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Chapter 7: "Frogs Don't Turn Into Princes, But Men Become Heartmates"Page 211Top Ten Reminders for Male Heartmates
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Chapter 6: "Does Time Heal All Wounds?
Pages 168-173
Updating Your Images
The nature of your reality is forever different because of the cardiac crisis. Acknowledging that the images you relied on are now shattered leaves you confused. The old image no longer fits, but you have yet to create a new one. You may understand intellectually that the image you had was inaccurate, but now what? What can you believe in? Where will you find new images that reflect reality more accurately? How can you create images for your new attitudes and actions?
Mending your broken images requires a courageous look; a clear assessment of the accuracy of your images as compared to an objective reality; the strength to let go of the inaccurate, outdated, or self-destructive; and a conscious effort to replace the old images with newer, healthier, more appropriate ones. Here is a Heartmates exercise designed to help you examine the images that presently motivate or direct your life.
Use each set of questions as a guide. Respond with both your head and your heart. Don't be concerned about writing full sentences, making sense, or being logical. Use these questions to explore your images as fully as you can.
HEARTMATES® GUIDE FOR EXAMINING IMAGES
- 1. What do you recall about first visiting your mate in the hospital? See your mate and the coronary care unit as a still photo; then add sounds, smells, and movement to your image. What nonverbal message did you receive about your spouse's condition? In your mind's eye, see yourself then. What were you feeling, thinking, doing? Describe your communication, feelings, level of intimacy with your mate.
- 2. Create an image of your mate's physical heart. As much as you can, visualize the actual damage as well as its symbolic meaning. Then see the healing that has occurred. How is your mate's physical and emotional heart different now from before the onset of heart disease? Based on your image, how do you envision the long-term quality of your mate's life? Imagine yourself five years, ten years, and twenty years into the future. What effects has your mate's heart disease had on your life? How do you expect the picture will continue to change?
- 3. What image of home and family do you have from the period of active recovery? What concerns did you have then about caring for your mate, your family, yourself? See in your mind's eye the network of communication and feelings that connected your family then. How was the family different during recovery from the way it was before the cardiac crisis? What is your image of your family now? As you see your family at present, note what issues your family is dealing with and what is going well for all of you.
- 4. Look into a mirror of your past. Who were you before your mate's heart crisis? What was important to you? What was your relationship with your mate like? How was your daily life organized? What were your priorities? How did you define your purpose for living? Gather this past image of you and set it aside.
- 5. Stand in front of the same mirror right now. Who are you today? What do you know about your strengths and limitations? How do you feel about yourself now? What is important to you today? What is your relationship with your mate like? How do you organize your daily life? What are your priorities? What is your purpose for living? Gather this present image of you and put it alongside your past image.
- 6. Step back far enough so you can see both images in the mirror. Visualize how being a cardiac spouse has changed you. What have you learned? How have you weathered the changes? How would you assess your acceptance of what's happened to you? Have you forgiven your mate, yourself? Are you taking care of your most important needs? Are you continuing to mourn your losses and heal your wounds?
Purposeful examination of our images allows us to update them continually as time passes and conditions change. One of the advantages of taking stock and comparing past and present images is that you can appreciate new qualities you've developed in yourself as a response to the cardiac crisis. Claire, who had always described herself as someone "with no head for figures," took over the family finances when her husband, Tim, was hospitalized because of a heart attack. Tim had always paid the bills, balanced the family checkbook, and made all the crucial financial decisions. Claire, busy with her weaving and other crafts, was satisfied to let Tim handle that aspect of their life; she wasn't interested and believed she was incompetent with numbers.
After four months of being the family banker, Claire confessed that she enjoyed keeping the books. She discovered that the more she worked with figures, the more her confidence grew. Tim even called her a "crack bookkeeper." Claire occasionally still characterized herself in the old way, but when she told Tim, he just laughed. He reminded her of all the years she had never even subtracted her checks in the checkbook.
Recognizing your outdated images will help you disengage yourself from them. If you can catch yourself falling back on old images, you can learn to stop. Your mate may be willing to keep an eye out for behavior akin to your old images, to point out when you've limited yourself. Then you can consciously replace the old image with a new one that is more realistic and up to date.
What do you want your new images to be? What qualities do you want to develop? Some qualities a cardiac spouse could use are clarity, wisdom, love, strength, gratitude, humor, and forgiveness.
Write the quality you desire most in large letters on a three-by-five-inch card. Colored pens or markers will permit you to choose the right color or your favorite color for the quality. Feel free to add a design that fits the quality you've chosen. Place the card where you will see it often, where it will attract your attention. The refrigerator door and the mirror above my bathroom sink are my favorite places. Look at the word each day to keep the image active in your mind, even when you aren't paying conscious attention. Visualize how you can express the quality in your daily life. When you stop noticing the card, move it to your bedside, or make a new, different colored card with different shaped letters to attract your attention. Keep that reminder in view.
SOME IDEAS TO REMEMBER ABOUT IMAGES
- Everyone has images.
- People experience their images differently: some people summon visual pictures, others sense their images.
- People respond to images as if they were reality.
- Images influence understanding, attitudes, and actions.
- Images can affect physical and emotional health.
- Creating new images requires conscious effort.
- Lost images need to be mourned.
- Defining yourself by an outdated image limits who you are and what you can do.
- Update your images and free yourself!
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