A Caregiver Reads: Healing Conversations

I wrote this brief book review for CARE Connections, a publication of Boulder County Aging Services, which gives Information and Inspiration for Caregivers. It appeared in the May/June 2011 issue.

Healing Conversations:
What to Say When You Don’t Know What to Say

by Nance Gilmartin

All caregivers, on a daily basis, encounter the need to communicate with others and themselves on a variety of delicate situations. Having a difficult conversation is one thing. Having a healing conversation, however, is quite another.

In a healing conversation, the object is to make a heart-to-heart connection that allows each participant to feel they understand the other, as well as to feel they are being understood. Sounds easy, right? Not even. Talking with others on this level requires that we do not judge them, aren’t out to rescue them, or aren’t trying to fix them. This can be a tall order indeed, especially when our topics of conversation contain emotionally charged content, as is typical in caregiving situations.

In Healing Conversations: What to Say When You Don’t Know What to Say, Nance Guilmartin guides us in having healing conversations in a variety of life situations, including a number that are relevant to caregiving. Following are some points that stand out.

Using the Rule of Six. Asking for help seems to be the number one place where we caregivers mess up. We simply don’t like to ask others for help. Yet, it is probably the most important thing we can do to insure the health of our loved one and ourselves. We cannot do it alone. The Rule of Six simply states that you must ask six people for help, not just one. Yes, SIX people! Guilmartin explains that the first person may be busy, the second might not want to get involved, the third may not be able to satisfy your entire request, the fourth may refer you to someone else, the fifth may not be able to do what you ask but can help in other ways, and the sixth may be the one who says yes. It amounts to casting your net further afield than you originally thought in order to catch the good fish.

Just How Do You Ask for Help? You do this by first making your own “wish list.” By spelling out and being clear about what you do and don’t need, you can make specific requests that others can understand and honor. Take responsibility for asking for whatever help you need at any given time. And if you can anticipate what you’ll need and ask for it ahead of time, the better the chances are that you’ll receive it.

I Know Her Name: Living with Alzheimer’s. As many caregivers know, we want to respond lovingly and patiently to our loved one with Alzheimer’s or dementia. They are oftentimes angry, confused, and unintelligible. The person inside is lost and trying to find her way. How do you help orient your loved one to the outside world? To their private world that only they can see? How do you compassionately help them without yourself becoming stuck in their dementia? The answer is that each moment, each situation is different and must be addressed as if it was a new situation -- and it is.

A Caregiver Colors

Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing?
Can one really explain this? No.

-- Pablo Picasso

Sometimes I want to color. Sometimes I want to leave behind the thoughts and worries of my caregiving world with Romeo. I want to color. You know -- with crayons or markers, colored pencils -- just like when we were kids. The thick, dark lines beckon me to color within them while simultaneously tempting me to go out of their boundaries. The colors cry out, "Use me, use me!"

I go to the stash of coloring books kept on hand for my visiting grandsons, who have already outgrown the appeal of crayons (how did THAT happen so quickly?!). I find coloring books, sticker books, paint books full of images of fish, insects, dinosaurs, cartoon characters, cars and trucks. Nothing excites me until I notice what suspiciously looks like a coloring book hidden under a puzzle. And it is a coloring book. I had forgotten about this treasure. It's a coloring book of mandalas. A mandala is a complex type of drawing containing geometric shapes arranged in a circle and often framed within a square border. The mandala design is found throughout the world in various cultures, from the Far East to Native America.

I pull out the coloring book, turn randomly to a page, tear it out of the book, and place it on the table. Crayons, colored pencils, markers? Maybe all three, and maybe some glitter, too. I begin, gently tracing over the bold black lines with a bolder blue marker. My mind immediately begins to wander, relax, imagine, meditate. I am quiet, focused only on my task. The mandala is doing its job.

Unconsciously, I am searching for a quiet place where synthesis and driving energy are one, a place where my difficult caregiving experiences are neutralized, a place of peace where there isn't any trouble. I need a break. I'm looking for a quiet place where the disjoint and the conjoint, the diffused and the concentrated, the visible illusion and the invisible reality of my caregiving life exist together in harmony, a place where all of it makes perfect sense, a place where all of it can simply be.

While coloring the mandala, while filling in its various geometric shapes with different shades of blue and purple and green and yellow, I see that it, this mandala (and indeed, every mandala), is life abridged. At the center is divinity, the simple and naked truth. Moving beyond that divine place of quiet and knowing and being, the human psyche appears and reaches out in all directions. It becomes more complex, reaching an organic roundness, a wholeness I recognize as natural. The square or quadrant formation brings this realization into consciousness. I realize that the human psyche is enhanced by the divine center, as the divine center is enhanced by the human psyche.

Contemplation of a mandala (in this situation, the quiet coloring, contemplation, and worship of it), is said to bring inner peace. The swing from order and chaos and chaos to order in my life with Romeo is not a psychopathic symptom, but a loving contemplation of possibilities and probabilities and action and non-action.

In this act of coloring the mandala, I have once again found meaning within my life, realized its order, and am at peace. Viewing my work, the coloring of the mandala completed, I realize it needs something else, a final touch to finish it off. I grab a can of silver glitter hairspray and spritz it gently over the entire mandala. It's done. Not too much, but just enough glitter. Just enough to remind me that order and chaos and divinity are all the same thing.

For more on mandalas, see:
What Is a Mandala?
Free Mandala Coloring Pages