The Five-Minute Blessing

A chapter from the book

“Transitions”

By Encore’s Director of Environmental Services

 Robert Milstid

The Five-Minute Blessing

Time is moving along at a steady pace. I’ve decided to spend the next few days with a new focus on my job and the residents that I am blessed to know at Blue Lakes. I will get to the note one day soon but I feel the need to simply let it go for a few days. The clutter is not helping me go forward and I want nothing more than to get back to the clarity that this job has offered me in spite of receiving the two letters. The experience of running the maintenance department and interacting with the residents within the Blue Lakes community has taught me the value of time. Priorities will dictate your path. It only takes a minute to change your whole life. You can get a call that says you’ve got the new job you have been interviewing for or a phone call that lets you know your dog was hit by a car. I’ve learned to at least try to find the value of a minute with the residents, associates, my bosses and the family members here at Blue Lakes. In this day and age everyone seems to be obsessed with multi-tasking, looking at his or her e-mail, tweeting, and texting or trying to keep up with whatever the newest technology is. I’m guilty of this as well but lately I’ve developed a new habit. I’ve been attempting to learn how to make time stand still. Time is only the minutes ticking away on a clock that we have giving tremendous power. I think you can make time less powerful in a conscience effort to gently take back the urgency that we have given it. If you think about the best times of our lives were when we found ourselves living and enjoying being exactly where we were when that special moment was taking place. We weren’t staring at our watches.

This new experiment I’ve been working on is called the five-minute blessing. It is multi-dimensional in its concept and execution; for example, with the simple choice of giving someone the gift of full attention you can literally change their state as well as your own. The simple choice of actually listening to someone and hearing him or her can be a ground rattling experience. It’s harder to do these days than people think. It’s becoming a lost art. Think about how powerful a good piece of theatre can be or even a movie. You still your mind and listen; you are transformed into a receptive state and it can be magical. If you were to take that same focus in an interaction with a real person, absent of wondering how much you still need to get done and focused on hearing someone tell you what they are feeling, and you will bless them. I personally believe that all of the great blessings in our world can be traced back to God; that’s just my opinion, not the gospel.  We are vessels in the blessing process if we chose to be.  If I could bottle this concept I’m sure there are marriages that would flourish and customers that would always come back. The simple yet nearly impossible task of being where you are and actually in the moment can be miracles incarnate.

No one expects to being listened to these days. People say “How ya doin?” but they don’t really want to know. If I ask my wife how her day was because I do want to know the high points, the quick main points of what she did in her day but I don’t really want the book. I want the cliff notes. I suspect that’s what she wants from me when she asks as well. Everyone can be affected by a few minutes of pure attention. It’s a rarity and if you try it the results will always be good if you do it without wanting something in return. It can’t fail. If you give five minutes of unbridled attention to someone without feeling the need to counter everything being said with what you really want to say, you will change the dynamic of the relationship with the person you are interacting with tenfold.

When I’m going from one work order to the next I try to keep my antenna up for who is doing what in the community. It is a practice that management here at Blue Lakes has been pushing and for good reason. Some of the residents who are several stages deep in their Alzheimer’s tend to go into an introverted state. Some of them will keep their eyes involved with the surroundings while others, not so much. Their state of mind is the result of the level of dementia or Alzheimer’s they are experiencing; other than that they are just like us in their desire to interact and have a good day. At least once a day I try to stop by to visit with someone and give the five- minute blessing. What I really like about my job here is that I get to fix things and make things but the powers that be within this company have asked employees to actually take time and show compassion to the residents that stay with us. That is very cool. I’m getting paid to help people feel good. That is part of the five-minute blessing as well; I’m not saying that other people haven’t already tried variations that are just as good if not better, but this is what has worked for me.

Working here has helped me to see and relate to people a bit differently. When you take the focus off of yourself you tend to learn a lot. People tend to be quite self-absorbed, I know I am at least most of the time I am. When you’re talking you’re not learning. My five-minute blessing is an experiment in getting all of my attention and energy focused on someone other than myself. It does no good to stand over someone in a wheelchair and emote great words of empathy if you are not honestly being empathetic. The truth is powerful and it can set you free in any environment. If you don’t know what to say then say that. Simple honesty will get a conversation or interaction off to a good start every time. It’s easy to tell when someone is just going through the motions in a conversation. In our hurried lives unfortunately it can be the norm.

