I am sure many of you have done this. Be with friends or family and some gorgeous food is being served. Cakes, biscuits, desserts all filled with delicous ingredients, but the most important of those ingredients is love. Anything made with love and by someone we love, is always much more delicious because of it.
Just as with baking, our recipe for life can inspire others. The way we live our lives, with or without Parkinson’s can role model how life can be, despite our health challenges. To model that although we have a serious and significant condition, that we are not going to let it swallow us up and become a recipe for disaster. Learning from others with this condition, the hints and tips on how they manage their life with Parkinson’s can be inspiring. In sharing those hints and tips, we can take from them what we feel will work for us and discard those that don’t. Just like when you go to make a recipe and you don’t have one of the elements. Do you just give up and say you can’t make the recipe? Not me! If a recipe calls for molasses nd I don’t have it, or don’t like the taste, I substitute with maple syrup or golden syrup or even brown sugar. That way, I still have the basic recipe, but I am not bound by it, I can substitute ingredients to my taste and still have a delicious outcome.
So too, when others with Parkinson’s share their life recipe for dealing with this condition I am likely to modify it in some way. I take from their recipe what I know can work for me and add my own twist so that it suits my personality, my abilities and that considers my other heal conditions. But, the recipe for life that they give me is ‘tried and true’ and coming from someone travelling on a similar path, I know will in all likelihood have some benefits for me.
Any group that you attend of people going through similar life journeys will usually be beneficial. Like going to a pre-school group with your young child and watching them play with others while chatting with other mums. You naturally talk about what your baby or toddler is like and perhaps some of the challenges. Get a group of mums together like this and very soon they are swapping thoughts on feeding, progressing to solids, sleeping, toilet training etc. There is nothing like hearing that others also find new parenthood challenging to make you feel better about what seems like bumbling through. We are all learning and sharing honest thoughts about our recipe for parenting can be invaluable.
So too, with Parkinson’s. A support group of those with Parkinson’s and their partners is one of the useful things in my recipe for a life with Parkinson’s. We are comfortable enough now in our Peer Group that we feel able to talk about our recipe for getting through and continuing – for the most part – to have a good life. Being together and sharing hints and tips can be very helpful. It can also be positive because of feedback that we might receive about our recipe for life and we may be doing better than we thought!
What is your recipe for life with Parkinson’s?
Have you shared that recipe with others so that they can better understand you and maybe learned something along the way?
Have other people’s recipes for life inspired you to try something new? Perhaps something you never thought a person with Parkinson’s could do?
If you want to have a wee listen to some other thoughts on recipes for Parkinson’s have a wee listen to my podcast
My journey with Parkinsons 