Care Giving

Care-taking VS Care-giving.  There are crucial differences between care-taking and care-giving and you will notice: the healthier and happier your relationship, the more you are care-giving rather than care-taking.

Care-taking and care-giving can be seen as a continuum.  We usually aren’t doing both at the same time.  The goal is to do as much care-giving as possible and to decrease care-taking.  Care-taking is a dysfunctional, learned behavior that can be changed.  We want to change so we can experience more peace, contentment, and better relationships. Intimates in your life may resist your healthier actions, but shifting to care-giving is a huge gift you are bestowing upon your loved ones. (Even when they do not see it at first)

The first step is identify loved ones that are care-taking you. (anyone in your life that you have given permission to watch over (Judge your decisions and or problems) Do you ask for opinions or advise in unhealthy ways? Do you ask or expect others to help carry your burdens, consciously or sub-consciously? Do you consistently go to the same people for help or support in a way that has allowed them to think you NEED them?. Are you giving them some control of your decisions or at least creating a dynamic of needing their wisdom instead of your own?

After you identify who is care-taking you, then ask yourself what role you play to keep that dynamic going. Care-taking is a hallmark of codependency and is rooted in insecurity and a need to be in control, or give up some responsibility or control to another.

Care-giving is an expression of kindness and love, and is based on altruistic empathy with no expectation or ego based attachment to outcome. When we truly allow autonomy the other persons success or failure is their own and should have no effect on how we feel about the help, support, and love we gave or attempted to give.

Here are some key differences between care-taking and care-giving:

• Care-taking feels stressful, exhausting and frustrating.  Care-giving feels right and feels like love.  It re-energizes and inspires you.
• Care-taking crosses boundaries.  Care-giving honors them.
• Care-taking takes from the recipient or gives with strings attached; care-giving gives freely.
• Caretakers don’t practice self-care because they mistakenly believe it is a selfish act.
• Caregivers practice self-care unabashedly because they know that keeping themselves happy enables them to be of service to others.
• Caretakers worry; caregivers take action and solve problems.
• Caretakers think they know what’s best for others; caregivers only know what’s best for their selves.
• Caretakers don’t trust others’ abilities to care for their selves, caregivers trust others enough to allow them to activate their own inner wisdom and problem solving capabilities.
• Care-taking creates anxiety and/or depression in the caretaker.  Care-giving decreases anxiety and/or depression in the caregiver.
• Caretakers tend to attract needy people.  Caregivers tend to attract healthy people.  (Hint:  We tend to attract people who are slightly above or below our own level of mental health).
• Caretakers tend to be judgmental; caregivers don’t see the logic in judging others and practice a “live and let live attitude.”
• Caretakers start fixing when a problem arises for someone else; caregivers empathize fully, letting the other person know they are not alone and lovingly asks, “What are you going to do about that.”
• Caretakers start fixing when a problem arises; caregivers respectfully wait to be asked to help.
• Caretakers tend to be dramatic in their care-taking and focus on the problem; caregivers can create dramatic results by focusing on the solutions.
• Caretakers us the word “You” a lot and Caregivers say “I” more.

As with changing any behavior, becoming aware of it is the first step.  Watch yourself next time you are with someone and ask yourself where you fall on the continuum.  It will take some work to change and you may experience some resistance and fear in the process — but what is on the other side is well worth the struggles of transformation.

Remove yourself from being taken care of in kind ways, and learn to accept care-giving instead. (This may be from new intimates or from shifting existing relationships)

Become a Caregiver yourself. Give freely non-attached to outcome. Guide don’t direct, and ask questions to help others discover their inner wisdom instead of assuming they need your profound wisdom.

Traveling from co-dependency to independency and then hopefully to interdependency in our relationships is difficult but not impossible. We all are entangled and connected. We all need to support and love and be supported and loved as we move through challenges and seasons in our lives.

Happy Care-giving;-) !!!!

Procrastination

Most ALL of us use procrastination at some time in our lives, do we not?

It seems to me if a tool is so widely used, there must be something to it. As a personal and corporate coach, procrastination is almost always the first thing my clients want to eliminate from their lives. As you will read, I advise them not to eliminate the very tool that is there to help them navigate the rough spots in life and business.

I prefer to think of procrastination in the same category as a detour in the road. The purpose of a detour is to give us a warning, help us avoid something un-navigable, or dangerous and provides a safer route. Detours usually take a little longer, they circumvent the problem, but in the end we arrive at our destination unscathed.

In most cases you will discover that properly employed procrastination, like a detour, will give you an alternate route to the solution of the problem at hand.

Talane Meidaner, in her book, Coach Yourself to Success poses this question: “What if procrastination was a good thing, and we stopped beating ourselves up about it and learned why we do it?” She describes several circumstances in which people find themselves procrastinating and offers solutions to the problem.

The Put Off: We Put off something we do not like doing. Sometimes if we procrastinate long enough it causes another person to do it for us, sometimes it becomes too late to do it and we end up not having to do it at all. What if instead, we looked at what it was we were putting off, determined it was something distasteful to us and immediately found a way to delegate it to another person? There may even be times when it makes sense to decline to do the task. In this instance it would be important to inform any people that may be depending upon us for the result or task, but in the end they are better served if we decide and inform them as soon as we know so they can get the job completed by someone that will probably do a more complete job anyway. And our reward is: the uncomfortable or distasteful task is off our plate and the energy drain caused by its presence is eliminated.

