I had one of those enlightening moments the other day, when it was like a light bulb literally turned on above my head.  You know those times when the words “oh, now I get it!” just come pouring out as you’ve realized something new and different.

Let’s be honest, sometimes these moments come at the end of a period of what seems like torture, when we’re the last person in the room who seems to understand what is going on or being said.  The joke that doesn’t seem funny; the puzzle that you just can’t get your mind around; or even a story that everyone else is raving about, but you don’t get.   (I must confess, this is becoming more and more common with my kids at present.  They do speak a different language, don’t they?  I know it’s English, but I don’t understand most of what is being said!  I just nod and smile…trying to look intelligent!)

I must confess…I hate being in the fog where everybody else knows what is going on, but I don’t have a clue!  I hate it even more, when I’m in the fog about my own life and feel stuck in concrete about how to change anything!!

Anyway…the other day I was strolling through Facebook and saw a video clip that looked interesting and was only short, so thought I’d have a look.  As this lady spoke I could see connections to a course I’d done a couple of years ago.  It was a great course and while I got a lot out of it, I felt like I could have learnt more.  Some others who did it were saying how life-changing it was for them and how they could put so much of it into action.

As I watched this short clip on Facebook, I started to make connections with the course and it was like a whole row of dominoes started to tip over, one after the other!   It was one of these AHA, enlightening moments!   So much so, I watched it again and jotted down some notes.  As soon as it was finished, I even wrote down 8 things that I could do to help myself move forward!

I can’t tell you how liberating that felt (and still does, days later!)  I had felt stuck for several years and had no idea how to get out of that place.  I’d worked hard trying to find a way out, but nothing seemed to gel for me.

So, what changed for me?  I honestly think that I had heard these words in different ways over the past years, but on this day, I was able to hear them with ALL OF ME.  Not just my mind hearing the words, but my heart was connecting to it as well and I knew wholeheartedly, how I could move forward to change my life.

What a powerful moment.  The great thing is that because I could action what I had heard straight away, I have notes to keep going back to.  When the feelings of helplessness or being stuck rise again, as from past history I’m sure they will, I can go back and read these notes and KNOW what I need to do.

If you’re feeling like you’re stuck somewhere, hang on – I certainly had to.  Find help if you need it – I did.  When all of you is ready, heart and mind, you’ll know how to take the first step to move forward in your life.

Have you had this happen to you too?

How long has it been since you have felt like someone has listened to you?  Not just heard the words and been quick to respond.  But has heard and seen you behind your words.

You’re one of the lucky ones if you’ve experienced this recently.  Maybe another question I could ask is, how often have you experienced someone really listening to you?

I love knowing that someone is wanting to do the work of listening to me.  It is work though, isn’t it?  It’s so easy for us to want to interrupt when someone is speaking and share our own stories, or to say why we agree or disagree with what they’re saying.  Sure, there’s a time and place for that kind of discussion.  But how can I really know what’s going or for you, or vice versa, if I don’t give my time and space to hear your world.  This is the work I’m talking about.  I know for me, this often means biting my tongue (quite literally!!) and not interrupting!

I recently put two words in my search engine online – listening & definition and I was surprized by the responses:

The Collins Dictionary states, “Listening definition:  the act of concentrating on hearing something.”  https://www.collinsdictionary.com

The online Oxford Dictionary states the “Definition of listening skills – the ability to pay attention to and effectively interpret what other people are saying.” https://en.oxforddictionaries.com

The business dictionary says the “Definition of active listening: The act of mindfully hearing and attempting to comprehend the meaning of words spoken by another in a conversation or speech.” (www.businessdictionary.com)

I find it fascinating that out of these three definitions, only the Collins Dictionary states what just listening is – hearing a sound!  The Oxford gives the definition of “listening skills” and the Business Dictionary tells us what “active listening” is.  All these things are quite true, but the last two seem to assume that there is more to listening that just hearing a sound – it is a skill and it is something we can do actively or passively!!  (Although if you try and do it passively – without any real engagement – listen to what the actress Raquel Welch once said “You can’t fake listening.  It shows.”  If an actress can’t fake listening, maybe it’s also obvious to the other person when you or I aren’t really listening!)

