Apr 24, 2012

Response to Change

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." Charles Darwin

I am watching a dvd series of Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, Experiencing the Miraculous, in which he relates a story told to him by Dr. Victor Frankl --- a person I greatly admire.  The story is that as Dr. Frankl was acclimating to his incarceration in Auschwitz during WWII, he noticed that the people who complained about the conditions were the quickest to perish.  They were fed one dirty bowl of water a day with a fish head floating in it, and Dr. Frankl realized that if he did not find the beauty in that meal, he was more likely to perish and to not achieve the higher level of personal consciousness he desired. 

This story is applicable to us who are caregivers for someone with dementia.  Change is inevitable, and unlike some change we might experience, this change will be an erratic but steady downward spiral of functioning.  Whether we are caregiving 24/7 as I was, or having paid personnel in every day, or taking our loved one to adult day care, or visiting him or her in an assisted living or nursing home setting, there will be change for us.  It is imperative that we are responsive to these changes.  If not, the disease has a very good chance of taking us too.  We must find the beauty in this 'dirty bowl of water' the diagnosis of dementia brings to us who are caregivers.

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