Resilience. Tenacity. Strength. Toughness.
Whatever you want to call it, caregivers need it. It’s that thing about your personality where shit is exploding all around you and you just roll with it. Roll up your sleeves and get to it, every day, no matter what.
Inner strength is a decision.
There’s no trick to it. There’s no pill to take. You just decide that you’re going to do this, come hell or high water. And then you do it, no matter how hard it is.
Put one foot in front of the other.
We all take it one day at a time, one moment at a time. Fear, despair, anger — emotions are irrelevant when you’re busy. Acknowledge your emotions, see what’s behind them, and then move past them.
Know why you’re here.
Everything I do as a caregiver has a reason for it. I’m here because I choose to be. Are you doing this to show your love and devotion? Are you doing it because you’re living your values? Are you doing this because you love helping people? Know your reasons and remember them when things are tough.
It will always be hard.
Caregiving gets easier, but it’s never easy. The harder I push myself, the more I can do. I’m stronger than I can possibly imagine and I know that. We all have a source of strength — cultivate it.
Create a bubble.
I don’t care what other people are doing, I care about what matters to me. By surrounding myself with a community of people who put community first I save myself from the opportunity to feel jealous about other people’s lives. I’m committed to my life as a caregiver and I don’t want to waste time on a life I’m not living.
Respect yourself.
No matter how strong you are, we all have our breaking point. Respect it. You can’t go 110% all the time. It’s okay to give 50% if that’s what you need to do to keep moving forward. You can’t sprint forever.
You need highs and lows.
Being on high alert all the time will kill you. Our bodies aren’t designed to be hyper vigilant at every moment, it wears us out. There are boring moments, even in the ER and the ICU. A lot of them. Cherish them. Allow yourself to be bored.
Love this so much! Thank you!
All that is true ! With each issue I knew I was doing the best I could with the information I had at the time .