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The Caregiver Cup Podcast
Empowering caregivers with knowledge, resources and tools so they can be the best they can be. This podcast focuses on ways for the caregiver to reduce stress, burnout, can embrace moments of joy in their new normal. Listen weekly to Cathy's personal experiences, coaching, tips, inspiration, and interviews.
The Caregiver Cup Podcast
You Can’t Do This Alone: Why Caregivers Need Support to Thrive
We’re going to get real—deep into the truth of caregiving. Depending on where you're in your caregiving journey, you may not want to hear this, or this may be exactly what you need. This is real talk, & before we start, I want to say: I get you, I love you, & I wish someone had this hard conversation with me earlier.
Caregiving isn’t a solo mission. If you think you can handle everything on your own, you’re setting yourself up for burnout. I know this because I lived it. I’ll share one of my breaking points—a moment that found me lying in a hospital bed, overwhelmed with stress & anxiety. I was embarrassed, but that wake-up call changed my caregiving approach forever.
We're exploring why so many caregivers feel the need to do it all—whether it’s out of duty, guilt, or fear of judgment. But the truth is, without support, we’re not only doing a disservice to ourselves, but to our loved ones as well.
You’ll learn 3 key areas where caregivers can seek help:
- Building Your Caregiving Team: Delegate tasks & involve others.
- Professional Support: Explore respite care, home care services & other resources.
- Emotional & Mental Health Support: The power of therapy, support groups & caregiver coaching to help you manage the emotional weight of caregiving.
As caregivers, we need to break the myth that asking for help means we’ve failed. Support is not a luxury; it’s a necessity.
And if you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure of where to start, I’m here to help. I offer 2 coaching packages designed specifically for caregivers like you:
- Caregiver Breakthrough Session: In this one-hour session, we’ll work together to find clarity & direction in your caregiving life. If you’re drowning in endless demands & struggling to find time for yourself, this session will help you identify one key area to focus on, giving you the clarity you need to move forward.
- Empowerment Caregiver Coaching: This three-month program is a bold step toward prioritizing your well-being & creating a balanced, joyful caregiving life. Through personalized support, we’ll develop a tailored plan to help you thrive as both a caregiver.
You don’t have to do this alone, and you deserve to feel empowered & supported on this journey.
Learn more about my coaching programs and how we can work together
Thank you for listening. If you know of another caregiver who could benefit from this podcast, please copy and share this episode.
Follow me by clicking on the links below:
- ➡️ Get my free resource: 17 SHIFTS TO RECUDE CAREGIVER STRESS & SAY GOOD-BYE TO CAREGIVER BURNOUT
- If you're interested in 1:1 Coaching ➡️ schedule a 30 minute FREE chat
- CONNECT WITH CATHY ON INSTAGRAM @cathylynnvan for daily tips and inspiration
Well, hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode of the Caregiver Cup podcast. I am so glad you're here with me today. It's Kathy here and we're going to jump into a really, really good topic today. But before we get started, I wanted to go ahead and thank Barb for a recent fan mail. I don't know, barb, if it was from last week or the week before. I think it was from last week because we talked about gratitude. But she says I'm a couple years into my caregiving journey with my spouse with dementia.
Speaker 1:I found it hard to journal. I don't really know why. I know words come easy when I talk out loud, but writing them down I get distracted. Same with journaling, gratitude. But several months ago my phone updated and gave me a journaling app. I voice, text my voice. Say that again. I voice, text my gratitude and can do it anywhere, anytime, even one at a time. I'm getting better at all my journaling, but this gratitude thing has has come easier when it's right, when it's on my phone.
Speaker 1:Thank you, kathy, for the podcast. I started listening a couple months ago and have binge listened. I am still a couple years behind, but I already want to go back and re-listen, barb. Well, thank you, barb, for listening to the Caregiver Cup podcast and I'm so glad you found it, and thank you for the tip, because everybody's journey, everybody's situation and skill sets and ways that they do things are different, and I love that you gave a twist to journaling gratitude, because I like that, the fact that you found it on your phone helpful, and I love the fact that you can voice text as well, so you find what works for you and what's nice about it. You have them now recorded and you can go back and look at those, so keep them coming. Everybody, if you have a question or you have a suggestion or a different way of doing things, this helps us all think of better ways to show up as our better self.
