Breaking the news when bad things happen to you

How do you break the news when bad things happen to you?

Bad things happen to all of us. When it does, you’re thrown into UNCHARTERED TERRITORY. Territory you’ve done your best to avoid.

When bad things happen to you, it’s a scary. You feel alone and isolated. Your life is unexpectedly turned upside-down. Everything you have worked so hard for is pulled from under your feet. The cause could be a devastating fire, retrenchment or a robbery. Your life can be changed in a flash after a car, aeroplane or work-place accident. Life is never the same after the loss of a spouse, child or parent.  How do you cope when you’re diagnosed with a terminal or chronic illness, infertility or HIV? What do you do when your teenager tells you they’re gay, pregnant or has a STI (Sexually Transmitted Disease)? Who do you turn to when somebody you love is taking drugs, drinking and wasting their life?

Feeling helpless can send you into a spiral of depression and self-pity. Everyday becomes a nightmare of trying to cope with the everyday demands of living while drowning in a whirlpool of anxiety and stress. People’s pity lasts no more than three months – then they move on. It's to be expected. They’ve got problems of their own, and trying to deal with yours will only put a noose around their necks.

You have no choice but to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again!

Don’t be in a hurry to do this – do it when you’re ready.

Fortunately we have a few instinctive coping mechanisms. Endorphins overrule pain and adrenalin initiates the fight/flight reflex whenever there’s crises. When you hit the replay button, you are amazed how well you coped at the time. But now, dealing with the aftermath, when reality hits the fan, means that you need super-staying-power, strength and resilience. In her book “Pack up your Gloomees in a Great Big Box, then sit on them and laugh!” Barbara Johnson writes: “Do whatever it takes to make yourself more comfortable. 

Think of yourself for a change!”

When bad things happen to you, who do you tell?

• Tell immediate family – otherwise they will come to their own conclusions, and these could be way off the mark
• Spare the old folk too much detail. This of course depends on circumstances, their emotional strength and resilience. The news may be too much of a shock for them, or it may stress them unnecessarily – and what can they do anyway?
• Tell a few trusted friends.
• Only tell those who you think will be supportive – not the gossip-mongers!
• Tell your boss so that s/he understands your situation.

As Barbara writes: “You are in for the long-haul; Share your problem with a few who can encourage you spiritually. Do whatever will help you get your priorities in order to keep your home together.”

Pamper yourself – be selfish sometimes!

Above all: remember that FAITH WILL GET YOU THROUGH!

When I was diagnosed with Lupus I wondered how I was going to cope. I knew that God had already helped me through many crises situations in my life. One morning while waiting to see the doctor at the hospital, the nurse gave the patients a little pep-talk. After emphasising the importance of looking after our clinic card, honouring appointments and taking our medication, she reminded us that it was Friday and that we were to behave over the week-end! Then she said a little prayer.

Suddenly tears welled uncontrollably from my eyes and fell like raindrops onto my lap. I had been bottling-up how I was feeling for months, blocking my emotions and avoiding the reality of my situation. Glynis, a fellow-patient sitting next to me, took me to the canteen for a cup of coffee. Then she prayed over me. I coped a lot better after that melt-down.

Get practical. Do your paper-work. Write a will. Have a funeral policy. Live each day, not as your last, but as your FIRST.

Tip: Read Isiah 41:13

“For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; It is I who say to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you’”.

Picture: Photograph I took on a sea-cruise to Walvis Bay.

Love is in the air

What does love have to do with your health?

It’s Valentine’s Day. Let’s talk about love. Red hearts, roses and chocolates! We may think of the heart as the source of love and romance, but researchers tell us otherwise. These emotions, they say, come from ‘the thinker’ – our brain. It’s the source of chemicals or hormones that control our body like an invisible electrical wiring system. It’s called ‘emotional biochemistry’.

On researching emotional biochemistry, this is what I found on the net. It’s written by Pilar Gerasimo journalist, social explorer, podcaster, and self-proclaimed Healthy Deviant. Read her blog: https://pilargerasimo.com/

“Like it or not, emotions share some very real biochemical links with your nervous, endocrine, immune and digestive systems. Isn’t it time you learned something about how your body responds to what you feel—and vice versa?

