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Choices ~ Healing ~ Love
January 1, 2004 Publisher & Editor: GAIL R. MITCHELL- WELCOME JOURNAL EXERCISE UPDATES AT THE SITE CAREGIVERS' CONCERNS NEWS INFORMATIVE CAREGIVING ARTICLES & INSPIRATION MESSAGE BOARDS & EMAIL BAG JOKES & HUMOR DISCLAIMER  NEWSLETTER ARCHIVESFour friends have been visiting over the holiday from Mexico with me. It's been a wonderful and interesting experience. Two had the flu upon their arrival and it seems that we are passing it back and forth to one another. I recently recovered from a three week bout of the flu and continued taking my herbs and vitamins so I am not hit with it again. We have been forced to stay in rather than play "tourist" and our conversations have stemmed from how we met over 30 years ago to what we can control and what we can't control. We collectively agreed that there was a reason that we were all cooped up in the apartment, making the best of things, laughing, sharing and connecting on a deeper soulful level...I think the most important issue that we have agreed to agree with is that we are each responsible for the happiness, peace and love that we experience in our lives. How we hold our thoughts; what we focus on; what we put the power into constantly is what we manifest in our own life. My friend and I chuckled as we observed her husband looking like his mother and sister in certain facial expressions as well as some of his emotional expressions. And then we noticed the same similarities in the oldest son. My girlfriend remarked that the son kept talking how he never wanted to be like his father and at 23, was he was becoming more and more like him on a daily basis. The more we focused on what we didn't want was what manifested. When we shared this with the son, he laughed and said that he saw it as well.. so his firm commitment was to focus on what he wanted to become. We also spoke of the war and I shared how I, myself went to several of the war protests. What I came to realize on a deeper level was that I was focused on "war" and not "peace". While it was peace that I wanted to experience more of, it was what I didn't want "war" that I was focused on. Once again, we realized that whatever we placed our thoughts upon was what we manifested, almost immediately, so while I always try to be mindful of my thoughts, I was sending out the vibrations of war rather than peace. How intricate our lives and minds are and how we must really be conscious of the words we choose in any given. I apologize for not sending a separate message about the following. This morning I participated in a global meditation for world peace. I have done it for approximately 15 years or so and it's a powerful experience. The link to the meditation, for those of you who are interested is: Meditation. So, in this coming New Year, let us all take time to evaluate the words we choose to put out into the Universe.. Let us all be mindful of the vibrations that we contribute on a daily basis.. whether it is towards our loved ones that we are caring for, or the postman, the garbage collector, the cashier, and so on...Let us focus more on gratitude for what we DO have..Let us all focus on embracing thoughts of love, peace, harmony, health and all those wonderful experiences we dare to dream and imagine.
Wishing you all a Peaceful, Holiday Season... May your journey be gentle and beautiful! For those of you who have listed loved ones in our healing circle at the site, our list keeps growing and growing. In order to keep the names in the circle current, one of our volunteers is developing a database so that when you list the name(s) of those you would like included, it will request your email address etc. Every 3-4 months an email will go out asking you to validate that you would like to have the name remain in the circle or that you would like it removed. If, over the years, you have placed a name of a loved one and more than one name, we would appreciate your emailing us at healingcircle@care-givers.com. This will enable us to keep the circle current and when we no longer can contact the poster due to address changes, these names will be deleted after three months of their initial posting. Once the database is up it will be easier for us to maintain the circle and this information will remain posted at the circle. Thank you for your understanding and support. Helping Grow NOFEC This Holiday Season. It is with much gratitude that we offer our thank yous to those of you who opened your hearts so generously to help us to continue growing Empowering Caregivers and to serve you... ~ There are many wonderful changes taking place offline for us as well as online. In an effort to nuture the growth we are undergoing, we will resume our chats after the first of the year. If you would like to volunteer and assist us in hosting please fill in our application at: Chat Host. In the meantime, we are responding to postings at the message boards and this is also an excellent means of communicating with other caregivers for support. If you would like to assist us in moderating the boards, please fill out our application at: Moderator. Mary C. Fridley World Healing Day: World Healing Meditation by John Randolph Price& Jan Price What Is Your Primary Identity? - Charlie Badenhop, If you are interested in submitting an article(s) please go to: Submit. You will find a form for submitting your article, bio/profile, copyright permissions, etc. Please review our guidelines for acceptance, submit and we will notify you upon acceptance. ~ Daria's mother passed away on December 11th in S. Africa. As with most caregivers, she cared for her mother 24/7 and her mom refused outside help. It was very difficult on Daria and we send lots of love for a gentle and nurturing healing during this time...Daria wrote the poem "About My Mom" in last month's newsletter. ~ Ask yourself the following:
A ‘yes’ to any of these means that you can count yourself in the growing ranks of care givers. Yes, its providing care to a loved one, and many millions do it, but too often one critical responsibility is overlooked. Look in the mirror. This is the face of the person whose care is critical in the provision of assistance to another. If you overlook this, the quality of the care you give or the length of time you can sustain it, will surely decline.
