Prioritizing Self-Care When You Take Care of Others

Hi everyone.

I'm Holly Robinson, pete, actor, author, advocate, do it All mom, and I'm also a caregiver. And this is care Walks, a podcast from iHeartRadio and Voltaian Arthritis Pain Gel. It's a show for family caregivers who give everything to everyone and need to make time for themselves through movement. Every episode is designed for you to walk as you listen, so just think of me and my guests as your weekly walking buddies.

We'll hear stories.

From caregivers and gain tips and insights from health experts and advocates who know how important it is to take care of yourself and manage joint pain due to arthritis that often a companies being a caregiver.

Welcome to our very first episode of care Walks. Everyone.

I'm so glad you're here and I'm so excited to be here with you. You may not know this about me, but my own journey as a family caregiver started when I was just nineteen years old. My father, Matt Robinson, who some of you may remember originated the role of Gordon on Sesame Street, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. I loved my dad so much so when I was a freshman in college and his health started to deteriorate. The choice was very clear to me. While I was in school.

I felt so lost at the start.

So my goal is to make sure this podcast makes you feel a little little less alone in your caregiving journey and gives you some valuable resources to help you also take care of yourself. Now, a couple of things to note about our show. As I mentioned earlier, this show is meant for you to take a walk as you listen, So right now you're listening to the full version of this episode, which means you'll get a decent walk in

So when you have a moment.

Take a breath, a deep breath in through your nose and let that air fill your lungs. Feel the sensation of your stomach and your chest rising with your breath, and now breathe out through your mouth and let everything in your body relax as you release that air. Self care is what lets us refuel to be the best.

Version of ourselves.

Now, I want you to find a good pace to settle into for the rest of the show, And as you do that, I'm going to share my conversation with our guest, Nadine Roberts Cornish, and together we're going to keep you company and learn more about how we can take better care of ourselves as we care for others. Today, I'm joined by Nadine Roberts Cornish, the founder of The Caregiver's Guardian LLC. She founded the organization after her own experience of being a caregiver to her mother for fifteen years.

Thank you so much, Tally, It's great to see you. Great to be here.

Yes, I love the title of your book, Tears in My Gumbo. Can you tell us a little bit about what your experience as a caregiver has been like?

Absolutely so. My personal experience of fifteen years caring for my mom was the experience of a lifetime one. It was an opportunity for me to give back to the person who gave me life right. But it was probably the most challenging and difficult experience I have ever encountered. And as a result, my fifteen year experience caring for my mom, it literally prepared me and set me up for the work that I was placed here to do.

Yeah, and I know you know what I mean.

It's so many caregivers we expect you, We really expect the journey to be as we anticipate it, or we expect that who we are and how we show up is good enough. But it really requires us to change who we are.

It does, and you're never really prepared for how that manifests itself. Now just kind of have to go with the flow, and that is one of the hardest parts, at least for me. What would you say caregiving means to you? What does that term mean?

So what's interesting is that probably for my first six or seven years of caregiving, I didn't see myself as a caregiver. I certainly didn't think I was wearing the caregiver's hat. I was a devoted daughter doing the best I could for the best mom in the world. It probably took a good six or seven years before I really recognized that term as being applicable to me. One I thought I was too young and too cute to be a caregiver, okay, and so I wasn't really ready

You mentioned the stigma of caregiving.

I'd like to talk a little bit about that and what actually is that and how has that evolved over the years.

Well, a lot of people, especially professional women, don't want to associate with the term caregiving because they feel like it could have an impact on their professional life, their career, the trajectory of that career, and so we reject those things that we don't want to self identify with. And many of the caregivers that I've worked with over the years have rejected the term and they will say, I'm

Nadine, what do you wish you knew before becoming a caregiver? What would have helped you on your journey?

That is a great question. I wish I had known that saying yes to the caregiving journey meant that I would be required to change in such a way that I would be able to grow and to meet the demand of the journey. And that meant that means giving up some of the things that I thought were so important to me, being willing to do that so that I could change and find and meet a better version of myself. I had this idea that my life was set in terms of what it was that I was

You mentioned becoming an advocate for your mother as you took on the role of caregiving, But how did you approach advocating for yourself at that time? How did you find your own voice during a time. And that's just it's very hard to speak up for yourself.

This is good because it's so necessary. I had an advantage with a background in public health. I knew how to advocate for my mother. What I didn't know was how to step back to take care of myself, to let other people take charge so that I could recharge, so that I could really do the necessary work on myself, so that I was ready. Yes, oftentimes we get really, we get it really twisted. We think that we are supposed to give and give and give and do and do until there is nothing left.

Yep.

And we also have this complex around stopping to take care of ourselves. Yes, this guilt associated for so many people, and this this warped idea that self care, taking care of yourself is a selfish act, when in fact it is mandatory. Yes, and my book I talk about it not it being non negotiable. Yes, you cannot take care of someone else if you are not making yourself a priority. In the program and if you are not finding a way, and I don't really subscribe so much to balance, because balance,

That is a word right there. I have a brother and after my father passed, my brother said to me, you know, wow, you know you did a really good job taking care of him. I said, it was really hard. I needed a lot of help. And he said, well, why didn't you ask for it?