The Fear Factor: Sometimes we find ourselves procrastinating because we are frightened. We may believe we are not capable of completing the task. We may believe we do not have the knowledge or expertise to complete the project. We may believe we do not have anything of value to contribute. We may be frightened of rejection. The project may feel too big to us and we allow ourselves to become overwhelmed with its scope and not able to move ahead with the process. Fear is a real emotion and one to be heeded. But the possibility exists, to examine the fears and discover the energy behind them.

• If lack of knowledge or expertise is the fear, we can find ways to gather the knowledge we need or find experts in the particular field to support our work. We may need to request more time for research, but we can move ahead and complete the project.
• If the fear is that of not adding value, or being rejected: we can review our strengths, research, brainstorm and discover a method of adding value that may also eliminate the potential for rejection.
Once we can name the fear, we can often find a solution to its source and eliminate it.
There are many reasons why we procrastinate. The above examples are just a few. Think about times when you get stuck or are overwhelmed and procrastinating. What are some of your reasons?
In most cases you will discover that properly employed procrastination, like a detour, will give you an alternate route to the solution of the problem at hand. You can shorten the detour or speed up the process if you treat your procrastination as a tool that can help you through life rather than beating yourself up and wasting time in self-chastisement.
You can learn to use the five steps to using procrastination as a tool for life.
• First: Recognize when you are in procrastination mode. Speak out loud and call it by name!
• Second: Congratulate yourself for using so valuable a life tool!
• Third: Take the time to stop, think and look at why you are procrastinating.
• Fourth: take each why and discover solutions to those issues. Once you discover the why, and there may be multiple whys, it is much easier to break the problem into smaller parts and approach each issue.
• Fifth: Create a strategy and timetable to carry it out.
Coach’s challenge to you this week is to begin to look at procrastination in this more positive light. You will discover that it immediately becomes a friend, not a foe and the energy around it relaxes. Go a step further and begin to employ the five steps to using procrastination as a tool for life.

Love & Light
Coach Kevin

http://www.visionlogic.com

Priorities

Do you ever think about getting organized so you have more time for the things in your life that are important?

Often people ask me if coaching can help them organize their life in a manner that will take care of that issue for them. My first question is always, “What are you really asking? If you are asking if I can help you have 25 hours in a 24-hour day, the answer is a resounding, NO! If you are asking for support and coaching to help you set your true priorities and learn to live them, yes, coaching can help.”

It is not always that we are unorganized or inefficient in the use of our time. Many times the true issue is that we have allowed the outside world to dictate our personal priorities. If that is happening to you, you probably have some of the following symptoms: A feeling that you are gerbil running in a wheel. A fear that if you stop running you will be run over and that to step off the wheel is not possible. You never have enough time or energy for your family or the things that are enjoyable and fun. No matter how hard you work it will never all be done.

These symptoms can be a reflection of inefficient use of your time or lack of organization or it can also be your having given away your power to decide for yourself what will be most important in your life.
Whatever the cause, or combination, the starting point is getting control and clear on your priorities. So much of our lives may seem dictated and out of our control. You can take back control. The first step is to take a close look at what is absolutely necessary and non-negotiable. Survival items like food, shelter and clothing generally come first. After we have met those criteria we are truly at choice. This is where priority setting comes in. We each have the opportunity to decide for ourselves what is truly important. What is it for you? Is it success at work? A job you are passionate about? Time allocated for entertainment. A healthy lifestyle. Time enjoyed with the family and friends. For many people it is a fine balance of all of those items.

Organization and time management can insure we get the best use of our time and that little or none is wasted. If a person is well organized they generally have what looks like a lot more time because they accomplish so much in a day. Organization and time management are necessities for those of us who insist on a full life with many facets. Often times just getting organized can give us back precious hours we can then choose to spend on other priorities.

Once we are organized, and have taken back the lost hours, we are still faced with the reality of 24 hours in a day, no more. Then what? This is where priorities become important. We get to decide what is most important and use our time accordingly. This can often be a struggle, because we want to, feel like we should or feel like we have to “do it all”, that we can’t say “No”. The strange realization for many of us is that regardless of what we do or don’t, the world will probably go on and the “in” box will always be full. One less business proposal out may mean a potential loss of financial gain, but the lifelong connection created with your son or daughter because you were there when they hit that first home run is immeasurable.

I know I struggle with this. It’s caused many times for me by not realizing that true meaning in life comes from the simple moments with loved ones not from the proverbial “success” I am searching for at work, or the feeling of accomplishment sought after when trying to make a difference in the world. Usually what I am searching for is already within myself when I stop and appreciate what I am already blessed with.

Coaching Challenge: Review your priorities. Decide what the top 5 are in your life. Then take your 168 hours of your week and determine how many hours you will spend towards each priority. Don’t forget sleep! and personal grooming and eating. Usually you are left with about 100 hours after accounting for those. Then see how your week goes allocating the remaining 100 hours to these top 5 priorities. If the balance is too far to one side or the other, look at possibilities to tip the balance back. Make changes and try again until it feels right.

Just learn when to say no to things that do not fit your priorities.

Good Luck!

Namaste
Kevin

http://www.visionlogic.net