Speaker 1:Excuse me, okay, let's jump into today's episode, which really is going to be something that is something that we're going to get real with. Today, I'm going to go deep in the reality of caregiving. I'm going to go deep into the truth and, depending on where you are in your caregiving season, you may not want to hear this or this may be an episode you needed to hear. This is real talk from Kathy. This is the hard truth and before we start, I want to tell you that I get you. I'm still there. I've been there. I also want to tell you I love you and I wish someone had this information and told me this in a hard discussion. And this is where we're going to go today.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to start out with this bold statement by saying caregiving isn't a solo mission. If you think you can do this on your own, you're setting yourself up for burnout. And if I think about this, I've had three memorable not so great memories of breaking points that stopped me in my tracks, of breaking points that stopped me in my tracks where I didn't think I could go on anymore. My body was telling me to stop, my mind was telling me to stop, and let me share one of these with you right now.
Speaker 1:After a morning of struggling, I found myself laying in the ER gurney with all of these cardiac monitor strips on me, with chest pain, shortness of breath, and I was sweating profusely. Well, after they ruled out that I wasn't having a heart attack, they were able to diagnose me with high anxiety and stress. There was nothing wrong with my heart. There was nothing showing up in my blood or anywhere else. I was so relieved, but then I felt embarrassed, I felt shame, I felt guilt for being the patient laying in the hospital, knowing that my loved ones were fighting their cancers.
Speaker 1:But the reality is I was doing too much. I was carrying all of it on my back and carrying it all and thought that is how you, caregiver, that is how it is when you're a caregiver. Unfortunately, trying to do it all and wanting to handle everything yourself is a normal caregiver response. Let me repeat this again it's normal for caregivers to feel like they have to do it all. That's why I want to talk about this topic today that so many of us, as caregivers, face the inner urge to try to handle everything on our own. It's natural, right. We think things like if I just push through this a little harder, I can make it work. It feels like we're supposed to do it all because it's our responsibility. All these thoughts in our head. But here's the reality Caregiving is tough. It's the toughest job I've ever ever had and no one can truly do it alone. And no one can truly do it alone. No one can. And if you think you can, you're wrong. If I trace back to my breaking point at the ER room or in that ER room. I was ignoring all the triggers.
Speaker 1:For weeks before that I was taking on my full-time job, which at the time I was managing an onboarding program with 28 adjunct facilitators. I was caring for Dennis and Dennis was getting his chemotherapy and I was running for anything that he needed, but I was also helping him with a short-term disability and any grants that we could get, because the out-of-pocket expenses were starting to really pile up. I was also caring for my dad, and my dad was 250 miles away and so I was traveling as much as I could most of the time a weekend or something like that taking care of him but also helping him through his Medicare insurance, his supplemental insurance and his cancer insurance and making sure that all of the coverage was there, and then the cancer insurance was giving him back money for like his travel and stuff like that, and so I was working through all of that. I was also I applied for FMLA, which means that I had three months of where I could take off time and it wouldn't hurt me from a position perspective. So I was trying to balance that. Every time I needed time off, I had to fill out this form, submit it. It had to go through approval. Most of the time, I had to get a doctor's note from my dad's doctor or Dennis's doctor.
Speaker 1:I was also advocating making sure that everything was. We were asking all the right questions and sharing where they were struggling, and so on. I was coordinating schedules with my siblings, trying to see if they could help. I was trying to keep up with all the housework and the yard work. I was also coaching and counseling my mom, who was really struggling because she wasn't that mentally healthy, and I could go on and on and on of all the things that I was doing, and I could go on and on and on of all the things that I was doing.
