The Caregiver Cup Podcast

Juggling It All: How Caregivers Can Find Balance in the Roles They Carry

• Cathy VandenHeuvel • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Are you wearing so many hats that you’ve forgotten which one fits? In this heartfelt episode, Cathy shares an honest look at what happens when caregivers juggle too many roles — and how to reshape them without guilt. From hospital laundry rooms to heartfelt lessons about boundaries, you’ll learn how to identify what’s draining your energy, what truly matters, and how to create a caregiving rhythm that feels sustainable (not superhuman).


 🎧 Tune in for real talk, reflection, and hope — because you don’t have to do it all to be doing it well.

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I'm Kathy Vandenhoovel and welcome to the Caregiver Cup Podcast. This season is called What's in Your Cup. It's all about self-discovery, the roles you're juggling, and your personal health as a caregiver. Together we'll explore how to refill, protect, and strengthen your cup. Because when you show up as your best self, you can be a stronger caregiver, advocate, and healthy you. I'm so glad you're here. Now let's get into today's episode. Well, hello, my friend, and welcome back to the Caregiver Cup podcast. If you remember, we're in season one, which is called What's in Your Cup. And over the last few episodes, we've talked about what's in your cup, how to refill it, and how to redefine self-care. Well, today we're going to talk about why your cup might be draining so quickly, because you're probably juggling way too many roles that one person ever should do. And if you think about way back, you know, before you were a caregiver and now, you probably will recognize those as we go through the episode today. So the question I want to ask you, and I'm going to keep reminding you throughout the episode, is have you ever stopped and counted how many roles you're actually carrying right now? Think about it: a caregiver, a spouse, a daughter, a friend, an employee, a medical advocate, maybe a household manager, and we could break those all down into, you know, the laundry person to the cleaner, all that kind of stuff. A nurse, a chauffeur, a chef, a therapist. I could go on and on and on. And if you think about it, no wonder why you're tired. So let's get into today's episode. Okay. You know most caregivers, it like you and I don't realize just how many identities they take on until someone points them out or until you start talking about it out loud. For me, that realization came and it's come many times, but I was doing laundry in May at the hospital house. It was called Kathy's house during Dennis's second stem cell transplant this past May. I was downstairs and the laundry room is just beautiful, and it has timers on them. And so I was waiting for my my timer on my phone went off. And so I made my track down there and I was ready to go ahead and move my clothes from the uh from the washer to the dryer. And there was another gal in there folding clothes. And while I was waiting to finish the dryer, we struck up a conversation. We laughed both about how ridiculous it felt to be washing our loved ones uh clothes because both her and I had our loved ones at the hospital. And then at the end of the day, I would always take like a plastic garbage bag and put it inside of my bag, and it would be any clothes that Dennis had because he did not like the hospital gowns and the hospital um pants or shorts that they had because they weren't soft, they were kind of you know stiff and that kind of stuff. So we had I he wore gym shorts and socks and t-shirts. I had sweatpants along with him, but he had so many digestive issues that usually the bag coming home was always full. And her and I laughed about it because we never thought we would be washing clothes at the end of the day. I never thought about it. And and I felt like a laundry service just about every day. There was always somebody down there, and that's just one of the many roles that we talked about. That night, we you know, that night or when we were in the laundry room, we started listing out saying, Oh my gosh, think about how many roles we play during the day. I mean, think about it. We were doing the laundry service, we were nursing, even if we were at the hospital, we were there nursing when he came, Dennis came out. We I was nursing and doing all of the pharmacy, you know, pill things and stuff like that. I was the scheduler. We were talking about the insurance and all of the administrative stuff because not only did I have insurance, I had uh grants that we took care of. I had he had an extra transplant. Um I don't remember what it's called, but a little transplant plan on that that you had to submit claim forms for so he could go ahead and do that. We sat alongside of our loved ones during the day as emotional support. And then I said to her, I said, I didn't even ask you what you do or what you did outside of this room that we were in and caregiving. I said, You have to be, you know, a significant other or whatever. And she was a wife, and both of us were moms. Uh, she was a daughter as well. She had friends, and so we talked about that. We went on to talk about what she did for a living. She actually was running a nonprofit organization, she was caring for her grandkids and doing that and