In This Together: Building Resilience When Caregiving for Your Partner

34. Embracing Sacred Life Transitions in Caregiving

• Marika • Season 1 • Episode 34

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In this episode, I explore the intense, emotional period when your partner’s health is failing and the end seems near. I talk about how easy it is to get distracted by fear, worries, and daily stressors, but also how this time is sacred and precious. 

I share my personal experience navigating this difficult phase with my husband and offer insights into staying present, accepting imperfection, and finding inner strength when everything feels overwhelming. 

Whether you’re currently caregiving or might face this situation in the future, this episode offers important takeaways to help you show up in the way you truly want during this transition.

As a Resiliency Coach for people who are caregiving for their partner, I'm here to support YOU, the caregiver. Learn more about my work at www.coachmarika.com.

Marika Humphreys:

Hello, caregivers and care partners, it's good to be back with. You had a rough week, maybe a little more than a week. It's just been a little bit of an emotionally difficult time for me. I've had some struggles with my business and I've really been paying attention to how I go through rough times, because it is very different than how I used to go through rough times. But it is very different than how I used to go through rough times. But first I want to say I still have them. So even though I'm a coach and I teach tools of mental and emotional resilience, it doesn't mean I'm immune from the challenges of life. I go through tough times and I've been in one this last week, but what I do that is different from what I used to do is, for one, I get coached more. That's one thing that I've really been noticing. I'm in a coaching program currently and I have peer coaches, so I get coached more and I just work through the things I'm struggling with and when they're bigger things, you don't always solve them, but you move forward. I think that's the biggest thing and I process through them. I understand what's bothering me more than I used to when I didn't really have awareness around my thoughts and my emotions. So I get coached and I pay attention to what is going on in my mind and how I'm feeling and I make sure to maintain my self-care routine. Those are really the big things that I do now that I didn't used to do when I didn't have the awareness and the tools that I now have. So going through a tough time for me isn't debilitating anymore, like it used to be. I feel like I would be sort of a mess for like a week or two weeks on end and of course I would go to my job and I would like function as a human, but I would just be in this glum sort of semi-depressive state and eat terribly and stop exercising and then that would compound things and I would kind of spiral. And I don't spiral anymore. I still struggle and I still have challenges, but I don't spiral like I used to because of the tools that I have now. So that's where I'm at. I feel like I'm actually coming out of it today because I've been working through it and so actually feeling better today. But that's where I've been. I hope you are in a better place Today.

Marika Humphreys:

We're going to talk about a pretty difficult topic and I'm going to give you a warning upfront that what we're going to talk about is inspired by the coaching I'm doing right now with a couple of clients, one recently, another one currently. I've been coaching them through transition or the dying process of their partner. So both clients had been caregiving for their partner with disease and now that their partner has entered a period where it looks like the end and I say always looks like, because none of us ever know how this is going to go the doctors tell you things, you may be even given some dates or timeframes, but none of us know. So when we're in this period, it can be really hard and I've coached many clients through it. I've been through it myself and I've learned a lot, and I now view this time and I teach my clients to view this time in a very different way because of what I've learned, both as a coach and from my own personal experience. So that's what I want to share with you today. I'm going to share with you a way to view this period of time as sacred. It's really a sacred time.

Marika Humphreys:

The end of a life is a sacred time, however, in the telling of this today. A sacred time. However, in the telling of this today, this episode is, I'm going to share my own story, and it should be hard for some of you, depending on where you are. So I just want to say my warning up front is that if you are feeling particularly emotionally vulnerable, this may be a challenging episode to listen to, and I would say just go listen to any other one and put this one aside, for when you're feeling rested and a little more emotionally calm or you're maybe out for a walk and you've got kind of like a nice environment, you're not under stress because I am going to share my story. So it just could be really hard to hear, depending on where you are right now in your life. So that's my warning upfront.

Marika Humphreys:

We're going to talk about death, and death is hard to talk about for people, but it's also my personal mission to demystify it, because, guess what? We are all going to die and the ones we love are going to die. That is a fact currently of the human condition, and so I really really strongly believe that we need to talk and become more familiar with death and dying and the thoughts and fears and emotions we have around it, because it is a part of life and it shouldn't be something that scares us. It shouldn't be something that evokes dread. It should be something that we recognize as a part of our human condition and we have clear thoughts and beliefs around. That is my wish for you and how you also approach your caregiving, and it's not something that I had as a caregiver. I really have come to this very passionate feeling now after having gone through the loss of my husband and it was profound for me, loss of my husband and it was profound for me and what I learned in that process. I have thought now more about death, the dying process, both about for my own death and for those of my loved ones than I ever had before prior to experiencing the death of my husband. So that is what brought me to this place, but it's also something that it's part of the human condition, and today we're going to talk about the time that comes in every not necessarily every caregiving journey, but everyone's life that we often dread when we're caregivers.

