About two months ago I was invited to have some regular contact with an elderly woman who has been diagnosed with dementia and now lives in a home for elderly people with this condition.
So I went to meet her and got to know the dementia nursing home and the staff that worked there. What I observed is that many of the residents were missing a sparkle in their eyes, or appeared vague with this blank stare. Most of the residents can‘t walk anymore and they just sit all day, with very little activity. It was eye-opening for me to see people spending the last few years of their lives this way. Seeing many of these elderly residents just existing in this haze, it made me consider – there was something more.
My Own Ways of Checking Out
Seeing all these people living with dementia was confronting to me because it made me become more aware of the way I used to live – and still partly live – my own life. I started to ponder more deeply on my own ways of checking out, of going off into my head, letting my mind go anywhere, doing things without being totally present.
I regularly checked out with distractions like surfing the internet or watching TV for hours, eating, talking, thinking, escaping into my mind, internet shopping or looking for a new home. An activity like surfing the internet itself is neutral, but it was the quality I chose to do these activities in: my intention was often driven by not wanting to feel and deal with what was really going on for me and the people around me.
I could feel how long I have lived avoiding to truly feel what is going on within and around me – so I started to realise that giving up and checking out is very familiar to me. I have not been taking responsibility for how I live and I have not been wanting to feel what I was feeling.
My experience now is: the more I allow myself to feel the more aware I get, even if it’s very confronting (like feeling people with dementia), and even if I have to feel my own choosing to check out. But this way I get to know more of me. Now I have to really turn around the way I live to support myself lovingly, to feel all and to stay present with myself and with what I am doing at any given time, and not to run and numb myself when I can feel some struggle or pain.
When I allow myself to feel all, I give myself permission to also feel the love and joy that I am and that is all around me: I now finally have felt this very clearly too.
So I started doing some research and reading articles about dementia…
In Germany we have at present about 1.4 million people with dementia and they expect a rise up to 2.2 million by 2030 (1).
So What Is Going On?
Something is going horribly wrong here. There is no coincidence in the way dementia is on the rise if we truly consider the way many people live their lives.
Dementia is not only a side effect of people getting old, it is a clear reflection of a society which is choosing to check out and distract as a normal way of being. And then, after doing that for years, they are ending up not wanting to feel how disconnected they have lived and finally want to escape from life completely.
Becoming aware of all of this and being honest with myself and how I was living, I now appreciate how much I have changed my way of living. From watching TV a lot and drinking alcohol every day throughout my adult life until I was about 30 years old, to now choosing to engage in life more fully.
Now I have a different marker in my body and I can see and feel that I am not empty but that I am full of life and vitality; this gives me a constant reminder to choose to stay present.
So now I present my whole self to that elderly lady with dementia, making sure I stay mentally present, not allowing myself to react but connecting in a loving way with her.
With that I am reminded that there is a different way, and that is what I bring into that home for people with dementia….. this is much needed.
I have started to connect to other people who work with people with dementia and I have started to talk to people about dementia in general. We need to really start to ponder on what is going on here, and to start the discussion…. what has led us to this epidemic?
By Janina Koch, Cologne, Germany
Inspired by Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine and the Esoteric Student Body.
(1) http://www.bmg.bund.de/pflege/demenz/zukunftswerkstatt-demenz.html
Further reading:
Dementia – is it truly a mystery?
1,274 Comments
Dementia is caused by choosing to not be present in one’s body or checking out as this is called. These days we are seeing checking out more and more everywhere and in younger and younger people, so the rates of dementia will continue to soar showing itself at increasingly younger ages. Until we accept that this is the cause, I cannot see any hope for this situation to not continue its worsening slide. So long as we maintain the dementia just happens, is just bad luck etc consciousness, we will not start to address the vast amount of checking out and giving up going on everywhere.
