Essential Self Care For Caregivers And Helpers

Do you often daydream and muse on how wonderful it would be for someone to regularly be attending to YOUR needs? Do you spend a large part of each day helping others to feel better? This book may challenge your old patterns of thinking but following Brockman’s Primary Directive to take care of yourself first, your life will start to transform and your health and well-being will begin to shift in a healing direction. Howard Brockman, LCSW has written his second book, this time emphasizing the importance of self-care for the legions of people supporting and taking care of others. While there are books that have been written about the challenges to professionals such as social workers, nurses and psychologists to becoming burned out, Brockman’s book is written also for the millions of untrained non-professionals who are being recruited daily to care for their elderly parents. Do you fit into either of these categories? He describes the many influences that lead to compassion fatigue and becoming “infected” by the feelings of others. This is all about how unconscious empathy can take sensitive caregivers down a never-ending spiral to adrenal fatigue and depression. In Chapter 2, “Characteristics of High-Intensity Relaters,” Brockman describes the primary personality of those helpers whose currency is relationship and who easily fall prey to subtle energetic influences that erode their vital force. Externally referencing to others’ needs first tends to be one of their traits. Chapter 6, “Prevent Self-Sabotage,” is filled with practical ways to stay focused and positive while overcoming old, repetitive and negative inner chatter. Confronting your tyrannizing inner critic is never easy—Brockman tells you how. He identifies different types of “energy drainers” that use our energy to enliven themselves and deplete ours. He does a good job explaining how to create secure and persistent energetic boundaries with difficult and demanding people and other disruptive environments. This is perhaps the most important theme woven throughout the book, for the helper personality tends to not know how to say NO to requests from others. Learning how to establish reliable energetic boundaries is incredibly important for protecting against the interpersonal hazard he refers to as psychotoxic contamination that can become cumulative over time and generate serious long-term health consequences. Dark and heavy energy can settle into and invade the body to wreak havoc with one’s health and emotional stability. The good news is that you can effectively create these boundaries and more importantly, learn how to sustain them amidst the ongoing demands of the people you are helping. He spends a chapter on how to use specific energy psychology techniques for emergency self-care, providing fascinating case examples to illustrate how to prevent post-traumatic stress from building up to become PTSD. Brockman spends some time explaining the importance of optimizing your self-care by managing your chi, and how plants, the natural world and flower essences can support helpers to maintain their inner balance and overall harmony. In Chapter 11, “Making It Happen From Within,” you will discover well-described and powerful imagery techniques for manifesting positive self-care outcomes for yourself. Brockman then teaches you how to connect to and work with your inner guides for reliable personal and professional guidance. The power of a caregiver’s presence is highlighted in the concluding chapter, discussing how “being the blessing” actually creates collective coherence in the immediate caregiver’s environment and thus positively affects those who are being cared for. For readers who would like to measure and determine the degree of their own present health and well-being, there are two self-assessment checklists for high-intensity relaters in Appendix 2 that can also be downloaded from his website, www.DynamicEnergeticHealing.com.

"It's time to give yourself some self-care. From morning to evening, whether it's assisting with hygiene or making sure your loved one gets to their doctor's appointment on time, a caregiver's work is never done. Though borne from love, caregiving can be exhausting both physically and mentally, which is why it's important to take care of yourself. No matter the time of day, Self-Care for Caregivers is here to help you create a self-care routine that is right for you. Replenish your mind, body, and spirit with short, easy-to-squeeze-in activities like: taker you emotional temperature ; accept the big feelings caregiving triggers ; practice mindfulness with the five senses ; get rid of the judge in your head ; regain your balance ; and more! Full of helpful advice, this empathetic, useful guide is the perfect everyday companion for you. Fill your cup with Self-Care for Caregivers." -- Back cover.

For those serving as a caregiver for a loved one, the authors of this down-to-earth, encouraging book can help you make the most of the experience without losing yourself in the process. Are you one of the growing number of people who serves as a caregiver for an aging or chronically ill friend or family member? If so, you probably struggle to meet both their special needs and still find time and resources for yourself. But now there is reason to take heart. The authors of this down-to-earth, encouraging book can help you make the most of the experience without losing yourself in the process. Using the Twelve Steps as a guide, the authors conduct readers through the pitfalls of caregiving--the emotional snarls and strains, daily struggles, competing needs, and questions about confronting pain--providing hope and tangible suggestions on how to stay strong and sane while providing healthy support and love. "Self-Care for Caregivers offers sensitive and sensible guidance for the family caregiver. This is a little book with a big message: how to take care of yourself so you can take care of others." Connie Goldman, producer of the public radio special Hardship into Hope, The Rewards of Caregiving; co-author of Tending the Earth, Mending the Spirit and Secrets of Becoming a Late Bloomer"This book is an uplifting treasury of hope. The authors gently direct the reader with comforting, practical text that offers empowering caregiving strategies and avenues for emotional and spiritual growth." James and Merlene Sherman, author and editor of the Caregiver Survival series.

You'll find in this book far more than just 10 new ways to get out and about if only for a couple of hours a week. This book gives mini-lessons in handling life and the bricks the universe sometimes throws at you. I say THROW THEM BACK! This book helps you discover ways in which to recharge your life and find the balance that caregivers so desperately need in order to get off the caregiver merry-go-round and back on the playground.

Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.

"In Helping Yourself Help Others, former first lady Rosalynn Carter draws upon her own experiences and those of hundreds of others to offer reassuring, practical advice to caregivers. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic inspired national conversations about the vast undervaluing of unpaid caregiving, the dangers of burnout, and the merits of self-care for relief, Rosalynn Carter was shining a light on these matters and everything else that caregivers confront"--

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

Many of us are caregivers of one kind or another. We are parents who take care of our children, adults who take care of our aging parents, teachers who care for and educate our students, physical- and mental-healthcare practitioners who care for the sick and elderly. We are healers, shamans, coaches, hairdressers, aestheticians. We provide invaluable service to others but tend to forget ourselves. I am one of you. However, over the past twenty years, I have learned how important it is to be aligned with the whole of who we are. When we are fully present to ourselves, we are more present to the people we serve. In this book, I share what I learned from years of in-depth study of energy medicine. It enabled me to heal and move through my health challenges with grace and ease, using the quick, easy, and effective subtle energy tools and processes that evolved into the CHI Self-Care System. This book helps you discover the energy tools that you already have and use them to care for yourself, be healthier, and more balanced while you care for others.