Marika Humphreys:

We sort of dread this period when our partner's health takes a turn and starts to seem like or maybe we're even being told that they won't recover, sometimes with disease, this is often a doctor telling us, or somebody giving us the words, that our partners may not have much more than weeks to months. But other times we don't get those words exactly and other times you may not exactly know, but you can see a shift and their health has taken a turn. So it really really depends. But there is often a period of time sometimes it's very short, sometimes it's very long where our partner's health has taken a turn and no matter how much we think we're prepared, the reality of that time often is harder than expected and to just give you some examples, it could be a worsening infection, a sudden fall or just, like I said, the slow progression of disease that hits a critical period. Treatments stop working and then you're standing at the edge of this period of time that's now beyond your control.

Marika Humphreys:

Well, here is a little bit my story. For me, that period came when my husband was being treated overseas at a cancer treatment facility in Vienna, austria, and we had sought a treatment facility overseas because they were able to offer some treatments that just weren't easily available in the United States and we had some family members coming to kind of stay with him while he was there. He was there for months at a time, but I was actually home in California with our 10-year-old and my aunt was there at the time and I will never forget the day. My aunt was there at the time and I will never forget the day my aunt called from Austria and said I think you need to come. I just remember the emotion that flooded me fear, anxiety, kind of overwhelm and in a matter of hours I went from being home juggling work and school drop-offs to frantically trying to arrange international travel. And I will tell you, our friends came out and were incredibly supportive. One friend gave us his airline points so that we could book a flight.

Marika Humphreys:

Another friend, incredibly generous, flew us, my daughter and I, in his private plane to the airport a few days later after I'd booked a flight, and one of my biggest worries at the time was getting a passport for my daughter, because I wasn't sure I would be able to do it without her father's signature. So typically, when you get a passport for a child, you need both parents signatures or you need to show that one parent is not able to be there, and I had to show that my husband was sick and in the hospital and not able to give his signature, and it was one of the scariest times of my life. We literally went to the passport office in San Francisco and we had a flight like the next day. So I did amazingly manage to get a one-year emergency passport for my 10-year-old. And then we were on the plane flying to Austria, and I didn't know what we would find. When we arrived, my husband was in a really small hospital and it was clear that the situation was serious. He had developed a complication while getting treated at this facility, and my aunt there was an Airbnb. So we stayed at the Airbnb that she had secured, and each day my daughter and I went into the hospital, took the Metro to the hospital to visit him, and we'd spent just time with him there, and eventually his condition did stabilize enough, so much so that my aunt was able to take my daughter home.

Marika Humphreys:

But I stayed behind in Austria for another week or two, and it was during that time that an Austrian doctor fortunately they were amazing here we are in this foreign country where English is not the first language. He took me aside. His English was pretty good and he gently but firmly said something that no one had told us to this point. He said he's not going to recover, you need to take him home. And as I share this story, it brings chills.

Marika Humphreys:

I have told this story before, but it was really hard, and that was the first time that anybody had given that prognosis. And he told me not my husband, it was that he told me in a little cafe that they had at the bottom of this small little hospital. And because he told me and not my husband, that was hard, also because I now had this burden to carry. How could I tell my husband that he needed to go home while he still wanted to fight? He still had hope, as did I. Right. For him, going home meant giving up and he wasn't ready for that. And so I had to try and kind of navigate this crazy period of he wants to fight and yet they're telling me we need to go home because even if he fights, there's a good chance he's not going to win. And that was a really hard thing to carry and it was just the logistics. He was not able to walk at that time. He couldn't walk on his own, so he was literally bed bound. He couldn't even go to the bathroom without help. We were in a foreign country, so I had to figure out how to get him well enough so that he could get released from the hospital and we could get to an airport and get back home to California was, without a doubt, one of the hardest times of my life. And yet, despite the chaos and the tremendous kind of emotions of that time, there are moments, hours really, of that time when he was in that hospital that I will cherish forever. My aunt took my daughter home and my parents were able to stay with her in California and she could go back to school. She was 10.