If you do nothing else, cut these tips out and keep them with you. Caring for yourself is the most important part of caring for a loved one. Sylvia Nissenboim Daily Resolutions Or New Years? Each New Year brings forth a pause in our lives; a time to reflect on unfulfilled dreams, unrealized expectations and uncompleted tasks. As a caregiver, there are so many up and downs; emotions running rampant at times, getting the best of us. At times, we can find ourselves wondering why; we don't have a caregiver for ourselves. What has happened to our own life? May love & light shine through you always.... Richest Blessings, Harvey Cohen has donated his well known book, the Optimism Factor in ebook form for all members of the Empowering Caregivers Community. Harvey dedicates his book to the unlimited, magnificent, creative essence that resides in us all. The creative essence that is our potential for living life to the fullest, knowing not fear, lack, or limitation. Potential for the full realization of uncompromised ideals. Potential for boundless joy. ~ On Wednesday, January 21 at 9:00 p.m. (ET), PBS will present a groundbreaking evening of programming that will bring this looming health crisis to national attention – offering insight, context, help and hope. The evening begins with THE FORGETTING: A Portrait of Alzheimer’s, a 90-minute documentary that explores this frightening disease, the human toll it takes on patients and caregivers, and the latest research in the race to find a cure. THE FORGETTING: A Portrait of Alzheimer’s and its accompanying nationwide outreach campaign mark the first major PBS initiative on Alzheimer’s disease. The landmark program, produced and directed by Elizabeth Arledge, was based on the best-selling book The Forgetting — Alzheimer’s: Portrait of an Epidemic, by David Shenk, who served as a consultant to the documentary and appears in it. For more information, please go to www.pbs.org/theforgetting Communicating Effectively With Healthcare Professionals Communicating Effectively with Healthcare Professionals empowers family caregivers to advocate more persuasively on behalf of their loved ones with the healthcare professionals providing treatment. It helps family caregivers function as true members of the healthcare team, assuring better continuity of care and better access to the resources needed by the care recipient. Apply online at www.nfcacares.org. CEU credits for nurses and social workers are available! For more information contact John Paul Marosy at 508.854.0341 or jpmarosy@nfcacares.org. ~ Senator and presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) announced his support for providing paid family leave benefits. The proposal would provide four weeks of paid family and/or medical leave benefits for workers whose leave is already protected (but unpaid) under the federal Family & Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Benefits would be 50 percent of the employee's salary, and would be funded through a new employee payroll deduction. Employees who work for businesses that are covered by the FMLA would be eligible. More details: NCC's Handbook for Long-Distance Caregivers The National Center on Caregiving (NCC) at Family Caregiver Alliance has developed a new handbook to assist long-distance caregivers. Whether you live an hour away or across the country, this booklet offers a roadmap for those new to the challenges of caring from afar for ill or elderly loved ones. Download: ~ Last Acts Partnership (Partnership for Caring) is offering free Advance Directive documents, specific for each of the 50 states, that are currently available for download online. Advance Directives, for those seeking more information, are documents that let the individual give instructions about the medical care they wish to receive in the event that they become unable to speak for themselves due to serious illness or incapacity. These documents can be found by clicking directives. Printed versions of these documents are also available for order on the Web site, however there is a small charge for print material requests. ~ This conference is for parents and professionals for the care, treatment, and recovery of children with autism. The conference organizers are themselves parents of children with autism. Parents are, and must remain, the driving force of the autism community. The issues are too sacred and the stakes too high to delegate to outside interests. Autism One features over 100 speakers: many of the world's leading researchers, educators, practitioners, agencies, and parents. Learn about the latest treatments, your rights when dealing with school districts, the best ways to handle insurance companies, how to petition government agencies, along with a host of other pressing issues. In addition, leading parent-advocates and autism organizations will be on hand to present and inform For more information: Contact:Edmund Arranga at Ph:714.680.0792 E-mail or visit their site at: http://AutismOne.org ~ "The Future Supply of Informal Care 2003 to 2013: Alternative Scenarios" has been made available by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. The report looks at factors that may affect the future supply of informal care in Australia. The impact