3 Fun Self-Care Tips for Caregivers

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You've swallowed your lunch on the way to taking kids to school, therapy, or sports. You haven't had a moment to yourself for. Let me think, months. Unless you count falling asleep in front of the tv, you're beat by the time supper time comes and you barely have time to brush your teeth before you collapse into bed. Hey, your plants get more water than you do. Welcome to the life of a caregiver. But wait, you are guaranteed to laugh at your life when you listen to this episode of grandparents raising grandchildren nurturing through adversity with Jeanette Yates as she shares some really fun tips on how to take time for you. The caregiver welcome to grandparents raising grandchildren nurturing through adversity in this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren as we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support. I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of childrearing for children who have experienced trauma and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care.

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We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future, all within a support community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you.

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Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored.

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I don't know about you, but everyone can tell me that I have to take care of myself before I do anyone else, but it kind of goes in one ear and out the other. I'll get around to me when I have time is what I say to myself, which is rarely. I know how important it is, and that's why I jumped at the chance to have an interview with Jeanette Yates because she's a self care coach for caregivers. But little did I realize until I actually did the interview that I have so much to learn. But I think I'm going to start having a little fun with it. Jeanette Yates is a lifelong caregiver, certified life coach, yoga instructor, modern mindfulness meditation teacher, and holds a Reiki level one certification. As the founder of the self caregiver, she has dedicated her life to helping caregivers prioritize their own self care and avoid burnout. Jeanette hosts the popular podcast from guilt to good self care solutions for busy caregivers, where she shares her expertise and interviews other experts in the field of caregiving and self care. Jeanette's signature program, the empowered self caregiver cohort, helps caregivers develop sustainable self care practices tailored to their unique needs and circumstances. Her approach combines self awareness, self advocacy, self compassion, and self care to help caregivers rediscover their worth and reclaim their time. When it comes to speaking about caregiving and self care, Jeanette is, is a seasoned expert. Her passion for empowering caregivers shines through in every conversation, as you'll hear.

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And she has a knack for making complex concepts more accessible and, quite frankly, more fun.

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I am certified in yoga. I'm a certified holistic wellness coach. I'm a certified, you know, mindfulness coach. But when I was at the peak of what people would have said, oh, she is healthy. I was actually at my least healthy because I was trying to do the things that I thought I was supposed to be doing to be healthy, because those were the messages I was getting from everywhere. Right? We all know that that's a whole separate podcast.

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There's this whole thing of, you know, health and wellness. And so even when I decided to step into this space of helping caregivers with their self care, I knew I was going to have to do it differently. Because what I want to help people understand is that any self care method, whether it's nutritional, fitness, beauty, you know, any of that stuff can work, but it won't work if it's not what your body really needs.

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And it won't work if you don't think you deserve it.

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So, yes, health and wellness has been a priority in my life. To answer your original question, I was doing all of that, but I was grasping at all of this stuff. Like, I want to be healthy, so I'm going to eat like this and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this. And then when that doesn't work, I'm going to do more of this or less of this or more of this.

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And I just kept grabbing, grabbing, grabbing. And what I've learned and what I teach now when I work with caregivers is, let's just set all of that aside and let's go back to the basics of what we all need. The first six months, I mean, I was having, the kids weren't sleeping, I wasn't sleeping. On top of dealing with all the trauma they were coping with, I didn't know which end was up. I was exhausted, totally physically exhausted. So I couldn't even think of going out for a walk, much less a run. And it's funny that you mentioned the sleep thing, because a lot of caregivers struggle with doing the self care things because they're too tired to do it. They're like, I would exercise if I wasn't exhausted.

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I would do this if I wasn't. I would spend more time on my hobbies if I wasn't exhausted. Well, maybe instead of guilting yourself because you can't exercise the way you want to or you think you should, or you can't do the hobby that you used to enjoy, because maybe what my body is screaming at me right now is the self care you need right now is sleep you need. And so when I work with caregivers, it's like, let's start with the basics first. Then we add the fun stuff. Then we're going to deal with exercise routines and nutrition and massages and pedicures and all the fun stuff. But that's not going to help get us what we need until we get those basics.