Marika Humphreys:

I kind of settled into a little bit of a routine and stayed at the Airbnb and every morning I would get the Metro. We were really close to a Metro stop that I could take directly into the hospital and I would spend the day with him and he was hooked up to some pain medications, so he actually was able to feel somewhat comfortable and we just talked and we listened to music and we watched cooking shows together. He'd send me to the little corner store for bread and peanut butter and jam and beer, because we were in Vienna, the hospital staff actually let us have beer, which, whatever you think about that now, it was these kind of pieces of normalcy when things are anything but normal were what my husband wanted, and he had gone on an incredibly strict diet before this. So I think in his side he knew maybe, and he just he wanted comfort and we just had time together and in the middle of this crazy emotional chaos, we had these pockets of normalcy and I will forever treasure that time.

Marika Humphreys:

So one of the things that I learned from that time is that, while it's incredibly draining and overwhelming and scary, it was also sacred and beautiful and full of love and full of connection. So that was the start of a transition for him, but also for me, and in many ways it was like we were walking two parallel paths. He was still fighting and hopeful, but I was beginning to realize and being told that we were nearing the end and there were things left unsaid, things that we hadn't prepared for, and everybody probably recognized the stage we were in. It was not something we actually ever talked about, so he and I never had the conversation about the end and what he wanted, and that was something that actually is not uncommon either. I've had many clients that haven't had that conversation and I will say you don't need to, but if you can, it's also a beautiful thing. So I have had clients that have and I've had clients that haven't. Neither way you will be okay.

Marika Humphreys:

But I have coached, as I've said, other caregivers through this same time in their lives and I've seen firsthand and experienced how isolating it can feel, because you're trying to be there for your partner but you're also processing the reality of what's happening, and sometimes that's without your partner fully understanding or accepting it themselves, and the emotional toll of that divide can be enormous. And here is what I have come to believe this time is a transition. It's a transition for our partner as they move towards the end of their life and it's a transition for you as a caregiver and as you adjust to a new role and a future potentially without them. But this time, as difficult as it is, it's sacred. And it's sacred because it's limited and it will not be there, it won't last forever, and part of us dreads that and the other part of us doesn't know how we can get through it.

Marika Humphreys:

So when we're confronted with the end, all the things that we thought were important, like work and deadlines and projects and daily routines, they kind of fade away. For me, that phone call from Austria instantly shifted my perspective. Nothing mattered more than to getting to my husband which was a huge feat, since he was overseas but all the things at my work, all of those instantly just became less important, and once I was in Austria, the only thing that really mattered was being present with him. But the thing is, life doesn't stop just because you're going through something profound right, work continues, kids need care, bills need to be paid, the family dynamics often become more complicated and can sometimes add more stress and all of those distractions. They can easily pull us away from what matters most in our ability to stay focused on that, and especially when our energy is kind of already drained. So, as caregivers, we need to stay focused on what's most important. We need to stay connected to who we want to be during this time, and we need to think about what we want to be able to provide and offer our partner and ourselves. And we're going to have to make choices imperfect, messy choices and so we want to be able to make choices that allow us to stay grounded in what truly matters. So how do you do that?

Marika Humphreys:

When you and your partner enter the stage, it's common for distractions to arise really from every angle, kind of pulling us away from the time that we have this undefined period of time. And the distractions will come in many forms, as I've said right, and often they feel sometimes they are legitimate and often they seem legitimate but at the heart of it they can rob us of staying present and focused and embracing the love and the sacredness of this transitionary time if we aren't aware of it. So I want to talk about this time because I want you to have some awareness of it, and then I also want to kind of clue you into what those distractions look like so you can see them for what they are. And then I'm also going to give you some kind of thoughts and areas to focus on so that you can embrace and treat this time as sacred. So I recognize that you may not always know when this stage comes, what I'm calling the transition.

