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Post by Lunaria on Jul 2, 2004 12:35:21 GMT -5
Nibiruan Council Mailing List
Website Update - June 25, 2004
New Article - Facing the Pain of Caretaking
by Laura Adams, GCA
If you are like me, you were taught from the time you were little that giving was better that receiving. Our society promoted the concept; our religions sanctified it. But here we are today, suffering the pain of that belief as we find ourselves and the end of our rope, emotionally spent and worn out. We live in a time that speaks of another way, the way of compassion. It requires that we let go of this imbalanced belief and embrace our right to be as much for ourselves as we are for others. In this article, Laura shares her own experience in learnign this lesson, a lesson that once learned heals the body and enables one to find the balance...a vital part of ascension.
Article Link: www.nibiruancouncil.com/html/painofcartaking_article.html
To learn more about Laura: www.nibiruancouncil.com/html/laura_adams.html
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Post by ADMIN on Jul 20, 2004 10:40:21 GMT -5
I just read the article on cartaking. I know everyone thinks cartaking is a negative trait as it's getting approval from others according to her, but I don't agree. What about the law of retrobution? What goes around, comes around? I have given and taken care of many people in need and I have not regretted it, on the contrary all those care taking moments have come back to me ten fold and from strangers who have appeared out of the blue! Honestly, I have even saved life's, and those people have forever given me thanks for being a caring person for if it wasn't for me they would not be here. Don't the higher being care for us, though they allow us to act out our free will? How about when our children are lost in the sea of corruption and drugs? Do we just stand back and not butt in because it would be care taking? I guess I may be confused, but you know what? I am a care taker and will always be, even if I lost my arms, I would still give love, compassion, advice, help, etc...as we are being full of unlimited gifts to share and give one another. The only thing I follow is "ask and thou shall recieve" and sometimes they don't have to say it, you can feel it in their eyes, their hearts are aching, etc...on a final note; not everyone has a their blue print to give to humanity, very few do as mostly everyone here is to take or better yet most want to recieve and not give. One day at work they were collecting money for a co-worker who was in need of money to pay her mortgae which she was behind on for three months. I was shocked when I heard a co-worker say that why did she have to give money when that person had never done anything for her. She is one of the many who only give when given! I guess the same should be applied to her in her need?  Caretaking is not controlling other people's pain like the article says, it's feeling the compassion for the other and maybe, maybe you are led to give light to that person to find a solution to her problem, it's not that one is to resolve it, that's their responsibility, it's to enlighten their hearts and minds.... my 2 cents worth! ;D |
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Post by Sowelu on Jul 20, 2004 11:01:14 GMT -5
Hey MirRA! (((Hugs!))) I appreciate the entire spectrum of this topic. In my sense of things, "care-taking" as a negative concept is a term used to describe the "giving to another to get for self"... whether it be the satisfaction of feeling superior, feeling needed, or to control. It's the giving that serves the giver without true consideration or awareness of the receiver. In my opinion, of course. And there are few who truly understand their motivations for giving to another, so that they think they're giving because it's "the right thing to do", when it's often a way to make themselves feel better about themselves or the situation in some way. This would fall into the category of negative care-taking. Care givers is another category altogether, imo, and it is action taken from the heart with no need or expectation of return, but the simple act of caring because it serves the greater good. True care givers often understand that the other person is "another one of myself", part of the All, etc. Once the "self" lessons are well understood, care-giving is an option. Before one has cleared their neediness and wounds, giving to another is often taking - even if that's not understood. For most of us, we will "care-take" (neg) first and eventually feel the disillusionment and sense of betrayal that it isn't valued. This begins the lessons on what true giving is all about. Eventually we come to a place where we can finally give to our heart's content without issue, because we have learned the lessons around "proper use of energy". Many lightworkers and spiritual people have an innate desire to give because it is inherent in their Spirit or Essential Self energies. It is the fabric they're made of. The only trouble is that when they come here and take on the veil, they also take on the denser energies of "issues", so that their giving becomes distorted. Again, through the letting go learned from various lessons, these same people eventually are able to truly give, thereby satisfying their innate desire to love and serve the All. Again, my opinion.  Love you! (((Hugs))) Sowelu |
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Post by ADMIN on Jul 20, 2004 11:15:02 GMT -5
[glow=red,6,300]THANK YOU, SOWELU![/glow]
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Post by Lunaria on Jul 20, 2004 11:15:15 GMT -5
My definition of care-taking is giving help or advice without being asked.
Some ppl want to do it themselves . Some ppl don't want advice.
So if they didn't ask, imo, this is care-taking.