Thanks to new imaging technologies, research scientists have now been able to demonstrate how thoughts and emotions cause distinct neuron-firing patterns within various parts of the brain. They can also observe how these patterns coincide with chemical releases and reactions throughout the body.”

In other words, emotions affect our health – and love is one that we can’t live without. This reminded me of my student-nursing days when I was working at the Children’s Hospital.

One little patient had nothing physically wrong with him, but was diagnosed as a ‘failure to thrive’ and was behind in his developmental milestones, unresponsive to stimulation and had ‘flat-head syndrome’ because he was never picked up, played with or loved. Social workers had found this neglected baby in a brothel, and his treatment plan was to play, stimulate and love him. It took months for this baby boy to recover ‘lost time’, but it was very rewarding watching him respond to love. He recovered sufficiently to be sent to a loving family for foster care.

According to the Greek translation of the word love, there are many types:

Philia is affectionate love – the love you have for a friend

Ludus is uncommitted, playful love – like flirting and your first-love

Pragma is long-lasting, enduring love – a mature love that older married couples enjoy after many stormy years together

Philautic love is loving yourself in spite of personal setbacks

Agape is unconditional love

Eros, the Greek god of fertility, is sexual love.  

“Hooked” by Joe McIlhaney and Freda McKissic Bush is an interesting book about love, sex and the brain. Here is a short extract:

“In a relationship of true love and long-term commitment, sex takes its appropriate place – not at the centre of the relationship, but as one of the natural outcomes of the healthy connectedness of two people. Sex will then be a catalyst to the full, healthy, long-term committed relationship it strengthens.”

Love is what makes us human. Love overrides mistakes and imperfections. It forgives and forgets past hurts. Love is the link in a chain that keeps a family together. The ‘greatest book ever written’ summarises love like this: “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. LOVE NEVER ENDS.” 1 Corinthians 13: 4 – 8.

Celebrate the gift of Love today! 

This month’s recommended blogger is Clint Edwards – the author of the humorous book on parenting This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things and No Idea What I’m Doing: A Daddy Blog. He lives in Oregon. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Read what he has to say about Valentines Day. I highly recommend you follow his advice!

     

Pregnancy Education Week

Pregnancy Education Week (12 – 16^th February) African Birth

It is interesting working as a midwife in South Africa because many African women still hold onto traditional cultural beliefs when it comes to pregnancy, birth and babies. For example, women are told not to have sex during the last few weeks of pregnancy. If her baby is born with vernix (natural creamy water-proofing lubricant on baby’s skin) she’s found guilty of breaking this cardinal rule!

It’s understandable that women will go to great lengths to avoid pregnancy and labour difficulties – even if it means complying to traditional myths like not plaiting your hair so that the umbilical cord does not get knotted, covering your belly with buck skin so that the baby will be born fit and agile, and not eating boiled eggs because it’s believed that they will delay labour.

It’s not easy being a woman – periods are painful, messy and inconvenient, pregnancy is nine-months of uncertainty and childbirth is just darned-right scary. Women will do anything to make it easier, prevent complications and make the pain go away. Each time that I was pregnant I went to church more often, prayed the rosary and lit thanksgiving candles afterwards! I pinned medals onto the vests of my grandchildren and blessed them with holy water from Medjugorje. So, who am I to question the validity of ‘lucky charms’ worn by African women during pregnancy, the wrist, ankle and belly amulets, the ‘tsonga xanga’ (a maiden’s post-puberty ‘initiation belt’ that’s dipped in her first menses as part of the transition from childhood to womanhood and again in a herbal mixture after the birth of her first baby) or drinking a herbal mixture called “isihambezo”.

Professor Beverly Chalmers (PhD) studied African birth and wrote a fascinating book on the subject.  My own experience of African birth were brief spells working voluntarily in the townships of Grahamstown, delivering babies by the dozen during the 1976 riots in make-shift conditions, and working in the municipal ante-natal clinic during the apartheid era when black and white mothers were kept separate.

