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This is the story of author Stephen Post’s young family who endured the relative trauma of displacement and “placelessness” in moving between towns/cities and states in the US and about social connectedness and giving.
While the situations are different, reading this story prompted me to think about the journey our son, daughter-in-law and 2 year-old granddaughter are taking in their move from New Zealand to Australia. Post talks about the implications and impacts of moving on health, family, friends and community networks. This has been our son’s experience also over the past nine to 12 months.
Post, the founder of the Centre for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics at Stony Brook University, New York, refers to “the gift of the giver’s glow” in his book. In his work with people living dementia and Alzheimer’s – the “deeply forgetful” – he talks about just being with someone helps. “Helping truly does help the helper… giving of yourself to someone else; even the smallest act is healing.”
The hidden gifts of helping also explains how helping others improves mental and emotional health. Another lovely saying Post uses in the book is: “We eat because it keeps us alive and we help others because it keeps us human.” He talks about the act of giving being useful in ameliorating depression as it allows positive emotions like concern and compassion to push aside negative ones.
Helping others may help you live longer, too. Whenever you die, however old, you will feel young at heart if you live a generous life (research-based findings). Or as Post says: “Reaching out to help others saved my life – or so it feels.”
Post encourages you to think about how you can find the hidden gifts of giving in your life. Also covered in the book is the gift of hope and hanging on to hope. “We all need a garden of hope in life’s challenging periods – real hope, the kind that grows deep roots.”
Reviewed by Gary Sutcliffe, Consumer Advocate and Peer Support Specialist at East Tamaki Healthcare