For Good and New: How have I maintained my commitment to elders or acted as an ally to the elderly?
Life Story:
One of the ways to avoid patterns of distress and pain in our lives is to tell our life story - every 3 months or so. For the worker, the act of speaking is discharge which can encourage a new perspective. It is recommended to tell the story chronologically and afterwards answer the following questions:
1) What were the most difficult moments/periods in your life?
2) What were the most significant events in your life (so far)?
3) What were the sweetest moments?
4) What are your unresolved issues?
5) What are your longings?
6) What is your greatest pain?
7) What traumas have you experienced?
8) What do you understand about your life?
9) What is the meaning of life for you?
10) What are you planning for the rest of your life?
Directions (for the co-worker to say to the worker) You are such a hero! You never gave up.
This is the place and this is the time to grieve over what you didn't have.
What can you offer yourself from what you didn't receive in the past?
Pain
The assumption in our society is that physical/emotional pain and their expression is negative. It's better to ignore or to repress it = to get over it.
The way we will look at this now is every pain is a warning sign that one of our needs is not being met, and the pain dissuades us or fulfills a need or to discharge on the past over a need that was not fulfilled - the work/discharge is therapeutic.
Putting the brakes on expressing pain will bring greater pain, and it will find its expression in an unexpected manner.
The pain is meant to call attention to the damage that was caused. When we lose the connection to the pain, we lose the connection to the healing. The main difficulty is the lack of safe attention in order to discharge.
Medical professionals need to be aware of:
It is natural and critical/essential to express pain in order to heal.
In order to give healing attention, one must do one's own discharge on pain in order not to be stimulated by the patients' pain; in addition one must have ample rest.
It is possible to heal from an injury by discharge, even if it's not easy.
In less capitalistic societies, there are ceremonies supporting discharge for healing.
Drugs for pain reduction are used to stop the discharge.
Work on Pain
A good way to work on pain is to pay attention to where it hurts, to complain, to cry, to talk about the pain and to yell out.
It is recommended to do a scan over the body every 2 hours - to ask ourselves: How am I? Where do I feel discomfort/pain in my body? Work on Chronic Pain
In order to discharge on chronic pain, it is recommended to work on the feelings that have become attached to the pain.
When did the pain become untreatable?
How was it originally treated?
Who was with you?
What scared you?
Discharge may come as yawning.
If one focuses only on the physical side - the pain may return.
As Allies to the elderly, it is recommended to:
Exhibit happiness, recognition, to initiate quality time
Enable them to tell their life story
Show how much they are wanted, tell them how clever and important they are and their opinions too
Enable them to express their pain
Spread light on their strengths, special skills, actions, characteristics
Help them find meaning in their life story
Luiza Namizov - based on co-counseling theory and other sources.