In This Together: Building Resilience When Caregiving for Your Partner

2. Stop Caregiver Worry by Believing in Their Strength

• Marika • Season 1 • Episode 2

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In this episode, I'm delving into the topic of worry, something that often plagues us, especially in our role as caregivers. Specifically, I'll be focusing on the worry we experience concerning our partners. 

Throughout our caregiving journey, worry can become a constant companion, manifesting in various forms such as concern over appointments, our ability to cope, and the well-being of our loved ones.

I'll explore three main reasons behind our worry: the desire to protect ourselves from negative emotions, the belief that worrying is a form of caring, and the notion that worry helps us anticipate and solve problems. However, I'll uncover how worry ultimately stems from fear, highlighting the lack of control we often feel in our caregiving roles.

While worry may seem like a natural response, it's crucial to recognize its drawbacks. Not only is it physically and mentally exhausting, but it also keeps us stuck in a cycle of anxiety, hindering our ability to find solutions and negatively impacting those around us. Chronic worrying can even strain relationships and push our loved ones away.

So, how can we break free from this cycle of worry, especially when it pertains to our partners? I'll give you some practical strategies for shifting your mindset and fostering belief in your partners' resilience. By focusing on their strengths and past coping mechanisms, you can challenge your negative beliefs and offer support from a place of trust rather than fear.

As a Resiliency Coach for people who are caregiving for their partner, I'm here to support YOU, the caregiver. Learn more about my work at www.coachmarika.com.

Announcer:

Welcome to In this Together, a podcast for partners turned caregivers, where you'll discover invaluable insights and actionable advice to navigate the ups and downs of caregiving with resilience and strength. Here's your guide, Marika Humphreys.

Marika Humphreys:

Hey, caregivers, in this episode we're going to talk about worry.

Marika Humphreys:

It is an emotion that comes up a lot for caregivers and there are a lot of areas that we worry. But today I want to focus on the worry that we can have over our partner and I want to give you a strategy for how to really shut down that worry and shift your belief around it. Okay, so, like I mentioned, there are lots of areas that we tend to worry as caregivers and it might even feel over some of you like a constant companion. We worry over the next appointment. We worry what the doctor is going to say at the appointment. We worry over our ability to cope. We worry over our children's ability to cope. We worry what's going to happen in the future. We worry about decisions we made over the past and we worry about our partner and how they're coping and their health and what they may or may not be doing. Today we're going to focus on how to shift away from that worry for your partner by choosing what you believe about them and their ability to cope and be resilient. But I want to first dive in to worry a little bit.

Marika Humphreys:

Why do we worry in the first place? I think most of us recognize that it is not a good feeling to have, it's not very useful. So why do we do it? There are really three main areas that I think come up for most of us on the reasons why we worry. We feel like it's a way to protect ourselves and I think we think that if we figure out all the possible things that could go wrong, that will somehow be more prepared and less caught off guard. So in a way it's an attempt to protect ourselves from negative emotions that we might experience. So worries can feel like a way to protect ourselves from a future harm or a future negative outcome. And sometimes worry also feels like how we care for someone. So I worry about them because I care for them, and not worrying maybe feels like you don't care. Right, if I'm not worried about them, then it means I don't care about them and worry.

Marika Humphreys:

I think the third category is worry can feel like a way to solve problems, and that is really. It's really a survival technique. Our brain is really wired to see potential problems and when we focus on them repeatedly, that can become worry. So we try to think of all the problems that we might encounter so that we can come up with solutions. But often, when we're in the state of worry, a lot of times there aren't any obvious solutions, so your brain just keeps churning and churning, trying to look for solutions, and when there aren't any apparent or obvious solutions, there's nothing to do but keep thinking about it. Right, so that can become worry.

Marika Humphreys:

But the source of all worry and this is really important to kind of remind yourself is it comes from fear. All of our worry comes from fear of not having control or not being able to control an outcome, and that, my friends, is the reality of our human experiences. There's a lot that we don't control in our lives, especially when we're caring for our partner. That fear is often at the base of a lot of the worry that we have. You know that worry is not useful.