Relating to someone with dementia requires a willingness to step out of one’s comfort zone and to suspend your own personal reality. If you are willing to step into the perceived reality of someone stricken with dementia then you have a good chance at making a connection. If they are staring at a door and insisting that they used to live on the other side, and then why not ask, “Was it a good place to live?”  That’s joining their reality and is also part of the five- minute blessing.  That simple connection of exchanging two or three sentences that were mutually understood could be a powerful gift, especially to someone who doesn’t feel that anyone is able to understand them anymore. A full few minutes of focused time together can make your week. Being in the moment takes patience and a decision to be where you are at that very minute with the one you want to speak with. Notice I said speak with instead of speak to. The key is to get the focus off yourself; stop trying to be heard and just hear, give the other person the blessing of your full attention.

I practice on my wife without her knowing sometimes. That might sound tricky but if she gets to be heard and has all of my attention from time to time then I doubt she cares why I’m doing it. It’s a win-win. She then treats me like a king and I get to see her in a blissful state for a while. If I were smart I would practice that behavior on a more consistent level, but I’ve got this whole only human thing going on. You’ve got to take the joy when you can get it.

I’ve learned so much. I feel like God has and is using me as a vehicle of some sort.  I mean that in the humble sense. I’m just a handyman with a bag of tools; I think God uses everyone that will let him. To connect fully with the residents I’ve found another very important tool and that is to get down on one knee and get in front of them and look them in the eye. That sounds elementary but it is sometimes imperative, especially when someone is in a wheelchair. If they can’t see your face then they probably won’t want to engage in a meaningful interaction.  You have to be willing to get into the soup as it were. The connection will most easily come from each of you while making eye contact. That is always the starting point. Once eye contact is made the bigger blessing begins. When I come across a resident that has his or her eyes shut and I’m sure they are actually awake I will reach out and touch them. Touching and exchanging energy is powerful; you can simply touch someone on the shoulder and pretty much change their physical state. Most of the people in my community have some form of dementia. Once they have gotten to this point they usually are not getting the physical interaction with people that we all need. How would you like to go long bouts of time without a meaningful touch? It is in our being to want and require touch. When I’m walking through the building I look around at our residents and wonder how long has it been since this person has been acknowledged for whom he is as opposed to what he needs? When have they been touched or even hugged? I can’t imagine going days or weeks without being hugged. That sounds stinky.

Today I stopped and spoke with a man who tends to just stare straight forward. He will say a few words here and there but it is always in a low voice that can barely be heard. Daddy Bear is what people call him. I don’t know why he has that name. He does have family members come in on the weekends from what I hear. I generally don’t work weekends so I have always been away when they stopped by to visit. I hear that they call him Daddy Bear so that works for me. When I stopped to speak with him this morning I could tell he had been crying. He was staring forward as usual; and his eyes were red from having been crying so I asked him what was going on. After about a minute of waiting for his reply I kneeled down in front of him and gave him a smile. I wanted to help him not to feel embarrassed about his state, after all a man really doesn’t want another man to see him crying. I said, ”Hey Mr. Bear, were you able to get some breakfast this morning?”

He didn’t respond, so I continued, “I saw that they were serving pancakes but I didn’t see if you had a chance to get any.”

He then said, “I got some, they were good.”

“That’s good,” I said, “What’s going on now, I noticed you looked kind of sad.”

He stared straight ahead for a minute then he looked right at me and said, “I miss my daughter!”

I took my time in answering him because I wanted him to know that I had heard him.

“I’m sorry you’re felling sad, she must be a really great daughter,” I said. After about a minute of waiting to see if he had anything else to say I broke the silence and told him that I had a daughter too, and that he and I are in the same boat because I miss my daughter as well. I asked him how long it has been since they last spoke; he didn’t seem to know. I told him that I would make an effort to see how she was and would get back to him with some information as soon as I could. I told him that it’s ok to miss her and that that’s normal.

He looked at me again and said, “That is normal.”

“Of course it is,” I said with a smile. I gave him a light guy slap on the arm and told him that I enjoyed speaking with him. He thanked me and I moved on down the hall and went back to work.

The five-minute blessings are sometimes powerful and sometimes are not much more than a quick, honest conversation. You never know what you’ll get until you’re there and experiencing it. Even if nothing big happens, you’ve given yourself and someone else five minutes of time spent in good old fashion technology free human interaction. Sometimes when you really set out to bless someone what ends up happening is that you are the one who gets truly blessed. It’s like the old saying; the only thing you get to keep in this life is what you are willing to give away.