managing a household, all while living out of the hospital house that she was at. I told her I could relate completely because when my mom, when my parents were sick, my dad got sick first in 2018, and I was working full time, and I was running back and forth to they lived in their um a cottage up in the northern part of Wisconsin, which we call up north. And so I was running 200 miles on the weekends while during the week I was also caring for my my spouse who had cancer as well, all while being a wife, a daughter, and a and a grandma myself. And so we talked about all of the roles that we carried, and we were laughing because if we said if we had like a baseball hat for every single job that we did, we would have this high stack that we probably couldn't balance. And then we got into no wonder we feel like we're juggling a dozen plates in the air every single day. And you know what happens as we as we started talking, we both started to breathe differently. We realized just naming the roles that we were carrying helped us understand why we were feeling so overwhelmed and frustrating. It wasn't weakness, it was capacity, and we were doing the work of multiple people. And we just we really had a really good conversation. I actually we I was still talking to her when the dryer was was almost dried like 35 minutes later. So I want you to do this too. Take a moment, maybe even now, or write down all and write down all the roles you play, or put a little tab in your calendar or a little alarm on your calendar. Big ones write down, small ones, even the ones you never give yourself credit for. Everything that you do, because right now, even right now, Dennis can't be exposed to any grass when you're cutting the lawn or raking of the leaves. And we have what do we have? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven 20-year-old uh maple trees. And it is seriously, the leaves are just burnt red, gorgeous, but they're falling like crazy. And so now I'm the groundskeeper and I play the role of the raker, the lawn cutter, the trimmer, you know, and all of that kind of stuff. And so I I six months ago I wasn't playing, you know, the raking role. So I want you to take a minute and go down and list them all out because when you see them on paper, it's eye-opening. You realize why your cup feels empty. And more importantly, you start to see what roles might need to be reshaped, shared, or simply released off of your off of your out of your cup or off of your plate. You know, I think so that the prompt I want you to just really think about is it it could take two to five minutes and list them out, or lay it on a dresser and just keep writing them down throughout the day, and you'll just be amazed how many that is. I love this quote from David Allen, and I believe I shared it in one of my last few episodes. You can do anything, but not everything. And I just want to keep repeating that because we think we can do anything, and we can, and we should be confident that we can and we can learn it, but you can't do everything all the time. You can't do it all. That's what this season is about. Recognizing what's on your plate and finding a rhythm that feels sustainable, not superhero, not superhuman to the point where it's gonna break you. So there's a cost of carrying so many roles, and I want to talk about this next. You know, we don't usually realize just how heavy the load has been become until we were deep into it, until one day you look around and think, how did I get so stretched? How did I get so tired and so unlike myself? You can even go back to I did an episode um on it was episode 167 where I talk about caregiver stress feeling like a backpack. And it's called the Caregiver Stress Backpack and How to Lighten the Load and Prevent burnout. Just think about it. If you every single role that you play was a rock in your backpack, and let's say it was like a fist-size rock, and you added every single one of those in your backpack, how heavy would your backpack be? And could you continue to carry it step after step after step after day after day? This idea, because it's a backpack, is why we want to talk about this. And every time we say yes to another task or another responsibility, we we have to toss one more rock inside the backpack. At first, we can manage it and we power through it, but eventually it takes a toll on us. Think about it. If you're carrying a backpack, eventually your back starts to hurt, your legs start to hurt, your mindset starts to get compromised and you start getting crabby, which you rightfully should, and so on. When we try to juggle it all perfectly, sometimes everything eventually drops. Something will drop, and most of the time it's our stuff. Because even when I was talking to the lady, the caregiving lady in the in the laundry room, we never talked about ourselves except for what we did for a living. So we never really talked about the role of like self-care. So let's be honest though, there's an emotional and a physical cost to carrying this many roles. There is emotionally, it shows up as exhaustion, guilt, resentment, and that deep ache of losing yourself. I can't tell you how many times I see post or hear from caregivers, or just in conversation, walking through the hallway of an appointment, or um, when I was at the housing house, that it's like you hear people say, you know, how