Speaker 1:Prior to that, I was taking care of myself. Prior to 2017, I was really good at going to the gym, I was running, I was eating healthy. Well, now that all stopped. I wasn't exercising, I wasn't eating. I was eating McDonald's or stopping at a gas station and getting a bite to eat on the way to and from my dad's place. I was not taking any respite care. I didn't even know what respite care was, and if I tried and somebody recommended that I take a day off, it was like another thing on my checklist.
Speaker 1:Many caregivers I know, you and I fall into this pattern of thinking and we often don't ask for help until when, until we've completely burnt out or we're in this panic state or hopefully you were never in that ER, gurney, but if you were, you know what that feels like and then, like me, we feel guilty and shame for getting sick, feeling emotional, having a breakdown or checking completely out. You might say I didn't want anyone to know, I didn't. I didn't want anybody to know that I was in the emergency room. But it's normal. Your body and your mind will finally send alarms and it's finally going to shut down if it can't handle anything anymore. So in this episode we're going to break down why support is not a luxury but a necessity for every caregiver. It should be normalized and it's not. I don't.
Speaker 1:I truly believe that caregiving is seen like the daughter, the spouse, the child. You have to jump in and you have to take care of them. And it's not normalized like a business, like if you owned a business let's say you owned a little brick and mortar shop right, you're going to start out by maybe working a lot of hours and trying to get everything in place, but you eventually look at technology to make things easier. So you have technology to check people out and handle the inventory. You hire somebody else to go ahead and help at the counter or manage the store. Hopefully, you hire somebody to clean that kind of thing because you can't do everything 24-7 and show up as your best self, and the same applies for caregiving. So let's start with right now why we feel we shouldn't do it all and we can't.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about that. What are the things that you say? Do you catch yourself saying I can't handle it? Or I'm sorry, I can handle it, I just need to push through a little bit harder. Once I get through this busy season, it'll get easier. I've done it before, just do it. You might catch yourself saying things and encouraging yourself to keep doing it. Think about it. We are praised for doing our best as a child. If we clean up our room, we're saying good job, so we just keep doing it. When our loved one is sick, we tell them we're saying good job, so we just keep doing it. When our loved one is sick, we tell them don't worry, I got you. Well, when we look at resources like textbook resources, they say things like for.
Speaker 1:The first one I want to talk about is the sense of duty and guilt. Many caregivers feel an overwhelming responsibility. The idea of letting someone else take over even part of their caregiving can feel like they're not doing their duty. Have you felt that way? If somebody helps, then you feel like you're not doing your job, versus you can't do it all. You feel guilt for thinking about it. If I don't do it, I'm failing my loved one. But on the flip side, you should feel a sense of teamwork when somebody else is helping. I got it covered. We need to start thinking more like a CEO of a company or a manager of a business.
Speaker 1:Another resource that I found they talked about cultural expectations. In some cultures and families, caregiving is seen as a role that falls on certain individuals, like the eldest daughter or the spouse. This was me. I was the oldest for my parents, I was a wife. This can create pressure to meet these expectations without asking for outside help, and I want to. I want eventually we're going to talk about this. Help means many different things. Maybe your culture doesn't allow for having somebody to come into your home, but help could mean efficiencies, resources, applications, technology, so we can go ahead and look at it and we can look at different ways that you're not going to break your cultural expectations, but if your cultural expectations are, you have to be there. Well, you may be able to go ahead and get groceries, have somebody get groceries for you, or order them and have them dropped off at your step or your front door. Your step or your front door. That's just one of many examples.
Speaker 1:Another thought that we might why we feel we should do it all and we can't is fear of judgment. This is a big one for caregivers. We often fear others will judge us for not being strong enough or not being able to manage it all on our own. There's this unspoken belief that we should be able to juggle it all, and seeking support is a sign of weakness. Do you feel this way? Why and that would be a discussion you and I would have why are you worried about what other people think? Why are you worried about that and that judgment when, if you can get the utmost quality of care for your loved one by bringing in somebody into your home to go ahead and help you clean the house so that you can take care of your loved one, go for it, more power to you?