Marika Humphreys:

I don't think I had aware of it exactly at the time, even though I was told. Now, of course, that was the start of the transition, that being told by the doctor and the complication that had developed for my husband's health. But it was only later did I learn about the dying process from a super helpful brochure that the hospice nurse gave me, and I only wish that I had had that brochure like months beforehand, because it talked about what to expect and it talked about what happens in the dying process and how it can often start weeks or months beforehand and some of the things to look for. But if you aren't aware of that, you don't know the signs, you don't have the awareness, and I found that actually incredibly comforting to know that there are really common things that happen, especially around disease or when obviously not in sudden death, but when there is a transition period, and we don't always think of that. But I want to talk about it here so that you can be aware that there is a transition period and none of us know when that time will come for any of us, right, it theoretically could come before you, before your partner, even if your partner is the one with a health concern, right, none of us know.

Marika Humphreys:

But death is a part of life that we know, is a part of life that we know, and the more we talk about it and what's important during that time, the more we can have the reverence that I believe this period should deserve and go through that time with a presence and a kind of a belief in the sacredness that I also feel that it deserves, and not the fear and the dread that will often be kind of where we tend to go. Without this awareness, without thinking of it differently, our minds will tend to fear it, will dread it, we will not want to be in it, we will want to escape it by all the means possible. So our natural reaction is going to be to want to pull away from it, to not want this to be happening. And yet, when it happens, it can be beautiful, even while it's very hard and challenging. And I want to offer some ways to think about it. Right that it is a sacred time, that it is sacred because of love that we have for our partner and the love that others have for them, and that those emotions are also what make it challenging as well.

Marika Humphreys:

So I am going to give you some things to focus on, but first I want to talk about the things that pull us away and distract us from being present, from treating this time as sacred, and I'm going to talk about these in the context of our partner's transition, of recognition that they may be entering into a final period. But I will say. These are all things that can come up during any part of the caregiving journey, so keep that in mind. These are just distractions of caregiving, but they are, I think, more impactful when we're in the end period, because that is a time where I really think we do need to shift how we think and how we're being during that time, in the recognition that is a sacred time. It is an importance. It has an importance that is beyond just the normal importance, right? So let's talk about the things that distract us, that pull us away from what is important.

Marika Humphreys:

And the first, and probably most common, is the fearful thoughts and worries, the constant swirl of anxious thoughts. They can consume you. Fear of the future will loom very large when we see that our partner's health has taken a turn right. What will life look like when they pass right? How will we cope? Sometimes those thoughts can really consume us. Sometimes we have practical worries, like just dealing with visiting family members.

Marika Humphreys:

I've talked a little bit about this in, I think, last week's podcast. Just the dynamics, the family dynamics and having maybe extra visitors in your house, whether they're people you're paying for extra help or they're family members, members the stress of that can cause a lot of anxiety and stress and distract us and pull our attention away. Relatives might be frustrating and adding sort of unnecessary tension when we're already under stress and we will often get pulled between the desire of wanting to be by their side and recognizing you want to be there as much as possible and then the obligations you feel in your life towards maybe your job or your kids or just other obligations right, and really stressing about the consequences of neglecting either one. It can feel like a very challenging choice. So it is very tempting to want to try to try to be there everywhere, everywhere at once, to try to satisfy all the needs, and what that will do in the end is just divide our focus and leave you feeling frazzled and disconnected and exhausted. So negative thoughts and worries that is one thing, and stress that's one thing that will distract you.

Marika Humphreys:

Another thing is the emotions that you will experience. They can overwhelm and pull you away. Ones that you're trying to avoid especially if you try to avoid them will take over when you least expect it, like fear or sadness or anger. They are all part of this transition experience. You will feel most likely one or all of them, and when you don't let yourself feel them, they will build up and then probably overwhelm you and that's when you'll break down in a time when you don't want to. I've had a client who just found herself crying all the time and she was exhausted by it and also frustrated by it, like she told me, this crying is just, it's not only. It's like it's a distraction. It felt like a distraction for her because it was so exhausting. But the more we kind of judge our emotions as being a distraction, the more we're going to resist them. And the reality is they're part of this time.

Marika Humphreys:

The sadness and grief we feel is a direct reflection of the love we have, and if we try to suppress the sadness and the grief, it will only make it more intense, and sometimes what people tend to want to do is they try to shove it down. Then, when their partner does pass away, it becomes incredibly intense because they haven't processed it along the way. So you really want to and need to process your emotions as you're feeling them. You want to recognize them and not judge them, not feel like they're a burden. They are just a part of this process and they will be more intense right now, so you want to let them surface and allow them to process through you, otherwise they will drain your energy even more. Trying to suppress them is exhausting and you will have less energy to be present. So emotions, unprocessed emotions, can distract you.

