Tell Us: What Fear Have You Conquered?

I think that caregiving can be one of life’s most fearful experiences. There’s so much to fear because it feels like there’s so much to lose: Your caree’s health, your health, your caree’s money, your money. It’s all very scary. Think back, though, to how you were before caregiving. Think about a fear you had. Do you still have that fear? Chances are, you’ve conquered it...

Tell Us: What Don’t I Know About You?

In March, our Caregiving Happiness Project action word is Learn. So, I’ve decided that this month I’m going to learn something about new and old friends alike. I started thinking about friends here—all the visitors who stop by Caregiving.com. I know something about you—that caregiving affects your life. Today, though, I’d love to know more. I’d love to know something about you...

Tell Us: What’s Your Six-Word Caregiving Story?

Last week, I heard about SMITH magazine, which sponsors six-word memoirs. The six-word memoirs cover most life events and emotions—about love, happiness, teens, pain and hope. Readers recently shared memories about love and loss. Some examples include: Love hurts. Choose vodka or valium. Hearts clubbed by diamonds in spades. Finally found love, at age 41. Note to self: avoid head cases. He wasn’t worth the...

Tell Us: What’s Your Love Story?

I love a love story. What better day to share a love story than on Valetine’s Day? So, today, share your love story. Your love story could be the one with your spouse or partner. Or, the one with your favorite pet. Or, with your favorite book. Or, your best friend. Or, your kids. It just has to be a story about love. Share your love story on in our comments section below and you’ll be entered into a...

Love Story: A Contest

Valentine’s Day is Monday. So, as a way to celebrate, we’d love to hear your love story. Your love story could be the one with your spouse or partner. Or, the one with your favorite pet. Or, with your favorite book. Or, your best friend. It just has to be a story about love. On Monday, share your love story on Caregiving.com and you’ll be entered into a chance to win a $50 Visa gift card. Not sure...

Tell Us: When Does Too Much Feels Like There’s Not Enough?

In Chicago, once we clear away our snow, we bring out our lawn chairs, ironing boards and toys. We clear snow out of parking spaces and, because we don’t want to lose a cleared space, we hold a space with whatever we can find. My street is littered, literally, with old furniture, paint buckets and empty boxes weighed down with snow. We also worry that, because of all the snow, we won’t be able to find a...

What’s Your Dream for Tomorrow’s Caregiver?

Image via Wikipedia On Caregiving.com, we regularly talk about your dreams for yourself. Because, as you know, it’s so easy to lose your life dreams in a life of caregiving. Today, we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who taught us to dream big for today and for tomorrow. He showed us what’s unacceptable and then challenged us to be different. And, then, he shared his vision of a better life...

What’s Your Family Dinner?

I think we’ve all heard about the benefits of family dinners for our children. Dr. Mark Hyman reminded us of the positive impact when children and parents eat together regularly in an article that appeared yesterday on Huffington Post (“Eating at Home Can Save Your Life“). He writes: “Research shows that children who have regular meals with their parents do better in every way, from better...

Tell Us: Who (or What) Steals Your Joy?

In August, Join was our action word for our Caregiving Happiness Project. I moved to my neighborhood in March of last year (2010) and wanted a way to connect with others, a way to feel a part of where I lived. So, the idea of joining something was very attractive to me. I decided to look at churches. After some church-shopping, I settled on a church with a simple decor and a bit of an open mind. Soon after joining,...

Tell Us: What Are Your (Emotional) Left-Overs?

(A note from Denise: I hope yesterday was a good day for everyone. But just in case…) It was yesterday so it should be in our past. But, sometimes, the emotional left-overs hang around as long as those turkey legs. Those holiday hang-overs of resentments and regrets or sadness and sullenness can turn the next few days sour. Who wants that? So, tell us: What are your emotional left-overs? Tell us now so you...

Tell Us: What Do You Hate About the Holidays?

Commercials tells us we should love the holidays. During the holidays, commercials tell us, we have fun parties to attend, glamorous clothes to wear, beautiful gifts to open. It seems there is much to love about the holidays. Except for those things we hate. So, tell us what you feel bad telling anyone else: What do you hate about the holidays? Inside Our Holiday Survival Guide Keep Your Cool The Chocolate’s...