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One of the things that I talk about a lot when it comes to self care is self care is about you first, which, of course, as nurturers, we can't be all about ourselves, but, and we can talk more about this, but I'm going to just make this point. But while I do believe that focusing on yourself is, number one, you have to do the self care that you need to do, not what other people think you need to do. And also, it should be a priority even over caring for other people. And we can go into why that is later. But also, I do believe connection with other people is part of self care, because I think we're made however you think we may. We're made however you think we come into existence. One of the things about humanity being human is our connection, ability to connect with other people in a real way that's more unique. And so I do think it's part of it. But how we do it has to change, obviously, when we're caregiving. And, you know, something I didn't even realize until my husband brought it up was that on top of what we're trying to help the children with, we're coping with the fact that we're dealing with a traumatic family situation. Something has happened to one of our children that has caused us to be caring for these grandchildren.

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And I just wanted to say when, I love that you're doing that, and I love that one of the first things you acknowledged is when grandparents are taking care of their grandchildren, it's usually because of some sort of trauma that has happened in your family. It is not what you plan to do. It is not the expectation. And so I think it's really important, especially when we're talking about self care. To me, being able to address that in whatever way you have the capacity to do it, I mean, not everybody can afford, has time, has the capacity to go dig deep into therapy, but at least to have a community, which I love, that you're building this for people to come and say, yeah, this is traumatic. A traumatic situation got me here into this place. And then you're having to address your own trauma of whatever circumstances happened with your child. Right. And you have these children, these grandchildren of yours, who also have experienced trauma of their own, and you're having to both work on yourself and make sure that you're providing an environment for their own healing. And that is a lot of additional caregiving responsibility. Yes. And then add on top of all of that, the fact that we've had these retirement plans for our whole life, waited till the kids grew up, sacrificed already enough, and then everything's gone. In a day, your life turns around 180 degrees. It's a grief. It's like a death. It is a grief. It's a death. And I think one of the greatest gifts that you can give yourself and then other grandparents that are raising their grandchildren is the space to say that without the guilt on top of it, like, you can both love, be willing to, and accept that you are raising your grandchildren. That is what you have decided to do.

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You have chosen to do it and also grieve the life that you thought you were gonna have.

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So in my situ. So I wanna go back, first of all, and just acknowledge that, of course I am not a grandparent.

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My mom, she was diagnosed with her disease when I was eight years old, which meant a lot of family was around to help. And my grandmother and my great grandmother actually did a lot of caring for me. So it was this whole multilevel caregiving situation for her. So even though I do want to say I'm not a grandparent, I do remember having that experience as a child who needed a grandparent to step in having that, and that was a blessing. And so on behalf of children everywhere, thank you, grandmas and grandpas, for being there. We will look back on that and see that you tried the best you could. And so I just want to say that. But there is something I had to learn, and I learned it in therapy, but it's something that I also teach with my caregiving clients is the ability to hold two seemingly opposite truths. So for example, in my circumstance, my mom was disabled when I was eight. It was very traumatic for me. Then I went to live with relatives, not my grandmother in this case, but some other relatives. I was then abused in that situation. So that was a trauma compiled on that. And then I had some other circumstances in my life that were very traumatic. And while my mom, one truth, did the best she could. The other truth.

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Is, I still needed more care than I received. I still had a feeling of not being well tended to.

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That is not blaming my mom.

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I understand that she was doing what she needed to do at the time, what she was capable of doing, what was within her capacity. I also recognize now that that did not change the fact that there were parts of my care that were neglected.

