Facing the Challenges of Change

 

1.  I will take the risk to change and trust that I am not alone. No one is asking me to compromise my values only to contribute to my future success as a participant in change.

  

 2.  Change stretches me beyond my comfort zone and gives me new opportunities to learn and experience success. It begins with me. I cannot change another person. I can only change myself.

 

 3.  I will let go of what I cannot control. As long as I hold on to the old ways of doing things, there will be no room for what is new.

  

4.  I must stay in the present moment and recognize that right where I am is where I am supposed to be! When I begin to feel overwhelmed, I will take a break and breathe! I will stop and reflect to clear my head and begin again.

 

5. All I get done in one day is all that I am supposed to do!

  

6.  Who I am does not depend on what other people may think of me. They need not understand. I must take care of me and adapt to change my own way.
  

7.  I have every right to ask questions. I will trust my instincts and my ability to learn new techniques. The outcome is what is important to me and not the amount of time it takes to get there.
  

8.  I must be patient with me! Slow isn't bad. Fast isn't better and different isn't wrong. We all have our own special way of learning. Our fear of being "judged" or "graded" only slows us down. Identify the feeling and choose to walk through it.
 

 9.  I will turn change into an ally so that I can embrace it rather than resist it. If I do not like something or someone, I can change my attitude towards the situation or the person.

 

10.  Gently I will accept the challenges of change. They will not go away. Fighting them will only exhaust me. We are all involved with change daily. I do believe that I have the ability to manage change one step at a time.

 

Strategies for Healthy Living in Difficult Situations

 

1. Choose not to be a victim. Identify the problem and understand who owns it. Neutralize the situation. Too often we feel that the difficulties of others are some how partly our fault, or that we need to "fix it" for them. This guilt can often keep us from seeing who is really having the problem.

2. Separate from the problem and do not own it, unless we are part of the problem. Sometimes we are the problem. We have all these expectations and illusions about how things should be. We do not always need to convince others or defend our position.

 

3. Acknowledge that we have little influence over another person's choice of behavior. We just can not be there all the time. A person wanting their independence must take ownership and responsibility for the consequences of their choices.

4. Let go of what we cannot control. We can only change ourselves. Try as we might to change others, they will make their own choices.

5. Set clear boundaries for certain behaviors. Become clear on what we will allow and not allow in our lives. There may always be someone out there who wants to manipulate us into feeling that we are the crazy ones. Stand firm with certitude on your decision care for yourself so you can choose to care for others.

6. Provide reasonable, achievable consequences for any violation of those boundaries. We have every right to set boundaries and maintain our own space.

7. Follow-through with these consequences from now on! This can be challenging at first, especially, if we have spent much of our life without boundaries. At this point a support person or group may be very valuable to you.

8. When we change our patterns for reacting to the behavior of others, they will be internally directed to look at their own behaviors and alter them. How they feel about our choice to change is not our problem!

9. Sometimes all we can do is love them! Work on paying attention to your own needs with love by taking care of yourself and loving them anyway! Accept others, seeing only their core of goodness. It's all there as an opposite to the negativity you may be feeling. Challenge yourself to let go of the illusion of what could have been and accept the reality of what is.

10. Practice, practice, practice so that no one pushes your buttons. It takes time to learn this process, but it's worth the effort to reclaim our identity, as we let go of what we can not control, and begin again to make healthy choices for ourselves.

The Healing Power of Centering 

"Each visit to my Chiropractors office, as soon as I arrived, no matter what mental acrobatics I had to perform, I would do the following:
1.    Sit quietly, relax, breathe deeply and connect with the healing process.
2.    Become centered focusing on a point within my body.
3.    Clear my head of its daily clutter and focus on my purpose for being there in the care of this doctor.
4.    Mentally connect my intention to heal with my doctor's intention and pray for the guidance  of his hands.
5.    Let go of my questions of the week and trust that whatever question I needed answered would come to me at just the right moment after the adjustment.
6.    Let go of any issue of time and release any expectation that anything should be other than it is.
7.    Be still within and listen for the sounds of learning
8.    Feel the safety of the moment to be myself
9.    Let go of the outcome and watch the healing process unfold in God's time and not my time! (This last one took a while for me to understand.)

I liked being centered. It had a pleasant affect on my whole being. It also gave me some quiet time to reflect before the doctor came in. Without the clutter of unfulfilled expectations, each visit then became, as perfect, as it was meant to be. Without worrying about what I wanted to say, I could then truly remain centered and focused on my healing." Very often we have difficulty understanding the element of time required for healing to take place. I knew this and chose to take that time. The following helped give me permission to believe that I could do this:

Right where I am is where I'm suppose to be.  All I get done in a day is all I'm suppose to do and if I really believe the first two, then, all that I need in life will come to me. This has been a time for me to give back to myself at least as much time as I have so willingly given to others in my life. Who I am and what I am choosing to does not require the approval of anyone. It was my time and that time was now to heal. It was also their time to allow me this freedom.