Well, I mean I didn't ask, but could you see how hard. I was working, and you you didn't offer.

And so I'm always telling people who ask, you know, ask for the help, because a lot of times we don't. We think that somebody sees how hard we're working and how stressed we are, and they're just supposed to step up and out of the goodness of their heart do it. But a lot of times they don't know how. And he said, I thought you had it. You look like you had everything. So it's interesting when you mentioned siblings. That's the first thing I thought of.

Oh, yeah, that's so good. And I appreciate that he told told you that, and you're sharing that with us because it is essential. It's essential to ask for help, and in some instances it's necessary to demand help. Yes, demanding my families. I say, hey, it's your time or your resources that are needed. This responsibility, especially as it pertains to siblings, should not fall on the shoulders of one individual. Yes, it takes a community, takes a village.

It definitely, definitely does.

We'll be right back with more from Nadine Roberts Cornish And now back to my conversation with Nadine Robert's Cornish. How do you recharge Nadine, what are your most vital self care practices?

Prayer and meditation?

Now, okay, good, good, good, talk about that a little bit.

If you don't have a spiritual practice, if you don't even know what that is, caregiving will demand that you seek it out. You have to tap into something larger than yourself in order to adequately complete this assignment. And for me, that is prayer, that is meditation, that is writing and journally. That is my recharge. And that's a daily practice. That's not something that's done on an occasional basis.

Left, Yes, it will.

And how important movement as a part of your own self care. You talked about journaling and praying, meditation, but how important is movement And what are your favorite ways to stay physically active?

And movement is essential? I am now knocking on the door of sixty two, and I'm on that being active, being physically fit is really important to me. Dancing is a regular part of my regiment. I love music, I love moving my body. I can't necessarily do all of the latest moves, but I can give it a whirl.

Right, I'll bet you can do most of them. Hey, I give it a good try. That's for sure.

Getting to the gym, and when I can't get to the gym walking, I'm a power walker and cycling with something that I never saw. I didn't never saw myself as a cyclist, but during the summer months, I live in beautiful Colorado and we have some of the best mountain paths and trails in the country, and I take full advantage of it. I'm a cyclist, so I move my body. It is absolutely essential.

You know, you've been very open about the challenges of caregiving and how hard it can be to prioritize oneself. How do you convince other caregivers to take time for themselves.

So every Monday I talk to caregivers across the country, calling all caregivers is the call that we hold twelve noon Mountain standard time, and we welcome caregivers from across the country and we hold court around the necessity of self care and why it is non negotiable and what it is that a caregiver must do, especially for those who are especially challenged with the idea of taking care

Wow, I love the calendar idea. I think that's great. These are things that when I was caregiving, as I started caregiving at nineteen when my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's and I was young. Okay, I wasn't fifty seven like I am now, so I didn't have to worry about.

Arthritis and my knees or any of that stuff.

But I never thought that I should stop to take care of myself. My job was to take care of my dad, and that's what I was going to do, you know. And so what would you say, this is the simplest thing you would recommend to others to practice self care? And how do you help others find their self care practices?

Absolutely, we talk about separating who you are from your caregiving responsibilities. And the first question we ask is what is it that you love to do before you became a caregiver, And so we start from there. You know, what are the three things that you love to do? Those things were important to you, then why are they not important to you now? And oftentimes people realize, wow, it's still important to me, I just don't make the time for it. Yes, one of the things that tends

Could you maybe share a mantra that caregivers can use to start or even add to their mindfulness and meditation journey.

One would be caregiving is what I do, It is not who I am. It's really important for the caregiver to separate themselves and not to be so incredibly engulfed in the caregiving experience that they confused the role of caregiving with their being.

Oh, I absolutely love that.

I love that when you started to really understand the importance of self care, How did that practice change caregiving for you?

Well, when you feel better about yourself, you feel better about what you have to do, you feel better about the task of caregiving. You show up as a better version of yourself. You're not quite as miserable, not quite as grumpy or unhappy as you become when you don't make self care priority. I was really fortunate in having my husband as my monitor. He would constantly check in to say, Hey, you're looking a little tired or more so than usual. Your voice, you know, there's a little

Right?

And so as the caregivers guardian, that is very much.

What we do.

What I do every day with caregivers is that reminder that monitor.

Nadine Roberts Cornish, thank you so much for being a part of care Walks today. Your book tiers in my gumbo the caregivers Recipe for Resilience is out. Everybody should get that. I really appreciate having this conversation with you today. Thank you for being an amazing care giver.

Thank you, Holly. It's been great and I really appreciate all that you are doing for caregivers across this country.

Thank you so much.

I want to thank Nadine again for being my guest today. I really appreciate our conversation touching on the stigmas of caregiving, learning to prioritize your self care and being mindful of burnout to avoid losing your identity and caregiving, I for one fully relate to the struggles around making yourself a priority.