Welcome to the first gift in Resiliency Workshop.

No. 1.  Wait Here
Stop struggling. Wait here for the goodness to catch up.

This chapter is about remembering stillness within the stresses of the frontlines.  I say "Remember" because you may know about silence...and its power of respite & clarity.  Human beings, such as myself...and even you, might stumble when a higher, lighter, and easier step was available.

This first gift in the Resiliency Workshop is about beginning again...in this moment, which is where you will find (and have always found...) your power to be and do what must be done.

1.

Intro to Wait Here: micro-videos

This micro-video will explain this chapter and what to do.
 
Resilience is like a shower - daily practice is optimum.
Hello, I'm Rev Em and the author of these books & this Resiliency Workshop.  I will be accompanying you on this journey via  micro-videos such as this one.
Many little videos like it will guide you through these eight steps to resilience. Some steps you will know, I hope, and some may be ones that may need some work. We are all in process as human beings, but whatever stressors you find yourself in these lovely gifts will help you return to center–your center...and that, my friend, makes it a better day.

2.

Listen to the audio of each chapter...

Gift No. 1 - Wait Here
Sometimes all you can do is take off your cape and wait for it to change…

3.

Process:  2 Minutes of Stillness. 

The practice of pausing is courageous in many ways that are surprising. When we gather ourselves to NOW, we grow a little more clarity for our next right move, which is a huge benefit for an investment of a couple of minutes...

Come to a full stop,
   • Still the body and quiet the mind,
   • Get comfortable & breathe...
Scan your body–head to toe,
    •.   Releasing any tension...part by part.
This micro-video will walk you through the process for Wait Here.
Now place your focus on your fingers
  • Move them gently, gently touch the fingers of each hand to the thumb of that hand - what are the sensations? 
  • Next, focus on your feet, feel them on the floor, relax any tension and gently wiggle your toes - what are the sensations? 
Breathe Consciously & Repeat on the inhale: ‘Wait Here’ (or other words that speaks to you)
  • HOLD the stillness within,
  • EXHALE fully (thinking of letting go all that is not yours to do).
  • REPEAT for a total of four. 
  • Get to empty and be with that for a moment...How does this little bit of spaciousness feel?
  • and then, when you are ready, slowly open your eyes.
Journal about this on the PDF pages provided below or in the journal of your choice.

4.

Questions to write about ...because your experience matters.
Write in a journal you already have or make this DIY resiliency journal  to consider your experiences more thoroughly. You probably have everything you need to make it:  a printer, a 3 hole punch and a loose leaf binder... Download the PDF pages at right:
Picture
Click to download PDFs of journal pages for this chapter.
  1. When you "don't know", how do you respond? 
    Do you take action out of your discomfort, freeze with indecision or sit with it and consider options? What tactics, strategies and ways of being do you lean into?
  2. How do you wait? 
    Are you focused on what will happen, hope to happen, wish to happen?  Do you pay attention to what is right now?  Describe an example of both and describe how each one feels. 
  3. What does stillness mean to you?
  4. Would it change your caregiving or your stress levels, if you were to pause and be fully present to what is right now… and in front of you?  What resistance comes up for you?  What freedom is possible or new resources might be at hand?
  5. What inner resource(s) support your ability to wait here?
5.

Read Chapter:​  Wait Here - GIFT No. 1

The cold ceramic floor was sucking out her warmth as we waited for the San Francisco EMTs. I touched Betty to reassure her—or me; she was icy. Her head gash would need stitches and the doctors would later find a cracked vertebra. None of it stopped her from joking about how cute the paramedics were when they did arrive.

FIVE YEARS INTO CAREGIVING WITH SIX TO GO...
“I think he’s the cutest. Doesn’t he look like Glen?” Or it could be H.R. or Keith or anyone on the list of my exes. It was a familiar dance. Betty was entertaining again; she was holding court. I was her captive entourage and the firefighter-paramedics were the attentive audience. She was doing a pretty good job of holding on to some dignity as well as holding off the next phase. She and I were on the same ship sailing in denial: she was not yet my child and I was not yet her parent.
• • •
Picture Gift No. 1 is from both the books: Begin Again as well as the Field Guide. Available for purchase from Amazon, Apple and IngramSpark.

HUMOR WAS EVEN MORE UNEXPECTED IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM. Her healthcare workers were perplexed, then charmed by it (especially, if they saw me modeling laughter). Or they might miss the joke entirely and report me to the authorities. “My daughter beats me.” Betty had said this in response to the ER staff’s private questions about the source of her many bruises from nocturnal falls. When I asked her the same thing about the new bruise du jour, she’d say, “How would I know?” It was as if I had asked about a dent in the bumper of some rental car parked on the street. Maybe she was in shock or perhaps it was her natural wit, but she thought this account was very funny.

