amazed by this life!! music, coaching, creativity, lateral thinking, transformation; my passion and joy

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Relief care work - residential home for older people

Today I did a 'shadow shift' at a residential home for elderly people. There's actually nothing that had really prepared me for such an experience .. working there for 7 hours is very different from the short visits I did as a teenager to see my grandfather in a care home and visiting several other people in care situations since.

What an extraordinary thing ... this getting old, and the need of being looked after in such a way. -- I knew the words 'personal care needs' and kind of knew what it meant. . . but .. . . what a sight, a 92 year old body, how the sagging flesh hangs on the bones .. . . not able to walk, or go to the toilet or wash unaided, -- this too, is how the human being can be .. . . NO face lifts or skin tucks, or goals. I had in this place a sense of a 'hotel', people checking in, to check out, and the so few possessions.

Within all this, and thru the day I was so grateful for the grounding I have in my spiritual practice, personal development awareness skills and to have done the recent movement work with Prapto and the Core Energy work with William Bloom.

This morning at 07:30, just before the shift, I went into the nearby park and, with still dew wet grass I moved barefoot .. and dropped deeper into my body. . . and the grass, and trees, and people passing through the park. how grateful I am to be able to do that. Through the day it reminded me to drop in and SO helped me hold myself through the pained non verbal crying of the woman with no speech trying to communicate her needs , the over many years 'resigned' comments of some of the staff,, the woman having an epileptic fit .. . shortly joined again by her husband and daughter. daughter in distress .. then the fear ripple that went thru as one of the relatives said that her father had complained about being bullied. and the heat, SO much heat amplifying it all.

Feeling SO grateful to just 'be' and 'wash the dishes' through all this, and love people . .. no matter what. I could feel the reaction ripple through my body, ( shock, fear, anger. . . ) noticing and holding that, letting it melt and being able to hold the space within all that's not in that situation that is SO under resourced and with such a sense of struggle and rush . .. though such love there too . .. .

Bless the hearts of those who are caring there, many for many years. This experience, though it does *not* feel like my major or main career path in my life, for now . . I sense that it is and has a rightness about me being there and doing it . .. something important about it.

WOW, yet another deeply profound experience, which moves yet again the landscape of my life . . . I feel like I'm doing some kind of advanced level learning course . . !!

And, with all these experiences so far this year, I wonder ... what IS my work to be... what is the main focus ... the reason for doing and being ..... this ( all that I am doing) .. now.