It’s taken me a life-time to learn that centuries of inbred cultural beliefs are powerful and that no young midwife fresh from college is going to persuade an African woman to follow instructions that make no sense to her. My colleagues who worked at BBH (Boksburg-Benoni Hospital) told us stories of women in labour who complied with the ‘stranded-beetle position’ (lying flat on your back during labour) until the baby’s head was ready to ‘crown’. Then they would get off the bed to squat underneath it, give birth to her baby, then climb back onto the bed with the wet and slippery baby in her arms, still attached to the umbilical cord!

The objective of Pregnancy Education Week is to stress the importance of ante-natal care to help prevent complications. In South Africa, all women are tested for HIV so that they can have ARV (Ante-retroviral) treatment to spare the baby getting the virus – mainly during delivery. We know that babies of women with Low folate and vitamin B₁₂ levels risk neural-tube defects, that some viruses during the first trimester affect the developing baby, that toxins like nicotine, drugs and alcohol can cause irreparable damage and that certain vaginal infections will infect the baby during the birth.

The objective of ante-natal clinics is to prevent preventable complications and to date, the successes of these clinics outweigh the inconveniences of having to take time off work, or wait in long queues when women don’t have the luxury of medical aid and private health care.

Finally, let’s not forget the pregnant teenager who often hides her pregnancy for as long as possible – sometimes until she goes into labour. Women younger than 18 are just as much at risk for complications as are women over the age of 40. These young girls are ostracised at school, and often by their parents and society because their ‘mistake’ is public knowledge. More needs to be done to help the pregnant teenager who has opted to go ahead with her pregnancy for the sake of her baby, in spite of the challenges she will have to face alone in the future.

If you are pregnant, scared and alone, reach out to a friend or pick up the phone and find out about ante-natal care. For your sake, and that of your unborn child.

Illustration taken from “African Birth – Childbirth in Cultural Transition” by Beverly Chalmers PhD

Living with a purpose

The Purpose Driven Life

It’s the end of January and I’m wondering what happened to the ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ we made just a few weeks ago?

Since most of us have broken them anyway, I thought: How about changing them to: The Purpose Driven Life? Is this more doable than making unrealistic promises?

I look at it like this – a day without purpose is a day wasted. It doesn’t have to be amazing – when you’re a busy mom, just getting the basics done is a day with purpose. But don’t forget to have some fun while you’re at it. Enjoy your children, laugh with them, treasure their innocence, look them in the eye when you talk to them.

I realise that not everybody has a purpose. Not everybody has a job to go to (I work from home).  Not having a purpose can make people feel rejected and unwanted. Then depression sets in and people don’t want to (or don’t have the energy) to do things. The doctor prescribes ante-depressants and sleeping tablets. These can become addictive with unpleasant side-effects. It can go downhill from here.

But when you have a Purpose Driven Life, it gives you a reason to get up in the morning – even if you don’t have a job to go to – or your children are all grown up. When you have set your mind to DO something, it keeps you focused and motivated. It renews your energy and stimulates ‘happiness hormones’. Happiness is contagious. Happy people draw others into their circle. Happiness boosts confidence, appetite, energy levels and ultimately our health. It’s all part of the ‘human condition’ – the more you do, the more you want to do it … and the less you do, the less you want to do.

What is The Purpose Driven Life:

In babyhood it’s to adapt and survive.

In childhood it’s to learn.

In young adulthood it’s to strive for a career, a profession, a partner for life. For many women, it’s to find the right man who will father her children. Men ultimately get ‘domesticated’ and play a very important role in nurturing a family. 

  

In adulthood we either follow a career or raise a family.

After this chaotic life-style, pressure and stress, we may find ourselves at a loose-end and asking: What is my purpose? What are my talents? What happened to my dreams to write, paint, play a musical instrument, open a coffee-shop, do carpentry, start a business, fly an aeroplane or learn a new skill?

Maybe you missed the bus because there was no time and no money to pursue these?

The first step is to make a start. Write down your PURPOSE and the steps you need to take to do this. Join a group. Look for a blog to give you the know-how. Surf the net for resources.

Take one day at a time. Even if you are ill. Phone a friend. Write your story. Make something. Grow a garden. Bake a cake and invite somebody you have not spoken to for a long time to eat it with you! Have a purpose for tomorrow and every tomorrow after today. 

Live the Purpose Driven Life!