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Active care in dementia

January 8, 2014 by bobleckridge

Here’s an interesting article about patients with dementia.

It focuses on interaction. This particular piece gives examples from America where Catholic and other Christian care homes introduced regular services of prayers and hymns, and showed how these old traditions connected with the patients when other forms of care didn’t. I don’t think this means that Catholic or other religious people have, or can have, a better experience of dementia than others, but I do think it highlights yet again the need for carers to be non-judgemental. Where a person has strong religious beliefs, engaging with them through their lens of understanding can really bring about surprising changes.

But what I especially like about this article is how it highlights three things – the need for compassion, the need to remember that all human beings are individuals, and the need to enter into active engaged relationships.

Like anything else in medicine, helping someone suffering from dementia requires understanding, compassion, and dedication. Care needs to be tailored to each patient’s personality, life history, and stage in the development of the disease. When this is done well, new possibilities open up. What might have been an atmosphere of regret and hopelessness centered on the disease’s relentless progress can be transformed into an upbeat outlook that celebrates abilities, rejoices in moments of recognition, and looks to the future with hope.

and

We simply do not know what is transpiring in the mind of another person. It is all too easy to place all the blame on the dementia patient, lamenting and even despising their disability. But were we to do so, we would be letting ourselves off the hook a bit too soon. Awareness, understanding, and affection are not merely the outputs of some inner dynamo. They also emerge in response to what others do, say, and feel. In some cases, unresponsiveness may say less about a patient’s disability than a failure on our part to offer something worth responding to.

 

Posted in from the consulting room, health, psychology | Leave a Comment »

Family horizons

January 7, 2014 by bobleckridge

IMG_0656

 

Most days, most of us are focused on present needs and desires. We are good at knowing when we are hungry, thirsty or tired, and knowing what we’d like to do about that.

If we have children, our horizons are pushed out a bit – when we think about where to live, once we have children (or are considering having children), we think ahead to the next few years of their lives. What are the local schools like? What is there for them to do as they grow older? What kind of environment is this for children to grow up in?

That got me wondering about how many generations ahead we ever think.

Think about life from the perspective of a 25 year old this year, 2014. Let’s assume a reasonable life expectancy of 75 years. So when your horizon is yourself, at 25, you have about 50 years of living to consider, or till about 2064. Many of the decisions you take about how you are going to live now will affect how you will be living over the next 50 years. Now, what if you have children this year, when you are 25? If they have the same life expectancy as you, then they’ll live for the next 75 years, until 2089. You might well consider how the choices you make now may influence the kind of world which they will live in until 2089.

Take another step and think  about them also having children when they are 25 years old, (that would be in 2039) and life expectancy remaining at 75, then those grandchildren will live till 2114….a hundred years from now.

This is starting to get a little shocking, but let’s push it, a not unimaginable distance further and consider your grandchildren’s children. Sticking with the same pattern, your grandchildren’s children will be living in the world of 2139, and their children to the year 2164.

Yikes! Your grandchildren’s grandchildren will live in the world of 2164 (if you are 25 this year and having your first child).

That’s a hundred and fifty years from now.

Between 1850 and 2000 the world population increased from about 1 billion, to 7 billion people. The growth rate is not even – it’s exponential. In that same period we have consumed probably about 80% of the world’s non-renewable resources, and that consumption is increasing exponentially too.

WorldPop-7billion-102811

What kind of world will your grandchildren’s grandchildren be living in?

Does thinking about these increasingly distant family horizons influence any of the choices you might make this year?

Posted in from the living room, life | Leave a Comment »

Stoner’s view of love

January 6, 2014 by bobleckridge

Did you read “Stoner”, by John Williams last year? It’s been quite a phenomenon in the UK, having sold precious few copies in the author’s lifetime, then suddenly becoming a bestseller with rave reviews here this year.

I liked it. A lot. But let me just share with you a couple of wee passages which describe how the main character, Stoner, comes to think of love as he gets older. Firstly,

…he began to know it was neither a state of grace nor an illusion; he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the will and the intelligence and the heart

and, also

….that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.

Well, I’m sure if you’re a regular reader here, you’ll know why that first passage grabbed me – “a human act of becoming….” and I especially like the thought that love changes all the time, and that the will, the intelligence and the heart are all involved in creating that change.

Then, well, how wonderful….to describe love as a “process through which one person attempts to know another”. I do think that is so often forgotten….that love isn’t just a feeling or a state, but it is an ongoing act of trying to know another. Funnily enough, that makes me think of my verb of the week – attend, particularly, with regard to the latin origin of ‘attend’ being about a reaching or stretching out towards….