THE SUBSEQUENT ELDER ABUSE REPORT ON ME ESCALATED TO POLICE involvement by the time I heard about it. The hospital social worker had already vouched for me. It took a personal interven‐ tion on my behalf from our long-time internist to finally get me off the arrest list. My mother‘s humor was a moment of the ‘old’ Betty who raised me. Gratefully, her too-sharp edges that tenderized my underbelly as an adolescent were gone. Her wit lasted until the ending days.

WHAT COULD I DO? A LOT OF IT WAS FUNNY IF NOT POINTED at you.
​
IN CAREGIVING, EXHAUSTION SLOWED ME DOWN. I BECAME CURIOUS enough to wonder how I was going to survive this. I made a decision to claim back some of my life—the self-sustaining part of it but I never caught up with that longing, not really. I could see glimpses of a more renewable life ahead—just out of focus.

                                                                                                • • •

AT THAT POINT, I COULD NOT IMAGINE THAT WAIT HERE MIGHT BE my next best move.


Wait Here - GIFT No. 1

As fear became my compass, I could not see a path to better options. When my world was crashing in, husband gone, brother dead, my mother in another serial EMT crisis, it looked like I was competently dealing as an adult, but the truth was more like ducking for (nuclear) cover under my desk. Moving forward blindly, I stumbled into the black hole of caregiving, which sucks everything nearby into its life-and-death necessities. Its gravity trumped it all—or it did for me. I lived in the future, believing it would be better…then. I would make a coming-from-behind-victory as a software mogul to be financially secure, find a better man who would really see me, find replacement family to belong to, etc. In the effort of the middle days, I looked forward to the ending days, as some vague afterlife—after Betty.

I am remembering back to those moments when I managed to get a present-tense view of things. Somewhere in the anguished muck of Betty’s dying, we told the truth. These were moments when the past and future bracketed me. Driven by overload, or wisdom to now and to here, I found myself and options. Those, unfortunately rare, moments were hyper-real and a true compass to growing a new life.
 
I need to wait like a cat hunts…or a seed waits out winter…or a Buddha with equanimity, or in a more Judeo-Christian framing, it is about waiting on the Lord.
 
                        But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
                        they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
                        they shall run and not be weary;
                        they shall walk and not faint.            --Isaiah 40:31, ESV

 My misstep, when caregiving, was how I waited. I pined for a different future like a kid thinks about holiday gifts in October…focused on what was lacking. Waiting like it is already Christmas morning improves outcomes.All the presents are right her and ready for me to notice and unwrap them.My questions are about how I am going to play with them rather than, do I have enough?

Even if we must wait—it is better to Wait Here and now…awake to the resources within reach.

In tango, it is all about being present to the next step. The leader moves, the follower shadows and makes a responsive step. It is a collaboration. It is attentive waiting. The follower then pauses with complete attention for the next indication from her leader. Sometimes in tango these pauses in the motion are the most delicious part of the dance. The extended daguerreotype holds the tension in the stillness and calls to the next step. Residing in the present tense is like this: “Wait, here.”
 
                   Don’t just do something, sit there.”—Thich Nhat Hanh
 
                  You do not need to leave your room.
                  Remain sitting at your table and listen.
                  Do not even listen, simply wait.
                 Do not even wait, be quiet still and solitary.
                 The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice,
                 And it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.      —Franz Kafka, The Zurau Aphorisms

Wait Here might be your next best move—an important internal shift facilitated by stillness. Living in the future stopped me from seeing what was right in front of me—real choices not just more-of-the-same anxious looping. Wait Here.
 
Stop struggling. Have a quantum of faith, Wait Here for the goodness to catch up
AUTHOR’s Note about the books & the circle of care

  • Buy a book, 
  • Leave a review & 
  • Give the book to a friend who needs it.  
 
It is not necessary to buy the book, Begin Again, or the Field Guide to do this workshop. The workshop is free…but if you find it good and useful, please DO buy a book & leave a review on Amazon or Apple. 

The Field Guide has 31 notions & practices in 3 sections of increasing levels of spiritual (yet not quite religious) challenge. They are the best I know:
  • The Frontlines (which is this workshop)
  • The Trenches and 
  • The Garden of Change
 
Einstein called god the Prime Mover.  I like that. It is all part of the circle of care...and the way the Almighty, the Maker of all things, moves the world... through our hands.
 
The important things in life, tend to be in the circle of care. Move the world to be a more caring place. Contribute. Complete your circles.
 
Thank you and best blessings,
 
Rev. EM