Speaker 1:Or the misconception about control. Many caregivers feel like they need to control every aspect of their loved one's care to ensure it's done right. This misconception leads to taking on too much and not allowing others to help. Or my situation nobody can do it like I can do it. It's okay if they do it differently, but the job is getting done. That's a sign of a true manager or a leader. Another one is the desire to protect your loved one. Maybe you often feel like no one can care for your loved one better than you can.
Speaker 1:I just said that this deep emotional connection can make it hard to trust anyone else with your loved one's care. These are all reasons and myths of providing the best possible care for your loved one, because if you do it all, what's going to happen? So I brought in some stats here 60% of caregivers report feeling significant stress and nearly 20% of caregivers report they are exhausted to the point of burnout. My question is are you there right now? Are you doing it all? Are you doing too much? Are you doing it all? Are you doing too much? What's going to happen if you don't shift and change? Research from AARP also shows that one in four caregivers have fair or poor health due to stress from caregiving, particularly when they're managing everything without support. Do you want to be a statistic or do you want this to be when you look back on it years from now? Do you want to look back at it as am I proud of what I did? I realized I couldn't do it all and I made some hard choices and it was the best decision that I made. That's why we need this.
Speaker 1:Talk about the myths and break the cultural expectations and norms about why support is non-negotiable if we want to care for our loved one and ourselves in this long run and it is a long run Most of the time it is a long run. I'm just turning up my volume. I'm noticing my microphone is not. You know how you get the sound waves. It's not bouncing up enough, so I wanted to make sure you could hear me.
Speaker 1:When I asked myself this, I had a whole bunch of crazy lies in my head. Being the firstborn, I'm a high achiever and I can accomplish anything. I'm stubborn and I can put my mind to it. But also my realization was I can't say no. It was so hard for me to say no, and who else would take care of my mom or my dad or my spouse? Yeah, and it was scary. Well, look where I'm at. Or look where I was at when I was in the hospital bed yeah, I was laying there. I was laying there in this hospital bed. I can think of the other two situations as well, and I was in similar situations.
Speaker 1:Many caregivers have this, and what I want to talk about is they have these physical and mental health breakdowns which highlight the toll of their stress that they take on or we take on, and a lot of times we're diagnosed with chronic fatigue to depression, and I even feel that to this day, since my mom it'll be two years on next Tuesday that she passed away and I can feel that that was humongous chronic fatigue and it's almost taken me two years to get rid of that. Many caregivers feel burnout, where you're emotionally exhausted, the anger and resentment towards caregiving and your loved one, and you find yourself just wanting to run away. Or the common one that we hear is we lose sight of ourselves, we lose our identity because you're taking care of the needs of your loved ones and all of the things associated with it. Well, another story that comes to mind, and I've said this in earlier episodes, but it's worth repeating. I call this story my car story.
Speaker 1:I was on the way to work and it was early. It was it was early in the morning and I found myself in the parking lot at my corporate office and I couldn't get out of the car. I just couldn't get out of the car. I was shaking, an emotional mess. I was just not mentally ready to go in and my physical body was frozen and I said to myself I can't work today. I just can't work today. My mindset was a mess. It was a Monday morning, so I just got done with Sundays, were devoted to my mom and dad, and so I just got back from spending the day with them. And then all of the pressures of taking care of my husband and then the pressures of having to go to work and work start going right into go mode. I didn't take any time to myself. My emotions were out of control. I was pounding on the steering wheel, I was mad, I was just a mess, and so I decided to pick up my cell phone and I called my boss and said I just can't go in today. I just can't, I'm just not ready to go in and I said I need a mental health day Instead of going home.