When I hear a sound in the middle of the night, I can assure you that I will be listening acutely to see if I can work out what it is!!  If I’m at a party and someone starts telling me about their golfing swing or the latest move on a computer game I’ve never heard of, I’ll have to actively work to try and understand what on earth they are talking about!  If they start talking about the latest movie that I’ve also seen, it will be hard for me to keep my mouth shut and not take over the conversation!  But if someone starts to share something deeply personal, like how their struggling over the death of someone close, or they don’t know what’s wrong with themselves, then I want to be ready to actively listen.  This doesn’t mean having all the answers, but to give that person my time and space to listen to their world.  A quote I saw just recently sums this up: “Listening is often the only thing needed to help someone”.

If this quote is true, why do we find it so hard to “just” listen?  There are probably lots of answers to that question:  we’ve forgotten how to or never learned in the first place; we’re so busy in our lives that we don’t have the time to stop and listen to somebody; our own inner worlds are racing around and we can’t find a way to stop all the voices in our heads so we can hear someone else.  If you’re someone who finds it hard to listen to others, ask yourself why that is.  Maybe you need someone to take the time to listen to you.

It’s fascinating, isn’t it, that the two words LISTEN and SILENT are made up of the same letters!

Do you ever have days where you feel like you’ve been running at full speed all day long?

Lately, I find myself doing that too often.  My mind seems to race ahead to what I must get done.  Or sometimes I’m thinking about what might happen to me today or even reliving what happened last week!  Regardless of which one of these is true, I know I’m not present in the moment at all.  I’m thinking about the future, or the past – and it’s exhausting.  In this frame of mind by the time I get to the end of the day, my body is ready to collapse on the nearest couch, curl up and go to sleep!

The scary part of all this is when I look back on my day and I can’t even remember some parts of it – like sections of the drive to work!  The other day I was going to drop into a store on my way to visiting someone.  I headed off in the right direction, but found myself way past the shop and almost to my friend’s place, before remembering what I was going to do!  I’d totally forgotten, even though I’d taken a different route to do it!  Do you ever experience times like that?

So, how do we live in the present?  How do we leave the worries of the past behind and not race ahead to “what might happen” in the future and live in the here and now?

I know for me there are some tell-tale signs that tell me I’m going too fast!  Sometimes, I feel a bit out of breath and my stomach is churning because I’m trying to get on top of everything and make sure I’m ready for what’s coming.  The big one for me is that my shoulders become tense and end up a lot closer to my ears than they should be!

But this is a sign to me.  When I feel that tension, I know I need to stop, physically drop my shoulders and relax.  I need to make the choice to relax and focus on here and now.  Physically dropping my shoulders and taking a couple of deep breathes is a good start to bringing me back to the present.  I know others say to stop, take five deep breathes in and out slowly while focussing on one thing – whether it’s the rise and fall of your chest or your shoulders, just concentrate on one thing.

I find Psychologist, Abraham Maslow’s quote a bit scary:

“The ability to be in the present moment, is a major component of mental wellness”.

I think I might need a few mental health days – or weeks!!  What about you?  How’s your mental health?  It’s not really something we like to talk about, is it?  But it’s something we need to do better at.  That is, finding ways to communicate what life is really like for us.  Some of the problem is that we don’t have a safe environment where we can really share what’s going on internally.  There’s nothing worse than opening yourself up to someone and having them treat you differently as a result.

What would it mean for you to open up to someone you trust and share what life’s like for you?  Or, even ask a friend or acquaintance, what life is really like for them?  It’s scary, isn’t it?  You don’t know what they might tell you!  But I know on the rare occasions when someone has asked me that question, it’s felt like they’ve given me a special gift.  They’ve given me their time; their moment – that they’re willing to listen to me.  In that moment, it’s easy to slow down and just be!   Can you be a gift for somebody?  If you’d rather talk to someone outside your immediate group of friends, reach out to a counsellor.  We all need to be heard.

A friend recently said to me: “my life seems to have made a big shift – from caring for my children, to caring for my parents”.

This is another one of those huge life adjustments that we find we have to make from time to time (from child to teenager; teenager to adult; for some, adult to parent, etc.) – often, with little time to make helpful changes.  The change from child to carer is a very tricky one, that’s often full of minefields to traverse as parents adjust and children learn how to be “careful” in “caring”!

