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Episode 016 Wellness Series: Spiritual Side of Caregiving
Podcast Episode 16 - Spiritual Side of Caregiving Blog

Episode 016 Wellness Series: Spiritual Side of Caregiving

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In this podcast episode, we conclude the last episode of Spiritual Wellness and the overall Wellness Series.

Links to articles referenced in the episode:

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If you have any questions or comments or if you would like to hear more of something in future episodes, just leave a comment on the Contacts page on my blog SallyintheZen.com.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello!  Welcome to the Sally in the Zen podcast.  I’m your host, Sally. I’m a Zen Buddhist Caregiver to my elderly folks, and always in pursuits to find Zen moments in everyday living.  If this is your first time to the show, welcome! If it’s not, and you’re returning, welcome back!

Today’s episode is the conclusion of the two-part series that we started from last episode for the month of March, which is the spiritual wellness portion of the overall Wellness Series that started in January. Specifically, today’s episode is touching on the spiritual side of caregiving.

Before we start today’s episode, let me put out my normal disclaimer and say that I’m not sponsored by anyone and I’m not paid to say the things I plan to say in today’s episode.  These are my opinions and my personal opinions alone, and if you’re ready, let’s get started.

Now all of the resources and the articles that I refer to in today’s episode, I’ll, of course, attach in the show notes, but let me start with a story.  

When I was in college, I didn’t see myself as a Zen Buddhist. I didn’t have that self-actualization of what I was back then when I was younger.  If you’ve been following my podcast, in the last episode, I had said that the way I was raised, I didn’t know that I was being raised as a Buddhist. I didn’t realize my father was a Zen Buddhist.  

It wasn’t until my later years, I’d say around maybe beginning 30s and on, that I became spiritually aware of what I am.  But it was during college, during Psych class, I think it was, like, Psych 101, when you learn about this – Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. 

It’s a five-tier system and I’m going to take you back to Psych 101 for a few minutes.  So what is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and I’m looking at simplypsychology.org – Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, written by Saul McLeod, updated in 2018.  

So, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a motivational theory in psychology, comprising a five-tier model of human needs often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.  The needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up the charts. The tier, I should say.  

From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are psychological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization.  Now I’m looking at the chart. The foundation, tier one at the bottom, is psychological needs, which are air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing and reproduction.

Now, moving up to tier two – safety needs, personal security and employment, resources, health, property. 

The third tier is love and belonging.  You have friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection, and above that is tier four, which is esteem, which is comprised of respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom, and the last tier on the top of the pyramid is self-actualization. Desire to become the most that one can be. 

The reason why I bring up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is that this hierarchy stuck with me from Day one.  Because I’ve always wondered about the top tier of what is self-actualization, what actually does that mean, how do you get it.  And the overall progression of this chart is basically a person’s life, where if you start from the bottom, you have the most fundamental needs that a person needs: you need house, a home, food, water, money.  And then once you elevate above that, once you obtain those things, you will elevate to the next tier, and then the next tier and then the next tier.  

So when you’re out of the bottom tiers, when you have a comfortable house, when you have the safety of your home, you have a family and love, when you have self-confidence and self-esteem, sense of connection, the tippy top one, the ultimate tier is self-actualization within yourself.  And that always stuck with me because I’ve always wondered what exactly for me that would look like. And unbeknownst to me at that time, when I’m in my twenties in college and I’m, fast forward now, I’m going to be 50 years old, so that’s 30 years ago, I have a better sense of what that means for me, since having started on my spiritual path in 2019.

Now I delve a little bit more into that introspection in the last episode so I’ll refer you to that but let’s move on to today’s, specifically, the spiritual side for caregiving.  Now how Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs fell into the spiritual side of caregiving for me is that, after 30 years, which is a long time, by the same time not really, self-actualization to me is my spiritual awakening.

So like I commented on the last episode that during the research that I’ve done for the spiritual wellness side of the house, I didn’t realize there was a spiritual side to caregiving, specifically.  Although I should have really known, if I had really, really thought about it. Because here’s my two cents before I delve into the resources that I came across in my research. My personal belief is that there’s a spiritual side to everything.  And if I were to put that to the test, I bet you I could find that there’s a spiritual side to drinking beer or smoking legally approved marijuana and I’ll bet you anything, you’ll have plenty of zen moments doing that activity. But you get the drift of what I’m saying.  

