"The greatest gift I have as a caregiver is to see someone that I'm working with gain insight, like a light bulb goes on."

"You don't have to like every person you deal with, you just have to be present to them."

"In our culture. , we don't like the D-word -dying. Maybe years ago the physician would say to the family, "Mr. Smith, your mother isn't doing very well. In fact, she's dying, but I want you to know that I'm taking care of her and we're going to give her the best comfort care we can do. Today the doctor will say, "Your mother isn't doing well. What do you want me to do?" And so immediately, the family feels they're the ones causing the life and death of their loved one.  And the doctor has given up his authority to the family. And the family feels the burden of that. And so oftentimes I was with different families and they would say, "What's going on?" And I would say,  "What has the doctor told you?" "She's not doing very well." "What do you think is happening?" They may say, "I think they're dying." And I'm saying, "Yes, that's true. They are dying. And so what we're concerned about is how your mother will die. So that's why we bring up, and the doctor asked me to talk with you about it, do not resuscitate, because given her situation, it's going to be a futile exercise."

"If you have children and they're hurting, what do they do? They run to their parent. And what does the parent do? The parent puts out their arms and holds them. In our culture today, caregivers need to know that they're the arms that hold the family in crisis. And so that's very important. . When people are in crisis, they don't know how to make decisions. . And so you have to help them, guide them to make the appropriate decisions. That's different than, 'oh, what do you want me to do?'"

"The heart of being human is to care. So we're all caregivers."

Three cultural taboos that I discovered were:

1. caregivers don't trust what's going on within themselves.

2. we don't communicate our story. 

3. don't show your emotions

Taking care of ourselves is about figuring out those little things that we can do. It's not about the big spa days and beach vacations, it's those things like getting enough sleep and, just pausing enough to say, what do I really need right now? Then doing what you can to make that happen. 

Edward Smink, the founder of The Soul of Caregiving Coaching Practice, is an in-demand speaker, coach, and author of The Soul of Caregiving, A Caregiver’s Guide to Healing and Transformation. Edward holds an Associate Degree in Nursing from Newton Junior College, a BA in Psychology from Boston College, an MA in Counseling Psychology, a MA and  PhD in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. He is a former Registered Nurse, Healthcare Executive in Mission, Values, Spirituality, Ethics, End of Life Care, and Community Health. He holds titles as a Board-Certified Chaplain with the National Association of Catholic Chaplains and is an Associate Coach with the International Coaching Federation.

Find out more and connect with Edward here:

https://soulofcaregiving.com/why

https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardmphd/

https://www.facebook.com/soulofcaregiving

https://twitter.com/smink_m

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