Improving Your Perspective During COVID, with Daphne Davis

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio, and welcome back to everyone to answer this for elders radio. And we are here. I can’t believe, Dappne, how fast this hour has gone with you. I always love our hours together because, you know, it’s it’s always a perfect conversation and I always feel good when we’re done talking because you really shed such an amazing perspective on everything, and perspective is really what we talked about. And, you know, shifting one thinking, and I would really like to start out this last segment of how do we come together, but I think first we really need to talk about the the mind shift. Is that corrupt? Yeah, I think that we do have to do this one, speaking totally from personal experience, this is a big struggle for me and Sunday not be speaking to all of our our listeners today, but I believe that there’s, you know, a faction that’s struggling with how how we live in this time of so many restrictions that have been in posed upon us by nothing, anyone has done, but by natural occurrent and I mean that that there’s something that’s attacking our health and right whether we get into the politics of it or not, it doesn’t matter. The the bottom line is there is a threat to our health. And how are we going to live with that? Am I going to do that kicking and screaming and fighting and, you know, tooth and nail all the way down? And I going to just, you know, on the other extreme, just be compliant and, you know, follow the rules and go at the flow and not question anything. Those two extremes neither one right or wrong. But I would like to suggest finding something in the middle, something that you can, Wherever you personally are aligned in your own thoughts, in your own heart, find the middle ground that you don’t feel like you are completely compromising yourself in any way, but also see the bigger picture, the bigger picture of US living in a society of people who, traditionally, we, for the most part, three hundred million people, get along pretty decently. Right now we have real struggle, having a very big struggle, and it’s not the first time in our country’s history, but we’re living it again today, and that’s called our humanity, and and our humanity the never leave us. Where are? It’s not going to go away. We are who we are as people. But how we lose through these changes? I personally believe we have a voice in that we have choice, we have, I agree, may I say, some personal responsibility to how we choose to react to things. And so I have challenge to myself personally, and I’m so thankful for this platform to be able to share this, because it’s it really is affecting our elders and our family structure now in the world that I work in, but that is to try and live, and I’m going to use this term with above the line, that we’re going to, you know, really check ourselves and not get in the mud, you know, not get into the ugliness, the negativity of what can be happening right now, and I personally believe that, as each one of us choose to do that, our small microcosm of our world will change right hand affect change in the positive direction. Now let me give you some specifics. One of the biggest ones is, and this is not just in large communities, but an adult family homes. You can let my person, go, my loved and go out for a doctor’s appointment. They can be gone for two hours, but I can’t see my loved one for their birthday, you cannot make arrangements for me to sit in, you know, a private dining room or something, that we can’t have a birthday party for my ninety five year old grandma and don’t get it. And so there tends to be some disconnect. You know, it’s and right. This is where we have to look at the bigger picture all the time. I encourage everyone to listen to whatever the person is telling you and to try and come to a place of compromise. Now I will tell you all of our listeners, this is not a news flash. The smaller the organization, than more flexible it can be. The larger the institution, the more rules there have to be to keep order. That’s just kind of a common sense thing. So when you’re looking at care and if you’re having to make a change and you’re trying to keep a picture of that big picture here, please don’t discredit that. Adult family home is an option, even if your loved one doesn’t need help with all of their activities of daily living. It may give you right ability. They may have a back deck that you can go and sit on. It may be a house that has rooms that have direct doors to the back deck and now you’ve got build in face mask six feet apart see your mom or dad. You know every day. That may work in some adult family home, probably not going to work as easily in a large community. There are large communities that are making things like that work. So I it’s not exclusive one way or the other. But again, it’s going to the place of not fighting it, but let’s find a creative way of reaching our highest values as a family and let me pray, take a deep breath and not be reactive but try and be a part of a solution. And in our world right now the solution is how can we get the best care for our loved ones and how can we have them socialized? How can we have them get out of their own thoughts? How can we have them be safe as healthy as possible with a quality life out of not living insider flight? That is a lot to think about everybody, but I think we can do it. Yes, and I and all of these things that you’re saying. It goes into you know this. I remember when I was taking care of my mom and I learned that it was much easier to give her a perceiving amount of