What is enrichment
We are enriched when we receive and respond to everything in life as an opportunity to learn and deepen. Nothing is seen as too much, too mundane, too miniscule. Every task equally weighted brings joy in the simple acceptance and knowing that we are responding to whatever is asked of us with openness, willingness and readiness.
Every caring relationship offers enrichment for both carer and the person being cared for.
However, the divine nature of true care has been lost. It is either delivered under the guise of doing good or seen by those who work as carers, paid or unpaid, as something of low worth, low pay and because of this considered demeaning, routine and exhausting. Very rarely is caring for another received as an offering to be enriched.
To see care as duty, sacrifice, obligation, ‘do-gooding’, just a job, going through the motions, reduces and pollutes the spectacular and divine offering before us.
When fuelled by recognition, expectation, entitlement and effort, we are often drained and frustrated by the responsibility. Never can caring for another be at the expense of ourselves. The moment we see ourselves as doing something for another we have lost the essence of true care and cannot be in the joy of it.
Caring is a two-way relationship that can advance both carer and the person being cared for. It provides a powerful opportunity for learning and self-awareness.
For example, we could be caring for someone that finds their illness and being cared for humiliating or feels they have failed in some way. They may be protective and reluctant to let in the carer, to reveal their vulnerability. How do we respond? Do we expect them to be different. Do we want them to like or be open with us? Or do we simply observe where they are at and accept them as they are and the situation as it is. We can’t change them, but we can care for another in a way that is non-judgmental. This way of caring enriches both carer and the person being cared for.
True care is being not doing. It is not just what we do, but how we do what we do. For example, personal care is not just a ‘routine.’ It is what we bring to the routine that matters. Washing and bathing a person without consideration of what is on offer is a missed opportunity. When we truly connect to another, personal care is a precious service where every movement made is loving, gentle, without rush and the person being cared for receives the love and care offered. If they are unable to receive this, that’s OK too, we simply continue to move the same quality of love and care.
Enriching care attends to the person being cared for always as their equivalent. One cannot exist without the other – but this is not co-dependency, this is working together as equal partners.
True enrichment in care – simple observation, listening, sharing, attending to the practical and health needs of another, walking with them, deepening, silence, gentle touch, responding not reacting, being resolute – sometimes having to say NO to unreasonable requests or signs of abuse, but never is it at anyone’s expense. We also do not hold back, we express ourselves clearly and honestly.
Enriching care has zero imposition, expectation, recognition, calculation or manipulation.
We become willing students of the person we care for as they mentor, coach and tutor us to be grand, responsive, loving and who we truly are.
We are enriched when we care for others and it is through us that those we care for are equally enriched.