to enhance their parenting skills without demoralizing them, thus reducing their effectiveness, the “Good Enough” concept can be applied to any subject or activity. I wrote a short blurb about it on my facebook caregiver support group, Surviving & Thriving – a Caregiver Group just the other day in fact.
Glendon Wiebe writes thoughtfully about our society’s drive for excellence in December’s Insights into Clinical Counselling, published by the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors, the organization I belong to. Widespred media coverage of everything imaginable has given many of us, especially the most impressionable children, like his own, the idea that if we’re not the best at a sport or some other action activity, we just don’t count.
I believe most of us, us “big kids” too, have absorbed this idea and that it contributes to our perfectionist pushing, the sense of never being quite good enough, or having accomplished quite enough. We compare ourselves and quantify our performances, and more often than not, feel that we come up lacking, whether it’s in our business, our social life, the coolness of the place we live in, our wardrobe, whatever – and the big one of course – our income.
We’re probably never going to go back to a pre-media, pre-social networking society, but we can choose how much exposure we want to give ourselves and our families and how we react to what we see there. Perhaps the best way to appreciate ourselves and our contributions more and to pressure ourselves less, is to remember the old concept of comparing ourselves and our progress to what we did previously, not to others’ accomplishments.
Wishing everyone a peaceful and joyful holiday season.
* Fill yourself with the company of loving family and friends
* Spend plenty of quality time alone
* Soak up nature
* Enjoy your favourite books and movies
* Give of your time or money to those in need
This prayer was sent to me by a friend recently. I’ve found several slightly different versions of it; each one says “Author Unknown”. Hope it speaks to you as it does me.
“May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.”
Author Unknown
By midlife our family and work demands often lessen, making this a time when focus and energies shift towards new projects, goals and dreams, interests that add a different kind of meaning to our lives. For many of us a new responsibility emerges - caregiver for an aging parent.
It’s surprising in the 21st century that the responsibility of caregiving still falls primarily on women. The elderly turn to daughters, daughters-in-law and granddaughters for help when they don’t have a partner to care for them. Often we’ve been raised to believe our job is to take care of our family’s needs, so we fall naturally into the role of caregiver.
For thirteen years I was a caregiver for my mother who had Alzheimer’s Disease. We were fortunate to have many skilled and loving in-home and care home professionals available to do much of the practical work of looking after mom, but it was still a demanding and at times distressing experience, rife with a lifetime of feelings that begged to be resolved.
The midlife caregiver experience can be very stressful, and it’s easy to lose sight of ourselves during the process of taking care of aging parents. This is especially true in a shared living situation where the caregiver is available to her parent around the clock. As time passes we begin to realize, then to acknowledge, that a large part of our tension, with its accompanying sadness, guilt and frustration, is a result of our complicated relationship with our declining parent.
Humans are like plants, they can get survive for years in poor soil and light, but it’s not good enough for us to merely get by during our parent’s declining years, we deserve more than that. When we burn ourselves out it’s very difficult to recover a state of good health and joyful living later on.
When do we know when it’s enough? Over time, as our thoughts and feelings become clearer, we come to a personal decision about what is comfortable for us. Then the important parts of our relationship come into focus; we become clearer about what can be delegated and the things that are simply unnecessary.
It’s not always easy to live mindfully when schedules are so full; but by taking the time to honour one’s personal truth and by attending to those important physical, emotional and spiritual needs, we empower ourselves to live the rich and joyful lives we deserve and yearn for.
I invite you to examine your beliefs about being a caregiver, and on your own or with professional guide, find ways to change the thoughts and habits that limit your joy and vitality. Once balance is achieved in your own life the mutual understanding with a parent will deepen.
c Ellen Besso 2011
Ellen Besso, Martha Beck certified life coach and trained counsellor, is committed to helping midlife women enrich their lives. She is the mother of an adult daughter and was caregiver for her elderly mother and a close friend who recently passed away. Ellen’s personal goal is to live and work in a spiritual, heart centred way. She is the author of Surviving Eldercare & has numerous articles published on midlife and eldercare.
I thought all women went through an upheaval in midlife, beginning with the enormous changes of perimenopause. But maybe not. Or perhaps they simply never spoke of it! I never thought of it as a midlife crisis, or any type of crisis, rather a process of growth, a journey.
Now some writers are using the term midlife crisis to describe women’s drive for change during these middle years. More women than men report a turbulent midlife transition by age 50 – 36.1% of women, compared with 34% of men – according to research by Elaine Wethington, a Cornell University associate professor. I’m surprised the percentage is not higher, frankly, because women change so much, in so many ways, in midlife. There’s the hormonal deluge as the body reinvents itself as a non-childbearing woman, the social changes as families grow up, career transitions and simply the awareness that time is marching on and that we’re desirous of new experiences, of seeing and doing different things, making alternative choices and accomplishing unique goals.
