Changing Behaviours

Through all the ups and downs of life, have you ever felt you are in a ‘Hopeless Situation’?

Well, it’s true, that however hopeless, there are some situations in life you just have to get on with. You may be the only one to solve the situation, the right person for the job – and this can be very irritating because people do all sorts of things (that you would never do) that can make a job increasingly difficult!

Caring can be one of those situations, and once an irritation has begun, it gnaws away at you; you see nothing else – Grrrrr ☹

Actually, it’s not the caring that’s the problem, it’s the fact you noticed a behaviour of a person in the first place (it could be anyone in your care, but for now I’ll refer to ‘Mother’).

“It’s all very well for you”, you say, “you haven’t met my Mother!”.

When I’m working with someone with an infuriating Mother, the first thing I do is check what emotion comes up for them. And we release the emotion. And then they often end up telling me “my Mother was much better last night!”. ?

For example, if your Mother makes you angry, we explore anger in your life (it’s come from somewhere!). If you are holding even a little bit of anger, you will notice things that make you angry. It’s a resonance thing.

I have it on good authority that if you twang a violin string and there are other violins in the room that are set to the same frequency, the other violins will echo that sound – all by themselves. You’re like a violin. If you’re wound up by your Mother, it will only take a minor twang and you’re as angry as you ever were.

Changing your behaviour

But you can change that and it’s important to. Three good reasons to change are:

It’s strange but there’s a symbiotic relation between the ‘Carer’ and the ‘Cared-for’. We find this in Care Homes. A stressed Carer will find the Cared-for more difficult to deal with and it can make looking after them harder when they won’t eat or don’t want to wash.
So, how do we do it?

Well, safeguarding allowed, it’s a question of accepting that it’s just behaviour and not engaging with it (but you might have to clear some of the emotional stuff in order to get the chill-out place).

But, as Bob the Builder would say “Can we do it? Yes, we can!” ?

If you feel you’d like to find out more about how I can support with helping you release those built up emotions and cope with anger better, get in touch to find out more about my one-day course for carers or contact me to book a call to see how we can work together one to one.

Best wishes

Caroline