Marika Humphreys:

But there are other problems with worry too that I want to bring up here because it's a good reminder of how unuseful an emotion, of an emotion that worry really is. First of all, it's exhausting. When you're constantly worried or in a constantly in a state of worry, it will be physically and emotionally and mentally exhausting, and the reason is because worry literally puts your body in a state of alert and that kind of like high alert mode will physically fatigue you. That is why your nervous system is literally on high alert and that is why constant or persistent worry is exhausting. So that is a huge problem. Right, you need all the energy you can get when you're caring for your partner.

Marika Humphreys:

Another problem with worry is that it keeps us stuck. It keeps us stuck on possible scenarios. That kind of focus generates anxiety. Right, this might happen and this might happen. So when our brain is stuck in worry, all we see are just the things that will reinforce that worry. So we just worry can kind of keep us stuck and focus on what might happen.

Marika Humphreys:

The third reason that it is really an unuseful state is that it doesn't actually help us solve problems and in fact, when we're worrying, we are less likely to find solutions because of the anxiety that it creates. So when we're worrying, we're often focused on the problem and not on generating solutions. In the case of worry, we often worry about things that haven't happened yet but that might happen, and that can become like a rabbit hole. That will. Your brain can just go down, spiral down and down, which leads to more worries and more anxiety and anxiety when you're feeling anxious and agitated, you are not in your best problem-solving state. It's not the best place to come up with solutions. And the last problem with worry that we don't often think about is how it impacts others.

Marika Humphreys:

If you've ever been around someone who is a chronic worryer, you know that it can often feel stressful and cause you anxiety just to be around them. Now I want to say right now, if you're thinking, oh my gosh, that's me, I'm a chronic warrior, I just want to say take a breath, it's totally okay and no judgment here. All of this is just to bring awareness around it. So if you are finding yourself saying, oh my gosh, I'm a chronic warrior, I didn't even realize that I've been stressing others out. Again, just awareness. So much of what we do we do unconsciously and the first step is just bringing awareness around it. But yes, it can cause other stress when we are the worrier about them. The other danger with worry is that it can become habitual. It can be just a state we sort of slip into by habit. Those are all the problems with worry that I want to just bring to the forefront. I know that. You know worry is not a desirable place to be, but sometimes it's like, okay, but how do I get out of it, right? So that's what I want to talk about now.

Marika Humphreys:

I want to give you a strategy to deal with specifically the worry you have around your partner and, honestly, this could be any person that you worry about, so maybe it's a child, adult child, a young child, but I want to give my examples, mostly around your partner, because I think that's where it comes up. A lot for us Certainly did for me. That strategy starts with figuring out your beliefs about them. Often we look to the world around us to inform how we think about things. If you're looking at your partner to kind of tell you what to think about them, if they're a beat and positive and they seem like they're coping so well, it's going to be very easy not to worry about them. However, if you see them struggling or changing or down or withdrawn or angry or agitated, then it's going to be very easy to worry about them, because we're looking to them to inform our beliefs and often, too, we make judgments about their behavior because it's not what we think they should be doing. This is kind of what I did.

Marika Humphreys:

We can worry over someone if they're not doing something, or if they're not doing it in the way we think they should, that can be another source of worry for our partner. So we tend to have thoughts like, oh, they're not doing well, or they can't handle this, or they need my help, or they're really struggling, or I'm worried about them. Those are the types of thoughts that we have running through our head when we're worried about our partner. And what happens is, when you are thinking this, you will have the belief they're not able to cope or they're not coping well, and then you will start seeing all the ways that that's true. You'll just start reinforcing your belief, because it's what your brain is already. You've created a filter for yourself because you're focused on what may even seem like a reality, like maybe they're really struggling or maybe they're withdrawn, and that just seems like, oh, that's a fact. So I'll give you an example of this.

