Without question, you’ve heard the term, grace under pressure.
If there were ever a life chapter when graciousness is called for, this is it!
According to the Oxford English Reference Dictionary, graciousness encompasses being kind, indulgent and merciful. It further alludes to “beneficence toward inferiors”.
Let’s be clear. I’m by no stretch accusing your elders or mine of being inferior. Nonetheless, as they age, we’ve essentially recognized many become rather child-like, do they not? They need to be parented themselves.
Along with self-care goes self-management.
To stick-handle some very difficult and delicate dialogues you’ll be forced to confront, recall you must practice extreme self-care. As in the proverbial airline metaphor of donning your own oxygen mask first in an emergency, it’s vital to keep an eye on your health at all times.
That’s why we’re next going to pack into your eldercare duffle bag large doses of the skill called self-management.
Self-mastery necessitates overcoming your issues in order to be fully present to your folks’ needs. Now, this is not going to be easy on several levels.
Number one, if you have Un-cope-able (not amiable) Parents, you will absolutely feel like you’ve already spent much of your life diminishing your legitimate needs in the face of their self-obsessive agendas! Here we go again!!
You can’t afford to miss vital cues.
Number two, you have your own daily stresses to contend with! When you add in impossible elders’ unrelenting demands, it’s enough to make anyone snap!
Because, no matter whether your boss is driving you up the wall at work or your children are acting up at home, you must in that moment set aside what’s going on with you in order to be with them physically, emotionally and mentally.
If you don’t, you’re going to miss some important opportunities to lower aging folks’ distress levels. You well appreciate how problems arise out of the blue and blow through the roof like that!
What’s in it for you?
You’ve likely heard all of us listen to the radio station, WII-FM. The call letters stand for, “What’s In It For Me?”
Yes, I’m here to give you an odd WIIFM “benefit” of nipping issues in the bud right when they pop up rather than sweeping them under the carpet.
It will only come back to bite if you ignore their latest crisis. When the scenario invariably rears its ugly head anew, it will have compounded to 100 times worse!
Carol-Ann Hamilton
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