'Reflections about Walking your Why'

A Caregiver Value Compass in Action.

Hello, Dear One! Thank you for being here. I appreciate you giving me some of your precious time.

If you’re new to Carer Mentor, Welcome! I’m Victoria. I cared for my Dad through to his passing (the hellish dark days with grains of joy), and now I look after Mum (calmer waters with giggles). You can read more about ‘why I’m publishing Carer Mentor here: Who Started Carer Mentor and Why?’

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A recap of the Values Compass series (July)

In Part 1, ‘How can articulating core values help us?’ I shared the premise for the series. You can confidently anchor back to your values when you feel lost or conflicted. Caregivers often feel unseen, and it’s easy for us to lose sight of ourselves. Expressing our values can be a worthy investment of our time.

In Part 2, 'How do I articulate my core values?’ I shared a simple process of reflection and reframing to guide our thinking.

In Part 3: ‘How to prioritise values to live them’. I focused on prioritising values.

Using Susan David’s ‘Diamond Metaphor’, I shared how we can reframe our internal conflict or dissonance through mindful planning. We’re not superheroes, and we can’t be everywhere simultaneously. We can live our values by giving ourselves permission and grace to focus on one thing at a time.

These three pieces can offer tools to help you clarify what matters most to you.

If those articles feel overwhelming, try these daily prompts, over the next week:

• What felt worth your time and energy today and why?

• What made you light up or feel valuable to you?

• Were there times when you felt frustrated and impatient? Can you dig into why that is?

Reviewing your journal over the week can offer more insights into your values.

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Walking your Why

In an earlier article, I shared that "Walking your why" is about aligning your actions with your values: Dr Susan David 'Walking Your Why.' (July 18, 2016. Interview with LeadersIn)

Susan David discussed how this concept is crucial for emotional agility, well-being, and success in life.

Values are fundamental to helping us be resilient in daily life. They protect us from mindless decisions and social contagion¹ and shield us against unconscious societal biases.

‘Walking your why’ involves making choices that move you towards your values, even in the face of fear or doubt.

Each choice point is a pivot point of values. Imagine all the choices you make daily!

Values are qualities of action: it’s not what you say you’ll do that matters; it’s the action that tells your story. Every choice and action is a step into the person you want to be.

Small micro-choices can lead to significant and then long-term changes. This is part of our growth and evolution.

The tiniest pixels in one direction eventually make an exponential diagonal on a screen. ;-)

This is why articulating our values and developing habits alongside them can help us realise our full potential. It’s an empowering tool.

Mindful awareness of our values discredits peer pressure, social conditioning and autopilot productivity. It keeps our priorities at the forefront of our minds and enables us to see the value we may have been blind to.

An impossible trade-off?

For caregivers, it can feel like our values and needs are overshadowed by the needs (and the never-ending to-do list) of caring for our loved ones/family members.

How do we sustain who we are beyond and within caregiving?

We’re not only caregivers; we’re so much more. Yet, the most significant portion of our day and week may be about caregiving.

I’m not here to tell you what to do. I’d like to offer a big hug of empathy for everything you and we go through.

We’re each experiencing caregiving differently, and the demands on our time, emotions and energy are intimately tied to the needs of those we love and care for.

Choosing to invest some time in ourselves amidst caregiving is courageous. Many people don’t realise how time-sensitive things are on our to-do list and how many things are interlinked, e.g. a blood test on Monday for a consult on Tuesday, and the various actions we have to do to ensure those things happen.

When constantly juggling, the easy choice is to keep slogging on. The hard choice is to invest in ourselves, place the eggs we keep in motion back in the carton, and pause.

When we’re constantly juggling, the easy choice is to keep slogging on. The hard choice is to invest in ourselves, put the eggs we keep in motion back in the carton, and pause.

It’s an investment we deserve, not a luxury or a ‘should take care of yourself' thing (should is a swear word in my book).

For many caregivers, the issue is valuing ourselves enough to make a hard choice. We need to be okay with putting ourselves first over the needs of our loved ones and reclaim a sliver of valuable time for ourselves. Yes, and there you have the L’Oreal tagline…’Because we’re worth it!’

