3Rs for Positive Caregiving – Reflect, Reframe, Realise

I have been talking about mindfulness and its roles in preventing dementia, as well as how to start your mindfulness practice in the previous few articles. In this article, I will like to present the roles of mindfulness in caregiving – positive caregiving to be more specific.

Caregiving is a highly demanding, both physically and mentally. It can be a positive experience rather than a stressful and negative experience. To me, positive caregiving can also be termed as mindful caregiving. Mindfully you chose to respond and react positively to the day-to-day situations as they arise. And, mindfully you chose to reframe your interpretation of those situations, especially the ‘challenging’ ones. Hence, mindful caregiving is extremely important for caregivers to create positive experiences for their loved ones and themselves.

From years of personal experiences with loved ones living with dementia, I realised that patience, compassion, acceptance, being non-judgemental, letting go, and the ability to reframe and choose one’s response in a given situation are crucial elements of positive caregiving.

I had learnt my first lesson on acceptance, compassion, patience, and non-judgemental (the four pillars of mindfulness) when I was eighteen, from a teacher whom I had never spoken with. ‘My teacher’ was a nun in her grey robe at a silent retreat.

She was approaching a woman who was shouting at the far end of the room. Suddenly, the latter started smacking the former on her clean-shaven head until the people around them intervened. Most of us would have retaliated (I don’t know about you, but I WOULD). I would have blocked the attacks with my hands or at least moved away. The nun did not move an inch. She merely stood there with her hands clasped in prayer position. Keeping still, ‘my teacher’ demonstrated abilities to control her emotions and to choose her response with compassion, acceptance, and patience to ‘ride out that storm’.

As you would know from my first article that my mother has been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, the disease has made her more forgetful, and at times makes her speak or behave in socially awkward manners especially in noisy and unconducive environments. Applying mindfulness whenever I am with her helps me to be more aware of my emotions, coupled with being more patient and better able to choose an appropriate and less habitual response to many frustrating situations that had arisen since. Be mindful enables me to reflect, reframe and realise that those frustrating situations were not resultant of choices that she had control over. SHE is unable to control the change in her caused by the disease.

Unintentionally, she forgets about our ‘dates’ at times.

Unintentionally, she behaves or speaks in socially awkward ways that can offend people.

For example, she would look crossed and raise her voice when talking to me, as if she was shouting at me, in noisy, crowded and uncomfortable environments such as a busy food court. But she wasn’t annoyed with me or her companion at that moment. It was just the loud and uncomfortable physical environment that upset her. She goes around complaining to people about her unfilial daughter, aka moi (me), who does not care about her or cannot be bothered with her. Her words would ‘travel around’, and there would always be this good-intentioned person who would give me that information. Or when being asked for reasons for not answering her phone, she might reply that she did not want to answer the call upon seeing the caller ID on her phone screen!

So, yes, she did offend some people with her unintentional acts and words. How about thinking for her, from her perspective, before getting frustrated upset with her? My mother used to be this sociable, dependable and capable lady; and now, those ‘unintentional’ forgetful episodes in her life and her erratic behaviours or words had made her less sure of herself especially in social settings. Nevertheless, she tries to put on a brave front as a cover for her feelings by laughing off those ‘unintentional’ episodes in her life whenever someone brought them up. Hence, what about her? Sure, we felt frustrated and upset. During those times, did we put ourselves in her position to see how she felt, knowing that she had offended us unintentionally? How did she feel?

In those frustrating moments, the abilities to refrain from responding angrily and to reframe the situation have led me to be a more delightful companion coupled with feeling compassion towards her. Such lead to my desire to create experiences to make her feel that she is still capable, still my mother, and still the elder sister to her siblings.

Recently, I was invited to contribute an article about mindfulness and caregiving by the Chief Editor of Awaken Publishing & Design. I shared the story about how I was stood up by my mother when I was delivering the fish oil capsules which I had bought for her from Australia. Let me briefly recap the story for those of you who have yet to read about it.

Once, I had called her to tell her that I would be bringing her the fish oil capsules which I had bought for her from Australia. She replied that she would stay home and wait for me. Alighting from a fairly crowded MRT after 12 stations, I called her again with the intention of packing lunch for her.

“I’m in a cab with my friend. We are going out for lunch. You don’t come” was her reply.

‘WHAT do you mean that YOU ARE IN A CAB with your friend?’ immediately

flashed through my mind. I was bewildered in utter disbelief. ‘But thirty minutes ago, I told you to wait for me at home.’

I could feel the urge to scream at her. However, I am usually able to stop the unhelpful habitual reactions and to choose kinder responses after decades of practising mindfulness. ‘Argh!’ After letting out a scream in my mind, I replied in a normal tone “Oh, ok. I’ll put the stuff outside your house. You can pick them up upon returning home.” She replied ok before hanging up. I did feel angry when it happened. After all, I am only human. But mindfulness had stopped me from screaming at her and making her feel bad. Instead, I was able to accept what had happened, let go and choose a kind and patient response.

Fellow caregivers, during this year-end festive season, let us practice mindfulness in our caregiving journey. Let us remind ourselves that they did not choose to behave or speak in an offending or upsetting manner intentionally. Let us not judge their behaviours and words negatively, and let go of the need to be perfect or socially appropriate when interacting with our loved ones with dementia, and focus on being a delightful companion and caregiver to them  🙂