Speaker 1:I drove to a park where I had happy memories. I used to run in this trail along the park and I parked my car in the parking lot and I said I have to figure this out, I have to figure this out. And I was crying, I was just angry, I was a mess and thank goodness I had my briefcase in the backseat. So I reached back into my briefcase and grabbed a notebook and a pen and I just started scribbling out everything that I was freaking angry about. I was just so mad and what all my emotions were. And, to make a long story short, eventually the emotions were released and I could go ahead and take and actually get out of the car. I went and sat on a park bench and I said what steps can I take to change the situation? I didn't think there was anybody that in the world who cared about me. I was so close-minded. Nobody cares about me, nobody wants to help me. It was Kathy's pity party, but when you're in this mental state, you can't see anything else. I felt like I was in this deep hole, like you were down in this well, and all I could see was this big tunnel with a little bit of light, but it was so far away that I couldn't get out. That's how I felt, and so I had to change the situation and eventually did.
Speaker 1:Now, the good thing about you listening today is that you can build a support system, you can build efficiencies, you can build a better caregiver life, no matter where you're at. If you're a new caregiver, this is something I highly recommend you listen to and highly think about these three basic steps I'm going to share in just a second here. If you're a caregiver for a while, you can still start small and start looking at working on one thing at a time, and I'll share with you a situation where I met with a coach after that car incident and really talking about what I did. So there are three basic areas to look at, to go ahead and shift your perspective when it comes to thinking. You have to do this all alone, because you can't, and that is building a caregiving team, and it's your caregiving team, your team, that is going to be there to support you.
Speaker 1:First of all, you have to identify all of the things that you're doing, and then you have to think about. Is there things that I can delegate or ask people to help with? Are there things that I could change and shift? Well, let's talk about what you could delegate, whether it's meals. Somebody says, what can I do for you? You know, and you could say you know what. It's really hard on chemotherapy days because we don't get home until four o'clock and if I don't have a meal in. Or it's really hard for me on caregiving day because I need somebody to let out the dog. It could be something like that that eases the stress. Or it could be transportation to appointments, or it could be managing medical appointments or making a list of who could be handed off to who. What could you do? You have to identify everything and then you have to do it. You have to ask and reach out to friends and family or even neighbors. I bet somebody said to you I've been thinking about you. If there's anything that I can do for you, let me know. And you're like no, no, I'm good, right, we all say that. But you could say I'm good right now, but if there's anything I need, can I reach out to you and they're going to say yes, and then that's the permission.
Speaker 1:Sometimes people want to help but they don't know how to help. Okay, so when I work with Cheryl, which was a client of mine, we sat down and listed out all the things she was doing and the possibilities of asking for help. We went through all of where she was at. I'm not going to get into all of that, but she was in kind of in the same situation I was, and she found that her family and friends were open to asking or for open to helping her. And what she did is she created a monthly calendar and sent it out in advance. And guess what? Most of the time it was filled up and so she only had to fill in in the places that she needed. Most of the people wanted to help and in my mom's situation, we had grandchildren and we had myself and my two siblings. We had grandchildren that could help, we had neighbors that could help and for the longest of time we didn't ask, and when we did, it was wonderful and everybody used their own specialty. Some of the neighbors love to just go ahead and get her mail. Some of the neighbors love to bring over a dessert or something to her and visit her for an hour. Grandkids love to go ahead and help with groceries or whatever.
Speaker 1:So going back to Cheryl, though, she wrote here she said Thank you for all you do, kathy. You help me see my situation and challenges through a new lens and help me see the possibilities. I have my plan and I'm taking small steps and showing up now as a happier caregiver. Just think about it Just a small step can make a huge difference. So the first one is the first basic step is thinking about building your caregiving team. The second step is looking for professional support. This one is really hard for caregivers and, to be honest with you, me too. But what services are out there that could give you and your loved one some support?
Speaker 1:For my mom, we looked at things that could support her physically, emotionally, schedule-wise and, most importantly, the socialization that she needed. Wise and most importantly, the socialization that she needed. My mom was definitely an extrovert and when she got sick she didn't do as much. So she was excited when we found events at her local senior center where she loved those luncheons that they had, the bingo afternoons and they even had dancing, and even in her apartment too. So we would look at, I would sit down with her and say, let's look at all of these. And then she had her personal calendar and she would write down all of these events and then, when she was feeling good, she would go ahead and say I want to ride for here or I can walk down for here, whatever it would be. And not only did this help her, it helped me as well, because she was getting that day. When she was there, I'm like, okay, it's a good day. I know she's having a good time and and so, and a good time and so-and-so is going to bring her there and so-and-so is going to bring her back, and I'll call her in the evening and I know she's feeling good. That was her respite care, that was hers.
