“It takes both sides to build a bridge.” – Fredrik Nael
A lot of what we talk about at Courage to Caregivers involves the self – self-growth, self-knowledge, self-empowerment. But this month, we’re expanding our view as we consider our place within common humanity. And this week’s topic of building bridges is all about understanding, interacting with, and showing support for others.
Read MoreAs a caregiver, do you feel you're mindful (living in the present moment) or is your mind full (overwhelmed, scattered, trying to do too much, or multi-tasking)?
For me, I find myself constantly teetering between BOTH, but if I'm being honest, I most often find my mind FULL. But 2023 my intention was to be more present - for myself and others. I made a concerted effort in my goal setting to focus on the here and now. 2023 quickly became one of my most challenging caregiving years. Caring for aging parents (and bonus parents), as well as a young adult with a traumatic brain injury, is hard on a good day - and we had many road blocks with detours in 2023. I lost sight of ME and felt pulled in too many directions.
Mindfulness is the ability to focus on the present moment while calmly recognizing and accepting your thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. Mindfulness is being fully present, aware of where you are and what you’re doing while not being overly reactive or overwhelmed by what is happening around you. When you are mindful you are free of both the past and future and free of judgment of right and wrong. Mindfulness for caregivers means learning to live in the moment, accepting the reality of your situation, and filtering out distractions.
Check out our entire March Newsletter focused on MINDFULNESS here!
Read More“A good laugh heals a lot of hurts.” – Madeleine L’Engle, “A Ring of Endless Light”
This week’s topic seems like it should be easy, but sometimes it feels like the hardest thing in the world. Caregiving can put us on an emotional roller coaster at times, filled with stress, decision-making, and sacrifice. Taking a moment to experience happiness and laughter may feel awkward or inappropriate at those times, but it’s also a great way to cope and might be exactly what we need as a stress reliever.
Read More“Now is the time to be aware of the present moment. I let go of the past and the future.” – Positive Psychology
Have you ever truly focused on something simple that you’re doing … without any distractions … something like eating a strawberry? If you do, you might notice both the simplicity and the richness of your action and the strawberry. You might close your eyes, take small bites, and savor the taste, smell, and feel of the strawberry with each bite. In doing so, you become fully present in that moment, and you may feel a sense of peace or wonder come over you.
Read More“You feel angry? … You feel great? … This too shall pass.” – Tom Hanks
You probably know that we’re all about empowerment at Courage to Caregivers. And one of the best ways we can empower ourselves is by truly understanding our feelings and emotions – what we feel, why we feel that way, and how to keep our emotions from gaining control over us.
By learning to regulate our emotions, we are able to get back to our emotional center. This doesn’t mean we should try to suppress our feelings or pretend they don’t exist. We’re talking about recognizing our emotions for what they are – natural, instinctive responses that are neither good nor bad in and of themselves. It’s how we act after feeling those emotions that makes all the difference.
Read MoreI think of self-discovery as being my most authentic true self - living my most authentic true life. AND, if you don't know what that looks like - that's OK. You're a perfectly imperfect work in progress - learning and growing every day.
As I work to find ME again, our February curriculum topics offer the perfect 3 tools for discovering your true self. Maybe they'll help you in your journey of self-discovery, too?
WHAT BRINGS YOU JOY? Feeling joy is a boost to your soul, connects you to others, and can be contagious. You are worthy of experiencing joy, from small moments to major life events. Show the world you can be joyful.
IDENTIFY YOUR STRENGTHS. You are a unique person with many strengths, some of which you may not have even discovered yet. Cultivate your interests and abilities because they help you to be resilient, well-rounded, interesting and an interested individual. Be confident in who you are and what you can do. It makes you different and special!
HOLD SPACE FOR SELF-COMPASSION. You are as deserving of compassion and love as those to whom you give your compassion and love. We grow and improve ourselves by making mistakes. So instead of beating yourself up, just figure out what lesson can be learned and move on. By showing yourself compassion, you increase your capacity to give compassion to others, so everyone wins!
Check out our entire February newsletter focused on SELF-DISCOVERY here!
