By Margery Pabst
Margery Pabst is the co-author of Enrich Your Caregiving Journey (Expert Publishing, February 2009) and is a national speaker and facilitator. Learn more about Margery and her book at www.pivotalcrossings.com.
Our use of language has a critical effect on our emotional lives. We can credit our emotional bank accounts with positive words about ourselves and others, or we can think and talk in negatives that tarnish our present life and diminish our future. Roger Rosenblatt says, "Write with grace rather than pain". For those who aren’t writers, these words can easily be applied to how we speak and think. "Speak and think with grace rather than pain" is a mantra to consider when caregiving. ‘Grace’ suggests looking at ourselves and others through the prism of positive purpose and while ‘pain’ denotes wallowing in all the negatives life has thrown us and allowing ourselves to be victims of every circumstance.
How we speak and think about ourselves and others will create ‘grace’ or ‘pain’ in our lives. Furthermore, the words we choose are crucial to our emotional and physical health.
So how can we focus on positive, graceful words and shift from negative, painful ones?
FIRST, we must LISTEN TO OURSELVES. What is the nature of our thoughts? What exactly are we saying to others, particularly our children? Are there hints of negativity or blatant comments about hypothetical, tragic events to come? SELF-AWARENESS is especially critical for the CAREGIVER.
I’ve caught myself saying things like, "Well, Murphy’s Law will probably be true. If there’s a possibility of something going wrong, it will." Sound familiar? By saying these words, your negative expectation and intention is out there, and your behavior may be affected, so you will actually do things that make your negative statement come true.
For example, if the caregiver says, "Jim always has a hard time getting his pills down", Jim will always have a hard time with his pills. He will meet your expectations and your behavior will suggest through body language and speech that you are ready for the difficulty at hand. When Jim has difficulty and his emotions rise, yours will too and in the process, a DEBIT TO YOUR EMOTIONAL BANK ACCOUNT WILL OCCUR.
SECOND, we must make a shift in our thoughts and language. Creating a shift will bring more honor and respect to our caregiving. Let’s review some examples of making a shift from negative debits to positive credits in our thoughts, speech, and emotional bank accounts:
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DEBIT
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CREDIT
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"I have to give her a bath."
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"I get to give her a bath."
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"It never fails that I have to correct what I delegate."
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"I learn a lot when I delegate tasks to others."
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"Something always happens when I leave."
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"Surprises always come up after I’ve been away for a couple of hours."
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Note the honor that comes into your relationship with the patient when you say "I get to give her a bath" or "I learn a lot when.....".
You may wish to think about shifts you can make in your language in the spaces provided. Note how a shift in the words makes a difference toward the positives that come from being a caregiver. When you achieve this shift, grace rather than pain will assume a greater place in your life.
THIRD, help others to be aware of the language they use with themselves and with others. So how do you mentor others to use language that is graceful rather than painful? Take the third statement in the debit column, "Something always happens when I leave". A family member says this, so you can say something like, "Were there any good things that happened when you were away?" By shifting the thinking of this family member to a positive outcome, they may recount that they got some rest or that the patient enjoyed playing a game with the substitute caregiver.
The next article on CREDITING YOUR EMOTIONAL BANK ACCOUNT will examine the power of storytelling and how families can resolve conflict and attain well being through stories.