Graceland Assisted Living Garden Ridge Texas.

Angela Lunde of Mayo Clinic writes a review/recommendation of Olivia Ames’s “Ten Thousand Joys and Ten Thousand Sorrows”. Ames writes about taking care of her husband, and the difficulties and joys surrounding it. Lunde references this author as she efficiently illustrates the importance of interpersonal emotional acceptance in the role of a caregiver’s life.

"The strain of helping Hob, (my husband), with his disease kept stretching me to the breaking point. My frustration and anger concealed the grief that lay at deeper levels ... The ravages of this illness spark powerful feelings in everyone ... We need to experience our humanness, including all the so-called dark emotions like anger and fear, because they are natural given the situation. It's natural to think you're losing it at times."

Read the article at the Mayo Clinic website.

Lunde emphasizes the importance of the acceptance of our more negative emotions. It seems that the harder feelings to accept are often the most important. A lot of times we feel bad when our actions and emotions don’t sync up. Or, when our wants and needs appear to be mismatched. Acceptance is the first step towards fixing a problem, and in preventing a problem from escalating.

J Green
Trilogy Senior Living
Sodalis Elder Living Communities