Like many others, my transition from child to carer was pretty bumpy!!  I had a lot to learn!  While there had been small things happening for a long time that were pointing to this change, the ultimate transition happened very quickly, when my father broke his hip in his early 80’s.  Dad was a pretty remarkable man really.  He had a stroke just after he retired at 65, which left him without the use of his right hand and with a significant limp.  (Life lesson learnt from this – don’t wait until you retire to do all the things you really want to in life.  You never know what may happen to affect this.  Dad love playing the flute and was very good at it.  With only one hand, playing the flute was impossible and one of the greatest regrets he had with the stroke.)

So, when he broke his hip – he had been acting as carer for my Mum whose memory was getting pretty bad.  He was getting her walker out of the boot (one-handed) at the time and was blown over by a strong gust of wind.  An ambulance took them both to the local hospital emergency department, where I caught up with them.  It was obvious Dad was in a lot of pain and needed surgery.

This was just the start.  Surgery; recovery, moving to rehab; adjusting back at home and finally accepting that more help might be needed, ultimately resulting in them moving into care.

I won’t bore you with all of the story, but I will share with you a few of the major things that I’ve learnt as a result of it all in the hope that it might help others.  Please share in the comments section the things you have learnt – we all need help!

1. See life from their perspective: throughout everything that has happened over the past few years, I’ve found it very helpful to have my sister and brother remind me at times, what the adjustments have meant for Mum and Dad.  I have been the main carer throughout this time until recently, with lots of help from the others, and as such have sometimes been too close to what is happening in the here and now to remember where Mum and Dad have come from.

Can you imagine what it is like to be totally in charge of your life (as much as we ever are) and then to find that you need others to help you in even the little things you do.  After Dad’s stroke he worked incredibly hard to gain his independence back.  This meant he had to learn how to do everything with only one hand.  Not an easy thing to do!  Things like tying your shoelaces; opening a can of food; driving (with an aide); Dad even kept on changing the oil in the car until he broke his hip!

2. At times we need to be their advocate when others aren’t listening: I’ve recently witnessed firsthand the impatience that younger people sometimes have with the elderly – not everyone – some are lovely.  But some people get annoyed when older people don’t understand how the system works or need you to repeat something a few times because they can’t hear properly.  I find it helpful to remember that, if we’re lucky enough, we’re all going to get older one day soon and I like to treat others as I would like to be treated – with respect and patience.

I get it.  Sometimes older people can slow us down, but boy they can teach us a lot about life and the world and how it’s changed.

3. Caring for the carer: this is a phrase we hear quite a bit these days – care for the carer!  It’s true that we need to otherwise we get tired and run down and ultimately don’t give the care we need to.  I love my Mum dearly.  She’s in her 90’s now and her memory certainly isn’t getting any better.  Thankfully, she still knows who her family is.  She’s had hearing aids for years but we’ve learnt that a big part of her “hearing” is lip-reading.   So when I take her out to give her a change from her room in the nursing home, I’m talking louder than normal, so she can hear (something I find exhausting!)  Along with getting her out to the car in her wheel chair and transferring her into the car etc., – it’s quite a process and I feel like I’m running all over the place.  She and I are both exhausted by the time she’s back in her room and I’m heading home.

I feel bad that I don’t get her out more often, but physically I can’t and in the long run, there’s no point feeling guilty about it.  If I push myself to do more than I physically can, we’re more likely to have accidents or falls.

These are just a few things that I’ve found that I’ve needed to work through.  There is so much more that would be good to look at – I think a book is in order!  (Or at least another blog or two).

It’s a strange time of life.  Our two kids are still at home finishing uni; my parents are in care and need lots of support and yet I still need to work to make ends meet – thankfully, only part-time these days.  My mind feels very full, even frazzled at times.  I feel like I’m walking in and out of several different worlds depending on where I am in any day – listening to stories going back seventy+ years; trying to keep up with the modern lingo and habits of the younger generation, while also living in the present with my husband and trying to make sense of the happenings of any given day.

It’s no wonder I feel a bit tired!  Time for another coffee……