Loving Yourself: A Caregiver’s Ultimate Challenge

We’ve all heard that we must first learn to love ourselves before we can love others. Yet, many of us have grown up with family members who were hard on us or taught us that self-love is selfish or arrogant, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

What Is Self-Love?

Louise Hay, a founder of the self-help movement and author of several New Thought motivational books, defines self-love as a deep, unconditional acceptance and appreciation for all parts of who we are. Self-love is the culmination of building awareness of ourselves, nurturing our minds and bodies, and acknowledging that we are good and valuable both inherently and because of the things we have accomplished.

How Caregiving Affects Our Sense of Self

Family members who are caring for aging loved ones often “lose themselves” in the process. Many experience caregiver guilt and endure a great deal of stress that radically changes their self-concept and world view. We know that people make mistakes, but, as family caregivers, we seem to expect a degree of perfection from ourselves that simply isn’t possible. This unrealistic view can leave us feeling consistently defeated. Over the long term, this mindset damages one’s concept of self-worth and leads to a spiral of negative thinking.

While there is no magical roadmap to help us navigate all the trials and tribulations of life, especially life as a caregiver, we can adjust our attitudes to help make things a little easier on ourselves. We can work on…

Continue reading on Agingcare for more about how caregivers sometimes struggle with self-love:

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