Sue Shellenbarger of The Wall Street Journal documents dozens of heartfelt tales of pain, upheaval, rebirth and transformation in middle age in her new book, “The Breaking Point: How Female Midlife Crisis Is Transforming Today’s Women.” She says that as gender roles change women are increasingly experiencing their own version of upheavals.
Many of the women interviewed said they were changing and the old values and goals no longer made sense to them; they had no idea other women were experiencing a similar thing, however. A variety of studies suggest that women undergo bigger changes than men in middle age and some have a more positive attitude about their future prospects also, rebounding dramatically in the area of personal fulfillment at midlife.
Other women feel the stirrings of change but may not be clear about what aspects of their life they want to change or how to accomplish this. They often need help to distinguish what their passion is, as opposed to what they feel they should do, and to determine the steps they need to take to move forward into new endeavours.
We can begin to sort out our desires and longings, our likes and dislikes on our own. One good way to start is to journal regularly, to simply jot down thoughts and feeling about the various aspects of our lives – our relationships, career, social life, volunteer work, travel, vacation, creative endeavours. Be completely honest with yourself when you journal, you deserve nothing less. A qualified, experienced life coach can be very helpful for bouncing ideas off, processing through powerful exercises and helping us be accountable to our change.
Ellen Besso, Martha Beck certified life coach and trained counsellor, is committed to helping midlife women enrich their lives. She is the mother of an adult daughter and was caregiver for her elderly mother and a close friend who recently passed away. Ellen’s personal goal is to live and work in a spiritual, heart centred way. She is the author of Surviving Eldercare & has numerous articles published on midlife and eldercare.
As women, particularly caregivers, we have many conversations about our roles. We talk about them when we’re out for coffee with each other, on our facebook caregiver group, on this blog, in my coaching room; we discuss how to live expansive lives as women rather than becoming engulfed by our many roles. In fact, we could probably say all our self growth work is about separating ourselves, the individual woman, from the roles we’ve been designed, both by nature and nurture, to play.
I’ve been reading A Joseph Campbell Companion recently, an edited book of essays. Campbell, a follower of Jung, speaks of individuation, or become a released individual, saying that the aim of individuation is to find and learn to live out of one’s own centre. He goes on to say that this cannot be achieved by enacting and responding to any “masquerade of fixed roles”.
As we grow older, and hopefully wiser, I believe we also grow closer to the essence of who we truly are, that centre that Campbell speaks of. We’re often able to simplify our lives, as the things that feel unimportant fall away and we prioritize what really counts.
From my early years, when I was taught good emotional and psychological self-care, to my coaching trainings with Martha Beck and her focus on taking turtle steps, Buddhist teachings here at home and those of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India and the transformative quality of our time there, I’ve been evolving, slowly, slowly, as the Indians say.
We’re now living in a time when massive changes are taking place in our society, in our world. Everything from the economy to the environment, to our own internal sensibilities is shifting and we’re having to adjust to a new level accordingly. We don’t know yet exactly how things will play out when the dust settles. For some of us this seemingly constant adjustment to change is scary, for others the not-knowing is exciting.
For some strange reason, for many years I told myself a story about having control over my life, despite the many serious events that had taken place. I suppose it was my emotional/psychological protection to believe this. Somewhere along the way I gave up the idea that I had power over the major events in my life, beyond the obvious choices available to me with respect to family, career, geographic location, etcetera.
Our first few years on the West Coast were relatively serene, as we explored our new community and put down our roots here. Then things began to speed up somehow, and it was one change after another – perimenopause was a big one for me, then my partner went away to work in California and our dear dog became terminally ill immediately after he left, I returned to school and completed my counselling certification and internship and we moved to Vancouver for a while to work, then eventually back to our coastal paradise.
Through all this I became used to change as a constant state, rather than occasional life changes. This learning is a big help now as I make continual, small adjustments to the changes that come at me. As the world seems to be speeding up, my sense is that we are being pressed to let go, let go, more and more. Not to hang onto the things or relationships that no longer feel right to us…the jobs, the material stuff, the friendships, even the intimate relationships that no longer serve us.
When I try to analyze what’s taking place in my life and my world, I limits myself, sometimes I even grind to a halt. Taking time to simply breathe and sit or walk quietly is becoming more crucial. Call it what you like…meditation, being in nature, prayer, time alone, it doesn’t really matter…simply taking some time to breathe and to be each day brings us closer to ourselves, to our centre. Some refer to it as “the place where the whole universe dwells within you”. When I do this, that place of quiet calm feels very secure to me, and the noisy judgements stop!