Marika Humphreys:

Physical energy. Okay. So it's not just your mind and your emotions that will feel the strain. Your body will too. Right, exhaustion from not sleeping as well. You might be kind of on a vigil at night so you might not be getting good sleep. You might be wanting to eat kind of all the comfort foods and not feeling like you can get away to go for a walk, but all of those things will also impact your physical energy and will make it really hard to just be able to be the person that you want to be during this time. So it will be more physically intense. It's going to require more physical energy. The physical toll caregiving takes cannot be ignored, and if you're running on empty you won't have the stamina for your partner or yourself. So sleep, exercise, having a decent diet they aren't luxuries during this time. They are necessities in order to maintain your energy and your presence and to be there and be the person you want to be during this time.

Marika Humphreys:

And then the last area I want to talk about are kind of the spiritual questions, right, the frustrations when we learn that our partner is dying. Spiritual questions often arise, like the why questions. Why do they have to suffer so much? Why do good people go through such pain? Disease is often full of just horrible physical things. My husband went through it, my clients partners. Some of the things that happen to their body is just awful and we wonder why, why does this have to happen? And sometimes those thoughts we don't recognize them and see them and have a way to work through them they can dominate and can kind of spiral into feelings of injustice and helplessness. And sometimes we have heart-wrenching thoughts of how am I even going to cope when they're gone right?

Marika Humphreys:

As a parent and coaching other parents through this, I was like I'm not prepared to be a single parent. That was not something I signed up for and yet that's what I was about to face. So our brain will try to prepare for all of these things and the problem is that will pull us away from the present. So it's not that they aren't questions to be answered, you just don't want to get stuck in them, and we can. We can kind of get stuck and consumed by wanting to have answers for these questions that we're now being faced with, that now feel incredibly scary and daunting. So all of these distractions from worries and emotions to the physical exhaustion and spiritual questions can take us away from being fully present with our partner, from embracing the sacredness of this time and showing up in the way that we want to, in a way that we feel proud of and that we are most able to. So it's not about eliminating these distractions, because you won't be able to do that, but it is about recognizing them for what they are their distractions there's a reason I call them that and then finding ways to just work through them so that you can stay grounded and focused on what's most important.

Marika Humphreys:

So if you're in this situation now, or you think you will be in the future, there are ways to approach this time that can help you stay present and proud of the way that you show up and to be able to look at this time, even with the challenge and how kind of difficult it will be. You will also be able to find and cherish the time. I truly believe that, because I had the tools of coaching, I was doing daily thought downloads. When I was in Vienna daily and I had tools to keep my mind present, it was hard, it was incredibly hard, but I know that because I had those tools, I was able to be present and cherish those moments, those times where we're watching cooking shows, and I was able to be there and focus during that time and just with him, because I had the tools to work through a lot of what I was experiencing. So that is my goal, right For you is to have the tools to keep you present to deal with the distractions that will come up.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, so these moments are sacred and this time is sacred and, while it may be filled with pain and uncertainty, it won't last forever. So here is some things to think about that will help you navigate this time with intention and with strength. And the first one is and I've already said it multiple times thinking of this time as sacred and it won't last. It's a finite period of time. Nobody knows how long it will be. You don't need to know, but just know that it's a finite period and that part of that is why it's so sacred. It's limited and even though painful most likely it will be it's limited the transition your partner is going through could be filled with physical pain and emotional suffering as their body weakens, you will see their body transition and they may go through some awful things. Okay, if there's disease involved, it's often awful things that happen, and having some awareness of that, that, while this is awful in many ways, we don't know how long it will last it could be days, it could be weeks, it could be months but knowing it's finite and precious can allow you to approach it with a different mindset and stay focused on what's most important and how you want to show up.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, so it is a sacred time. I truly, truly believe that and I want you to think of it and approach it that way that we have entered into a sacred time. Now the next thing I want you to think about is what's most important? Ideally, we think about this all the time, right, what's most important in life? But the reality is we don't. Life is full of routines and obligations, and we have jobs and children and family, routines and obligations, and we have jobs and children and family, and that's normal, right? We can't treat every moment as sacred, even though theoretically maybe we should. But when we enter into this intense period.

