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 our self-esteem enough so that, eventually, sometimes with the aid of professional counseling, we can learn to love and care for ourselves despite our perceived flaws. This is a challenging change to make, but it will transform us into happier people and better caregivers. Learning how to love yourself is a win/win.
The Dos and Don’ts of Learning Self-Love: So, how do we start? The best way to begin is by examining your attitude toward and thoughts about yourself and your current situation. Lasting progress can’t be made by glossing over underlying issues and ignoring reality. We’ll start with a series of “don’ts” that can help you identify damaging patterns of thinking and behaving, learn how to quit these…
Continue reading of Agingcare for more about self-love as we love and care for others:
Helpful Tools:
Stay connected with Memoryboard: Designed by caregivers. Memoryboard helps families share reminders, messages, updates, and photos on an easy-to-use screen designed for people with dementia. Peace of mind for families, independence for loved ones.
Leslie Kernisan, MD, MPH, has opened up support! View two free caregiving webinars that can help you help your older parents (and yourself).
Discover the Difference. EGOSAN: The premium incontinence brand caregivers love: They save work! Now Available on Amazon.
Wetness indicator and alert to help manage incontinence with dignity. SenecaSense Home: Discreet Support That Restores Comfort and Confidence