Speaker 1:And thinking about you too. What can you do from a respite care perspective? Are there places or things that you could do? I know I've shared this many times, but I went ahead and created Sunday fun days for my mom after my dad had passed. So both of the days weren't dedicated to my mom. Saturdays were my day and Sundays were her day. So I had one day a week where I could devote most of the day to myself and the other part of my day just to get caught up with some of the everyday stuff. That was my day off.
Speaker 1:Another thought about professional support is thinking about what are the services out there that you can take advantage of, and not only home care services, but other services that you could take advantage of. Your loved one deserves the best care, and sometimes that means bringing in professionals into the home or seeking out support and who have the skills and the training you know. I had to go ahead and say you know, ask the doctor what is available. I know my mom needs, you know, this treatment. I know my husband needs this therapy. What are the options? What are there? You're advocating, you're looking at local agencies that have support. It could be everything from meal services to financial services, to driver services what's available? And then check your insurance.
Speaker 1:Most of the time, caregivers don't look at to see are there services paid for that you're not taking advantage of? Most caregivers never ask, and so, being able to ask and doing some investigating, the worst thing that they could say is no, we don't have that. But how wonderful would it be if you could get a nurse to come in and help with bathing? Or ask if physical therapy can be done at home, or does it always have to be done in the office? Is there any services that pay for that? Or if there are services to drive your loved one to chemotherapy treatment. Are services to drive your loved one to chemotherapy treatment? There are services. My husband knows of services that are available to him that he can take advantage of. Okay, so the first one is building your caregiving team, the second one is looking for professional services and the third one is seeking emotional and mental health support.
Speaker 1:This is a big one. As caregivers, we carry all the baggage right, meaning that we're carrying the challenges, the worry, our loved one's emotion, our loved one's pain, and we sweep our thoughts and emotions and physical symptoms under the rug. Oh my gosh, think about what under that rug looks like. Eventually, you're going to have to pick up that rug and shake it and clean up the dirt underneath it. The dirt underneath the rug can be a bundle of emotions and trauma and fear and more. We're caring a lot, so therapy is something that you want to think about.
Speaker 1:Many of you told me that you have help and it has helped you. It's something I've done off and on as a caregiver. When caring for my parents, I realized that I was beating myself up for not making everything okay for them. When everything couldn't be okay, I couldn't change the situation. I'm a people pleaser and it was eating me up inside. That's something that I carried and I wasn't going to be able to fix that on my own. I needed the therapy and I needed the licensed professionals to go ahead and help me, talk through this and help me be okay with not being a people pleaser.
Speaker 1:Another one in the seeking emotional and mental health support is support groups and community. Now, many of you think of the traditional support group, right? You think about people sitting around in a circle sharing their struggles and saying hi, I am Kathy, I'm a caregiver for blah, blah, blah. Right, if you like the traditional group, I encourage you to do that. But don't lose sight that a community can be many other ways. If you can find like a handful, one or two, even other caregivers and you decide you want to meet up whether it's FaceTime, texting or, if you're in the same community, a cup of coffee, whatever it would be that could be your support group. Just having somebody that understands that the same things that you're going through and not feeling alone and you're lifting each other up. It can be an online community, where you're part of an online community where you don't feel alone, you could ask questions and you lift each other up. It can be a local agency offering speakers. I have one in Wisconsin, in my county, where I get an email every Wednesday saying you can join us online, you can join us at the site, and once a month we have a speaker that comes in and talks about a topic, and so I'm always looking at what the topic is and seeing if it relates to me, and once a quarter they have a potluck at the location as well.
