The idea of a heart based approach™ to care is an awakening, a revival of sorts. It’s not about adding something new,it’s about reconnecting to the one core truth in care and the impact it can have on life satisfaction,life trajectories, and opportunities for connection. Something has stopped us from leading with our hearts, from connecting to the heart of another and moving into compassionate action. A heart-based approach™ to care can and does more for you and those you care for than you have been led to believe.
It’s time to revive your heart.
Wellbeing is not a quick and easy fix. There are many tools and practices that nourish wellbeing, and each looks and feels different depending on the individual and the context. The specifics that work for you differ from what works for your loved ones, family members or friends, but the destination is the same – an experience of ALIVENESS. Heart-based care nourishes wellbeing for you and those you care for to feel a sense of ALIVENESS. ALIVENESS is different from just being alive. Being alive means your physical heart keeps beating no matter your quality of life. A sense of existing without meaning, emotion or purpose. Tony Robbins, researcher, speaker and coach says, “life doesn’t happento you,it happensfor you.” This is one of the core beliefs of someone experiencing ALIVENESS. People who experience ALIVENESS have a healthy heart that has been nourished to support a thriving life. They tend to take more risk, live with passion and remain in purpose. They engage in and direct their emotions to show up the best they know how, as often as possible, no matter their circumstances or condition.
I once met a woman who lived in a long term care centre. Overtime, due to her chronic health issues and lifestyle she become obese and unable to walk or move her body in ways that you and I would take for granted. She couldn’t even raise her arm with her own strength. Due to safety concerns, the continuing care physiotherapy team was unable to work with her on her most important goal: to walk. Despite the safety issues that stood in her way, she was cognitive and savvy enough to hire her own help. Her reason to walk was so deep and intense that she hired her own therapist. This wasn’t easy for her. She had to move past her pride to ask her family for money to pay for the therapist and she also had to find the courage to move past her disappointment from hearing it wasn’t possible for so many years. She arrived at a moment in her life where she decided that she was no longer going to let life happen to her, but that she needed to do something to change it and she believed that she could. Her pain was too great, and she made a decision. She began making different eating choices and as she worked with her therapist a few months later, she was able to lift her arm up over her shoulder and she had hope for the future. The more body parts she could move, the closer she would get to walking again!
When she told me her story, I was in tears. I was so happy for her and for her progress. I was proud that she took a bold stance, that she asked her family for the funds to make it happen, that she took action even though she probably still had some doubt. At the same time, I was disheartened and disappointed in the system. Why did she have to go to such lengths? Why was this an exception and not the norm? This is only one story. I have heard many more, and these kinds of stories have made my heart cry for years. I have seen many people’s goals of care prevented because of a system that has the potential but struggles to effectively to use it’scapital and resources. Our continuing care system was created and designed to move elderly or physically disabled people out of hospital beds when they were not independent enough to return home. It certainly was not created from an intense desire to improve their quality of life or help them experience ALIVENESS.
That was then. This is now. The future of care is human.
We are responsible to those in need of care, not for them. You probably know someone or love someone like Judy. Is her story familiar? When we are responsible for someone, we do things for them as opposed to with them, we direct them and inform their steps before we give them choice. Being responsible to someone means we follow their lead; we trust them as their own life expert whenever possible. In his book Being Mortal, Antul Gawande, a physician for the elderly, writes “How you want to live your life is your choice. Our role is to make it possible.” Being responsible to people means we partner with them to build their capacity to make their goals happen. If this resonates with you then this is your moment. You have a seed inside you that was planted (maybe years ago or recently), it doesn’t really matter when, what matters most is that you recognize this moment is a moment torise up and make a difference in how you give or receive care. It’s time to cultivate something that didn’t exist before.
In 1927, production genius, William S. Knudsen and industrial architect, Albert Kahn,worked with Henry Ford of Ford Motor Company to adapt thethen current processing plant to build a new car. He was told he needed everything new. A new building, new system, new assembly line. Henry Ford, took his advice (after all, he hired him for it). He stopped the production of the model T. In order to do so, he closed all his factories around the world for six months! Can you imagine what that would have done to his bottom line and ROI!? He knew he needed to create anew and build the model A and he was willing to take a risk in order to do so. By 1931, Ford sold over five million Model As through the difficulties of the Great Depression. He did not try to adjust the current system, he built anew. We are building a new system, not changing the old one. For people like Judy, the old one doesn’t work and can never work. We are building anew, for people like Judy, for people like you.
Now we know more. Because we know more we have a responsibility to ourselves and our communities to offer choice and birth new possibilities. We have a responsibility to our hearts, that are the emotional centre of our lives, to inform our direction in care.
At the Positivity Centre we have been working for a decade to ensure that wellbeing is nourished and that an experience of ALIVENESSis the norm and not the exception. Tools for Caringsupport caregivers and health care teams in connecting with those in need of care and receiving support in an authentic, joy filled and holistic manner. Tools for Caring further explores concepts in Positive Psychology and Emotional Intelligence and how they apply to care using Emotional Nourishment, Strengths, Connection and Meaning. These concepts and educational topics are our “how to’s” that guide one’s heart to become skilled at a heart based approach™ and add fuel to the experience of ALIVENESS.