;D
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Post by seaoffeeling on Jul 20, 2004 15:52:30 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]I have experienced both the negative and positive sides of caregiving(taking). I find that paying attention to myself in the process lets me know if it's negative or positive. Am I doing it to relieve guilt, fear of losing the other person, fear of being a bad person if I don't caretake, taking responsibility for another's fate, or needing to control the destiny of another because I think I know what's best for them? Do I feel resentful for my work and distrustful of the other person's ability to take care of themselves? Is it a reciprocal give-take relationship, do I take in as much as I give? Or do I feel exuberantly happy and joyful as a result of giving, and not require anything else in return? Ultimately my belief is that caregiving should not be draining. And one lesson I am still struggling to learn is that sometimes the best way to care for another is to let them learn to care for themselves. Just my two cents  Love to all, -SeaofFeeling[/glow] |
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Post by Sowelu on Jul 20, 2004 16:15:39 GMT -5
Beautifully said, SeaofFeeling! ((((Hugs!)))) Bless you! It came to me a while back that when I gave in a manner that actually robbed another of their opportunity for learning and growth, I was actually playing a role of victimizing them. Assisting in reinforcing a false belief in their own victimhood, powerlessness, etc. I appreciate playing a dark role as much as another, but this is what I call an "unconscious dark role player". It was important to me to clear up my need to "help" in a way that disempowered another, because I was unconsciously creating a relationship dynamic that would need additional healing! A "conscious dark role player" is more like what you mentioned, stepping back and caring... enough to have faith in the other to find their way. Refusing to be manipulated into "doing for them" what they are capable of doing themselves, too. In fact, that reminds me of the concept of "worry", too. Anytime someone mentions that they are "worried" about someone or a situation in the world, I realize that all that energy is likely more beneficially spent having faith and trusting that all will work out beautifully. If the whole world struck the concept of "worrying" from their energy investments in life, and replaced it with trust... wow, what an impact that would make!  ;D Much love, Sowelu |
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Post by seaoffeeling on Jul 20, 2004 16:32:44 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]Oh, Sowelu! This is exactly what I have been doing with my ex.  I think this is part of that "decay" that is characterizing my relationship with him, as you described in your interpretation of my dream of him. This feels very heavy for me now... I am very fortunate that you have a way of articulating so precisely something that is truth in me, but I can't quite express to myself. It feels like you draw out something from deep within me that needs to be looked at squarely in order for me to understand myself and progress. Maybe I do play a dark role for him... This is rather devastating, but necessary for me to know. -SeaofFeeling [/glow] |
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Post by Sowelu on Jul 20, 2004 16:51:15 GMT -5
Wow... I had no thoughts of you and your situation when I wrote the above, SeaofFeeling. I'm amazed at this type of flow. Unbeknownst to me it would strike a chord for you.
Interesting, too, because as I walked away from the computer I suddenly had a "heavy" sense, and wondered if it was somehow related to what I just wrote! But as I went over it in my mind, I couldn't fathom how or why that would be. (There go those empathic senses, eh?)
Just amazing...
Love you! (((Hugs!)))
Sowleu
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Post by whitequeen on Jul 20, 2004 23:03:15 GMT -5
[[[Hiya guys and gals! ]]] Well ain't it appropriate that this topic came up because in my absence these last days it's very relevant for me too. I differentiate between 'caretaking' and 'taking care of'. Lately I discovered a very terrible thing about myself that has stunned me and knocked the begeezus out of me. I realized that I have been in a bad mood all my life, as I mentioned in another post. But I also realized something even deeper and more compelling. That I have become so embittered that I can barely see straight. And my embitterment is as a result of being treated in a manner that equates to 'care taking'. It's been insidious and done in the name of love but it has been the great disguised lie of my life. I realized this week that I have become truly embittered because I feel and have felt betrayed by so many people over this and other life times. The interesting thing about it is that it has affected the way I care for others. It's just like any other abuse. I was treated in a manner of codependency and caretaking, never allowed to grow up and be my own person and never trusted or set free to fly and make my own discoveries. In the end I was forced due to my own nature to break loose and lumber away growling and seeking my own true identity. As a result so many of my relationships with friends, family and clients crumbled into the pit of caretaking and mistrust as well. It's amazing to me that I hear all the 'lightworkers' talk of love this and love that and lightness and I don't feel it. But I realize that the way I love is different too. When I look at the entire concept of taking care of another with love it has nothing to do with 'enabling' that person to continue to act out his or her 'dis-ease'. To take care of another is compassion. Is to teach a man to fish rather than to catch fish for him all his life. It is to stand back and allow someone I love to make their own mistakes and to trust they will find their way and to be there to offer a shoulder or an arm if they ask. To take care of another is to know that person has the innate ability to search within herself for the answers that are only available to them at that specific time that ring of the truth and that resides in them...for them. It has nothing to do with putting my beliefs on them; my ideas of right or wrong; my ideas of love or hate, light or dark roles, etc. I has to do with stepping back and recognizing my own role. To take care of someone is to love ourselves enough to stand back and say "no". To create our own boundaries and respect them by not allowing another to violate us. In doing this the bitterness and cynicism that arise slowly disolve. It allows me to parent the little girl within who was not allowed to peek out and fly, to slowly stand from crawling and grow. Caretaking not only cripples the one who is at the receving end of being ripped off for their feelings, but it handicaps us the ones doing the false caring. To know thyself is to care for thyself and in doing so we are then enable to care for another with real depth of feeling and love. Just my opinon. Take it or leave it as you will. WQ |
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Post by ADMIN on Jul 21, 2004 12:50:48 GMT -5
Guys,
I found this site which has the caretaking symptoms!!!! LOL!