choice, perception of choice, rather than just to tell her this is how it’s going to be. And she had a little bit of dementious. She wasn’t but she was. She was like, I would say, ninety percent with it right, but she still had some disconnects. Right, but who would get, you know, she would get upset over the littlest things and and I didn’t even know where they would come from. But I learned over time is the perception of choice and whether it is mom, you know, we I can, I can come do this or we can do this, and so try to figure out ways in which you can communicate with your loved one in the best way you know. And and the other thing it like we talked about in the beginning of the hour, in in a gentle nature, because everybody’s on edge right now, and learn how not to react. It’s like there’s a little book that I always go back to, you know, whatever I’ve had challenges with people or whatever it is, and that is a little book. It’s by written by Don Miguel Rui’s and it’s called the for agreements, and there’s for basic agreements and the first one of the first agreement is is take nothing personally. Take nothing personally, but if somebody says something to you and we’re on as your’s has more to do with their emotional state rather than what they’re saying to you, and there you know. And so this is the thing. I think that learning about that and learning about how to get out of that mode of reactionary I think is really important. I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Jeffy? I agree, and that’s where we have to exert more energy in this whole time of the in perspective of some of our choices being taken away, to try and find that silver lining and not think that you’re being attacked. This isn’t about individually. Someone didn’t make up a rule to make your life miserable. Somebody made up the rule because it was for the good of the all. Now, because of the community of our knowledge about covid nineteen, these rules are going to change, they’re going to evolve as we have more information. But in that evolution, try, try hard to stay open minded. Don’t lose yourself. I mean I I’m the person who has to struggle with not losing myself. I’m the one who wants to challenge range. You know what, what I perceive as my choice is being a taken away and I have to step back and say bigger picture, DAS, me look at the bigger picture. And so I think you’re yeah, thought on there, because when you talk about loved ones and you talk about people who may be in their last days or month of their life and you want quality life for them and somebody say you can’t see them, that’s going to touch every button. We’ve got every emotion, eactly. And so this takes a lot of energy. I mean I do more social working right now than I than I do in placement, I think. But but I’m happy to because this is a time that we as a community come together. This is a time that they mutually support each other, not alienate each other. It’s a try. I say that and I have to have fifteen fingers pointing right back at myself. So I’m not I don’t know the challenge, because it is a huge challenge. And some of that is just being American. Some of that is we’ve been taught, you know, pull yourself up from the booths dry choice. You can, you can conquerate, not now right we’re a part of a collective. is trying to stay healthy and you know, I think that is, I wonder, way to kind of disclose out our hour, to get together and Daphne, you know, I am so glad that you are part of our team because I think you know our this is the kind of stuff that we all need to hear right now. And we don’t know what all this is going to end, you know, we don’t know. We don’t and how much longer, but we have to realize that. I was I was hoping that maybe we get to take a trip to Europe and March, and I don’t think that’s going to happen, just because that, you know, the writings on the wall. It’s probably not. So the whole point is is instead of getting yourself down, it’s finding ways to see the blessing in it and and look for those opportunities to, you know, be gentle, not only with you know what others, but most importantly with yourself. You know, we all are struggling, every single one of us are, and I think one of the things that you bring to us this hour is such an inspirational way to really be able to frame what’s happening, and so I really want to say thank you to you for spending the time with us today, and you’re so welcome. I mean, I know that this is a challenge. I am a very strong Christian myself and I know I rely on my prayer life and knowing that everything is going to be taken care of. And so you, the listeners, wherever you get your strength from, tap into it. Don’t forget your strengths does come from for you individually as a listener, because that’s that’s all we’re get. We’ve got to get through this and to our listeners, Dafney is absolutely here to help you and to help you just talk through this daunting world of senior care. And so, Daffy, how do our listeners reach you? For the one last line? So you can reach me at our website of Pinnacle Senior Placementscom, and there you can listen to past podcast also, and you can reach it at eight, five, five, seven hundred and thirty four, one fifteen hundred. Great. Well, Dat may thank you again for being with us this hour and to each and every one of you. We had answers for elders. Wants you to have a safe summer. Seven, be good to yourself and remember, most of all, be good to each other face again. The preceding podcast was provided by pinnacles senior placements. Ll See and answers for elders radio. To contact pinnacles senior placements, go to Pinnacle Senior Placementscom