Tells Us: What’s Your Biggest Complaint?

To help you focus your last thoughts of the day on good, let’s take time during the day to vent about the bad. Let it out now so you don’t take the day’s frustrations to bed with you. (See my post, below, about using your last few moments of the day as a way to make a better tomorrow.) So, tell us: What’s your biggest complaint? Complain away in our comments section, below. Program Note: We...

Tell Us: What’s Your Best Caregiving Decision (To Date)?

In a caregiving role, you make decisions daily. Some decisions seem rather simple (toast with cereal?) and others fall in the category of very series (Do I call the doctor?). Even worse, you may feel that these decisions—from the simple to the series—are made in solitude. It’s you. It all rests on you. So, today, we’ll talk together about caregiving decisions. And, today, I’d love to...

Tell Us: Does Crying Help You Survive Caregiving?

NPR featured a segment yesterday morning called “Teary-Eyed Evolution: Crying Serves a Purpose” Reporter Allison Aubrey writes: Maybe good criers were survivors. “Crying seems to elicit compassion and guilt,” (says Jesse Bering, who directs the Institute of Cognition and Culture at Belfast University), “and that itself may be an evolved mechanism to save relationships in...

Tell Us: What Advice Drives You Nuts?

Several months ago, I was looked at a very tall To Do list that had to be completed within a very short time period. I was going over my list with a few colleagues, who I had asked to help me make sure I had a plan in place to complete what needed to be done. And, for me, my To Do list needed to be completed. After walking through my list and my goals, my well-meaning colleagues said: When are you taking care of...

Tell Us: What Do You Wish Would Just Get Easier?

Maybe it’s something you’ve been doing for years for your caree, like transferring him or her from bed to commode or preparing a special pureed meal. But every time you face the bed or the blender, you think: I just wish this would get easier. Or, perhaps it’s a moment during the day that still catches you, that hits you hard, that makes you think: I wish this would stop hurting so much. Today,...

Tell Us: How Do You Describe Your Caregiving Role?

Yesterday, on Huffington Post, Eliezer Sobel wrote about how we use our time. He then related a story about recently reconnecting with a childhood acquaintance (he tormented her in the playground so you can’t really say they were friends). They exchanged updates; she visited his website which features his two published books. How accomplished you are, she wrote to him. I’m the greatest underachiever of...

Tell Us: Do You Try to Play God?

Yesterday’s USA Today featured a Q&A interview with Gail Sheehy about her new book, “Passages in Caregiving,” and her experience caring for her husband. The interviewer asked Sheehy: “You write about caregivers who go solo and try to play God. Why does that backfire?” Sheehy answered, “As long as you are catching mistakes and bird-dogging everything, you feel important....

Tell Us: How Does Caregiving Touch a Wound for You?

Last Saturday, Donna Webb joined me on Your Caregiving Journey; we spoke about her caregiving experience, as well as her recovery from a pinched nerve. She spoke about an injury she sustained years ago which flared recently because of too much time in front of the computer and physical caregiving. As she spoke, a thought occurred to me: Caregiving can touch dormant wounds, both physical and emotional. A bum knee or...

Tell Us: What Do You Force?

Helping my mom put away groceries has become an eye-opening experience. Her cabinets are very organized; you can easily find what you need. All is organized by a caring hand. But then I watch my mom re-fill the napkin holder. She’ll grab a large stack of napkins and then shove, shove, shove the stack into the holder until they somehow fit. The first person to take a napkin is in for a fight. As the first...

Tell Us: What’s Cooking?

Every week, in Tell Us, we talk about what you typically can’t talk about with just anyone. This week, we’re going to give the difficult emotions a break and talk about what we always seem to talk about: What’s for dinner. So, today, tell us: What’s for dinner tonight?

Tell Us: What Makes You Crabby?

It could be something little but its impact on you is day-long: It makes you crabby. Perhaps it’s one caregiving task you must do, but doing it makes you crabby. Or, it could be an interaction with just one person who just makes you crabby. Or, it could be the thought of a situation or relationship that does it: It makes you crabby. So, today, in Tell Us, where you tell us what might be tough to tell another,...