Speaker 1:Oops, just one minute. Sorry about that. Doing that, okay. The other one is when we're seeking emotional and mental health support. Another one is coaching. I dropped my just as what that noise was, I dropped one of my wall barriers onto a table, which hit off the remote control on the TV. So that was what are we watching? Pawn Stars came up. It came up and started talking and I'm like I didn't even have the TV on. Woo-hoo, woo-hoo. Okay, getting back to seeking emotional support, we talked about therapy. We talked about groups or communities. Another one to think about is coaching, and this is what I do.
Speaker 1:Caregiving coaching or caregiver coaching can help caregivers create personalized plans and strategies to manage their time, energy and emotions effectively. That's where, like I said, I help. Many caregivers can't see the relief. Now here's an example, because when I was in the ER laying there and the doctor diagnosed me with chronic stress and burnout, really and really talked. The doctor said to me Kathy, you have to put yourself first, you have to take care of yourself. Okay, I'm thinking to myself, how am I going to do that? And then the nurse came in and gave the sheets of paper and the orders to go home and she's like you know. Here's a few more other options. Like I know, the doctor said take care of yourself. And she had the how to's underneath it. Like you have to take a day off a week. You need to go ahead and make sure you're getting enough sleep, making sure you're eating right. Okay, I can do all of that, but nothing's going to change. He said I did this, you know. And then another piece I'm reading ahead on my notes because I'm getting so excited.
Speaker 1:When the doctor said take care of yourself, my spouse looked at me. Who brought me there? And he was in tears. He was in tears. He said I did this to you and he was just so emotional. I said you didn't do this to me. Cancer did. My dad didn't ask for cancer. You didn't ask for cancer.
Speaker 1:And, to be honest with you, I left the ER more frustrated, stressed, emotional and confused. I still had the chest pain, I still had panic attacks and anxiety, I still had bouts of sweat and it didn't change anything. They offered me depression pills or told me to go to my doctor, but that wasn't the root cause. Root cause. But when I met with my coach. I met with a coach after that and she asked me to track my week. She asked me to look at all the things that I was doing and not change anything, but write it all down, and then I brought it to our next meeting. I actually sent it to her in advance.
Speaker 1:She then asked me to identify the things that caused me stress and she made me highlight everything that caused me stress. And then she helped me identify areas to work on and we did these one at a time. We did these two at a time and we started I wanted to really the whole outcome of and we set up a like a purpose statement. But what I wanted really was time and energy, so that I could go ahead and have a little bit of time for myself, and so I could go ahead and find ways to release the stress. So we looked at efficiencies. We looked at ways I could automate things like those, subscribe and saves and order online. Like those subscribe and saves and order online, making sure all of my bills and all of the things were automated. She helped me with a calendar sharing system to ask for help each and every month. She had to help me rip off the bandaid of not doing it all and being okay with others taking on things and not feeling guilty about it, and so I had to talk through that and eventually I went back to therapy that she recommended for me on that topic.
Speaker 1:But eventually, what happened then is I started getting creative and started thinking about other ways that I could make things even easier for the others that were helping, and that it's kind of like a business owner when you start getting help, you can start focusing on the details more in detail. One of the things is I started looking at could I go ahead and try to schedule all doctor's appointments and chemotherapy appointments on specific days, and so when somebody wanted to help, I would say, oh yeah, dennis's appointments are on Thursdays, so Thursday is his day, and so would that work for you and started looking at that. So I wasn't like scattering all over the place who's going where, what's happening here and what's going there and it started helping. Now, it didn't happen overnight, but it happened slowly but surely. So I did the same for Tanya, one of my other caregiver clients. We mapped out a plan for her to make changes, and here's what she said. When we started getting some traction on the changes, she said Kathy, I am so glad that I met with you and spent the time gaining clarity on my caregiver life and what she means by that is. We started identifying what she wanted the ideal caregiving situation to look like.
Speaker 1:I now see the root causes of my feelings of stuck and the steps I can take to make changes. I feel more joy coming back and she feels more joy coming back, and she feels more joy coming back. So those are the things and that's why I get so excited when I can be a coach to somebody and help them. Now I will never, ever take the replacement of a therapist. I will never, ever take the replacement of a support group, because those are two total, separate things. But I think, when you look at, is there things that I feel stressed for time, I have no energy, my emotions are out of check. Is there things, tactical things, that we can change for you? So, as we wrap up today, I want to acknowledge how hard it is and how it can be to focus on yourself first.