did I get here? Or I don't want to do this anymore. There's an emotional cost. When I was caring for my mom, and it's been now a few years now. It's actually going to be her birthday this this um this October. And um, she would have been, I'm trying to count, she would have been 83. She died almost at her 81st birthday, just a week shy of her 81st birthday. So it's been a couple of years. I felt like I was running myself ragged. I kept searching for ways to find joy in the midst of caring for my mom because I was so overwhelmed. I was so stretched because not only was my mom, we just lost my dad, and then I'm taking care of my mom. My mom has health issues, both physical and mental. Dennis had his issues going on. I was still working full time, um, losing dogs and all of that. But every time I tried to do something for myself, like take an hour off or go out with a friend, that darn guilt would creep right in. And I'd think, who am I to take a break when my mom is struggling, when my husband is sick, all of those kind of things. If I could go back and redo it again, and I'm glad I'm I I got to experience it, but if I could go back and redo it again, I would have normalized my time from the beginning. I would have set that boundary right from the beginning to say, I'm gonna have to take time off so that I can recharge. And I would have said to my mom, I can't be my best for you if I don't take time to recharge for me. So I'm going to need time because what I did is I'd work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, do appointments in between for both of them and you know, try to keep up with everything. Saturday would be my catch up day, where I would catch up with my laundry and my house cleaning. Uh, I at that time I started my podcast. So I'd work frantically all day on Saturday to catch up with anything around the house, errands, whatever it would be. And then I would dedicate my Sundays to my mom called Sunday Fun Day. Well, I didn't have anything for myself. And I would have to go ahead and dedicate some time for myself and realize that it's not selfish. I'm sustaining my energy as a caregiver. Also, the hidden cost is it comes from a physical perspective as well. Think about yourself. How many times maybe have you been fatigued or brain fog or headaches or you have a short fuse or forgetfulness? For me, I even had digestion issues and stomach pain. People develop, I've had caregivers tell me they've had cardiac issues after a while. All of these things start creeping up. I want to say this loud and clear to you. Stop blaming yourself if you're feeling sick, if you're feeling tired or foggy. Your body is not failing you. It's talking to you. It's saying, Hey, I'm caring too much right now. And your body is telling you that you can't do it all. You have to slow down and take care of yourself. When I think back, I can remember snapping at Dennis, you know, one day over something so small, not because I was mad at him, but because I was completely stretched. He could tell the days that I was really crabby and I just wasn't myself. I wasn't his wife in that moment. I was in a nurse mode or a schedule mode or a problem solving mode. My my wife role had vanished that day, and I didn't have the patience. I didn't have the stamina to do it. And then there's my there's days when I was was not myself with my mom. The one that I remember loud and clear is she used to get so frustrated with me because I would forget the keys on the hook in her apartment. And we had to go, she was on the third floor, we had to go down to the basement to use her car. And I would go down there and we would be ready to get into her car, and I would forget her keys. And this wasn't just one time or two times, it was many times. And I would, she would be like, Kath, what's wrong with you? And I'd apologize and beat myself up. But looking back, I see it differently now. My brain was juggling too many things. I couldn't focus, I was working full-time, doing the financing, caregiving for two loved ones with uh cancer. It's not that I was forgetful, I was overloaded. I would do the same thing at the grocery store for her. I'd forget things. So if this sounds like you, if you have been snapping more or forgetting things or just feeling off, please know that it's not a lack of discipline or organization. It's the cost of doing too much for too long. And that realization leads to something really important because the issue isn't that you have too many roles, it's that your roles have expanded beyond what one human can sustain. And they need reshaping. That's when I realized the problem wasn't that I had too many roles, it was that I hadn't set boundaries or reshaped them to fit the new season. Yeah, it just was crazy to think that I could just continue to do it all. And my mind would play tricks on it. And when I did do things really well, even during a crazy busy week, I would think, oh, there you go, she's back now. And it was like, no, it I wasn't back. So let's have a real conversation for a minute, especially as women caregivers. We grow up believing we should be able to do it all, right? That we can juggle every role: a daughter, a wife, a mom, a caregiver, an employee, a friend, and still somehow keep smiling through it. Isn't that usually the the model of the working woman? Yeah. It's it's absolutely insane. But we do it. But