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And so that's one of the two truths that I have, and I'm able to hold both of those. Give grace to my mom, but also grace to myself, because I was beating myself up for so long saying, you should be grateful. She was doing the best she could. And also, I had this trauma that I could not, did not know how to handle. So when we were talking about self care, any self care will work. Nothing's gonna work if you don't feel like you deserve it. However, for me, practicing mindfulness on a daily basis, I don't have all day to sit crisscross applesauce on the floor and zen out. I have more boundaries now, so I do have more time to zen out on my floor. So, yes, it does happen. But back to the point.

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Mindfulness, for me, what it did was it helped. It gave me space to be able to hold those two truths without judgment.

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And even if I could only do that for a portion of time, five minutes, practicing that even five minutes a day helped me to then incorporate that concept into the rest of my day. And then what I learned is, that was my first two truths.

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My mom did everything she could. It wasn't enough, is the shorthand of how I say it. So that's part of it. So in my mindfulness practice, when I say, she did what she could, I can have grace. For her, it wasn't enough. And then, you know, and that just learning to hold those two, just being able to say both of those things and not beating myself up about it, that's the first part.

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You know, I love my grandkids, but this wasn't my plan. I love my grandkids, but this wasn't my plan. I'm willing to take care of them, but this wasn't my. Whatever that is for you. So just holding those two truths without judgment, I know that sounds a little woo woo, but honestly, you may not feel like you can go post it on a poster board and stick it in your front yard. That causes other people to perhaps judge, right? You don't want to do that. You don't want to post it on social media, but maybe in your private Facebook group or in this community that you're building. And in your own mind, which is where the mindfulness comes in, you can say that without judgment allowing that to happen. And it just takes practice that happens. And then once you get comfortable with that, yeah, I love my grandkids. This was not what I wanted. I love my grandkids. This is not what I wanted. Then you can say, okay, now what? So instead of just holding onto this, it's not what I wanted. That's not where we want to stay. Well, and for us, this was just supposed to be temporary. We thought we were going to have the children for a while while their parents got back on their feet. Their mother got out of jail and their dad got his act together. But that's not how it worked out. And a year into it, we realized this may be a long term thing, but it's not where we wanted to be at this point in our life. But also, we knew it was the right thing to do, at least for the time being. And that's the other part of it. It's, you don't know how long you're going to be in this situation.

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I love that you said the choice, because another thing, and you can say if this is a feeling that grandparents may have that are in this circumstance, but I know it's for caregivers in general, there's this feeling of being stuck. Well, what the heck else am I supposed to do?

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You know, I have to do this. We feel stuck. So one of the things that I did, and it kind of released me and it took practice, obviously, but I said, well, what if you didn't have to do it? What if you just said no and allowed myself to understand because you just said it, we have a choice. We've made this choice. But then sometimes you forget you've made a choice. Now, in my situation, as a caregiver for a parent, and especially one that was sick my whole life, I don't know that I ever did make a choice. I think it was just here and then I had to say, well, now you have a choice. You may not. You know, you have made. You. You were grandfather, you know, you were kind of wrapped into this before you even knew that you were a caregiver, but now you're an adult, you can decide, do you want to be your mother's caregiver or not? And then that allowed me to say, yes, I do. And then for me, and this is something that, it's a little bit different for all of you because you did have to make the choice and then say, okay, now how is this going to work? Right. Some of you are still trying to figure that out. Right? Right. Are you doing this for a year? Are you doing this until they turn 18? You know, what is it? Yeah. Right. So, but I think just acknowledging that you have made the choice and then you get to decide how you're going to make it work.

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And it may not look like what you think it's going to look like.

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And this happens to caregivers that are caring for their parents. I'm sure it happens with you guys as well. But a lot of caregivers that are caring for their parents want to just say, okay, we're going to take what we did for our kids and we're just going to plop it over here for our parents. We're going to parent our parents. And that's not really what caregiving is.

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And I think to some extent, even though you're parenting a child just like you've already parented children, it is a little bit more similar, but you've changed.

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The dynamic with you and your grandchildren is different.

