Life can be stressful for everyone, including seniors

There is much that we can feel stressed out about or even overwhelmed in our world today.

The question is, what can we do to restore our sense of balance and harmony when this happens?

I personally do this by slowing down and focusing on nature, flowers to be precise. My hobby is flower photography and I am delighted to share with you that I recently received the EcoVision Award from ViewBug for my photograph, HERE COMES THE SUN.

This photograph was taken on the grounds of the seniors’ home where I work as a chaplain. The garden, called the North Garden, is a beautiful expanse of neatly trimmed grass with contouring beds of trees—some of which look to me as if they could be mini baobabs but aren’t—and a wide variety of flowers.

In my fanciful imagination, one particular portion of the garden pathway, a short, straight stretch, that cuts through the garden reminds me of a road lined by baobabs in Northern Africa that looks like this:

Photo by Yasmine Arfaoui on Unsplash

The North Garden is a quiet place where, weather permitting, physically strong and able seniors can come out for walks or wheelchair strolls to soak in the peace that emanates from the abundant flora and “baobabs.”

In the garden

It’s a place where our seniors can get away from stress in their home areas—some of which resemble mini hospitals with beeping chair alarms, whirring oxygen machines, and nurses and doctors in attendance—and back into nature. It’s a place where worries slip away and a sense of calm melts anxiety and tension.

The sun can cry

HERE COMES THE SUN is precious to me because it had been drizzling that day and the sunflower bears signs of this fact in the form of tiny water droplets. The droplets are a reminder that even the sun can “cry” a little when there is cloud cover and precipitation.

This award-winning sunflower photo is a reminder that our world is often a combination of joys and sorrows; a mix of feelings that range from highs to lows.

Yet isn’t it in this combination of sun and rain that we find perfect peace and harmony and restored balance? Isn’t it in the acknowledgment that we strive to do our very best in a global situation that is far from perfect? In a world where there is, as Siddhartha Gautama discovered, the inevitability of sickness, old age and death (the First Noble Truth)? In a world where seniors can also feel stressed and sometimes even overwhelmed?

The garden is a source of calming, peaceful energy

As a chaplain in this seniors’ home, I spend time infusing myself with “garden energy” so that I can bring the peaceful nature of sunflowers, osteospermum ecklonsis (African daisies), daffodils, roses and other beauties to the home’s inhabitants—especially those who are not sufficiently able-bodied to come down to the garden.

I enjoy showing them flower photographs and seeing their faces light up with joy.

May we remember to replenish ourselves with energy and offer the same opportunity to our seniors in these stressful and overwhelming times in which we live.

Luba

Luba Rascheff is a part-time chaplain studying psychotherapy who recently obtained certification from the Transformation Academy as a Spiritual Life Coach. The name of her signature coaching program is Take it to the Next Level. Discover more here.

Purchase select FRAMED PRINTS & CANVASSES of HERE COMES THE SUN here.