| In
the classic, Heartmates®, Rachael
Freed addressed the life crisis and the losses mourned
by families of surviving heart patients.
The Heartmates®
Journal is focused on the other side of the journey, the
opportunities of the cardiac crisis. Levin helps her participant-readers
address the needs of body and feelings, mind and soul on the
journey from acute crisis toward healing. This inspiring aid
will help you to:
- Revive Hope
- Rebuild Trust
- Renew Relationships
- Establish Community
- Deepen Your Spiritual Connection
Contains information
on journal writing and meditation!
REVIEW
The Heartmates
Journal: A Companion for Partners of People with Serious Illness,
using a self-help approach, is an interactive resource guide
for the cardiac spouse
recovering from a cardiac crisis. This book complements the
author's Heartmates®: A Guide for the Spouse and Family of the
Heart Patient.
The book guides
the cardiac spouse along the journey of recovery after an acute
cardiac event. It takes the cardiac spouse through the course of a
year by dividing the process into early, mid, and full recovery
stages. Each stage is organized into weekly topics; feelings,
self-care and spiritual issues, support, values, and repair of the
marital relationship are discussed for each stage.
The book
illustrates pertinent recovery issues in an effective manner. Each
weekly topic is first presented as a thought or a quotation. A
short application of the thought or quote describing the personal
experience of a "heartmate" follows. Ideas for
meditation and journal writing that relate to the weekly topic are
included. Finally, space is provided for journal entries and
reflections on that week's recovery issue.
The author has
included a detailed explanation of how to use the book. Journal
writing, meditation, mental imagery, and the art of reflection are
discussed. Appendices summarize important aspects of the book; a
reference list of other self-help books is also included.
The Heartmates®
Meditation Journal: A Companion for Partners of People With Heart
Disease is an excellent supplemental reference for cardiac
rehabilitation units, libraries, cardiac support groups, or any
area involving the post discharge recovery period.
Rhonda K
Fleischman, RN, MSN, CCRN
Patient Care Specialist
Aultman Hospital
Canton, Ohio
EXCERPTS
Excerpt from Part I:
Early Recovery...
"Help, I Don't Get It!"
"Always do one
thing less than you think you can do. "
- Bernard Baruch
The idea is to stop
"doing" and to assess what's needed ... then use your energy
for what really matters. If you just "go, go, go" because
that's what you're used to, or you think keeping busy will make this
nightmare go away, you're fooling yourself.
Having your partner
home from the hospital, no matter how well he's recovering, is exhausting
as well as exhilarating. As a heartmate, you need permission to let go of
the old routine to take care of yourself and your recovering partner.
Dishes will wait, and laundry too. If you're too uncomfortable leaving
things undone, ask someone to help. Conserving energy for what's
important is the key to making your way through the early days of
recovery when so much is new and uncertain. The idea of reorganizing your
daily routine to accommodate a recovering partner is fatiguing too.
As much as you can,
incorporate what you know and do automatically. Use it as a base from
which you can plan necessary change.
Affirmation: I
will use my energy today on what is truly important.
Related topics to
think/write about: List what I need to do daily during these first
weeks of recovery for myself and my partner. Make another list: things
that can wait. Plan ways to replenish my energy.
Qualities to
meditate on: Order. Rest. Surrender.
Excerpt from
Part II: Mid-Recovery...
"...The Long Haul!"
"I am dying
inside if I don't take care of myself.... how can I hold on to myself and
love her?" - Greg Alch (from a personal story told at "Finding
Our Way" workshop in Minneapolis)
One of the most
painful tasks of the well partner is to accept that you are well and live
in the well world. This must be balanced with the reality that you love
and live with someone whose world is the world of illness.
It does not make your
partner well if you deny your wellness, or ignore your own needs. Nor can
you bypass your guilt about being well (similar to the guilt expressed by
survivors of accidents, fires, wars, or the Holocaust) by avoiding
reality, pretending the difference doesn't exist.
Your mate's illness
may set you both up to believe that he has all the weakness and you have
all the strength. You want to utilize your competence on his behalf, but
you also need the freedom to share your limitations: your shrinking
patience, your irritation and resentment, your disappointment, your
sadness for both him and you. If you express your weakness, it may very
well give your partner internal permission to find and express his
strengths, his hope, and optimism.
Taking care of
yourself, defined differently by every heartmate, is not selfish. It is
an absolute necessity in order for you to thrive. Without that
foundation, you cannot love or care for your mate as fully.
Affirmation: I
will love myself and my mate.
Related topics to
think/write about: What are my strengths? What do I need as I face
the reality of my mate's illness? What do I need to balance internally?
And balance between me and my mate?
Qualities to
meditate on: Generosity. Harmony. Peace.
Part III:
Toward Full Recovery...
"I Can See The Light!"
We'd always talked
about buying a cabin and I'd completely ruled it out after D.'s heart
attack, because I was afraid of being so far away. At a cabin in the
woods, I wouldn't be close enough to an ambulance, a hospital, a doctor.
What would happen if he had chest pain or...? We bought it! It was a
celebration of my freedom to do things again without constantly worrying
about the umbilical cord to the hospital.
- Lavonne G. "Portrait of the Heartmate® "
This celebrity story
provides a snapshot from the lengthy process of mourning: loss of dreams,
loss of freedom, life dominated by fear and its accompanying limitations
and accommodations. The grief process includes expressing fear, changing
priorities, acknowledging a new reality, all over a period of time. After
many months, something interior changes.
You wouldn't be a
heartmate if you didn't still feel fear sometimes, but having arrived at
this new stage of recovery, you can now live more freely. When the fear
comes, it is no longer more powerful than you. Its intensity is less; it
neither lasts as long nor paralyzes you. Free of the grip of grief, your
reality once again affords energy for and interest in the present and
future. Not every heartmate can buy a cabin, or travel to a faraway
place, but each heartmate needs to mark this significant passage.
Celebrate the new
awareness together. There is only now! You can choose to live today
fully, joyously.
Affirmation: I
celebrate life and my life today.
Related topics to
think/write about: Review ways that fear still dominates my decisions
and actions. Ways I can express more beauty, joy, love, meaning in my
every day life.
Qualities to
meditate on: Celebration. Freedom. Vitality.
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