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And you may have to figure out, you know, it is a more of a parenting role that you do have to have more of those parenting disciplines. But I think that acknowledging that even if you've raised a three year old before, the way you were when your child was three is different than the way you are now. Parenting is totally different. And so you can't just carbon copy. And also what my mother in law always tells me is not only have you not ever raised a child that's your child's age, I have a 20 year old and 18 year old, but my 18 year old, I can't raise him at age 18. I can't do for him at age 18 the same exact thing I did for my 20 year old when he was 18, because they're different people. So everything's for the first time. So I think that's another air we can give ourselves. Grace, too, is not only are the children different, you know, the grandchildren different than the children, but also you're different, and parenting is different and each child is different, and it's a lot of different. So, grace, Grace, Grace, I want to say, number one, the biggest thing is to acknowledge that you can have time to take care of yourself. That's one thing.

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Another thing I would say I'm going to get some to some practical stuff, too.

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But there's some mindset shifts you have to make to be able to prioritize your care. That is one of them. I can actually make time. And one of the things I teach caregivers is no one is going to give you time.

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It's not just going to appear. Things are not just going to suddenly magically get easier, especially in your circumstance where you don't have a tribe of friends around you that is understanding what you're going through necessarily.

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So you're gonna have to take the time.

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You're going to have to make the time. Now that said, what I would also say is you're probably doing better than you think you are.

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So those are my two things. You're gonna have to make an effort, but you're already probably doing better than you think you are.

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I'm working on a book right now. I think I probably already wrote it in a blog post, too. But in my book, I talk about a caregiver I worked with. One day, she was dragging the hose over to make sure her plants got water, and she was like, I don't think I've had any water today. It was

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00 in the afternoon. I just want to treat myself as well as I treat my plants. And so, yes, so on the one hand, there's no excuses. You're gonna have to take the time. You're gonna have to do it. But also, you're probably doing better than you think you are. And I teach a method that helps you get a little time in, even if you have no time. So if you're like, yeah, right, you're not my, you're not living in my life. What do you need? So I bet, I'm willing to bet that everyone brushes their teeth, takes a shower, eats at least one meal a day. I'm hoping.

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Yes, I would hope so, too.

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Okay, so let's take my favorite example is the toothbrushing. Okay. This is, this is the one I did. And I tell people all this, this all the time. So this is my go to. But it's true. That's why I tell the same story when I was struggling with not having any time or being too tired. It's not that I was, like, tending to my mom, twenty four seven and never had a break but I was either doing that, taking care of my children, working, or sleeping. I did have zero capacity to do anything else. I was exercising, but again, I was exhausting myself. I was just not in a healthy place. Why am I not feeling. Why am I still feeling so miserable? Why am I still so burned out? So what I started to do is look for areas in my life throughout the day where I was doing, quote, self care. What are the things I'm doing to care for myself? One of them is brushing my teeth. Praise the Lord. I've had enough time to brush my teeth. So what I started doing is, when I brushed my teeth, I only brushed my teeth. I didn't think about all the stuff I had to do later or all the stuff that I didn't get done already, I didn't think about. I wasn't listening to a podcast, which was normally what I was doing. I was.

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I was just brushing my teeth, and I incorporated mindfulness into that. Mmm, this toothpaste tastes delicious. Oh, I can feel the bubbles on my tongue. I got really into it. But at the very least, you know, I was just brushing my teeth and I said, this is the only time I'm going to get to myself for the whole day. I am going to enjoy this. Two minutes.

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I have my quip, I turn it on, it, you know, vibrates, lets me know when to switch sides, all that. I'm going to enjoy this. Two minutes.

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This is my spa day for two minutes.

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Okay. Oh, my gosh, Jeanette. I'm going to go in my bathroom later today. I'm going to lock the doors, I'm going to turn the music on, and I'm going to have, like, my little spa day in the bathroom with my teeth.

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I'm serious. Then I was like, that was nice. And I could say to myself, you took care of yourself today. Then with the shower. Same deal. When you're in the shower, just be in the shower. Make it, you know, the best 510 minutes you can.