Caretaking, a hidden addiction in Bodywork (Part II)
After certain sessions practitioners worry: “Perhaps I should have kept working. Did I use enough pressure or too much? Should I have focused just on the area of pain? Should I have said what I really thought was going on? Maybe I should call the client to see how he/she is doing. Maybe I should refer him/her on. Should I have charged her less since she was so upset? Was she upset at me?”
Ours is a caregiving profession and as such we struggle with a dilemma all caregivers must deal with: how to balance the quantity and quality of care with the client’s ability to care for herself. How do we know when we’ve given enough? When are we taking on too much of the client’s burden? I believe that the issue of unconscious and unnecessary caretaking is central to how our profession defines itself. It is a complicated issue because taking care of others, easing their suffering, is a natural and commendable human trait. The issue is also an ethical issue because taking on the burden of care for another is fraught with the possibilities of control and manipulation in both directions.
In the first article in this series I outlined what I consider to be the origins in our backgrounds of unnecessary caretaking as it shows up in our practices. I argued that the primary reason for burnout and lack of success in our profession is that many of us who are drawn to bodywork have pasts that predispose us to taking over the care of others whether appropriate or not. I offered working definitions of caretaking and caregiving as they apply to our work with clients.
What is Caretaking? Caretaking is: taking over treatment or care of a person who cannot provide (take over) care of himself. In bodywork, caretaking can be temporarily very helpful for the client in distress. Practitioners at times may assume a caretaking role when clients are experiencing physical, mental, or emotionally instability and do not feel up to making their own choices. As caretaker the practitioner takes on the responsibility for the choices, goals, and outcome of treatment. Caretaking is inappropriate when it derives from the practitioner’s need to be needed when it fosters client dependency.
What is Caregiving? Caregiving is: giving care, aid, help, assistance, treatment, and/or attention to a client. There is no obligation on the part of the caregiver to produce certain results. Our chief obligation is to be as present to our clients and the therapeutic process as possible. The receiver of care remains fully responsible for his/her own care process, including the choice of practitioner and goals of care.
Because of their early conditioning, caretakers are usually unaware of the unhealthy signs and symptoms of unhealthy caretaking that show up in their practices. The purpose of this second article is to point out some of the indicators that may otherwise be overlooked by practitioners.
Here is a list of the warning signs or symptoms of unwarranted caretaking as it shows up in our lives and our practices.
·Fear of Taking on the client’s symptoms: Practitioners who have a strong fear of taking on their clients’ symptoms while feeling a strong need to take care of their clients’ problems, may over-identify and feel the client’s pain viscerally.
·Sublimating or suppressing our own symptoms: The practitioner’s own body symptoms and emotional crises disappear while working with clients but return later. We become focused upon the client’s issues in lieu of our own. If our issues start to show up while we’re working we may dissociate from them.
Example 1
After practicing full time for twenty years Judy moved to a new state. She can maintain only a very small practice. The body symptoms she suppressed while working so hard to help her clients have become so pronounced that she hurts for hours after each session. Much of her musculature and joints ache and burn. Sad that she may have to stop working altogether, she cries openly and bitterly.
·Physical symptoms of caretaking: We feel symptoms accumulating in our own bodies from overwork: anterior rotation of shoulders, rhomboid spasms, carpal tunnel syndrome, varicosities, and tight quadratus lumborum. All professions have their negative consequences on the body. It is ironic that the practitioner takes on many of the health problems she has been relieving in others.