Speaker 1:Releasing control and finding a team to support you is no easy feat. It's not. But let me tell you, when you take the step, you're going to feel an incredible sense of relief, wash over you. You're going to feel like this backpack that's all full is starting to lessen. Somebody's taken on some extra weight for you. I'm here to help you navigate this journey. I'm offering two coaching packages designed specifically for caregivers like you, and let me just go through these. And first of all, you can go out to kathylvancom forward slash work with me and the link will be in the show notes.
Speaker 1:But the two packages that I offer is the caregiver breakthrough session. I can't even say it. This is your chance to find clarity and direction in your caregiver life If you're feeling stuck, overwhelmed by endless tasks and longing for support this one hour session for you, is it? What I do is I have you fill out an assessment form. We connect back and forth via email and just making sure I have all the details. We're not spending all that one hour talking about all the details. We're getting down into what can we shift and change for you and then together we identify one key area to focus in on that will help you gain the clarity that you need to move forward. We start working out a personalized action plan for you and then after that, you get two weeks of it's an online text system called Voxer, and if you don't have Voxer, you don't like Voxer. We'll work out a different way to communicate. But we're going to stay connected for two weeks through texting each other or voice texting each other to say how is this going, have you tried this? And we're going to work on that personalized plan together.
Speaker 1:The second package that I offer is a little bit longer of a package. It's the Empowerment Caregiver Coaching. This is a three-month program where you take bold steps towards prioritizing your well-being. You'll receive a personalized support to help you thrive as both a caregiver and an individual. We'll kick off your journey with an assessment that you'll fill out to understand your needs, and then we'll have a call together, an hour-long call together, where we're going to go ahead and identify what we're going to work on together. And then after that, we meet weekly half hour each time where we're going to go ahead and saying you know how is it going, what other things, and so my vision of that is kind of like when I met with Tara, we went ahead, or Tanya, and we went ahead and identified her personalized plan, which was a big plan, but we said, okay, we have three months to go ahead and tackle this.
Speaker 1:Let's work on one thing at a time. For example, let's look at identifying anybody that can help you. Let's list that out, and then we'll have you create a calendar and then next week, when we meet, we're going to practice how you're going to ask them and then after that, we're going to work on efficiencies. I'm just brainstorming out loud. It's different for everyone. So after our initial sessions, like I said, with both of the programs, we stay connected for online support. We will stay supported. I will support you online, helping you through the hiccups and the bumps and the celebrations, which are the most important pieces of where you're at.
Speaker 1:So I truly hope you consider one of these options today for yourself. Or, if you don't think about you, know what can I do? What can I do to go ahead and shift and change. One little step at a time can make a huge difference. Remember, you deserve to feel empowered and supported on your journey. And going back to this is not a solo mission. This is a marathon that requires you to find your team, and your team can be your family, your friends, it can be technology, it can be outsourced outside agencies, it can be Kathy coaching you. I mean, the possibilities are endless that you continue to work on.
Speaker 1:I never, ever, thought that caregiving would be really a self-development course for myself, just in time on the job, and that's what we're going through. But remember you are not alone, my friend. I'm here with you. Everybody listening to this podcast understands the frustrations and overwhelm, but there's going to be a 15% of you that will make changes, to shift, that make changes to be a better caregiver, to be an empowerful caregiver, which I love that word.
Speaker 1:I know it's not a word, but you are so deserving of really finding better things to make this life a little bit better, finding the quality care for your loved one, as well as embracing the small things. And again, I know I say this so many times it's like a broken record. After this is all said and done, you're going to take a long pause and heal from this caregiving journey, but as you're healing, I want you to look upon this as I did the best I could, I tried things, I grew and I was the best caregiver that I could be. So you have a good rest of the week, my friend, and we'll talk to you again next week. Bye for now.