Read More“Self-compassion is a balance of TENDER – accepting ourselves – and FIERCE – taking action – to alleviate suffering.” – Dr. Kristin Neff
Like so many things for caregivers, when it comes to feeling compassion for ourselves in the same way that we feel it for others, it can be hard. We become accustomed to showing compassion for loved ones and others who are struggling or suffering, but we don’t always treat ourselves the same way.
Just like everyone else, we have good days and bad days. But on those bad days when we struggle, our inner dialogue may become critical and harsh. And while we may think that we’re just being honest with ourselves and taking responsibility for poor behavior, what we’re really doing is denying ourselves the self-compassion that we deserve – the same kind of compassion that we freely show for others.
Read More“The good life is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification.” – Martin Seligman
As we focus on the theme of self-discovery this month, a key element in truly knowing ourselves is to identify our strengths. This is so important for caregivers because we often fail to recognize all of the strengths that we must draw upon as we focus on helping others. As a result, we can lose sight of ourselves, including all of our unique capabilities and strengths that lie at the core of who we are.
Read More“(Joy is) the light that emanates from us when we help each other carry our sorrows. And that notion of joy to me, it sort of suggests something of entanglement.” – Ross Gay
We’ve been talking about finding joy for a long time now because joy is a core emotion that can be so beneficial to caregivers when we need to counteract uncomfortable emotions such as sadness. So it may be surprising to find some new ideas on how to think about joy. Yet, that’s exactly what I discovered when I read the remarkable book Inciting Joy, a collection of essays by poet and author Ross Gay.
Gay focuses on the entanglement of joy. He defines joy as “the ways that we practice our entanglement. … And when I say entanglement, I mean like being fundamentally connected to one another. All of these things like gardening or pick-up basketball or skateboarding or … aspects of school at its best. … There are these sites where we get the opportunity to practice being entangled with one another.”
Read MoreJanuary is often a time of reflection, and a new year offers new beginnings. Throughout January we have been focused on our theme of SETTING INTENTIONS. An intention is a personal commitment from YOU to YOU - how do you want to BE/become? Setting intentions requires a great deal of self-awareness. We started with mapping your journey, then explored expectations and open-mindedness, and rounded out with moving from survival to thrival.
Here are 5 tools for setting intentions in 2024:
Start with mindfulness and come as you ARE. With a focus on inner peace, notice and connect with the most authentic version of yourself - with intention.
Next, what's most important to you - what are your core values? And leverage your strengths!
Then, remember, YOU are the designer of your own life. Who do you want to BE/become? What do you want more of?
Cultivate the power of intentional thinking - your mindset matters - how will you show up in 2024 for YOU?
Practice self-compassion as you plan for obstacles - be gentle with yourself - I have confidence you're doing the best you can in this moment with what you have. Focus on progress, not perfection.
Check out our entire January newsletter focused on SETTING INTENTIONS here!
Read More“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.” ~ Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Let’s face it, living in survival mode is the most natural thing in the world. How many times have you ended the day saying, “I managed to survive another day”? Sometimes, that’s the best we can hope for.
But when it comes to our ongoing growth and development, mere survival doesn’t mean we’re making progress. Although striving to survive is natural and necessary, we need to find ways to move beyond survival mode and do what we need to thrive. This involves understanding our emotions and directing our responses more toward self-compassion, self-health, and self-growth.
Read More“Having an open mindset means being objective when you approach new things, listening to other points of view, and being willing to admit what you don’t know.” – Verywell Mind
As we work on setting intentions throughout January, practicing open-mindedness is a good place to start. By expanding our knowledge and testing our beliefs, being open-minded can help us set practical and worthwhile intentions to further our self-growth. Learning about other people and considering other viewpoints can help us refine our worldview. And fostering our curiosity can open up all kinds of new possibilities for growth.
Read MoreIn our conversations with caregivers, expectations come up all the time. Most of them have something to do with our loved ones, and many can be classified as “stealth expectations,” which we may not even realize that we have, even though they do exist. Such expectations can be harmful – to ourselves, our growth, and those around us – so this week, we’re discussing how to manage expectations.
Read More“One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through, and it will be someone else’s survival guide.” – Brené Brown
The beginning of a new year is a great time to celebrate for a couple of reasons. First, we can look back at the prior year and reflect on all the things we achieved and how much progress we made along our journey. Even though we may have faced challenges along the way, my guess is that there are many things – big or small – that you can point to that helped you grow throughout the year.