here's the truth you don't have to do it all. And more importantly, you can't do it all. Those little tasks that each of those roles holds. Something or someone eventually gives. And most of the time it's us. I remember taking mental health days and just taking a day off from work to recharge. Yeah, that was a short fix, but it came back. I was reminded of this recently when while reading The Unexpected Journey by Emma Um Heming Willis. If you haven't read this, it's Bruce Willis' wife, and she just recently wrote a book. I think it came out in September. She shares about the incredible hard decision of uh having to move her husband, Bruce Willis, into a place where he could receive full-time care. Because he's got that frontal lobal dementia. Um, and I it I don't I don't know the official her kids call it FTD, front temporal dementia. And I know it's more formal than that, but he had that. At first, she struggled deeply with guilt, like so many of us do, with the decision to do that, but she realized she was sacrificing her own health. She talks about all of her health issues, and then her relationship with her two young girls, preteen and teens, and not having time to spend with them because she was dedicating her time to Bruce. So she made the decision to shift her caregiving role. Now she visits every day as his wife, spending intentional quality time with Bruce. And then she goes home and spends intentional quality time with her girls because she has the luxury of being able to hire full-time help, having a place for them that's close by that they can live. We may not all have that, but we can think of different ways to improve our space. That story stuck with me because it's a beautiful example of reshaping roles and what they re what she really needed at that time, and not giving up on Bruce, on her husband, on her children, but realigning, realigning them. Sometimes that's what boundaries are. They're not walls, they're realignments that allow us to show up better for the people we love. And so let's break these down. Let's start with getting honest with ourselves about identifying which roles need adjusting. Here are some questions that you're going to want to think through. And you always can come back to this podcast if you're driving or not able to grab a pen at this time, but you can write these down for yourself. Is what role, excuse me, what role do I love and want to nurture? You have things that you're either really good at or you enjoy and you want to nurture. I feel like I'm really good at the advocacy and then and the admin stuff. That's where I feel like I'm most comfortable comfortable. So I don't feel like I stress so much about that. Um, so but what roles do you love and want to nurture? Mean improve though, because uh you want to think about how can you nurture them, mean meaning, you know, automate them, find a better system for them, whatever, make them make them more joyful for you. And then I want you to think about what role drains the most, you the most. And what are those roles that really drain you the most? And you know, if it's staying up at night and having to care for your loved one, maybe you look for a solution there, or you look for a night off, or you look for a better, better situation, or maybe it's cooking and you're just you just you're so drained by the end of the day that the thought of having to make a healthy meal drains you. What role could I delegate? What role could I share? What role could I reimagine? So those you might want to think through each one of those and really looking through those. And some of the thoughts might not come to you right away, but if you've had a hard day, this is the perfect question that you can ask. Why is this role draining me? What could I have done differently? Could I have delegated something? Think about your caregiving role, but also think about all the other roles you play. Like for me, the raking. You know, if I I couldn't do it if Dennis wasn't feeling well, and I'm using that as like my workout time too. So I'm getting my exercise outside. But I could reimagine that or delegate that to my son or higher help, um, that kind of thing. Here's another, um, I'll give you some more examples because here's the thing: every role doesn't need to stay exactly the same. When Dennis was going through a stem cell translat, I was trying to be everything every day, the scheduler, the emotional support, the advocate, the wife. And then one day I realized I couldn't do it all well. I was trying to juggle too much. So I started small and really started thinking through what things could I do. Um, I started looking at I needed to leave earlier in the day because I needed time, I was getting too tired. So I started leaving at three o'clock in the afternoon. And then I started leaving at two o'clock in the afternoon, trying to go ahead and saying, I'll give emotional support in the morning when the doctors come in through lunchtime, but then I need to turn off the emotional support for a while and focus on my support. When I was uh when I was with my when I was caregiving for my mom, I asked my brother to take my mom when she couldn't drive anymore. She, my mom still wanted her weekly hair appointment. So I started asking my brother John to say, I need you on Fridays. And can you take mom to her hair appointments after her hair