Les 1
Gratitude
Whatever your caregiving challenge, gratitude plays a very large role. Personal caregiving ranges from caring for a busy family, to caring for an ill or aging parent, a spouse, or family member who is chronically ill or disabled, as examples. Gratitude in one’s daily life breeds hope and thanksgiving for the blessings that are a part of your life - and possibly not acknowledged within the busyness of caregiving responsibilities. This moving meditation moment of gratitude is taken from my book, "Living the Presence of Now", and encourages a flow of positive energy, confidence, and thanksgiving for all that awaits in each day.
Les 2
Coffee
In this session, you will use your morning or afternoon tea or coffee to capture another quiet, mindful movement meditation that combines the sensory aspects of your favourite warm drink with gentle stretches and a slowing of the breath, and pleasant sips along the way. This exercise is taken from my book, "The Caregiver’s Companion". If quiet coffee/tea time has escaped your daily routine, it is timely now, to re-think the value of stopping in these moments to enjoy them more fully, and recalibrating your energy to bring more joy and pleasure into your day.
Les 3
Shower
In session three, we use your shower routine as an example of how you can learn to create a meditation moment in each aspect of your shower or bath activity. Taken from my first book, "Energywellness", you will be able to apply the simple teaching from this session to other activities throughout your day too, such as making meals, and especially giving care to another.
Les 4
Time-Out
In this session, we will pay tribute to the simple standing yoga position, Mountain Pose, with added self-care benefits of guided sensory support from nature’s healing earth element. Taken from "Living the Presence of Now", this exercise becomes a time-out - a simple morning, mid-day or evening stretch of stillness to help ground and recenter you as you attend to your caregiving responsibilities with conscious awareness, and as a means of recovering joy in your day.
Les 5
Nurture
In this session we will look at the gratitude/nurture/strength cycle described in my book, "Walking Between the Worlds". As we grow and evolve spiritually, we learn to convert moments of weakness and fear into nurturing moments of courage and strength. Challenge yourself to look for the tiniest amount of gratitude in even the most challenging situation. Gratitude can alter your mindset to create a behavioural shift within you that allows you to find inner strength again, thus nurturing you. For gratitude is a form of nurture and strength, and so the cycle continues.
Les 6
Kindness
As caregiver, you can feed the gratitude/nurture/strength cycle by using loving kindness in all your communication and relationships. Things can change very quickly in caregiving; the practice of self-care demands that you stop in these moments and remain focused, kind, and calm. As you respond to another’s needs with loving kindness, you are drawing on this beautiful, nurturing energy from within yourself, rekindling strength in yourself and nurture for the ones under your care.
Les 7
Presence
Caregiving provides so many opportunities to convey one’s genuine presence and kindness to another through eye contact, the tone of voice, body language, and gentle touch, as examples. In this session, you will use loving presence to nurture one another by quietly sitting with the one you are caring for, using gentle touch as your form of communication. Please invite him or her to join us in this meditation. You will be able to listen again and again, if you find it helpful for each of you.
Les 8
Time
Are you taking time to nurture yourself outside of your caregiving? Caregiving may have removed this time from your former routines. In meditation, you will imagine yourself returning to some of your interests to see if, and how they can once again become a more central part of your life and increase the joy in your life. If you discover you do not have enough time, it may be timely to seek external assistance from local home care agencies to help you perform your role as caregiver with the joy you and those in your care deserve.
Les 9
Nature
In this session, I will read my poem, "Meditation Moments", from "The Caregiver’s Companion", to demonstrate how nature is filled with meditation moment opportunities that surround us every day. Nature represents renewal, and is available to us all over the world. Our meditation moments in this session will be spent walking a spiral labyrinth in a location in nature that is familiar to you. Please repeat this session anytime you feel overwhelmed by caregiving, to help you find your inner compass - peace and joy - once again.
Les 10
Gratitude
In our final session together, we’ll take our cue from nature to look up into the space of the night sky to find endless opportunity to feel touched by the timeless beauty available there. Practice letting go of the inconsequential happenings of your day within this nighttime space of ethereal beauty. Then, return to love, compassion, and the ability to find joy in your life and in your caregiving role. Take these positive thoughts with you to bed, where you can happily drift between worlds, in a deeper, restorative, and healing sleep, able to feel gratitude when you awaken next morning for all the blessings that wait you in your new day.