 

The Ten Commandments of Good Listening

 

1. Stop talking! You cannot listen if you are talking. Wait, your turn will come.
2. Put the talker at ease. Help him/her feel that he/she is free to talk in what is called a "safe environment."
3. Show him/her that you want to listen. Look and act interested. Listen to understand, rather than to reply.
4. Remove distractions. Don't doodle, tap, read, or shuffle papers. Will it be quieter if you shut the door, or turn down the radio?
5. Empathize with him or her. Try to put yourself in his/her place so that you can see his/her point of view.
6. Be patient. Allow plenty of time. Don't interrupt. Don't start for the door, walk away, or signal to hurry them.
7. Hold your temper. An angry person gets the wrong meaning from words and anger inhibits active listening.
8. Go easy on arguments and criticism. This puts the talker on the defensive. He/she may "clam up" and get angry. Don't argue; if you win, you lose, since they were unable to tell you their feelings and you learn nothing.
9. Ask questions. This encourages the expansion of their thoughts and shows you are listening and helps them to develop points further.
10. Stop talking! The first and last, because all other commandments depend on it. You just can't do a good job of listening while you are talking. Nature gave us two ears, but only one tongue, which is a gentle reminder that we should listen more than we talk! 

 Author Unknown.

Co-dependency: Choices and Beliefs

 

How many of the following statements describe the way you feel when you really look at who you are in your relationships with others. Mark them with #1, #2 or #3 - one being most  of the time you feel this way and three means just once in a while. There are no right or wrong answers!

____ My good feelings about who I am stem from being liked by you and receiving  your approval.
____ Your struggles affect my peacefulness or serenity.
____ My mental attention focus on solving your problems, or relieving your pain.
____ My mental attention is focused on trying to to please you and protect you.
____ I try to manipulate you to help you.
____ How I feel about myself depends on how good you look.
____ I only feel good when you feel good, as I feel you are a reflection of me.
____ I am not aware of how I feel or what I want.
____ I am aware of how you feel and ask you what you want.
____ If I am not aware, I assume I know.
____ My dreams for my future are linked to you.
____ I find difficulty dreaming my own dreams and making my own plans for my   future.
____ My own hobbies and interests are put aside.
____ My time is spent sharing your interests and hobbies.
____ My fear of rejection determines what I say or do.
____ My fear of your anger determines what I say or do.
____ I use giving as a way of feeling safe in our relationship.
____ My social circle diminishes as I involve myself with you.
____ I put my values aside in order to connect with you.
____ I value your opinion and way of doing things more than my own.
____ The quality of my life is in relation to the quality of yours.
____ I loose my identity in you.
____ I often feel that who I am does depend on what other people say or think.

This is all about healthy choices. When we give up who we are for the love and approval of someone else (co-dependency), we spend a lot of time compromising our own goals and values to follow others. We also lose sight of who we are as individuals. Burnout is caused by exhaustion. We can choose to change direction and think through each day focusing on our own goals. This will bring our energy back so that we can then choose to better care for others.

The Estate

The question is often asked of me: How did you as a family manage to settle out two-ninety year old estates and still keep the peace through all the stress and pain? With parents who seemed to have saved everything, how did we distribute the collections of two people nearly ninety years each without fighting? It actually comes down to a simple understanding that took each of us twenty years to learn.

1.   First of all we took our time and came back to the home several times on specifically scheduled dates over the subsequent six months.
2.   Each of us respected one another as individuals with our own set of priorities and needs. Just because we are siblings it would be bizarre to ever think we should do anything now just because someone is older or younger than the other.
3.   None of our feelings were considered either right or wrong. They were just feelings which we had every right to them without the judgment from another.
4.   We reminded one another to always stay in the present moment. Each time we tried to project our concerns into the future our anxiety grew out of proportion.
5.   We also knew that no material treasure would ever bring our parents back. We all hurt and felt the pain of our loss of both of our parents within three months.
6.   It was so important to have good communication at all levels. There can be no secrets. In the process of the last five years, which was probably more like ten, we all talked a lot about their situation. Our eldest sister was the gem that she always had been, and duplicated every piece of information in the process and sent it out to each of us for review.
7.   Everyone's opinion had value since we all came from different places in life. We did not have to change anyone and if we did not agree with one another, that was ok. The biggest thing was to accept our individuality.
8.   Each of us had a job to do which they alone did to add to the comfort and well being of our parent's. We did not keep score on who did the most. We all had our own lives with its own list of complications and demands.
9.   It was not always comfortable, but it was always okay. Our challenge was to not take things personally, as we might have in grade school. This kind of unconditional love enabled us to speak our mind and share, our sometimes, gut-wrenching feelings.
10. We trusted and believed that there was nothing we couldn't handle and besides we had our "angel helpers" right there with us and we all knew it. We only had to ask the question and a missing part to something would be found.

Caring for the Caregivers: A Family Affair

The following are some of the things we did for one another while we shared in the care of our parents:

1. We were honest with one another.
2. We communicated often and equally.
3. We followed our hearts and said what we felt.
4. We studied our options and discussed them openly.
5. We clarified our values and priorities.
6. We shared the responsibility without counting.
7. We remained non-judgmental of one another.
8. We overcame our fears and asked for help.
9. We took the risk to do something different.
10. We stayed in the present moment.
11. We set boundaries and limits with clarity.
12. We cried and laughed together.
13. We released any resistance with love.
14. We looked at our own issues and empty places.
15. We kept our sense of humor.
16. We accepted their simplicity.
17. We embraced negativity out of existence.
18. We observed their love for each other.
19. We kept everything in its proper perspective.
20. We listened to their stories.
21. We celebrated their joys of life.
22. We trusted that their angels were watching.
23. We made every moment count.
24. We truly loved one another without conditions.
25. We were honored to be members of our own family.

(Please share keeping this ID with it) 1999 Bertie Ryan Synowiec, M.S., from her book, Healers, Helpers, Wizards and Guides: Stormy Times - The True Gift. Published by Positive Support Seminars and Publications. 734-250-3006

Web site: www. grosseilechiropractic.com  E-mail: DrBertieDC@mac.com