appointments? At that time, she was able to grocery shop, take her grocery shopping or to the dollar store or whatever. It was a little thing, but it freed up my time and energy that I desperately needed. And I no longer had to think about mom on Fridays. And during Dennis's long hospital stay in Milwaukee, I asked my oldest son, Mark, for I said to him, I said, Don't buy me a Mother's Day gift because it was in May. Just do this for me. Sit with dad for the weekend so I can go home on Mother's Day weekend and rest and reset. That was hard to ask for, but it was also one of the best gifts I could have received. I asked for it. He was obligated and obliged to do it, and it was such a nice way to just get away and go sit outside in my back patio and walk with my dogs. And you know what happened? Everyone was okay. Like for my mom, she got to the salon for Dennis, he was cared for. And I came back a little refreshed. And so thinking about what you could do. Now you also want to think about giving yourself permission. It's time to define what doing it all means. You don't need to be the perfect cook, the perfect daughter, or the perfect caregiver. When I stopped trying to make homemade meals every night and started simplifying things, frozen veggies instead of um fresh, rotationary chicken from the deli sometimes, paper plate, so that I didn't have to go ahead and do the dishes. It lifted a huge weight off my shoulder. It wasn't forever, but it was just enough to get by. DoorDash, you might be saying, that was one role I resh reshaped. And you know, your friends might say, Oh, if there's anything that I can do, let me know. And I would say, you know what? I'm so tired of cooking. I would love to go ahead and, you know, I'll I'll tell you a day and and what I want. And if you really want to drop me off a meal or have DoorDash deliver it for me. That's the beauty of boundaries. They aren't about saying no to others, they're about saying yes to what matters. So you may have to test and try things, like we talked about little baby steps and truly try things. Go in with a Mindset that you're testing new rhythms and not failing. When I was staying at Kathy's house, I thought I could walk three miles every morning, then go visit Dennis and sit with him all day, and then come home in the evening and go ahead and make my meal and maybe even record a podcast episode or two. Turns out that that was way too much for me in the season because if there was stress and worry and all that stuff all the time, what I really needed was a calm self-care, a slow evening walk around the block after leaving the hospital to process the day and breathe. Sleeping in a little bit, having a good breakfast. I had to reset and test the boundaries, and I wasn't looking for perfection. I was looking to see if they made a difference. So here's your challenge this week. I've talked about it many times already, and I'll talk about it a little bit more. Take a few moments to look at your roles you're juggling right now and ask yourself which ones do I want to test and shift? Because caregiving doesn't mean you lose yourself, it means learning to care for your loved one and yourself with honesty, grace, and courage. And then we'll get back to the episode. First, if you've been finding value in the Caregiver Cup podcast, I am so grateful if you'd consider supporting the show. The podcast is free for anyone who needs it, and it's truly my passion and mission to continue sharing my voice with caregivers like you. But your donation, even a small one, helps me cover the behind the scenes costs monthly, like editing and those tech services, so I can keep the show up here for you each and every week. You can find the support the show link in the show notes, and all you do is click on it and you figure out how much you want to donate. Second, have you noticed a new email address from me? Well, look for hello at the caregivercup.com pop up in your inbox or check your spam folder as well. And that's me now. I wanted to simplify everything underneath one name, the Caregiver Cup. And each week you'll see in your inbox from me the latest podcast episode in an email and a little bit of extra encouragement, stories, and insights for you. All right, let's get back to the episode today. Enjoy. Okay, I know this part isn't easy, you know, taking some time and figuring this out, but it takes honesty and heart. So sometime this week, I want you to carve out just a few minutes for yourself. I really want you to grab your journal or your notes in your phone and give yourself at least five minutes of reflection time. List out every role you play this week. Circle the ones that feel heavy, put a heart next to the ones that bring you joy or highlight them. Then ask yourself, how can I make more space for the roles I love and release and reshape the ones that drain me? Now, some of the roles might be maybe you go to, maybe you go to church and that brings you joy and calm and and and peace. Maybe you attend a class once a week. Maybe it's a yoga class or a pottery class, or maybe you're you're learning a new language and that brings you joy. Those are the ones that you don't want to give up on. Um, so those might be roles. You can do this, like I said, in a journal by sipping your favorite beverage, or even a quick voice note in your phone. And if you have a caregiving team like I