If you have been reading my posts the past 2 months they have been a lot about my journey with my dad who has dementia and being his caretaker. While that came to an end and I am back to my regular life, the experience is the gift that keeps giving! In a good way. . . I promise! lol
We placed him into his new assisted living on January 11th and he is doing great! Of course he is having a few transition issues like missing us, no concept of time and forgetting that we called or visited so he feels lonliness and sadness often.
But don’t we all in our everyday normal lives?
I was thinking about this and of course being a recovering “I got it girl” I was trying to think about how can I make it better for him and how much more can we do to reduce or remove this feeling from him.
But the reality is no matter how much we call or how much we visit it won’t take away the fact that he will always miss us. He will always feel moments of sadness because we aren’t there every minute because he doesn’t remember.
Why is it good to let him feel this and be ok with it?
Because he would never have felt this way if we all didn’t show him the constant love and support we have for him as soon as he was in need of it when mom went into the hospital.
One thing my dad said to me multiple times when we were solo together was that he was so shocked and surprised that we all came to care for him. He never thought we loved him enough to stop our lives to come and care for him.
A man at 91 with 7 living children thought that he didn’t do good enough or was worthy enough of his kids loving him and being willing to care for him.
What he experienced was unconditional true love no matter what. When we experience this we now get to to feel the opposite, true sadness. Without this duality we can never truly undertand what love is.
So yes I will let go of control and I wont try to fix it and make it all better for him because I want him to know we truly love him no matter the past. He is worthy of all the love just by being him. Nothing else required.
SO ARE YOU!!!
Next time you feel sadness, pause and think why. Most likely its because you once loved and I never want to risk never loving another to avoid the pain of sadness ever again.
I did for 50 years of my life. I rarely took the risk to get close enough to anyone and let anyone in enough to let myself receive love fully and fully love back.
Until now. . .because I felt the pain of the situation and the pure unconditional love that I never felt for 50 years.
The risk to LOVE is so worth it!! The more we love ourself through the pain of life and remove judgement for having these feelings and/or control things to change it, the more we will truly live a life we love!
As I get ready to leave for a trip to Cancun with my husband I am deciding to disconnect from all social, family, friends etc and just BE with me, my love, and my higher power God.
I trust that I am fully supported and loved just by being me in the world.
Nothing to prove. Nothing to do. Just by BEing.
I wish this for you to feel and own that you are LOVE!
Much love
Coach Jackie
Your Freedom and Love Mentor
