Living Energy Blog

Self-compassion is your greatest source of strength (Photo credit: wildphotons)

The other day I was talking with a friend about her experience with grief and loss and she expressed that she felt she should be further along on her path of recovery. She is six weeks past a major loss after a grueling year  of care-taking, medical emergencies and life adjustments. Can you relate to that belief? I can !!

How tempting…and human…to think that we can hit the ground running after a time of grief, trauma or major life adjustments. We want to get on with it. We want to move past the intensity, the deep aching sadness, hurt, confusion and doubt. It is hard to be with all the feelings, the voices in our heads and the hurt in our heart. However this is the time to lie fallow, to process and be able to digest our experience.

Every aspect of our energy –part of our body, mind and spirit is affected by trauma, loss and grief no matter how well we have managed through it. This is the time to rest in the quiet, to let the silence behind the difficult emotions emerge from that deep place within. It is time to let that silence envelope you in its healing arms. This is what allows your energy to return. It is what allows wisdom to bubble up from a profoundly authentic place inside. This is how you help yourself heal, find meaning and integrate your experience.

Patience is needed to move with the natural rhythms of life especially with the troublesome times. Self compassion is necessary to let yourself be where you are. Patience and self compassion are your allies through transition times. A new life needs to be birthed gently, in its own time and with a consciousness that is full of understanding not hurried movement. Time, space and healing attention are necessary luxuries when we are  at such a stage on our life journey. There are many gifts to be had if we become present and mindful to our experience…a profound inner connection with our authentic self and the rejuvenating flow of spiritual energy are two such gifts that can stabilize our minds and hearts…for the now and for the future.

Related articles

• Day 18: Grief (donethisbefore.com)
• 7 Ways Reiki Supports Overcoming Grief (thereikimuse.com)

The future of healthcare in the USA is encouraging. Many thanks to Tom Main and Adrian Slywotzky for  their article “The Quiet Health Care Revolution” in the November 2011 issue of the Atlantic Magazinethat publicizes a new model for elder care.

CareMore, a company in Cerritos, CA is showing that you can improve quality of care while simultaneously lowering health costs. CareMore’s model provides early intervention — including free rides to appointments when needed – which is resulting in significantly lower overall expenses. This is welcome and exciting news! CareMore is spending money where it makes sense and adds value. As a result, their members are receiving better care and have better outcomes at a lower total cost. Early intervention costs less.

According to Main and Slywotzky, CareMore operates 26 care centers across the Southwest, serving more than 50,000 Medicare Advantage patients. CareMore has achieved  a hospitalization rate 24 percent below average; hospital stays are 38 percent shorter; and the amputation rate among diabetics 60 percent lower than average.

There is a good chance that we will see this model spread. Main and Slywotzky report that in August CareMore was acquired by the insurer and health-services provider WellPoint, which serves 70 million people nationwide directly or through subsidiaries, and has plans to expand the CareMore model.

While so many in positions of influence continue to complain about the cost of healthcare, it is encouraging to learn of a company that has done something very remarkable about it.

Read the article.

Related articles

• Upstream Medicine (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
• Disease management + short takes on Kahneman, Podcasts, Merck, Design Thinking, Consumer Health (forbes.com)

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Recently I spent a week with  my “sister from another mother” and her husband in Florida. My friends live in a very privileged community and have been there for 25 years. I have long known my friend’s generosity and service orientation —she is after all a retired therapist/social worker! But I was unaware of the same focus that her friends and neighbors embody until this trip.

One morning as we were just back from a walk with a good friend (who had chatted casually about  her various activities with fund raising and charity work in the community) there was a knock on the door from another neighbor with a gift for my friend happily wrapped in Halloween paper.  It seems that she and her husband had been looking for an elderly couple that they could anonymously give to at Christmas and they had contacted my friend as she visits the home bound and they thought she may be able to connect them with a family in need. She of course did. In addition to supplying the name, she was to be the go between to deliver $350.00 in gifts and gift cards for food and other necessities so the couple could remain anonymous. NOW they were gifting my friend as a thank you for helping them with this act of generosity. This same couple has been very active in supporting those in their own immediate environment who are ill, dying or otherwise in need. My friend spoke of many instances where children or other relatives of these elderly couples were absent or not willing to help and her neighbors often stepped up and were there to help with arranging for medical care, guardianship , companionship, rides etc.

The community that I am talking about is quite affluent, but of course people are not immune to health issues and crises as they age. It is remarkable to see the support, caring and giving that goes on both within and outside this community. Beyond remarkable, it is heartening to see both givers and receivers benefit from acts of kindness and compassion. All is not perfect as in any planned community/group there are differences around a wide range of topics concerning how things are done. However, when it comes to human needs, the intrinsic goodness in people seems to be rising to the surface. In fact it was one of the things that my friend and I spoke at length about–that what is happening in the world does seem to be providing ample opportunity for creativity, unique new approaches and an opening of the compassionate heart in many who may not have under other circumstances thought to express themselves in that way. In good times perhaps it is too easy to forget that we are all part of the human family and need each other on many levels and in many ways.

The ‘feel good’ that comes from compassion and kindness it turns out has effects beyond a momentary ‘hit’.  Research has been showing that it  has a positive effect even if we are not actively participating but only observing. It turns out that it is good for our immunity, our hearts and our relationships AND it is contagious!

“Elevation seems to have a ripple effect, triggering cognitive, emotional, and  behavioral changes,” Haidt says. “It makes people more open, more loving,  grateful, compassionate, and forgiving.” Jonathan Haidt, PhD as quoted by Joan Duncan Oliver in”Kindness, the Ripple Effect.

Read more: http://http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Doing-Good-Deeds-Natural-Highs-How-to-Spread-Kindness

http://www.compassionspace.com/Papers_on_Basic_Compassion/Theory%20of%20Compassion%20Development.pdf

As the media feeds us with all that is wrong, contentious and in crisis on an hourly basis, it would serve us all to be more aware of all the good that is happening around the world as “ordinary” people quietly rise to challenges, and tap into creative new ways to see and be in the world. The evolution that is underway is a marathon and not a sprint. It will take each one of us to be more conscious, intentional and active to adapt and create a world that is more sustainable individually and globally.

Related articles

• Can Compassion Help Lower Crime? (livingenergyworks.com)
• How Language Can Cultivate An Open Heart (livingenergyworks.com)