Care for caregivers: recognizing your own needs

November is National Caregivers Month. And I'm so excited that there's a month that recognizes caregivers. We should be recognizing our caregivers all year round.

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I'm happy that we do get to shed light on persons who are often not recognized. I often say to my clients, there's

no one else who would give the kind of care that you can give and there's nobody else who'd actually want to do it, regardless of how difficult it is.

So in many ways, being a caregiver is a position of honor. It's a position where the person who you trust the most

is the person who you want to give you that care. So as difficult as it is, I think it's admired

or it's seen as a gift to be able to give that to someone who needs it. I couldn't agree with you more. And while it is a gift and it really is an honor,

it also is, it can be very difficult. This labor of love also needs to come with a dose of reality.

And there are times when you're giving physical of yourself is what is needed. But there are other times that we

have to recognize to get someone else to help. And that is one of the best ways that we take care of ourselves as caregivers.

It's not just the physical giving. Sometimes it's the decision making process or knowing when it's too much. And that's something that I really

want to encourage our caregivers to give, that it doesn't have to be full time all the time. Allow others to help so you can take good care of yourself

to provide the best care to that other person. I think that we need to learn how to get in tune with where

our limits are and when our bodies are saying, hey, this is too much, when our bodies are saying that you're overwhelmed, you've got to listen to your body

and really try to ask yourself, what is it that I need? And like Tamara said, it's not always about being a caregiver 24 hours.

That's not even possible. We need to be able to take care of ourselves too. And so I think that the boundaries thing is really, really important, just recognizing where

are my limits, what are times in my life when I performed the very best, and what

are needs that were in place for me during that time and how can I make sure that those needs are in place for me