Example 2
As a tutor and teacher for bodyworkers I have observed many practitioners giving sessions. Painful physical symptoms from treating clients arise in large part due to poor body mechanics and to working too hard to “fix” the clients’ problems. The practitioner will often “get into” the client’s pain and holding patterns by bending over, assuming a bent posture of carrying the client’s load: shoulders anteriorly rotated, the weight of the upper torso, head, and arms borne in the mid-thoracic region. Pauses and breaks are neglected during and between sessions especially when there is a run of “needy” clients.
·Self-sacrifice versus self-care: Compulsive caretakers have great difficulty with their own self-care and maintenance. They are poor at maintaining good physical and emotional health. Accustomed to putting off their own care, and feeling ashamed and guilty about their own bodily symptoms, they rarely seek the consolation or support of others.
Example 3
Alan, a practitioner who graduated from massage school four years ago, has a thriving practice. He never slows down; his phone rings continuously with new clients. He is pleased to have such a thriving practice, such a busy life. He does not turn down appointments; “I can squeeze you in” is his response. He has not received a session from another practitioner in months. “I don’t have time. My days are taken up with clients and the needs of my family.” He has not taken a vacation in over a year. “We just can’t afford it... training workshops are my only time off.” He is in continuous pain in his mid-thoracic region and his traps are rock hard. His wrists bother him a lot. The muscles of his hands and forearms never relax He leaves home at 8am and often doesn’t get home until 10pm. He is afraid to slow down, ripe for burnout.
continue....
[ftp]http://www.jackblackburn.homestead.com/articlesbyjack.html[/ftp]
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Post by ADMIN on Jul 21, 2004 12:51:27 GMT -5
Client dependency: Practitioners feel safe and validated when they have a large number of clients who keep rebooking. However when clients indicate that they cannot get by without our regular treatments, the picture may not seem so healthy. We may unconsciously promote client dependency by our need to fix. With dependency comes a burdensome feeling of enmeshment with the client.
·A fear of intimacy in the practitioner: Often we focus on symptoms as a substitute for being fully present to our clients. “I am afraid to get too close to the clients for fear that I will lose myself.” The caretaker fears her boundaries will be compromised so she works mechanically to avoid intimacy.
·Difficulty staying present and focused: Dissociation (spacing out) during the session. If we find ourselves feeling fearful, going numb, leaving our bodies, having conflicting thoughts, being disoriented during sessions rather than staying present, it could be a sign that the bodywork is disabling to our psyche. We honestly do not want to be providing care for others, especially those who trigger fear or other discomforts inside of us. It is hard to admit that we have negative even scary feelings about our work. At the same time a compelling voice inside keeps saying that we cannot do anything else.
Example 4
Marilyn, a practitioner, who suffered sexual abuse as a child, has struggled to maintain her practice over the years. Her body feels weak. She is often tired and depressed. “When I work I find myself zoning out, becoming spacey.” She is very passive in her approach to life and in her practice. In the beginning she saw lots of male clients. She found it difficult to deal with males who sexualized the touch she was giving them. Now she works only with women. “I’m not really sure if I’m doing anything for my clients. I don’t have any other way to make a living. I can’t afford psychotherapy.”
·Substituting control for flexibility: In a caretaking regimen the practitioner as technician applies various methods and protocols in order to gain control over the symptoms and change them. Each session is based mechanically on the achievements of previous sessions. The caretaking practitioner has to have an answer, be in charge, know what is happening and ultimately take responsibility for the outcome of the session.
·Difficulty with financial arrangements: Caretaking can be reflected in our lower-than-average fee structure, in our willingness to work clients beyond the arranged time without charging additional fees, in our neglect of collections for second party compensation, by our difficulty selling our services, and in our difficulty with raising our rates. It is often easier to subsidize our clients than to deal with feelings of self doubt that come up around money issues.
Example 5
Ask yourself whether you have had difficulties in these areas. Remember the inner torment you felt when you knew it was time to raise your rates, when you had to speak to a claims adjuster about the delay of your reimbursement, when you decided not to charge your client for extra time because she was still in pain at the end of the session.
·Poor professional boundaries: We maintain professional boundaries in order to sustain a healing context that is safe, dependable, and nurturing for our clients and ourselves. The following situations are signs of inadequate professional boundaries: over-identifying with the client, over-sensitivity to the client, playing dual roles or a seductive role and/or sexualizing the relationship.
·Carrying the burden of the session: The inability to let go of a client or the results of the session when it is over. The practitioner continues to ruminate about what did and did not happen in the session. These are the kinds of thoughts that get triggered especially when we think that we must produce certain results for the client or we have failed.
