Welcome
EUREKA!
MASTER
The Law of Attraction for Caregiving?
NEWS RELEASE from THIRD STEP PRESS
Contact Dee Patka at tsp@eurekamaster.com
Eureka! Memories and Motivations Illustrates
Law of Attraction in the Home Caregiving Situation
“After seven months in hospitals and rehabs, my friend, Eve, the survivor of a devastating brain hemorrhage, returned home. She was the shell of a functioning human being,” says Madonna Siles, now the author of two stroke/brain injury caregiving books. “Eve did not come with instructions. I was clueless.” In her new book, Eureka! Memories and Motivations, Siles describes the approach to daily living and recovery that she created by trial and error. It includes concepts from the 12-step program, subconscious communication techniques, creative and advertising strategies. In hindsight, Siles realizes she combined all of these concepts into a demonstration of the law of attraction in action for brain-injured patients and their home caregivers.As practitioners of the law of attraction know, the concept involves more than visualizing a desired goal. It also requires the ability to focus, to feel imagined success, to act as if and to recognize the triumphs when they come. All of these brain functions, including emotional self-awareness, were severely damaged when the author’s friend was stricken with the brain hemorrhage.To counter this, Siles used a team approach. Operating on the belief that Eve’s subconscious mind (the memory/motivation center) was still intact, Siles relied on her subconscious communication techniques, concentrated energy and intuition to supply Eve with the emotion, motivation and mental focus she was lacking. Siles also used advertising-style techniques to trigger emotions and to bring back Eve’s pre-aneurysm emotion-filled memories and associated behaviors. Even the tiniest successes were reinforced with celebrations. Siles made recovery fun for both of them.After eight years, Siles declares her law of attraction-style endeavor to bring back the “old” Eve a success. Today, 65 year-old Eve actively participates in a YMCA exercise program, drives, shops and edits the author’s writing. During her daily cognitive exercise hour, Eve works three New York Times crossword puzzles. Best of all, she “emotes” more than she ever has in her life. Meanwhile, the caregiver is still relatively sane, serene and very grateful. Will the “law of attraction” work in every caregiving situation? As the author points out, “The ‘law of attraction’ is not medical science. In truth, I never realized I was applying it to caregiving. But I did—and it kept me hopeful, centered on action and allowed me to be intuitive and creative in a frequently stressful and frustrating situation. I credit it with helping me maintain my own sanity and serenity. That in itself helped Eve. That Eve recovered to such a miraculous extent—despite her age and severity of brain damage—is the reason I wrote my books. I’m not a medical scientist, but something in these books and in our experience is certainly worth looking into, isn’t it?”Eureka! Memories and Motivations (Third Step Press, 2010) is the sequel to Brain, Heal Thyself (Hampton Roads, 2006). It is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online bookstores, as well as the author’s web site, Eurekamaster.com-30-
Blog-A-Thon Offers Relaxation and Visualization
Tips and Tricks at BrainCaregiver.com
Third Step Press will present a daily Blog-A-Thon, "21 Days to Eureka!", beginning Oct 4 at www.Braincaregiver.com The focus will be to help caregivers acquire the habit of relaxation and the ability to relax on self-command in the face of frustration or crises.
The daily blogs will offer special tips for home caregivers of cognitively, emotionally and/or memory-challenged patients. Beyond stress control, caregivers will learn how to tap into the creative, intuitive source in the subconscious mind.
Created by Madonna Siles, C.P.C., author of two books for caregivers of stroke
and brain injury survivors, the blog will feature daily motivation meditations, enhanced by photos. In addition to tips and tricks for acquiring the relaxation habit, participants in the Blog-A-Thon will be encouraged to support each other with comments that prove relaxation is working in their lives. A link will be provided to the author's website, eurekamaster.com, where caregivers can experience a relaxation visualization.
According to Siles, a certified professional life coach and a career motivational
communicator, "The concept of a 21-day Blog-A-Thon is based on the premise that it
takes 21 days to acquire a new habit. Borrowing from a 12-step program practice, the
Blog-A-Thon will encourage action to reinforce that the new habit is 'working'. It will
also encourage participants to positively support each other with their comments."
Both of Siles's books, Brain, Heal Thyself (Hampton Roads, 2006) and Eureka!
Memories and Motivations (Third Step Press, 2010), describe the author's unique
approach to the daily caregiving of her friend, the survivor of a devastating brain
hemorrhage in 2001. The books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other
