In This Together: Building Resilience When Caregiving for Your Partner

40. Empowered Caregiving - Prioritize You

• Marika • Season 1 • Episode 40

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Today, I’m sharing Day 4 of the Empowered Caregiving Challenge, where we focus on making yourself a priority. 

As caregivers, we often neglect our own needs, falling into the trap of putting others first—day after day, week after week. This pattern leads to burnout, exhaustion, and resentment. In today's episode, I dive into why prioritizing self-care is so hard and how shifting our mindset can help us feel more empowered.

Caregiving takes a huge mental, physical, and emotional toll, yet we rarely give ourselves credit for it. Adjusting our expectations around what we can realistically accomplish is key. 

In addition, thought errors—like believing our needs aren’t important—hold us back. We need to question and reframe these beliefs. 

Finally, caregiving often feels like a no-win situation, where tending to ourselves seems selfish. But it’s not—it’s necessary.

By developing an empowered mindset, setting a minimum baseline for self-care, and seeking win-win solutions, we can recharge and show up better for both ourselves and our loved ones.

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 and welcome to day four of the Empowered Caregiving Challenge. Today we are talking about making yourself a priority. I'm Marika Humphries. I'm a resiliency coach for people who are caregiving for their partner, and today I'm talking about how neglecting ourselves and our own care is disempowering because it leads to burnout and exhaustion. And yet self-care is one of the biggest challenges that caregivers have. Caregivers often fall into the habit of putting everybody else's needs ahead of their own and neglecting their own care at the same time, and doing that consistently. If that is you, it will have a negative impact. I'm sure you've felt that already Over time. It will lead to burnout for sure, but I get it. It is not easy to prioritize yourself and your own care while you're also prioritizing your partner or whoever you're caring for. So it's a challenge, and that is why caregivers struggle with it so much. So I first want to talk about why this is so hard and why it's such a common problem for caregivers. And why it's such a common problem for caregivers. I think there's three main reasons.

Marika Humphreys:

As I was thinking about this, I think I have seen really three main reasons, and I would say probably all three of those were relevant for me as well in my own life. The first one is I think as caregivers we tend to underestimate, and I want to say underappreciate, the mental, the physical and the emotional toll that caregiving has. And what I mean by that is, I think a lot of us just we simply don't give ourselves credit for the extra work or effort is maybe a better way to say it that caregiving takes. It will require more of you in all areas of your life, and that is obviously in relation to how much of a caregiver you are and how big that role is in your life. But even if it's only a small portion, it is still more. It's still more than if you weren't caregiving.

Marika Humphreys:

And I think a lot of us, we don't appreciate that and take that into account. And what I don't mean is by saying we don't appreciate that I don't mean necessarily feeling sorry for yourself, like thinking, oh, this is so hard, so hard on me, but what I do mean is adjust life and your own expectations about what you can get done and what you can fit in a day and what's reasonable to the energy that you have left. In other words, taking into account that caregiving tasks, whatever they are for you, will take a mental toll on you. They will take a physical toll on you. They will take an emotional toll and a spiritual toll. So just keeping that in mind means you need to adjust other things in your life to account for that, and I think we don't do that. We don't think to do that. There is a big difference between again feeling sorry for ourself, like, oh, this is so hard, it's so draining, I have no choice, which is very disempowered thinking versus this is hard and I need to give myself time, or I need to get help, or I need to adjust my expectations about what I can accomplish because I have these extra responsibilities. So that's more empowered thinking. This is my reality and I need to adjust accordingly, as opposed to feeling sorry for ourselves. So that, I think, is one of the main reasons that we struggle for self-care is because we just don't take into account the extra energy in all areas of our life that caregiving takes.

Marika Humphreys:

Another reason is because I think a lot of caregivers, myself included, have some thought errors. What's a thought error? A thought error is simply a faulty way of thinking. It's a way of thinking that we haven't questioned it and sometimes it's just erroneous. It's just again faulty. I hesitate to say wrong, but a better way to think about it is thoughts that don't serve us and aren't necessarily right or true and aren't necessarily right or true.

Marika Humphreys:

Common thought errors that I encounter when I'm coaching people is my needs aren't important, or some version of that, or my needs aren't important right now. That was one of my thought errors. Or I'm not sure if that's true, the reverse of that is some version of their needs the person I'm caring for are the most important, are or should take precedence, or are what? The only thing I need to focus on Some version of that. Their needs are more important than mine. Basically, this thought error will obviously having you put your own care last, because you're thinking that your needs aren't important or somebody else's needs are more important, versus needs are just as important as theirs, or another way to think about it is nobody can take care of me but me. If I don't take care of me, who else is going to do that job? So those are just some alternative ways that you can see also make sense. So sometimes, as caregivers, we just have some thought errors that we need to become aware of and start questioning.

Marika Humphreys:

And then I think the third big reason why caregivers struggle with self-care is it often feels like doing something for themselves will be an either or choice. If I do something for myself, that means that I'm neglecting my partner. It feels like it's a no-win situation. Taking care of myself will come at the cost of my partner, and if I take care of myself, it's either or Either I take care of my own needs and neglect them, or I take care of them and neglect myself. We kind of have this either or or, all or nothing.

