Tired of Being a Caregiver: Time for a New Approach
Yes, I was tired of being a caregiver for my wife.
I was tired of trying to fit caregiving into my life, adjusting to being a caregiver. I was tired of all the doing. I was tired of putting myself last. Forcing myself to smile and act happy tired me out. All the excuses I made for not getting my work done at work exhausted me. I saw no end to caregiving, and that made me feel tired. Feeling alone in what I was doing wore me out. Looking into the future and not having anything to look forward to drained me. I couldn’t imagine anything different. Every caregiver I met suffered the way I suffered.
Two years into my caregiving journey, I wanted it to end. I wanted my wife to die sooner than later, so I wouldn’t have to suffer any longer. That’s how bad it was for me. Even though I feared asking for help, I knew I needed it.
The help I found helped me adopt a new approach to caregiving—actually, a new approach to life. I looked upon the world with a fresh perspective. I acted differently, and I saw myself differently. You could say that caregiving helped me find myself. And I couldn’t have been more grateful.
So, what changed? Everything!
First, I recognized that caregiving was at least as much about me as it was about my wife.
Second, I realized that caring for myself meant caring from the inside out.
Third, I realized that doing, doing, and doing were not the center of caregiving. Loving was the heart of caregiving.
Fourth, I found an ancient wisdom teaching that helped me begin to see clearly and think logically.
Fifth, I stopped thinking that caregiving was a detour, an interruption in my life. I embraced caregiving.
Sixth, I embraced prayer.
Imagine a theater marquee with this title – Caregiving for Kathy – starring Tony and Kathy. I would get equal billing with my wife. I realized I couldn’t continue to put myself last. I had to learn that I was as important in this whole caregiving journey. It wasn’t a matter of finding the right balance.
I needed to understand that if I wanted to continue as her husband, I needed to act as her husband, which meant I needed to find the support I needed to do that, which meant I had to identify my needs and find ways to get them met. Why would I abdicate what made our marriage work? Why would I sacrifice my health and our intimacy to exhaustion? So, I changed my perspective. I cared for myself as significantly as I cared for my wife.
Though I still took classes at the yoga studio, walked for exercise, and continued to eat well, I wasn’t in touch with my feelings. I kept them hidden, buried. When I let them out and felt them, the anger, sadness, and fear, to my surprise, I didn’t crack, fall apart or die. I learned what they were telling me about myself as if I had discovered a secret language.
As I looked inward, I began to nourish the subtle heart where our deepest love arises, where the Soul, Consciousness, the Self, and God sustains us. This love had nothing to do with the physical body. What I was in love with beamed from her eyes and glowed from her smile. I let myself feel love for my wife again. And I began to feel content with myself. My work was connecting with mySelf in ways I had forgotten. Caring from the inside out.
Though I did everything a caregiver does, all that doing isn’t the essence of caregiving; no matter how I did and how much I did with her, I couldn’t find a way to draw closer to her. I fell further apart. And this approach left me exhausted and unengaged with the woman I loved. Something was missing.
Finding how to preserve your intimacy, bringing your love every day to the person in your care, and showing up happy, content, and compassionate is the heart of caregiving. Finding the moments to say those things you’ve always wanted to say.
Often, we get carried away with all the doing as if that is caring. That is doing. Caring is a deep connection, a presence in compassion that breaks the walls separating the caregiver from the person cared for. Caring is unifying, bonding, and not a word needs to be spoken.
I realized that all the ideas, beliefs, and attitudes I carried with me were no help when my wife became ill. The foundation of my life, which I thought was a bedrock, crumbled. What my heart yearned for was not within my reach until I found a new approach to life that gave me a new perspective on caregiving.
The person I found to help me introduced me to an ancient spiritual teaching. As I practiced what I was learning, as I tested it to see if it made a difference, if it made sense, I changed how I looked at caregiving. I began to see what was in front of me more clearly and logically. No matter how little it was, I began to understand birth and death and everything in between. I began to accept that what the universe offers are pleasant and unpleasant opportunities for our growth.
I stopped treating this episode in my life as a detour, as an interruption. How can something happening in your life, a chapter in your story, an episode in your home movie, be something not part of your life? The universe presents both the pleasant and the unpleasant in one way or another to every human. Do we have such a cosmic view that we can say what we deserve and what we don’t deserve to happen in our lives? So, I surrendered to the reality I faced. I stopped suffering.
When I started my journey of caregiving, I was still working. I became distracted at work, thinking about what I needed to do to care for my wife. When I was with her, I thought about what I needed to do at work.
It was a great excuse not to commit to caregiving. I manufactured many reasons not to commit to caregiving. And every reason pushed me further and further away from the love and intimacy I wanted with my wife in the last years of her life.
Only by abandoning all those bogus reasons that fed the lie that caregiving was an interruption in my life, could I fully embrace my wife. I was so happy I did.
Finally, I stopped thinking that nothing would get done if I stopped all the doing. I realized that I wasn’t in charge of the outcome. I surrendered to the fact that there are seen and unseen forces at work. Since I don’t understand many of the seen forces at work, how would I possibly understand what I couldn’t see?
I accepted those things that were not in my control and focused on what was in my power. I recognized that my wife had her journey different than mine. Her path took her through Alzheimer’s. Mine through caregiving. Though our paths were different, we still walked together.
The bottom line - I was willing to change, to transform, because not changing proved to be too painful. Nothing easy about changing. But, this is a big BUT, I grew to love my wife more than I thought possible.
So, what changed?
I recognized that caregiving was at least as much about me as it was about my wife.
I realized that caring for myself meant caring from the inside out.
I realized that doing, doing, and doing was not the center of caregiving. Loving was the heart of caregiving.
I found an ancient wisdom teaching that helped me begin to see clearly and think logically.
I stopped thinking that caregiving was a detour, an interruption in my life. I embraced caregiving.
I embraced prayer.
So, if you’re tired of being a caregiver and ready for a new approach, follow the Four Principles I’ve laid out in the Caregivers Journey. Come to a workshop.
If you’re a caregiver having difficulty in this role, feeling alone, frustrated and tired with no peers to share your experiences, on a rollercoaster ride of doctor calls and appointments, bouncing between good news and bad news, having more questions than answers, suffering as you’ve seen others suffer, having tried what everyone has said to try but to no avail, then you may be ready for a fundamentally different approach.
