Care for the Caregiver - part I

Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting a blog series on Care Giving. I hope you'll join me as we explore the art of caring for the caregiver. 

Quite honestly, when I think about my life in regards to caregiving, it goes back to my early days when I babysat for families in the neighborhood where I grew up. As soon as I was able to drive and work a "real" job, I transitioned to working as a nursing assistant in our local nursing home. From there, I launched into a long career in physical therapy. That's a LOT of years of caregiving! Looking back on the joys and trials of that long season, I am looking forward to sharing my insight and valuable coaching tips with you. If only the insights, tools, and resources that we have for caregivers today could have been available back then!

The challenges of being a professional caregiver, a calling that is more than a season of taking care of someone, but rather a career calling, can be overwhelming some days. Sometimes we do better with that calling than other days. In my three-fold approach to coaching caregivers, I divide caregiving into three main parts. Each part overlaps, or at a minimum intersects, with the other. At times, it can be difficult to see where one part leaves off and the other picks up. (More on this to come!)

If you are a professional caregiver, I invite you to join me the next three weeks as we journey together. I hope you will gain wisdom, clarity, and perspective as you reflect on each topic. I encourage you to share your insights with your coworkers and colleagues. We are all in this together and chances are they are working through the same challenges you are experiencing.

So, get ready to have an "Aha!" moment. I look forward to sharing my first caregiver wellness insight with you! (Hint...it's the opposite of getting enough exercise!)