When we think about seniors we often think of their emotional, physical and spiritual needs and devise a number of ways to meet them. Some seniors may have a strong sense of their spiritual identity.
Many people have gone to worship services, taken hikes to feel connected to nature or meditated. Being disconnected from spiritual routines can have a negative impact on their emotional and physical wellness. These are the key elements of spirituality as mentioned below:
- Embracing everyone and inclusive
- Inner peace and calmness
- Not formal, organized or structured
- Understanding a provider and source of finding meaning and purpose in life
- An exhaustible source of faith
- The deep feeling of interconnectedness
- The awe we feel in the presence of transcendent
The spiritual needs of seniors are highly personal and at times could be difficult to communicate. There are some ways a caregiver can meet their spiritual needs:
- You can create a sense of peace in their body and mind by laying emphasis on positive family dynamics and giving them shield from petty conflicts within the family or outside of it.
- You can arrange for a spiritual leader to meet your senior loved one. Many of the care facilities and houses of worship have visitation chaplains whose primary responsibility is giving spiritual support to anyone. The spiritual support includes the members of your loved one’s spiritual community like friends from a yoga class or Bible study.
- In order for spiritual healing to occur, encourage your senior loved one to confess something they have been longing to confess to a spiritual leader. You can also give them an option to express their regret or anything they want to communicate in writing to someone who was aggrieved.
- You can also discuss with them how they can cement a positive legacy after they passes away. Knowing that they have a purpose outside their own life is an essential spiritual need which they can easily meet by planting trees, creating a scholarship, making a video explaining life’s lessons for future generations of the family or creating a biographical page.
Older adults when focus on spiritual issues may yearn for solitude, recognize the need for a greater sense of community, take their own time to reflect on the meaning of events, seek to communicate unspoken love to others, struggle to understand why so many good people suffer and long to make peace with the beliefs about death.
As people age their losses accumulate and so many seniors need the strength that only comes from spiritual connection to deal with sickness, poverty, isolation or the death of a loved one. As a caregiver it is important to take care of the spiritual needs of your senior loved one so that they possess the courage to overcome life struggles while enjoying their life to fullest.
