Thoughts and Prayers: Steps Toward Positive Change...for Seniors

 

In this article in the New York Times, we find that Covid is still disproportionately affecting our senior population, resulting in more frequent hospitalization for those over 65 and, sadly, in all too many cases, death. For some, the stress of hospitalization adds an added layer of stress which can set off a litany of a whole new set of symptoms that can sometimes require repeated hospital stays. Covid can trigger a downward spiral for seniors. 

 

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found that, while sometimes lifesaving, hospital stays can also be dangerous for the senior population. The lack of sleep, poor nutrition, and disruption of daily schedules can elicit unhealthy stress responses that can exacerbate existing physical, mental, and cognitive decline.

 

The pandemic has revealed the myriad insufficiencies in our current healthcare system, which functions in tandem with family caregivers who, more and more, struggle to help their loved ones due to pervasive systemic challenges. In many cases, families are left to make life-and-death decisions for their loved ones. In many cases, caregivers are burned out, depressed, and/or dealing with health challenges of their own. Disturbingly, recent studies have reported numerous health concerns for long-term caregivers for whom options for support are limited.

 

What can we do to better serve our senior population? How can we support caregivers who unselfishly provide crucial support to loved ones in the final years of their life? Where can religious organizations step in? Where does healthcare need to step up? What are some promising steps that are already being taken? 

I welcome your thoughts. And your prayers. 

 

 

 

Mindful Monday: Speaking (and Singing) our Truth

 I might have a slight throat chakra blockage.  

I have come to appreciate that there is wisdom in the Tantric Chakra system, which I learned about in my yoga practice and teacher training. The word chakra means wheel or disk. The chakras are spinning wheels of energy that facilitate the smooth, balanced movement of energy in our physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies. As long as we are living and breathing, our wheels are turning in an effort to keep us healthy and to help us evolve spiritually in the physical world. When we die, we close the final gates, the yogis say, and we spread our wings and fly to the next life. We let go. We are free from the physical restraints of the body. 

 

I was raised in the Christian tradition and am on the ordination track to become a priest, so some might say I am heretical to even consider the benefits of the study of another faith tradition. I beg to differ. Respectfully. We can learn a lot from other traditions and would be wise to open our hearts and minds to the wisdom that is available to us from other contexts. That is the key to peace, in my humble opinion.

Back to my throat chakra imbalance. I didn’t forget (which, incidentally, can be a symptom of a blocked throat chakra!) While I have been grieving the loss of my earthly father, who died recently after a short period of in-home hospice care, I have also been studying in seminary. God willing, I will be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in the next couple of years. Crazy, right? I know. But it is a thing. I have been on this path for several years now, discerning in community about my potential call. It is not one to be taken lightly, and there are gates (kind of like the gates of the chakras, actually) that we pass through at several different junctions to ensure that this path is right for me and for the Christian community I will eventually serve. It is sometimes intense. And it is a mysterious and mystical journey I would not want to miss. As an added bonus, I have made some wonderful new friendships along the way.

 

Meanwhile, back at the brilliance of the chakra system, one might say the heart and the head have been working overtime. With all the studying and paper writing, alongside the loss of my beloved dad, there has been a lot of activity in the heart chakra and up in the head as well. Right there in the middle lies the throat chakra, the center of our communication, our energetic connection between our mind and our body. The yogis have a symbol for it, and it is associated with the color blue. But I see the throat center as an outward expression of our soul, to get very real about it. The throat is a portal through which our deepest truth is revealed. That is why singing can be experienced as such a vulnerable thing. 

 

I have always felt singing to be a joy. I sang in the church choir as a kid. I sang in musical theatre productions for many years, and I was a professional a cappella Christmas caroler for more than fifteen years of my adult life. Singing is a joy for me. But when I was asked to officiate a sung evening service at my seminary recently, I practically freaked out. Fortunately, I had been Zooming into classes after the death of my father, and I was not available, but I still freaked out. “I don’t know how to do that! How could they expect me to sing something I have not even rehearsed? I am a professional. I need rehearsal!” Suffice it to say, there was resistance in my throat chakra to this simple request that wasn’t even going to happen anyway. But my somewhat unbalanced emotional response was telling. I am grateful for the truth that this potential train wreck of an opportunity (as I saw it) had to offer. 

 

In many ways, our capacity to move through the grieving process is involved with our ability to wrap our minds around our losses and allow them to be processed in and through the physical body. If there is fear or an extreme amount of stress or trauma, our natural ability to move energy through our system can be challenged. 

 

All the chakras are important, but when we are grieving, it makes a lot of sense to care for our throat center. We can do this by drinking lots of clean water and soothing teas and wrapping our necks with a warm scarf when it is cold out. We can make sure to gently move that area daily and swallow in our throat to keep that area supple and relaxed. We can consciously breathe into the throat center to activate that area. We can practice a yoga practice like this one from my YouTube channel. And we can meditate on this area to clear our throat chakras when we sense that they are needing extra attention. For me, yoga has been nothing short of a gift. Paying mindful attention has become a vital part of my self-care and a lovely companion to my Christian formation. 

 

My throat chakra affirmation: I speak and sing my truth with compassion and love. 

 

What is your throat chakra affirmation?