·I am my role: Another related symptom is over-identification with our role as healer/practitioner/therapist. We feel insecure and so we inflate the importance of our professional roles to prove that we have value to others. Caretaking is a natural outgrowth of this need for self-importance.
·Lack of referrals, fear of competition: Feeling competitive and suspicious of colleagues, the caretaking practitioner rarely refers clients to other therapists. “They will steal my client or discourage her from therapy.” Feeling inferior because “newer practitioners have more energy and better training,” older caretakers resist helping new practitioners get established because they see clients as a scarce commodity.
·Professional isolation and stagnation: Most bodywork practitioners are sole proprietors and thus have to go out of their way to confer with peers. As caretakers we already feel overwhelmed by the burdens of our work, thus we maintain few if any peer/professional relationships. Professional training and continuing education requirements seem like a never-ending challenge to keep up with others. Caretakers wind up feeling sad, lonely, depressed and isolated.
·Envying the client: The compulsive caretaker may feel jealous of clients for the time, money, and opportunities they are able to create for receiving bodywork. As a sole proprietor the compulsive caretaker will often forestall her own nurturing, claiming scarce resources and time.
·Addictive habits and caretaking: Caretakers maintain an illusion: they get their needs for love, security, and nurturance met by the rewards of helping others. “Goodness is its own reward.” The truth is that most experience chronic loneliness, depression, and sadness which they sooth with addictive substances and habits such as overeating and workaholic behavior.
·Difficulty receiving from others: Caretakers are actually afraid at a very deep level to receive care from others. This is a very difficult symptom to admit to oneself or others. It is very difficult for caretakers to relax and receive without analyzing, judging, or controlling the experience. Placing ourselves in the care of others, letting go of control, becoming childlike, trusting to something deeper than our own minds, letting go into the unknown; this is at the core of our fears.
·Becoming the authority figure: We are tempted to play the role of “expert” or “authority.” Clients want to entrust their own authority and responsibility to the practitioner. The more authority and responsibility we accept, the more of a burden we carry: we are rewarded for giving sound advice and removing symptoms; we are blamed for unsound advice or when symptoms remain.
·Messiah, rescuer complex: Caretakers often unconsciously tout themselves as the practitioner of “last resort,” the one who has all the answers. This tendency reveals the practitioner’s need to be right, to be in control, and to take over others’ care as a way to guarantee their own livelihood and safety.
Example 6
Brenda, a ten-year practitioner with quite a successful practice, starts every conversation with her clients and friends with, “How are you doing?” followed by a solicitous query about, “Are you taking care of yourself?” Her tone of voice implies that she is very concerned that people’s symptoms could get much worse without a session from her. She has difficulty keeping her professional identity within boundaries. This is partly because everyone is a potential client. She sees herself as a caretaker in all relationships. She sighs a lot as she worries about her clients. Her own body is regularly wracked with pain. She has great difficulty relaxing and trusting other practitioners’ work and rarely receives bodywork.
·The ageing helper: The pattern of taking care of others while not receiving care from colleagues and protégées becomes even more entrenched with older caretakers. I have seen this in quite a number of elder health care providers. All bodies age and become symptomatic. The aging process is humbling to all of us, and ironically, professional pride as health professionals can make it difficult to own our own symptoms. We operate under the paradigm that symptoms are the enemy, that symptoms are evidence that our clients have done something wrong or that something wrong has been done to them. We then lose face as we become symptomatic. We must have done something wrong.
Summary
In large part the above caretaking symptoms are due to our commitment to bear the burden for removing, and sometimes taking on the unwanted symptoms of our clients. We accept a healing paradigm that describes the symptoms of the client as pathology that must be excised - by the practitioner if possible. Rather than viewing body symptoms as part of the client’s path to self-understanding, we buy into the culture’s tendency to blame the body and eradicate the symptoms. By accepting this formula we learn to overlook our own body stories even though we feel the consequences physically and emotionally.
But what if we were to focus our attention and that of the client on the symptoms as pathways to a deeper reality? What if both practitioner and client were to follow those symptoms as they evolve in response to our attention? What if we were to view each session, each client, and each body part as an opportunity to explore the unknown territory of true healing?
These observations about caretaking derive from frank conversations with colleagues and years of practice. I speak about this subject not as an expert but as one who has learned by difficult experience about the pitfalls of caretaking. The next articles in this series will deal with, the addictive nature of caretaking, and solutions to the dilemma of giving compassionate but appropriate care.
© Jack Blackburn, 2001
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;D
I think this is part of that "decay" that is characterizing my relationship with him, as you described in your interpretation of my dream of him. This feels very heavy for me now...