Have you ever wondered why Alzheimer's disease is in your life? It really resonated with me when I heard someone ask "why me" and then flipped it around and asked "why not me?" When bad things happen to good people, I really believe it's because we are meant to learn something from it. Why is it that we only learn when things are tough? Maybe the the whole point of the struggles and challenges in our lives are so that we'll learn something from it!
That got me thinking about what I have learned from having Alzheimer's touch my life, first in my career and then in my family. I gave it some serious thought and came up with 10 things that Alzheimer's taught me. Learning these things wasn't an easy process as it isn't the most comfortable thing to look at yourself and acknowledge that there are some areas that require some work. This is my list:
1) I wasn't as patient as I would have liked to be. I forgave myself for this and then began to learn to practice patience in my life.
2) I had to constantly remind myself to not blame the person for the effects of the disease, but to blame the disease. This enabled me to be more patient and compassionate towards the person while acknowledging the frustration with the disease and not the person.
3) I had to learn to let go of the things that I couldn't control and accept uncertainty. Thinking that I could actually control the disease just lead to frustration.
4) Learning to live in the moment was the greatest gift of all. I'm grateful for a disease that continually reminds me that the moment is the only thing that we have. This lead me to learn to meditate which has resulted in more peace and calm in my life.
5) Connecting is possible and when it happens it's beautiful.
6) The soul is not the mind. The soul exists even when the mind is affected by the disease.
7) Most things are more powerful than words, like animals, nature, music, touch, a smile and love.
8) Communities need to embrace all those who are suffering and do everything humanly possible to be compassionate and desire to alleviate the suffering.
9) Suffering arises from the mind. The more with think about our situation, the more we suffer.
10) The thoughts and feelings that we focus on grow so why not make them loving, accepting, kind, patient, non judgemental and forgiving.
What has your journey with Alzheimer's or dementia taught you?
This article is really a walk-through for all of the info you wanted about Alzheimer. I really appreciate the write of this article for this helpful article.
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Bev my mother has dementia/Alzheimer's. She has started to wander off and I have been very harsh with her, I lose it. Then feel really bad/worse. Trying to come to terms. This helps a lot. Thank you.
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