Read More“The person who looks outward dreams, the person who looks inward awakens.” ~ Carl Jung
We often think of our OUTLOOK on life as looking outward or looking at our prospects for the future. What if instead we started by looking WITHIN ourselves? With mindfulness, YOU can cultivate the outlook YOU desire.
Throughout December we looked at the theme of outlook through the lens of 1) having a hope-centered mindset; 2) cultivating inner peace; and 3) embracing possibility thinking.
Your outlook is connected to your resilience. You CAN grow your hope and develop a more positive outlook - you can CHOOSE the mindset you're going to use. Having a growth mindset reminds us that anything is possible ... and that's filled with SO many possibilities!
Your outlook is likely ever-changing or evolving. If you've always wondered if you are an optimist, pessimist, realist or opportunist, here's a link to a fun (quick) quiz that might give you some insight into your outlook!
Check out our entire December newsletter focused on OUTLOOK here!
Read More“Turn your obstacles into opportunities and your problems into possibilities.”
– Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Last week, we talked about how we all have a choice in the way we respond to stress – we can either let it get the best of us, or we can have the courage to tackle it head on with our best coping strategies. This week’s topic, opportunity and possibility, also relates to the choices we make. As the quote above implies, our choices and our positive mindset can determine whether something is an obstacle or an opportunity, a problem or a possibility.
Read MoreAs caregivers, we know how things can change from relative peace to chaos in the blink of an eye. But did you know that the opposite can be true, as well? With a little courage and mindfulness, we can disrupt the chaos, tap into our inner calm, and gain the strength we need to manage the stress of daily life.
Read More"Connection is the energy that is created between people when they feel seen, heard and valued - when they can give and receive without judgment." ~ Brené Brown
As human beings we are hard-wired for collaboration. Our brains have a need to connect with others in order to thrive. Throughout November we focused on learning to say no, managing perceptions, compare and despair, as well as forgiveness and gratitude all as ways to collaborate.
As caregivers, we often feel isolated and alone in our caregiving. The journey as a mental illness caregiver is especially lonely, as we feel it isn’t OUR story to tell - it’s our loved one’s story of living with mental illness (or other chronic or serious illness).
As caregivers, we often feel judged or shamed for our actions (or lack of actions) - and this makes it hard to connect with those we feel "don't understand" or in relationships where we don't feel safe sharing – or being vulnerable – as our most authentic true selves.
Courage to Caregivers brings together caregivers and has created a community of CARE. A place where you’ll never feel alone in your caregiving again. Where you are accepted for who you are (and that's SO much MORE than "just" your caregiving responsibilities).
We are here to support you - as a caregiver - as YOU - in your personal growth journey towards greater health and well-being. 💙 When you take care of yourself (too), you provide better care to those you love.
As caregivers - we can support each other. Remember, you are never alone. We are here for you in your journey of caring. We're SO serious about this - that during the Holidays we've added daily weekday availability to "Meet Up" via Zoom. See article below for all the details!
5 TOOLS TO CONNECT WITH COURAGE
BE PRESENT: Turn off your notifications and devices; take a break from your to-do lists.
ACTIVE LISTENING: Notice your body language - listen to understand (not to respond).
BE VULNERABLE: Be your authentic true self.
BE EMPATHETIC: Empathy is NOT sympathy. Empathy is feeling "with" another person. Put yourself in the other person's shoes.
ASK FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Be specific - people want to support you! Keep a list handy so you're always ready for "how can I help you?"
Check out our entire November newsletter focused on COLLABORATION here.
Read More"Forgiveness is a form of gratitude. When we forgive others, we show them the mercy that we have often received and been thankful for." ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach
In keeping with the season, our topic this week is forgiveness and gratitude – both of which enable us to gain more control and empowerment in our lives. Forgiveness allows us to let go of our resentments and move on with our lives. Gratitude allows us to recognize all the good things that happen every day.
When we practice gratitude as a mindset, it doesn’t mean that we ignore the bad things. It means that we can also focus on all the good things, big or small, like our relationship with our loved one, our bond with our pet, or just a simple pleasure like a hot cup of coffee. We realize that life is not all terrible, that we do have a lot to be thankful for, and that there is hope.
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