Posted in books, from the living room, from the reading room, life, personal growth | 3 Comments »

The A – Z of Becoming. A for Attend

January 5, 2014 by bobleckridge

Over the course of the next six months, I’m going to share with you some thoughts on 26 verbs….one per week. Each verb is an action. Each of these actions will support your process of becoming as fully YOU as you can be. I believe that’s why we are here – to develop and manifest the uniqueness of who we are. Every single one of us is an utterly unique expression of the universe. There is no other, has been no other, will be no other, expression of the universe with the same uniqueness as YOU.

This is a life process, and its a process of becoming. It’s not a process with a fixed end point, and we never quite know how it’s all going to go but I’m working from the core belief that every day I can contribute to this process of becoming by choosing how to live, by choosing which actions to take.

So, let’s start with A.

My A verb is ATTEND.

Let’s think about some of the meanings of the verb, attend.

  1. to be present at
  2. to go with, or accompany
  3. to take care of
  4. to wait upon
  5. to watch over, or look after
  6. to listen to, or give heed to
  7. to wait for or expect.

The English word, attend, comes from the 14th century French, “attendre”, meaning “to direct one’s mind or energies”, “to wait for, pay attention”, and from the Latin, “attendere” which literally means “to stretch toward” (or “give heed to”)

So, what are you choosing to be present with today? What, or who, are you choosing to be with, to accompany?

What, or who, are you taking care of, looking after, listening to, or giving heed to?

What are you waiting for, or what do you expect of today? What are you “stretching toward”, reaching out to?

Attending to something involves paying it attention, and it seems to be that whatever we pay attention to gets bigger. The more we think about a particular issue, the more that issue looms large in our minds. Attending to, in that sense, is a bit like a magnifying glass.
Attend

Lotus root and yen

So, when we attend to something, or someone, today, whether that be our thoughts or feelings, or objects, people, activities……whatever it is will grow.

What do we want to grow? Which thoughts, which feelings? Who, or what, do we want to nurture?

I’m only going to share one verb a week, and I’m going to explore that verb every day for a week (that doesn’t mean I’ll write about it here every day, mind you!) I invite you to share this with me. I’m inviting you to explore these verbs with me and share as much of your exploration as you want, in whatever way you want…..comments, your own blog, Facebook, tweets, instagrams…..whatever works for you.

This is an invitation to participate in becoming more truly, more fully YOU.

 

Posted in from the living room, life, personal growth, photography | 10 Comments »

Has 2013 really gone?

January 4, 2014 by bobleckridge

Where did 2013 go?
Where does the past go?
Does it go anywhere?
Is time like this long road?

DSC_0167.JPG

Was 2013 like a car, making its way along time’s highway? And disappearing into the far distance as we look?

That’s one way to look at it, but then look at this tree….

DSC_0062

The very shape of the tree tells a story, contains a history, reveals its past. Doesn’t it?

So what if time isn’t like a straight line, with the future speeding towards us, and the past soon behind us and out of sight?

What if time is cumulative? What if the past doesn’t go away anywhere, but instead continues to exist underneath the present?

Doesn’t the present emerge from an ongoing interaction between what’s possible, what’s happened already, and what else is happening now?

Think of 2013 as still here, underneath today, and out of which 2014 will grow. After all, if 2013 wasn’t still here, then what would 2014 emerge from? Nothingness?

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography | 3 Comments »

January – the month of Janus, God of gateways and doorways

January 3, 2014 by bobleckridge

Japanese Garden

January is named after Janus – who looks both forwards and backwards. Janus is often represented over a gateway or doorway, and it strikes me that January is a kind of doorway. We say goodbye to the previous year, looking back, reflecting, remembering, and using that recall to inform our hopes, ideas, and even plans for the coming year.
I don’t think this is something to do just on the 1st, or even in the first few days (by the way, I read a study today which said 26% of men give up diets after ONE DAY!), but that we could take a theme for this month – make this the theme of gateways, of doorways, a moment to pause, reflect and dream – both of those entwined, letting reflections stimulate dreams, and dreams stimulate reflections.
This is different from making resolutions (even sustainable ones!).
Why not get yourself a notebook, or create a new document on your computer or tablet, and allow yourself to record your daily reflections and dreams for the month? See what emerges…..

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography | 2 Comments »

Sustainable resolutions

January 2, 2014 by bobleckridge

through the round window

I don’t know if you’ll be making any resolutions in the next few days, but I know a lot of people do.

One of my problems with resolutions is that they are often either so vague that they quickly dissipate, or so reduced (eg to lose x pounds), that once they are achieved, the old patterns and habits and quickly re-emerge (eg regains x pounds!)

What I’ve been thinking about these last few days is “sustainable resolutions”.

I started with thinking that a sustainable resolution is one you keep – and what that really means is creating new habits or patterns of living – but whilst that might be a useful thing to consider, I’ve gone on to thinking about “sustainable resolutions” as ones which contribute to sustainability more broadly.

