Posts Tagged ‘Time Management’
Mindful Caregiving Thought Tools for Resilience (Part 3)
Building Well-being
By Holly Whittelsey Whiteside
Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind. – Bruce Lee
This series of articles will teach you ways to strengthen your resilience by building an internal toolkit that will last you for the rest of your life.
Article #1, Utilizing Your Emotions, introduced tools for managing self-talk and learning from anger.
Article #2, Conserve Your Energy, offered tools for recouping energy.
This article, Building Well-being will guide you in scaling down your activities and taking care of yourself.
Future articles will include:
- Design Survival Strategies (Managing Obstacles, Developing Boundaries, and Knowing Thyself)
- Build A Support Team (Utilizing Family & Community, and How to Ask for Help)
Building Well-being
Once in a while you have to take a break and visit yourself. – Audrey Giorgi
Life was complicated enough before caregiving. Your usual engagements with work, family and friends continue, now compounded by a complex host of new and sometimes disturbing issues. Your life may or may not be close to the edge, but one thing is for sure – it will not magically simplify, and it could easily get more complex. So why not get it under control now? To do that, you are likely to need greater clarity about what is working for you, and what isn’t.
This article contains a simple exercise to help you see some new choices you can make about your activities. It will explore as a necessity, and will recommend ways to have healthy boundaries that will serve you now and in the future. Let’s start by making a little more time in your calendar.
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Mindful Caregiving Thought Tools for Resilience (Part 2)
Conserve Your Energy
By Holly Whittelsey Whiteside
Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind. – Bruce Lee
This series of articles will teach you ways to strengthen your resilience by building an internal toolkit that will last you for the rest of your life.
Article #1, Utilizing Your Emotions, introduced tools for managing self-talk and learning from anger. This article, Conserve Your Energy, offers approaches for gaining control over troubling issues.
Future articles will include:
- Build Well-being (Clearing Your Calendar, Practicing Self-care, & Adjusting Boundaries)
- Design Survival Strategies (Managing Obstacles, Knowing Thyself)
- Build A Support Team (Utilizing Family & Community, and How to Ask for Help)
Conserve Your Energy: Fine-tuning Your Commitments, and Choosing Your Battles
What you resist persists – Carl Jung
All struggles have one thing in common — they arise from some form of resistance. When our lives (or people) don’t measure up, we find ourselves in an emotional traffic jam somewhere between frustration and anger. It pays to look a bit closer at what is really happening.
In ordinary times, society encourages us to be on-guard, defend our rights, and complain about the state of things. When there are no outer battles to wage, we wage inner ones. But caregiving is no ordinary time. Energy conservation takes on a whole new meaning. When you know the source of your discontent, you can take care in the way that you address it. Feelings of being bound up, or are about to do battle, can arise from a host of causes which can include false assumptions, unexamined expectations, conflicting commitments, and childhood triggers. Understanding the root cause will allow you to address upsets appropriately and effectively.
Fine-tuning Your Commitments
Commitments source your energy and drive your life. They’re personal. A commitment is a driving principle, something you are unwilling to compromise that is fueled by a deeply held value. Behind every one of your upsets is a strong commitment to something. For instance, if you are upset with a doctor, it may be out of a commitment to your loved one’s safety, or a commitment to feeling supported by the medical community. Acting blindly on unarticulated commitments makes you far less effective. Identifying your root commitment in a situation lets you align the way you speak so as to achieve your desired result. But what about when you’re incapable of action?