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I enjoy just being there. Right? No music, no podcast, no nothing. But maybe you need to have the music on or a sound machine, because there's going to be people knocking or calling your name. You don't need to. For five minutes. That's you. Yeah, do it. And then tell yourself, I am taking. I am taking care of myself.

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Because the lie will be, you don't have any time, and then you're turning off that thing. That's like, you don't have any time for yourself. You need to more. You need to find a way to take care of yourself. You're not doing a good job. Take care of yourself. It's one more thing you're not doing.

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You know, there's this. And it's like, no, I am taking care of myself. I had a fantastic shower, and then what I think happens, oh, my gosh, I love this.

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Like, this light bulb just went on. I just got a new lease on life. I hope you love this. This is what, this is the big game changer for me. This is really what? Well, and this is the fun part for me, is like, that two minutes of toothbrushing turned into flossing. My dentist was like, oh, you're flossing now? I'm like, I know. And, you know, he's like, 20 years I've been telling you.

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I'm like, I know, I know. And it's because when you only get two minutes to brush your teeth, no one's gonna tell you you don't have time to brush your teeth. No one's gonna shame you for taking time to brush your teeth.

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You're gonna find out. You're gonna brush those teeth so good, and you're gonna floss, you're gonna gargle, you're gonna, you know, make sure to brush them twice a day. Maybe even that middle of the time, you know, middle of the daytime. You're gonna do that then if you're like, yeah, I like this. I like my toothbrushing time. I like my shower time.

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Then what was the third thing I mentioned? Your food. Right now, most caregivers, especially parents, grant you're dishing the food out for the kids and maybe shoving something in your mouth while you're just. Either you don't think about it at all and you skip a meal because you don't have time. Because as soon as they're done eating, they've got, you know, they're. They're messy, they're running around, whatever.

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Either you're not doing it at all, or you're doing it while you're doing ten other things, and you're not saying to yourself, no, this is. This is part of my self care. This is how I'm tending to myself.

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And, yeah, I am taking care of myself. And I have some nutrition components in my program that I guide people toward. But if you start saying to yourself while you're preparing that egg sandwich that you have to eat on your way out the door to do the thing, if you're like, okay, this meal is part of my self care, then maybe you're paying more attention to what that is.

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And just that is automatically going to make you make different choices. But one of the things that really helped me with food and nutrition was understanding how your fight or flight, your crisis mode that you're always in because you're dealing with this extreme trauma and this extreme stressful situation, you're trying to figure everything out. One of the things that really helped me was to understand that one of the reasons I need to take better care of myself and work on not being in a trauma response, fight or flight stage all the time was because your digestion and your nutrition is directly linked to your autonomic nervous system. So quick primer. There's fight or flight, and then there's freezer fawn. That's the sympathetic nervous system. That's your body saying, there's something attacking me. I'm in danger. I need to decide, am I going to fight? Am I going to run? Am I going to freeze? What am I going to do when that happens?

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Your body says, okay, we need to shut down everything that's not needed right now. We need to focus on those muscles that might need to run. We need to focus on maybe your sight. Here are the things that shut down your digestion. Okay, so one of the reasons your stress sometimes shows up in your stomach, it doesn't happen for everybody, but if you're one of those people that has a nervous stomach and got a get a little gurgle stuff going on when you're stressed out, that's your body. That's your body saying, pick one. We can either rest and digest or refight or flight, but we can't try to digest while we're also trying to run away from the lion. So that's a whole process of learning how to regulate your nervous system and things like that. But just being mindful while you're eating, a good step in that direction, like chew your food, use your senses. Just the very part of where you're. For a moment you're saying, there is no lion. There's just this beautiful cobb salad.

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That's what I have for dinner. So I'm thinking about it already. It's a beautiful thing. I have all my favorite things on there. These are all the things I enjoy. I'm gonna sit down, even if it's on my bistro chairs where I'm still sort of at the ready, in case. In case I need to go get a grandkid off the furniture or whatever. Yeah, but I'm going to sit down.