Marika Humphreys:

Thinking is sometimes another way to think about it, and then usually in our thought process we take that the next step and say if I either take care of them or I take care of me, well, if I take care of me, I'm going to feel guilty and selfish. People pleasers, and often women, will really struggle with this because they are especially prone to wanting to please others at the cost of themselves. Women are often conditioned that taking care of themselves is selfish and shouldn't be something that we do. So those challenges and those cultural beliefs definitely make this challenging. But what happens is if we take care of them at the cost of ourself, if we take care of them at the cost of ourself, we still end up feeling resentful or exhausted because we're not caring for ourself. So it does seem like a no-win situation. But I'm going to offer that that is not true and I'll talk more about that in a minute.

Marika Humphreys:

But it's definitely hard for those reasons because of the thought errors we have, because we underestimate how the toll that caregiving takes in our lives and because it feels like it's a no-win situation. Those are the main reasons. I think that it's really hard to prioritize our own care. But, as I mentioned, when we don't do that consistently over time it will lead to burnout, exhaustion and resentment. I see that very frequently. So those feelings are when we're most disempowered, and this challenge is all about how we become more empowered in our caregiving journey. Neglecting ourselves is disempowering. I think most of us would not disagree on that point. But it is worth talking about a little more to see why it's so disempowering One I've already talked about.

Marika Humphreys:

It leads to burnout and exhaustion and often resentment, but not just. I think the exhaustion is often it's physical exhaustion, it's emotional exhaustion, sometimes it's mental exhaustion as well. Caregiving will pull in all those areas and our energy is not an unlimited resource. It is a limited resource that we have to renew, that we have to refill, and that's energy in all those areas mental, physical, spiritual and emotional it has to be refilled. There is not this unlimited emotional. It has to be refilled. There is not this unlimited tap within us. I do think there is sometimes, but we still have to give to it right. We still have to refill it.

Marika Humphreys:

And when we care for our partner at the expense of ourselves, we run that energy tap dry. We will feel fatigued and that's when we'll start to feel resentful as well. And what that happens then is a cascade effect. When we are fatigued and feeling resentful, guess what we do? We pull away. Often, we pull away from our partner or whoever we're caring for, we withdraw, we detach, which is the opposite of connection and often the opposite of what we want to do. It's often the opposite of how we'd like to show up. I can't tell you how many people come to me and they say I'm more irritable with my partner because I'm so tired and I'm short-tempered and I snap at them sometimes and they feel terrible about it, but it's because they've gotten run down.

Marika Humphreys:

So when we run down, we are not able to show up in the way we want to, as our best self, and that often then, when we start to withdraw and pull back, that can lead to a more strained relationship with our partner and that then can cause even more problems. So then you have an uncomfortable and strained relationship and you're run down. So you're just pulling back and it's this vicious cycle in a negative way. You're just pulling back and it's this vicious cycle in a negative way. So tending to your own wellbeing is how you bring back some energy and you bring back control and you stop that negative cycle from either progressing or happening in the first place, because when you're depleted, you can't be present for anybody else. You will have all of your attention and energy turned inward, because you need to. So what's the solution? How do we become more empowered in this area of our lives?

Marika Humphreys:

I want to give you three ways to think about this. The first one is I want to encourage you to develop and adopt a empowered mindset, and this means recognizing that your needs are valid and important, because no one else is going to take care of you. Sometimes we'd like to give that responsibility to other people. All of us would like someone else to come in and take care of us. Wouldn't that be nice? And maybe we're doing that for someone else, but ultimately nobody can do it better than we can and it's always our responsibility. Once we become an adult, it becomes our responsibility. So, even though we'd like to somehow give it, sometimes, give it up that often comes because we struggle with validating that role for ourselves, the need for and the importance of our own care and our own wellbeing. I want to offer a thought I had a client once told me this.

Marika Humphreys:

She said when mom's okay, the family's okay. But I think you can adopt that to also some version of when I'm okay, my family's okay, however big that family is. But often, as the caretaker, you are the pivotal person in the family. That is kind of the glue that keeps everything stuck together and that person needs to be taken care of. So, as I just said, that's also your job, right, and that's okay, but it means that that's an important role.

Marika Humphreys:

You are in an important role and so, therefore, you need to take care of you, and when you are taken care of by yourself and by prioritizing your own needs, then the family will be taken care of as well, because you'll have the energy and the sustained ability to do that, and realizing that caregiving takes energy. It takes energy when you do it on top of the things you're already doing. Even if it is your full-time role, it still takes energy. And just recognizing that means then you can look at other areas of your life to see where you can eliminate things, pare things down, maybe get help with things. Just going through that thought process of like, oh, if this takes some energy here, then I need to do a little less of this, or this can wait, or this is not that important, or maybe I can get help with this. It puts your mind in a different state, right, a proactive, empowered state, as opposed to a disempowered state. So that's the first step to becoming more empowered is develop a empowered mindset around self-care.