What I mean is that is seems clear we (the human race) are not on a sustainable path. It’s just not possible to continuously increase the number of people in the world consuming more and more of the finite resources of the planet. It’s just not possible to continuously increase the number of people in the world consuming more and more drugs every year. It’s just not possible to continuously increase the “growth” of the economies of every country in the world every year if “growth” is shorthand for growing consumption or growing material wealth.

Marc Halévy’s writings have made that ever so clear to me over the course of last year. In one of his books, “Prospective 2015 – 2025” he asks us to think about the work we do, or the activities we carry out, and to ask ourselves three questions. I’ve adapted them slightly to produce “sustainable resolutions”

Will this activity/work/habit

  1. be excellent for my personal health – physically, mentally and spiritually?
  2. add to the wellbeing and quality of life of other human beings?
  3. be excellent for Nature, Life and the Earth?

Only if the answer to ALL three of those questions is positive, is the resolution likely to be a “sustainable resolution” – one which contributes to a better quality of daily life for the individual, whilst also contributing to a better daily life now and into the future for Life on Earth.

Posted in from the living room, life, personal growth | 5 Comments »

Happy New Year (what do you mean by that?)

January 1, 2014 by bobleckridge

Fushimi Inari Shrine Torii Gates

 

Every New Year near Kyoto, there is a tradition to climb the hill to the shrine at Fushimi Inari. It’s a spectacular trip at any time of year, but the main reason people go there at the start of the year is for luck and prosperity.

This is the time of year when you meet people and say “Happy New Year”…….what are you wishing for them? Is it happiness? Luck? Prosperity?

Look at the path in the photo above. See how it winds around the corner……we can’t quite see where it is leading, can we?

That’s where we are, unable to see what lies ahead, but we can certainly choose which direction we want to go, and how we want to walk today……and isn’t that how we find happiness, luck and prosperity?

By choosing the direction we want to go, and by living today the way we really want to live.

Happy New Year. I hope its a year of growing, of flourishing, of becoming more fully you.

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography | 3 Comments »

Body maps of the emotions

December 31, 2013 by bobleckridge

Here’s a fascinating study of 700 people asked to record what happened in different parts of their bodies when they experienced different emotions.

You’ve probably come across the idea of embodied cognition and embodied metaphors (briefly, we now know there are neural networks around the hollow organs of the body, especially the heart and the intestines, revealing that we don’t do all our cognitive work inside our skulls! and that metaphors like “heart broken”, “heart to heart”, “gut feeling” and so on, demonstrate how we experience the whole world through our whole being – body and mind)

This particular study is a self-reported one – it does not show physiological body changes, rather a representation of what people say they experience subjectively. Look at the beautiful summary image they produced –

embodied

 

How well does this show the shutdown experience of depression, the fist clenching of anger, the whole body experience of happiness, the links between anxiety and fear, or between shame and disgust, or between envy and contempt?

Another thing that strikes me about this is the degree to which the shutting down in depression is focused in the limbs – which makes me wonder about the links we are discovering about the healing power of exercise.

Interesting, huh?

Posted in from the consulting room, health, personal growth, psychology, science | 4 Comments »

What does spirituality mean to you?

December 30, 2013 by bobleckridge

Rays of light

In the fields of holistic and integrative medicine people often talk about taking a body/mind/spirit approach. The body and the mind aspects are pretty uncontentious. But what about “spirit”?

For many people the word spirit conjures up either organised religion, or non-denominational ideas like spirit beings, beliefs about life after death, or reincarnation, and so on. But is there a spirituality which isn’t supernatural?

Think of the idea of the “thin spaces” for example, where you feel connected to something greater than yourself.

In fact, I do think this is a key to the concept of spirituality – connection – connection to something greater than yourself. There’s a great pdf about integrative medicine (download here) across on the humanmedia.org site which includes a page on spirituality. They say it is

a means of connection and/or self-reflection through which one finds comfort, purpose and inner peace.

Not a bad definition, and it highlights both the key ideas of connection and of purpose. We are meaning seeking, meaning creating, beings. We do that through stories, through seeking patterns, by joining things up……and that gives us our myths, our beliefs and a sense of purpose. It’s pretty hard to live a life with no sense of purpose.

The Humankind document goes on to say that spirituality includes the qualities of

compassion, humility, generosity and simplicity

I wonder if thinking about qualities such as these helps us to see spirituality as something essentially integrative – in the sense of it being that which connects and pulls the body and the mind together……

Back to the idea of spirituality including a sense of being connected to that which is greater than yourself – remember this little RSA Animate video of Jeremy Rifkin’s fabulous talk on “empathic civilisation”? No? Click through and watch it now.

What does spirituality mean to you? What part does it play in your life?

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography | 1 Comment »

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