Look past what you "see" and you will "see" me.


This statement is really the core of our belief.  We found ourselves feeling as though we were seeing God so thinly veiled.   All the ego, pretense, ideas and expectations had been stripped away from Grandma as though she was pure soul.  I watched a youtube video of Maryanne Williamson recently talking about a group of scientists and doctors that had been working to study the brain and Alzheimer's.  What it was that they discovered was that the brain kind of "dumps" everything it no longer feels is necessary to live.  Maybe what that is is "ego" the part of us that keeps us tied to the material world and that of time and accomplishments.  Tied to the idea of "who we are" and "who we want the world to see us as".... this epiphany, they concluded, may be called "wisdom".  They felt it was possibly a form of evolving into something much greater.

This was so fascinating to hear...because we would rather view Alzheimer's as a tragedy instead of maybe....clarity.   So often we would tell grandma that she saw things that we can't see.  Maybe we are the ones with limited sight.  She saw the world differently then we did, who is to say if it was better or worse.  What we could tell though is that a lot of it was magical.  She had no understanding of time, but really what is time?  In the words of Albert Einstein;

"Since there exists in this four dimensional structure (space-time) no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated.  It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence."

"....for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."

So who are we to argue with Einstein?  Could it be possible that Alzheimer's experiencers are just that ... maybe they are more closely "experiencing" Einstein's theories of Time.

Excepts from our book on....






http://www.alzheimers.net/12-5-14-shifting-paradigm-dementia

Do not hesitate to lie....

I am sure there will be plenty of reality or morality based people that will struggle with our philosophy insisting that we advocate lying....and  I suppose that is true.  We allowed grandma to live in a reality that made her feel secure and happy.  We were trying to remain open to broader or more varied interpretations.  We much preferred to tell her that my grandfather was out golfing than that he had passed away many years before.  We preferred to allow her the opportunity to believe she lives a full productive life instead of telling her she sits in a chair all day, does nothing, and has imaginary friends.  We would tell her when she was distressed about her eyesight going that she was tired and just needed to rest, instead of telling her that she was an old lady and maybe going blind.  In these situations we actually believed that telling the truth could be cruel.  Maybe it was selfish on our part, but we would much rather see her face light up than witness depths of despair.  She was such a joy when she would tell us all about the things she had done during the day....often she talked about surprising her friend and going to lunch or she'd put her hand out and say "Hello I'm Helen Morris, my husband and I just moved next door...nice to meet you."

Allowing them to exist in their reality not only makes life easier for the caregiver it also, if you're open to it, can allow you to see into a world that is different from what we perceive as reality.  Maybe try and think of it as their own "Las Vegas"