Marika Humphreys:

This is the time to get really clear about what's most important, which is why I want to talk about it, because in order to do that, you have to recognize that something has changed. You have to recognize the shift. Sometimes you will be told that shift right. Sometimes it will be come from a doctor saying you know they this, this is, you know their disease is now incurable or there's nothing more we can do, or the treatment has stopped working. Or sometimes they will say outright, oh, they have X amount of time to live and they can be completely wrong. But the point is you will be told that something has changed. Other times you may not have those words, so you can also just have some awareness around it and I want to talk about this so that you do have that in the back of your mind. I didn't really have it in the back of my mind so, even though I was told it, I didn't really think of it in those ways and I fortunately did have the tools of coaching and things that I'd learned. But I think it would have been helpful had I had that brochure that talked about it as a period of time and the transition and the things to look for. So deciding what's most important is something I think should be a deliberate and conscious process you have.

Marika Humphreys:

One way to find clarity is to decide what matters to you during this time. What do you want to do for your partner? Do you want to advocate for their care, making sure that their needs and wishes are respected? Do you want to focus on offering them love and comfort? Right, think about what do they want from you. How can you best honor that? Think about what do you want for yourself, and what I mean by that is how do you want to show up for them and for yourself? Do you want to make sure that you're not distracted, right, that you're able to stay present, offering your full attention during some certain periods of time during the day? Do you want to make sure you say the things that maybe you've held back, the things about our loved one that we don't say in our relationships, even though we should right. Telling them how much they mean to us, telling them what we've learned from them, telling them the love we have for them, showing our love in the deepest way. Or maybe you just want to be a source of strength and stability in their time of weakness and fear, right. So maybe it's just connection. You just want to feel connected to them and simply be present and together and watch cooking shows or listen to meaningful songs.

Marika Humphreys:

For one of my clients, as we talked about what she wanted during this time that she was in, she wanted to make sure she preserved her husband's dignity. So this was something that was important to him, right, kind of the bodily functions that may not bother other people. He didn't. They bothered him, right, he didn't feel like it was, it just bothered him and his sense of dignity. So, and then fortunately, because of his disease, he was throwing up and just having lots of awful kind of bodily things, and so she really wanted to make sure that he felt his dignity was preserved, that the family and friends didn't see him during those times that he was kind of put together when they did see him because that was important to him and so that was something that she really wanted to give to him. For another client, one of the things that she wanted was to be her husband's advocate. Because of his cancer and the way the where it was, he was losing his ability, to his ability to speak, and so they had care in the home and the caregivers that she had paid for to help come in, and because they couldn't really understand him, they would kind of just talk past him. They would talk to her. So it was like he wasn't even there and she wanted to advocate for him and be his voice. That was something that was important to her that he was still there even though he couldn't speak. So those are just some examples of clients, of what they really wanted to preserve for themselves or for their partner.

Marika Humphreys:

But then also, what do you want for you? I think for me, when I look back, I needed to be just present. One of the things that I loved about my relationship with my husband is we could just always talk. We're always things we could talk about, and that was something we shared during that time in Vienna in the hospital bed, right, we just enjoyed each other's company. Even though he was hooked up to machines and couldn't even sit up on his own, we could still just enjoy being together, so just being connected with something that was important to me. So when you answer that for yourself, the next thing you need to answer and ask yourself is what do I need to do to enable that?

Marika Humphreys:

Once you know what you want to give both to your partner and yourself, then you have to figure out what do you need in order to make that happen, okay, so what I mean by that is sometimes that means we have to have clear boundaries around our time. Sometimes it means we need time away from work or we have to be able to put work aside when we come home. You may not be able to take time away from work, but when you come home, maybe you can set it up so that you minimize your other you know responsibilities during that time, so that you can be present or connected, right, maybe it means you have to take a daily walk, right, caring for yourself and your energy is essential if you want to be able to connect and not be exhausted and like lose your patience or just simply your patience or just fall asleep. Even so, what you need in order to show up for the things that you've decided are most important, you will need physical energy to make that happen. Are you getting enough sleep? Are you eating kind of the right foods that will nourish you? Are you able to get some movement? Okay, it will be hard to be present and focused and what's often sometimes very demanding time with your partner. If you don't have the physical energy, because this time is more, if you don't have the physical energy because this time is more draining, it will require more energy from you. That just is so. You have to recognize that and then just make allowances for it, and sometimes that will be choices.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, for one of my for the client I talked about where she wanted to advocate for her husband. This is what we spent our time coaching on is reinforcing what she wanted to be, how she wanted to show up and then making sure she was doing the things to enable that. And she had a job and she had kids and she had family and she had a home and she had things she had to manage. So she couldn't be there by his side every moment, but when she was by his side there by his side every moment but when she was by his side, she was able to be present and she had energy to be with him, and so we had to work on that, though that meant that she did have to get out and go for a walk when she could. It meant that she had to get a good night's sleep. So physical energy is something you will need.

