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?
1,260 Comments
Sue I agree it is actual quite shocking that until someone cared enough about me to say hey is it possible that you are not with yourself that I started to look at the ways I checked out and then just how much I did check out by being in my mind and living from there. I never gave a thought to what was going on in my body. It has taken a long time to come back to myself and the difference is amazing so much so that I can now feel when I have left my body because it feels so sickening to do so.
I have become much more aware of the how we lose ourselves by not wanting to see and feel what is really there to be seen and felt. I always knew about energy as a child and I shut myself down so that I thought I was getting away with not feeling and so therefore was lacking in the basic responsibility of knowing and understanding energy. This then allows the energy to control me and my thoughts. Since meeting Serge Benhayon some time ago I have been very slowly developing a trust within myself that I do understand energy and that it affects everyone and everything we do, say, think and how we move and it is not as scary as I believed it to be as a child.
Doug you’re right when you say that many elderly people are ‘doped up on drugs to make them easier to manage’ because to be honest most of the care staff are also checked out and with a ratio of one staff to anything from 6 to 10 residents then steps are taken to make the ‘work load’ as easy as possible. Sure not all nursing homes are like that but many are and it’s understandable why they run the way that they do. What’s lacking in pretty much all of us is the understanding of the multidimensionality of life. We travel through life by rote, completely unaware that this is what we’re doing. We are a universally checked out planet.
Wow we really are responsible for our own health, and this article brings this home to us.
In reading this ‘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.’ what was scary was the regularly checking out with surfing the internet and just how much this has increased over time as currently having constant access to this we are doing it more and more every moment, every day. For instance it is normal now to get on a train in London and for nearly every single person to be looking at their phone, eyes down, no true connection with themselves or others around them. And if we are making this a ‘normal’ in life in our younger years then goodness what are the older years going to be like?
I have met some very inspiring people in their elder year, they still have that spark in their eye and love life. Every choice we make daily will contribute to the quality we live in in our elder years.
And don’t these elders contribute so much – especially to children? When I was a child my grandmother was totally vital. The joy my sisters and I had in her company was awesome and we learned so much from her. Today her kids’ generation, my parents’ generation, are so medicated up that my kids’ generation are missing out!
Beautiful reminder to me about the importance of being present in all that I do and the encounters I have, as the quality of my presence may be inviting for more disconnection (if I’m checked out too) or igniting awareness. Great responsibility to acknowledge!
Dementia is massive sign to all humanity that how we are living is far from true.
Yes and if it is increasing, which it is, then we absolutely need to look at how we have been and are living as clearly, on many levels it is not working. This article and dementia which makes some good reading and talks about it a bit more, including looking at what we need to change collectively https://www.unimedliving.com/living-medicine/medical-conditions/alzheimer-s-dementia-do-we-have-a-part-to-play.html
It is almost an epidemic now and people look forward to retiring have definitely checked-out as what retirement feels like is a way of not fully committing to life! When we are committed to life a vitality is felt that lasts and is felt in our every movement so we live with a joy and harmony with our-selves and all others, which is the feeling we express and share with others.
Dementia is horrible, it’s avoidable and it is growing – this says a lot about how we are living as human beings.
Checking-out with things outside of us instead of checking-in with who we are.
Sure because currently so many of us equate the things that are outside of us with who we are. We see ourselves as our jobs, our kids, our partners, the cars we drive, the hobbies we do, the films we watch, the food we eat, our holiday destinations, our income, our struggles etc but none of these things are who we are because none of these things exist on the inside and in truth it’s only what exists on the inside that truly dictates who we are.