To deal with the large number of people getting dementia now, and at an earlier age we have to look at the root cause of the disease and this article does that. When we don’t deal with our hurts we don’t want to be in our bodies and that brings about the need to check out. Dementia is telling us that we need to heal ourselves.
It’s an important point you raise here Janina because we aren’t taught as a general rule what ‘checking out’ is and not to check out. I know from experience that there are the obvious checkouts, like losing yourself in social media, or a book or a computer game but there are the other much more subtle ways where we simply may not want to know something and divert attention away with a thought or an action. When I do this I deliberately disconnect and it has an effect on me later that leaves me maybe feeling tired, hungry, demotivated or emotional. It’s not an obvious correlation but it is one I have begun to recognise and know by simply observing myself and what I’m feeling.
The checked outness of life most of us are living in the world from all ages is a real epidemic and opening this out for true discussion and awareness is vital in the world, and is beautifully shared with a realness and honesty here to be seen and known what is really going on and the simple changes and choices we can all make for us to stop this with true love and responsibility.
Dementia has now become a major factor that effects many families. The ‘c’ word was seen as the biggest concern, but with these growing rates in escapism with dementia it looks like the ‘d’ word has over taken in our modern day living.
That is a good point, cancer is less feared these days as although the cancer rates continue to soar upwards the medical profession are getting better at keeping us alive despite that, but anyone who has spent any time around a dementia patient doesn’t want that end of life for themselves or anyone else.
No coincidence that there is a rise in cases of dementia and checking out in a world with more methods of escaping and being distracted than ever before.
The best way to offset ill-conditions is to live in a way that inspires and not judges.
It is very revealing to feel how so many children are now checked out.
“We need to really start to ponder on what is going on here, and to start the discussion…. what has led us to this epidemic?” No one is talking about what we have done to be in such a messy frightening place when it comes to the ever growing statistics with dementia.
We don’t just get dementia – dementia happens over many years and will always start with disengagement and disillusionment from life.
It is quite shocking to take stock how and when, how often and how deeply we check out but a great step to living life more fully.
You don’t have to check out. I know plenty of people in their 80s and even 90s who don’t check out, who are very much there.
As with many things in life we have come to except that dementia is just a fact of life, something many people will get when growing older. But could it be that this perceived acceptance is already a form of checking out? We do not look at the reality anymore which shows us it is not just simply old age, for if it was should it not have happened in the same way 50 or more years ago? And why is it happening to people in the 40′ and 50’s now as well? If we truly want to look at what is behind this epidemic we need to first be willing to see to the detail what is going on.
The way we use technology to escape life only seems to have escalated our checking out. Seeing the true devastating affects dementia wreaks it’s clear that there’s no app that will fix this.
I pondered recently about the fact, that we think, that when you get older it is “normal” to get a disease like dementia. What if it is not normal that at a certain age, you don´t feel vital, you have no spark anymore and that it is all about, either travelling the world, waiting to die or “enjoying” life by doing nothing. What if the whole system and pictures we have of ageing is a huge lie and actually does not honour any of our elderly, wise people. How much comfort do we seek by getting older and what if working with purpose for the all is our greatest prevention for any kind of disease in life?
What we see in nursing homes is the end result of having dementia already for a long time, I just read an article from a professor of psychiatry and ageing at the university of Edinburgh who suggest that prevention of this disease needs to start earlier, in our midlife, lifestyle decisions around that age will impact our chance of getting dementia. So yes we need this discussion around what is going on with this epedemic and to become very honest how we are contributing with living unaware and checked out a lot. For myself I’ve noticed that I need to be much more present in small things, like ‘did I locked the car, where did I put my sunglasses (even when I’ve put them away 5 minutes ago’) Hallo where are you?
One just needs to take a glimpse of our everyday behaviours how often are we checking our devices, checking screens looking to be entertained and longing for endless holidays. All in the pursuit of disengaging with life.
That is a great point and much of this ‘checking’ is for the purpose of checking out.