You are not alone! Learn more about the topics Co-Create 4 Life specializes in through our educational blog. From arguing with your inner critic to a loving and kindness meditation, you can find various resources to help you along your caregiving journey.
If you’re the primary thinker and doer in your household, I want you to know I completely understand how exhausted and worn-down you might feel. I urge you to consider my three-part remedy because whatever makes YOUR life easier, will inevitably make your loved-one’s life better! Simplifying your plans, your tasks and your routines can only serve to make your burden lighter.
We also invent reasons for avoiding self-care, sometimes because we’ve confused self-care with pampering or self-indulgence (as might be the case with the nail scenario above). Self-care isn’t simply about making ourselves feel important (worthy?) or comfortable, or attractive – self-care is about consciously taking action to feed the soul, nourish the body, nurture the spirit and most of all, replenish the relationship we’re building with ourselves!
It was a beautiful winter day; all was going remarkably well! As a caregiver, you know to spot these days, to cherish them and appreciate that they may not be frequent experiences in your week or even your month. This was one of those days, lovely in every respect.
For me, the biggest changes I’m working to make this year have to do with how I eat and how much I move. Both goals feel like huge hurdles in a season when the great outdoors offers mostly cold and wet weather, and my inner inclinations are pointed toward hibernation behaviors.
No doubt you’ve heard me say before, to be a healthy caregiver you need a team of people around you that you can count on for assistance and support. However, building those relationships, and perhaps more importantly, repairing those relationships if they’ve become fractured, is an important skill set for all of us.
Remember how, in the Star Trek movies, the Captain would have the Ensign set a course for some obscure region of the galaxy? Being a solopreneur, an all-by-myself health coach, there’s no Ensign at the front console to command and have my course set for the coming year – I need to do that for myself.
There’s a phenomenon that I notice as the holidays approach – it’s like a time compression or a time warp. The list of things I want to accomplish seems to grow longer and the time in which I have to wrap things up for the year seems to grow shorter. There are other “symptoms” associated with this phenomenon as well. . .
For most of us, this can be confusing, we’re struggling to be compassionate and kind to ourselves, often in the hope that it will make us feel better than we usually do. But this is a misconception. We move toward self-compassion in order to accept all of who we are – the parts that feel good, and the parts that experience pain, sadness, grief or suffering, and still be compassionate!
Yes, it seems counterintuitive to me too, the notion that we can or should let go of expectations. But here’s what the writers who foster such a life-view mean by that statement – we make our own journey much more difficult when we hold out expectations for how life is supposed to go.
Lots of people struggle with holiday stress – it’s as if there’s a national competition going on for who can be the most anxious person over the never-ending details of celebrating our winter holidays. We start from the premise that perfection is possible (it’s not, no matter what the well-curated magazine covers portray). The sooner we let go of that notion of the “perfect” holiday, the more breathing space we’ll make for ourselves and others with whom we share the season.
It’s important to acknowledge the designation of November as National Family Caregivers Month. Family caregivers are the relatives, friends, or neighbors who provide assistance often related to an underlying physical or mental disability.
I bought myself Kristin Neff’s book, Self-Compassion, this week with the intention of reading it before year’s end and using its wisdom with my clients. Little did I realize how much I have to learn about being self-compassionate; this book may become a good tool for my clients, but for now, it is an excellent tool for me!
I considered writing about Halloween given that tonight the ghosts & goblins will knock on our doors looking for the best in sweets and treats. But we really don’t celebrate this holiday at our house – so many strangers, persistently knocking on the door, simply upsets my husband too much (Alzheimer’s).
Over the last several weeks, I’ve been engaged in an online course of sorts about the nature of White privilege. It is called a White Affinity Circle and it is a “virtual circle” conversation among a group (I think there’s about 8 of us) White women with a professor leading the discussion.
Recently, I had a rich conversation with a friend and colleague in which we discussed the structure of the religious calendar – in particular, the Jewish year. Rosh Hashanah the holiday that proclaims the new year, which ran from sundown on September 25th through nightfall September 27this an extremely important holiday for Jewish people, a time to both reflect and rejoice.
If you read Mindful magazine, as I try to each month, you’ve likely come across the article offering these three insights into the pursuit of happiness.
I came upon an interesting book last week, Wellbeing at Work, by the Gallup Research authors, Jim Clifton & Jim Harter. They summarize a ton of data that Gallup has amassed over their years of national and international polls, and what they offer is well worth attending to.
Circling back to the Yamas & Nyamas of Yoga, I recall I skipped over Brahmacharya (when I wrote about Aparigraha in mid-August) – which is a practice often dismissed in Western culture because we think it is synonymous with “celibacy” and therefore ignore it because it seems irrelevant to us.
This week, I caught a “cold.” It presented as a sinus infection, likely viral, and fairly annoying if not completely debilitating. I think the added distress of this infection was that I haven’t had a “cold” in the last several years. I think I believed I was “immune” – but of course, I’m not.
For those of you who lead “normal” lives – lives that aren’t built around the needs of other people with serious limitations – the idea of taking a road trip probably sounds entirely ordinary. But for a full-time caregiver (like me), the logistics associated with the notion of getting into a car, spending several hours in that confined space, transporting our life (with all the necessary belongings) to a hotel, spending the night, and enjoying a different expanse of scenery is entirely foreign!
I help other caregivers – both professionals and family caregivers – acknowledge their pain and learn to practice the many small skills of self-care that can sustain them through the challenges of wholeheartedly caring for others.
If you’re the primary thinker and doer in your household, I want you to know I completely understand how exhausted and worn-down you might feel. I urge you to consider my three-part remedy because whatever makes YOUR life easier, will inevitably make your loved-one’s life better! Simplifying your plans, your tasks and your routines can only serve to make your burden lighter.
We also invent reasons for avoiding self-care, sometimes because we’ve confused self-care with pampering or self-indulgence (as might be the case with the nail scenario above). Self-care isn’t simply about making ourselves feel important (worthy?) or comfortable, or attractive – self-care is about consciously taking action to feed the soul, nourish the body, nurture the spirit and most of all, replenish the relationship we’re building with ourselves!
It was a beautiful winter day; all was going remarkably well! As a caregiver, you know to spot these days, to cherish them and appreciate that they may not be frequent experiences in your week or even your month. This was one of those days, lovely in every respect.
For me, the biggest changes I’m working to make this year have to do with how I eat and how much I move. Both goals feel like huge hurdles in a season when the great outdoors offers mostly cold and wet weather, and my inner inclinations are pointed toward hibernation behaviors.
Through Co-Create 4 Life, you will learn a range of well-being strategies from skillfully implementing self-care to holistic approaches to well-being, rebuilding resilience, and battling burnout. Book a free consultation call today to discuss your options.
Through Co-Create 4 Life, you will learn a range of well-being strategies from skillfully implementing self-care to holistic approaches to well-being, rebuilding resilience, and battling burnout. Book a free consultation call today to discuss your options.
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