MARCH 2024 NEWSLETTER: Living Mindfully - Presence is the best present 💝
As a caregiver, do you feel you're mindful (living in the present moment) or is your mind full (overwhelmed, scattered, trying to do too much, or multi-tasking)?
For me, I find myself constantly teetering between BOTH, but if I'm being honest, I most often find my mind FULL. But 2023 my intention was to be more present - for myself and others. I made a concerted effort in my goal setting to focus on the here and now. 2023 quickly became one of my most challenging caregiving years. Caring for aging parents (and bonus parents), as well as a young adult with a traumatic brain injury, is hard on a good day - and we had many road blocks with detours in 2023. I lost sight of ME and felt pulled in too many directions.
Mindfulness is the ability to focus on the present moment while calmly recognizing and accepting your thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. Mindfulness is being fully present, aware of where you are and what you’re doing while not being overly reactive or overwhelmed by what is happening around you. When you are mindful you are free of both the past and future and free of judgment of right and wrong. Mindfulness for caregivers means learning to live in the moment, accepting the reality of your situation, and filtering out distractions.
Living mindfully is HARD - it requires every facet of who we are. As caregivers, we often worry about tomorrow. How will my loved one manage without me? Will my life be like this ... forever? Will I get a break? Why ME? These things do NOT lead towards greater mindfulness.
OR we might be grieving lost or missed "expectations" - comparing our loved ones to other "typical" peers. My loved one didn't "make it" in a college environment ... my loved one doesn't have a "traditional" career ... my loved one won't have the future I imagined for them. All of these thoughts make us more mind FULL and less mindful.
It IS all hard. We can't go back and change the past. What has happened, has happened. We have to learn to let go of yesterday.
We also can't control what happens tomorrow.
YET ... what if we REimagined today by letting go of yesterday and not burdening ourselves with tomorrow? We could just focus on the present - being fully present - today, in this MICRO-moment.
A lot of things are not IN my control - yet, I CAN control my emotions, my actions, AND my responses ... in this moment. I can notice my fleeting thoughts and feelings and allow them to pass through. And that IS a lot of control.
Check out our entire March Newsletter focused on MINDFULNESS here!