Marika Humphreys:

You will need mental energy, so that means you will need, sometimes, a place for your mind to rest. Right, you will need some ways to work through some of the mental anxiety and the questions that will come up. This is where coaching can be incredibly helpful. Right, those mental stresses that can threaten to distract us and take us away and consume us unless we have a way to process through them and kind of let them go right or find a way to work through them or answer the questions in our mind. So you will need mental energy. This is a great time to do the thought downloads that I've talked about in this podcast. It's a tool that anybody can use and it's a way to sort of clear out your mind so that all of these stresses aren't weighing on you throughout the day.

Marika Humphreys:

You will need emotional energy. This is an incredibly emotional time. It's going to take physical energy, it's going to take mental energy, and it's going to take physical energy. It's going to take mental energy and it's going to take emotional energy, and the emotional energy will the emotions will take energy. If you try to suppress them, they will overwhelm you. I don't know when that will happen. Sometimes it doesn't happen until after they've passed away and then you're consumed with emotion. So it's really important that you process your emotions as they're happening and you may have to find a way to do that.

Marika Humphreys:

Many of my clients want to stay strong in the presence of their partner. They don't want to break down. This can sometimes be a double-edged sword, because when you're with them you may feel like crying because guess what, it's hard for you too. But you need to have a way, an outlet, for those emotions at some point. So sometimes that's setting aside the time that you feel safe and just know you're going to cry and that's okay, and that those emotions need to come out and they need to come through you. And it may feel like a lot. It will. You are going to have more emotions during this time. So if your tendency is to want to suppress them, I just want to caution you that when we do that, they will tend to overwhelm us. They tend to build up and overflow. So finding a way to process through those emotions coach can be really helpful here.

Marika Humphreys:

And then spiritual energy If you're grappling with deeper questions about life and death and fairness and meaning, those are natural thoughts. Right, it's okay to seek support. If you have a spiritual community that you belong to, whether you meditate or have coaching to just work through some of these thoughts, or you have friends and family members and those questions to come up, it's just a way to process through them. We just don't want these things to pull us, to keep us distracted and pull us away. And then the last thing I want to kind of talk about here is that this is going to be hard and that's okay. This is going to be an incredibly, incredibly hard time. It will not be a smooth journey. Most likely, there will probably be unexpected things, other complications, unforeseen things, difficult choices. It's messy, it's complicated and it's filled with challenging choices, challenging emotions, and you won't be able to do everything perfectly. But that is not the point, okay.

Marika Humphreys:

The point is that you do your best, that you stay conscious of how you are showing up and you do that in a way that you that feels like where you're able to, most of the time, be able to focus on what's most important, that you stay focused on what you can control, which may feel like very little, but it's about how you show up and what you stay focused on your energy, your attention, your love. Those are always things that you can control, and I want to leave you with something that I know may feel hard If you're in this time or thinking about this time. I really believe that we all have an untapped source of energy within us, and it's not something we necessarily always want to pull on. You don't want to just be constantly draining that untapped source of energy, because I think caregivers kind of do that but this is a time where you will want to pull on those reserves. This sacred time is where those reserves they're there. First of all, and even when you think you can't go any further, you do have more strength inside of you than you realize, and that strength will come from love, it will come from purpose and it will come from the deep human capacity to care for those we love most. So choose to believe that you have untapped reserves of strength inside of you and within you.

Marika Humphreys:

Even though this time may stretch you beyond what you think you can handle, you have the ability to stay present, to make it meaningful and to honor the sacredness of this transition. I truly believe that, and that is what I wish for you, so I can offer you support if you are approaching this transition. I truly believe that, and that is what I wish for you, so I can offer you support If you are approaching this time. I have been in it, I've been through it and I've coached clients through it, and I consider it one of the deepest gifts to give people is the ability to embrace this period as sacred. So reach out if you are looking for support. I'm here for you. All right, my friends, I know that was a deep one today and I hope that it gives you some things to think about. All right, I will see you next week.