So going to the first article written by Jane Meier Hamilton on January 13th 2015, and this is the Griswold Home Care Delivered with Heart website, and the title of the article is Building Family Caregiver Resilience: Spiritual Strategies. 

Now it begins: caring for a loved one is often a logical journey, fraught with uncertainty, loss, frustration and fear.  In my experience, she says, I couldn’t bear to see how dementia had stolen my mother’s mind and memory. Feeling totally out of control, I was depleted of energy yet filled with fury and grief and a million questions, such as why is this happening to my mother and to my family:  Isn’t there something we can do? What did we do to deserve this? What is the purpose of this semi-human existence and this long goodbye? How much more of this can we take?

Those are questions that she had asked and I can totally empathize because those were the same questions I had asked when Zen Master had his stroke in 2016.  All exact questions that I totally understand, so moving down the article: How about you? Have you ever felt so mad that you couldn’t even see straight and maybe guilty for having felt that way?  Have you struggled with deep emotions and profound questions? Has anything helped you to restore some balance? My own family caregiving experience has shown me the importance of cultivating spiritual resources to sustain me through painful situations.

Now going down further in her article, she has Spiritual Beliefs and Practice Builds Resilience. Spirituality is an aspect of a human being, the deeply held beliefs that guide and give meaning to our lives.  These beliefs act as lenses through which we see the world and as ethical guides for how we act in the world. Spirituality can also be experienced through both religious and secular practices.  Religious practices include prayer, worship, reading scriptures or religious meditation. Secular practices include appreciation nature and the arts, participating in yoga or volunteer work.

Now going down further in her article, spiritual resources for family caregivers.  When your caregiving journey is difficult, consider using spiritual resources like these to tap into your inner strength and stamina.

Number one: reflection.  Consider the purpose and value of all you do as a family caregiver. Spend quiet time alone. Capture your thoughts and feelings by journaling. talk with a counselor or clergy person or friend or a family member who you trust.

Second one: connection. Commune with nature to be reminded of a higher power that created and sustains the universe throughout all time and circumstances.  Spend time at a park near the ocean or a lake in the forest or a hillside or mountain. Look and listen. Absorb the power in the beauty. Find rest and renew in nature. 

Third bullet:  gratitude. Giving thanks is the root of joy and peace. Regularly savour good and enjoyable aspects of your life. They’re not owed to you but are gifts. 

And her last paragraph in the article says reflection, connection and gratitude aren’t difficult to do but task-driven busyness can get in the way. Don’t let the world’s agenda steal your time for spiritual sustenance because this is a personal journey. No one spiritual resource works for everyone. Select practices that work well for you. Add them to other physical, mental and social strategies you used to build resilience. And that’s the end of her article. 

The cool thing about what I found in this article and the next one I’ll talk about is that it’s a tangible thing. These are tangible things that you can actually do today, if you wanted to versus the concepts that are very lofty and in your head-kind of things. Because initially before I found these articles, I was thinking the spiritual side of caregiving, what exactly is it? Is it those concepts that are like mental exercises that you can’t really wrap your hand around, like, air?  Like something that you just can’t tangibly put into play right now and it’s reassuring to know that these spiritual tips for caregiving are actual tangible things, which now segues into the next article, which is actually a poem. It’s pretty and it’s by Harriet Hodgson, written on December 24th 2015 and it’s called the 10th Spiritual Aspects of Caregiving.

I thought it would be a nice way to end this segment with this poem, so here it goes.  Caregiving is love in action. Caregiving makes us practice patience. Caregiving causes us to look inward. Caregiving links us with the past, present, and future. Caregiving makes us aware of the joy of giving. Caregiving leads us in new directions. Caregiving is a learning experience. Caregiving brings out the best in us. Caregiving helps us to see what is important. And Caregiving honors the miracle of each and every life. A really pretty poem.

Well, that’s it for today’s episode as well as our overall Wellness Series. I hope you enjoyed each episode as much as I had fun doing them ‘cause I learned each and every single time I was doing research into each area. But if you have any questions or comments or even ideas for future series, drop me a line. Go over to my blog SallyintheZen.com and go to the Contact page and drop me a line. Or you can DM me on Instagram under the same handle SallyintheZen.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for joining me in today’s episode, and my podcast and in my pursuits to find Zen moments in everyday living. 

Take care.

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