If one more person says the cliché phrase, ‘You can’t pour from an empty cup,’ I may tell them where to put the cup!

We’re not ‘just caregivers’. Our priority may be caring for someone, but it doesn’t mean it’s our raison d’être. We have many more pieces to our identity puzzle in addition to giving care to someone. See the person, not the role.

See us as people struggling to satisfy our own needs and wishes while fulfilling those of our loved ones.

It’s a daily, minute-to-minute, hourly trade-off: the next thing on the to-do list, the cup of tea for ourselves, a call for help with something…every caregiver will tell you about numerous cups of tea going cold! This is why we invest in thermos mugs ;-)

I see you. I’ve been there. I’ve been in crisis mode, hypervigilant, walking on eggshells when many of those juggled eggs fell—not just off the bed or off a chair, but backwards off stairs.

It takes courage to tell ourselves that we must survive AND implement action steps. I think our inner critic is louder than others. Perhaps it’s a raucous choir of dissonant voices, exceptionally good at guilt-complexing and scolding—frustrating ourselves on all sides. Sometimes, it may feel like you can’t do right by yourself or your loved one.

Sustaining ourselves beyond and within caregiving is about moving through these constant choice points and trade-offs despite an ‘inner-critic’ choir putting fear in our hearts. It’s hard to silence the ‘What-ifs’; it can be hard to appease the ‘if onlys.’

If you haven’t read Jodi’s publication, I recommend browsing ‘The Long Goodbye: Dementia Caregiving’. This struck a chord.

By

Jodi Sh. Doff

Article: How's Mom, They Ask ? What you want to hear is not what I want to say.

Ask me how I am.

I’ll tell ya, I’m tired. Bone tired. Guantanamo Bay tired. Three day cocaine binge tired.

I started going to Zumba and Swim Class and Salsa lessons.
I am not normally a let’s move person, I’m a why can’t we just lay here on the couch kinda gal.
You know why I love those classes? For that hour, whichever hour it is, I don’t have to think. My phone is away and the sound is off. I’m not responsible for a single decision. For one hour each of those days, someone tells me exactly what to do, and I do it.
Drink some water. Okay, I drink some water.
Move like this. I move like that.
Bubble, bubble, bubble when your face is in the water. I bubble, bubble, bubble.
It’s bliss. Fucking bliss. Five hours a week I’m not obligated to anyone or anything.

Our courageous path involves caring for our loved ones through their illness, frailties, and suffering, as well as choosing to value ourselves.

There are choice points and trade-offs every day, but they don’t have to be impossible. Beware…a small cliché is coming: we can reframe the impossible to the I’m Possible.

Nothing is easy in life. I know many caregivers who do not feel they have a choice in being a caregiver. My heart goes out to them because these trade-offs may feel impossible.

My main message here is NOT about advocating for you to take an hour and go the gym; it’s more fundamental than that:

Consider prioritising yourself over your loved one for a sliver of valuable time. Do something meaningful for yourself: write that poem or letter, take your tea into the garden, take the dog for a walk, or do a small meditation. You are worth it.

Self-compassion is often overshadowed and demoted in deference to mayhem and someone else’s needs. Let’s try to reclaim our sense of agency and self amidst the care routine.

Here are some ways to manage the mental load and remember to prioritise your care. Managing the Mental Load

A last reflection:

This article is my personal reflection on caregiving, and I’m curious to see how it resonates with others. I’ve evolved from survival mode into my version of thriving, but still, there are daily choices and trade-offs. I’m glad I spent a few minutes on the treadmill this morning. It’s how I clear my brain.

The following articles will offer more insights and reflections on walking my why.

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Comments: How do you sustain your sense of self while caring for others? What little choices do you make for yourself? Is there a particular time of day when it’s easier to reclaim a sliver of valuable time for yourself?

Thank you for being part of this beautiful community. I appreciate you.

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1. Interview timestamp 1:52 Research that has been done on what we call social contagion is the idea that we literally catch other people's behaviours when we just mindlessly go through the world. (Examples given of evidence from large epidemiological studies).