of Australia's aging population, an increase in female labor force participation and changed living arrangements are all ~ As part of the Eldercare Locator "Home for the Holidays" media campaign, a guide has been developed to assist families in coping with many caregiving issues. "Face the Facts: Topics to Discuss Now with Your Aging Parents"provides a brief overview of key concerns, including Social Security and pensions; living wills and advance directives; Medicare and Medicaid; and long term care insurance. The guide also includes suggested questions to ask in conversations on the various topics. Download: http://www.eldercare.gov/ ~ The National Council on the Aging, with the support of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is laying the groundwork to increase the use of reverse mortgages to help pay for long-term care. The "Use Your Home to Stay at Home" program will work to increase knowledge and utilization of reverse mortgages so that, where appropriate, homeowners can tap home equity to pay for long-term care services or insurance. Project details: ~ Partnership for Caring (PfC), the nation's leading organization committed to helping consumers receive excellent end-of-life care, is excited to announce that it is fully integrating the Last Acts campaign (a powerful coalition of national and local organizations committed to improving end-of-life care) into the rest of its programs. When this process is completed in January 2004, they will have brought together two powerful programs into a single, highly focused entity that will be called Last Acts Partnership. Last Acts Partnership will serve as an unbiased source of information regarding current and emerging end-of-life issues in the U.S. It will actively represent the public in pressing for policies that promote better end-of-life care in America and will continue Partnership for Caring's long tradition of providing resources and tools to individuals that help them get good end-of-life care for themselves and their loved ones. You will be able to continue getting to the new Web site either through www.partnershipforcaring.org or www.lastacts.org and the new website will become active in January, 2004.If you aren't already a member you may join them at at www.partnershipforcaring.org. ~
Quotes The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. Mark Twain Some people come into our lives and quickly go, some stay for a while and leave footprints in our hearts, and we are never, ever the same. Unknown It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how things are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it. Carl Gustav Jung There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul. Arnold Bennett The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. Dorothy Nevill We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. Albert Einstein Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are. Bernice Johnson Reagon Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it. Robert Heinlein, writer It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere. Agnes Repplier There are only four kinds of people in the world: Have you ever wondered what will happen to all your little treasures once you are no longer here to appreciate them? Who will want them? Will anyone love them as much as you do? Will they even know how important they were to you or what they meant to you? Shaywardncr I haven't posted for ages.... been busy and all of that. DH, Cyril, lost his place in the world last Friday... only for 24 hours, but he wanted me to drive him home, "Please", in his most gentlemanly manner. Wanted to go home to where he had lived 35 years ago.... later he wanted to go "home" to Melbourne so he could find Alison (me). ~ My wife has been disabled for 14 years with kidney failure and our lives are totally different than we thought it would be when we first got married 18 years ago. We've made the most of things and have seen our lives have a really positive effect on others. We're encouraged that others are encouraged but sometimes we just want to be encouraged too. But no matter if we receive encouragement or not, we know the deal's still on. When we got married, we knew we would be influential but we didn't have any idea the cost would be so high. If you're disabled or you're the spouse or relative of someone who is disabled, be encouraged because somebody needs you. Cederey ~ Politicians talk to the country the way men talk to women. They say, "Trust me, go all the way with me, and everything will be all right." And what happens? Nine months later, you're in trouble. ~ A little old lady seated herself right behind the bus driver. Every ten minutes or so she'd pipe up, "Have we reached Oriskany Falls yet, sonny?" ~ A foursome of senior golfers hit the course with waning enthusiasm for the sport. 87 years old, piped up and said..."Quit your dang complaining and just be thankful we're still on the RIGHT SIDE of the grass!" ~ A wise schoolteacher sends this note to all parents on the first day of school: "If you promise not to believe everything your child says happens at school, I'll promise not to believe everything he says happens at home." ~
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