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I'm going to chew my food. I'm going to remind myself, this is part of taking care of my body.

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Again, it's another way to tell yourself, yes, I am taking care of my body. If you were just setting boundaries with your grandkids, that's one thing, but setting boundaries with your grandkids, who you are parenting right now, this is real life. We have to embrace it. So what I would say is, because we have to wrap up, I'm going to say it as easy as I can and then I'm going to tell you how I can kind of give you a little way to learn more. Okay. The biggest thing was setting a boundary with anybody, your grandkids, your grandkids that you're parenting, your children, your husband, your spouse, whatever is, you have to understand your capacity. So that goes back to that awareness of what's going on with you, what you need.

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Determine your own capacity and then set boundaries to protect your capacity. I do actually have scripts about how to have hard conversations, usually around boundaries. I can give y'all the link and y'all can access that little. It's not like the whole big program. It's just like one little workshop.

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So I could. I'll share that with you guys. So they'll be. It's super. It's like a 1 hour workshop on how to say no without being mean, but also with boundaries. Just remember, it's not your grandkids or your kids that have to keep the boundary. It's you. You. No one will respect your boundary if you don't. So one of the things that I do offer and is what is the first boundary that you need to set, how to figure out what that is. That's all about going back to capacity. But for your listeners today, I do have a free capacity assessment that I can help them with where we talk about what is your capacity? And it centers around self care a little bit. What are you doing? What do you need to work on? And then from there, then you can go into the boundary. So I have that capacity assessment that's completely free. I also have that workshop on boundary setting, having hard conversations. I think both of those will be very helpful and give you some information. My Instagram handle is the selfcaregiver and my website is the selfcaregiver.com.

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and both of those will get you to me. And we didn't have time to talk about the program today. I have a big program, but I also have lots of other resources that are free or shorter in duration, easier to access. So if somebody reaches out to me, either on Instagram or goes to my website, they can reach out to me. I'm happy to share more and I'm happy to come back and chit chat with you anytime because I feel like everything I've shared with you today is stuff that I share with caregivers. Jeanette, thanks so much.

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This has been wonderful. It's been such a pleasure meeting you. I'm looking forward to having you again on the show and I know that it was valuable for so many listeners. So much of what we do is so serious and this was such a light opportunity to focus on us. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I have had a wonderful time. I am so honored to speak to your audience, speak to all the grandparents out there. I just want to say thank you.

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We love you, we appreciate you and you are doing a wonderful job and you are worthy of the same care that you give your grandchildren. Don't forget, if you want to access some of the information that Jeanette shared with us today, you can reach her on her website at the selfcaregiver.com.

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thanks so much for joining us today for another episode of grandparents raising grandchildren. Nurturing through adversity I encourage you to share your challenges and your successes with us. Your story is undoubtedly one someone else needs to hear.

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You can submit your stories to the links provided in the podcast information. Your contributions will enrich upcoming conversations, creating a more supportive community in which we can learn and grow together. If you enjoyed this show, please share it with a friend that needs to hear. And if you love the show and you're listening on a broadcasting platform like Apple or Spotify, just scroll down in your app and please leave us a review. The word neurodiverse is one you might not have heard before. It wasn't a term I was familiar with before I had to raise two children who had been labeled with several behavioral disorders. This is a term we all need to know, especially if you're raising children with physical or behavioral disorders. We need to know how to support them, how to respond to their behavior, and how to help them thrive in this world. If you didn't know this term before today, you will after you listen to our next episode with our guest, Kathryn McChord, a dynamic, innovative entrepreneur and speaker on the subject. As she says, it's all about expanding humanity. Thank you for tuning in to grandparents raising grandchildren nurturing through adversity remember, you are not alone. Together we can find strength and hope in the face of adversity.

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Peace be with you and I pray that you find some time this week to listen to your inner wisdom amongst the noise and the pandemonium of this world.