Marika Humphreys:

Another thing that I do with my clients I take you through a whole process of doing this is establishing a minimum baseline for self-care. And I like to say minimum, minimum baseline because, yeah, most of the time when we're caregiving, it isn't the time to have our grandest, loftiest fitness goals or health goals, but because we have those extra responsibilities, but because we have those extra responsibilities, but there is still a minimum and I want you to think about. You can always do more, but think about what is the minimum I need to sustain myself as a happy, healthy person mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually in all those ways. All the ways are important. Don't skip on one, because they're all important. Those are how we have a balanced and healthy life happy, healthy life so all of those areas are important.

Marika Humphreys:

Let's say, for your physical care, you need to take a 15 to 20 minute walk every day. I need to do that. I need to get out of my apartment and get outside at least once a day. For your spiritual health, maybe that means meeting up with friends twice a month or once a month. It doesn't necessarily have to be an everyday requirement, but all of those needs, all of those areas you'll have needs, and think about how you can meet them at the minimum level. What is the minimum required? You can always do more, and sometimes you will have time for more. Other times, though, when you have a minimum, that's what you need to sustain yourself. Times, though, when you have a minimum, that's what you need to sustain yourself. And sometimes it does feel like we need a lot, but usually that feeling comes from being very depleted. So often we don't need as much as we think we do if we're really depleted, but we need it consistently. I think consistency is more important than quantity here. It's more important to get that daily walk-in or that daily meditation in or the once a week lunch out with friends, than having a full day girls day out if that's all you're doing.

Marika Humphreys:

And then the last way I want to give you to move towards a more empowered state when it comes to prioritizing your needs is to think win-win. We often think either or or. This is a no-win situation, or I'm sort of stuck with this. That is disempowered thinking. I want you to think how can I make this a win-win? I've got these responsibilities for care, but how can I also take care of myself?

Marika Humphreys:

The self-care is not selfish, it is essential for being effective, and so, therefore, I challenge your mind to get good at thinking win-win. How can I take care of myself and take care of them? Good at thinking win-win, how can I take care of myself and take care of them? Sometimes that means their care. You take care of them and then, at a certain time of day, you take care of you, or maybe you can do both at the same time. There's lots of ways, but when you put your mind to it and start thinking how can I make this a win-win, you'll be amazed at what you come up with, because it will be a much more powerful question to ask yourself than getting stuck in all or nothing thinking or no win kind of thinking, no win situation. So, thinking about it from a win-win, how can I make this a win-win? I want to really challenge you to question your belief around self-care and if you believe it's optional or it should come last, I want to encourage you to question that.

Marika Humphreys:

Taking care of ourselves consistently, without guilt, is how we feel empowered in the caregiving journey. It is how we sustain, it is how we show up as our best self. It is how we stay connected to the person we're caring for in a loving way. It's how we have patience, it's how we're present. That is the requirement for those things is having a process and a system where you're taking care of yourself and believing and truly that that is important. It's vital. Your care is vital in order to continue to give them care.

Marika Humphreys:

So some questions to think about. When was the last time that I made time for my own needs? Just think about that. And when I did, how did it affect my energy and my mood? Okay, so that's the first question. Second question what beliefs do I hold about self-care? Do I view it as a necessity, or do I feel guilty when I take time for myself or somewhere in between? Really ask yourself what beliefs do you have? And then the third question how might taking better care of myself improve the quality of my care? How could my caregiving be more patient, more compassionate, more present if I felt more rested and energized? Find how that's true.

Marika Humphreys:

All right, this is a good one and an important one to talk about. And if this is something you have been consistently struggling with, or any of these areas that we've talked about so far, if you are feeling disempowered in your caregiving journey, that is what I work with you on in my one-on-one program, raise your Resilience. If we, as I mentioned, in that program, I lead you through a process where we establish your minimum baseline for self-care and then we work through it. We work on it because often, once we have a plan, then we run into the roadblocks when we start executing that plan. So when we run into those roadblocks, we address them and we work through them. So that is just one of the ways that we work on to build your resilience when you're caregiving and help you become more empowered, and it translates way outside of caregiving. It'll translate to every other aspect of your life.

Marika Humphreys:

When I started learning these techniques and tools in my own journey, I was my husband's care partner. I actually got a promotion at work because I became a better employee, I was more confident with myself and I understood how to engage with people at a just better level, and I ended up taking a manager role that I had not felt even ready for prior to this. So what I learned through coaching was very applicable and it helped me keep my sanity in caregiving, but it also translated to the rest of my life. So that's the beauty of all of this All of these skills translate to every other aspect of your life. So I want to encourage you.

Marika Humphreys:

If you're thinking about coaching and are interested in finding out what coaching support looks like, set up a consultation with me. You can do that from my website, and I hope to see you soon. All right, so take a few minutes, answer the questions that I gave you today and think about self-care and how you can be more empowered in that area, and I will see you tomorrow for our final day of the challenge, and we're talking about boundaries. All right, I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.