had with my brother and my sister, or you have uh family, like I had family, I had a private Facebook group that I shared my thoughts with while Dennis was away and they helped me through with a lot of tasks. I could share this with them and saying, I'm stressing out this week. So I'm looking at everything that I'm doing. These are the things that I don't want to give up on, and these are the things I've decided to take a step back from, you know, or I'm re-imagining things, and you could ask for help, or you could say, you know, ask people if they have any ideas. People would look at you like, yes, this woman has it together and she's trying to take care of herself. We have to stop this, this, I don't remember what the word is, and I don't know if this is a good word to use, but the paradigm or the the old school way of thinking that the caregiver has to dedicate and sacrifice everything to care for their loved one. Sure, they love their loved one, but Dennis didn't want to see me breaking down and falling apart. He wanted me to take care of himself, myself, and we've had discussions. And if you want to share your insight with me or just say hi, text me. I want to hear what you have. The fun thing would be is how many roles do you actually have? You know, it should be 20 plus because we do a lot. I'd love to hear what you've discovered about your cup and your roles this week. I would love to hear it. So don't hesitate to text me, or if you're on my mailing list and you get an email from me each week, just respond to that. So let me just do just one more little way to set you off on your way. You don't have to juggle every ball perfectly. You just need to decide which ones can roll for a while. You're juggling, you know, maybe you're juggling, you know, 10. Let one fall and be okay with that one falling. Give yourself permission to set something down, to breathe, to not be everything to everyone at once. That's not failure, that's wisdom. Because when we learn to define our role with intention, we protect our energy. That's how we keep our cup from running dry. So if you've been feeling stretched, stretched thin, overwhelmed, or lost in all your roles you carry, and everything's starting to become a fog, please hear me when I say, you're not failing, you're evolving, you're learning, you're adapting and finding a rhythm that actually works for you. When somebody comes to me and says, I am so overwhelmed, I am so tired. I I commend them. I compliment them by saying, I am so glad you recognize this. Now that you're at this peak of your mountain, now you need to figure out how can I go ahead and find a better way to manage everything? And how can I be better with my to myself? Every time you pause to look at your roles, to name what's heavy and what brings you joy, you're taking a step towards a healthier, more sustainable, caregiving rhythm. And remember, this isn't about perfection, it's about awareness and intention. Little shifts make a difference. And I'm here cheering you on, my friend. So let me uh move into what's for next week. I hope you enjoyed this episode, first of all. Next week, we're talking about listening to your body more, those subtle signals of stress and fatigue and emotional exhaustion that often shows up long before the burnout happens and hits. Those are the things we want to talk about. We're also going to talk about when the burnout is there and how do you go ahead and recognize that as well and kind of know where you're at in your caregiving stress journey. We'll explore how to tune in before you crash so you can care for yourself with the same compassion you give everyone else. So until then, take a deep breath, honor the roles that serve you, and let a few of those other balls that you're juggling for a while drop. You're doing an incredible job, even if it doesn't always feel like that. You're doing an incredible job and you're doing the best you possibly can. But remember, caregiving is an important job, but so is taking care of yourself. I think of what is that scale, you know, you have, or a teeter-totter. That's probably a better one. If you're teeter-tottering with your caregiving role and yourself, you should be, it should be balancing somewhat because you need to go ahead and take care of yourself just as much as you caregive. And sure, some days your caregiving is tough, but hopefully you balance it out the next day and it it gets balanced evenly. So until next time, my friend, you can see that I am passionate about this. I care about you, I care about this caregiving role. And so keep looking at your cup, keep looking at what you can do to realign and and find that rhythm. And we'll talk to you again next week. Bye for now. Well, thank you for listening to today's episode of the Caregiver Cup podcast. And hey, commend yourself for taking this time today just for you. That's something worth celebrating. If you've enjoyed this episode, can I ask a favor of you? Hit that follow button or write a review, or better yet, send me a text. Hearing from you means the world to me. Remember, you are not alone. And here in season one, we're focusing on what's in your cup. So don't forget to refill it, protect it, and strengthen yours. Because when you show up as your best self, you could be a stronger caregiver, advocate, and healthier you. Until next time, my friend, take care of you.