Marika Humphreys:

With my husband's battle with cancer, he started to get more and more angry and, I think, really frustrated, as his body failed him in a lot of ways because of the disease. That resulted for him in just a lot of anger, and a lot of the anger was focused outward towards external things. But when he would get really angry. I worried. I worried because I thought, oh my gosh, all that negative energy is not good for him. He should learn to cope with his anger better. It's not healthy for him, that's not good for fighting cancer. So I got worried and I was anxious when he was angry and that is one example.

Marika Humphreys:

What I was not thinking about was all the ways that he was actually incredibly strong and coping incredibly well. When I think about it now, like I can list a bunch of ways. I mean he took his physical health, like his diet. We had been working with a cancer nutritionist and he took all the things and the tips that she gave us very seriously and he was eating a very specific diet to fight help fight cancer. That he took very seriously. He would make sure to get vitamin D. So he was also working on building up his immune system. He was doing saunas to like release toxins and he was doing a number of things to cope with giving his body the best chance to fight cancer. But what I was focused on was his anger right, because that was upsetting for me. So that's a perfect example of how I wasn't thinking of all the other things that he was actually doing. I was just thinking of the things that that stressed me out, which was his anger.

Marika Humphreys:

When you can shift your focus to all the ways that your partner Is strong and is resilient, how they are coping well, is easier to let go of that worry about them. So you want to ask yourself like what ways are they strong already? How are they coping, not how they're not coping. How are they coping? What have they done in the past that is contributed to their resilience qualities? Like one of my clients, her husband, who had cancer, was a marathon runner and she knew that just being a marathon runner takes an incredible amount of mental strength. So she knew, when she reminded herself of that, she knew that he had an incredible mental strength within him. That's just an example of reminding ourselves of the qualities in our partner that they already have or have had in their past that we're forgetting, right, we're not seeing because we're focused on their challenges.

Marika Humphreys:

Why does it matter how we think about our partner? I will tell you, first of all, it matters a lot, and it matters not only to you, because right now we're talking about your worry. Right, they may be feeling fine about how they're coping or not, but either way, your worry doesn't help anybody. If you've ever had a situation where you really doubted yourself or you were going through kind of some periods of self doubt maybe at work or maybe on a project or maybe in school environment and somebody else believed in you and like was encouraging, like you've got this, you're amazing, you know you've got this handled it is one of the best feelings when somebody else believes in you, even when and especially when you're doubting yourself. What we believe about someone else is incredibly powerful and when we can convey trust in their ability to get through something challenging or hard that they may not feel in the moment, they may not have that faith in themselves in that moment. To me, this one of the most amazing things that we can do for another person and you don't even always have to say those words like you don't even have to say the words like I believe in you. Maybe that's not appropriate or doesn't really land right, but if you truly feel that they will pick up on that, it is one of the most amazing things to get through, things to get from somebody else. So imagine if you can believe in your partner deep down and trust that they are strong and they are incredibly resilient, no matter what they are going through in the moment. They will pick up on that from you. That is one of the reasons why it matters. Belief is powerful. And the other question I think that comes up for people is like well, what if I'm kidding myself? Or what if, by like focusing on their strengths and just telling myself they're strong, but they're actually really depressed, what if I'm ignoring something important and I'm not helping them?

Marika Humphreys:

This podcast is about shutting down worry, right, so I want to make clear that we're not talking about not doing things or not offering help. We're talking about stopping worry, and that doesn't mean that you don't offer help or provide resources or take actions to help someone who seems like they may need help. But and this is key here you want to do that from a place of calm and love and not from a place of worry. That is a big difference, because when we come at someone from a place of worry, it will often shut them down and push them away. I'm sure you've probably experienced that, like maybe one of your parents you know.

Marika Humphreys:

Think about in childhood or early adulthood. You know when our parents worry about us and they say to us oh, I'm so worried about you. You know what, if that job doesn't turn out or that job is not going to pay the bills and I'm worried you won't be doing the right thing? Like, nobody likes to hear that. Nobody and especially when it's coming from our partner, right, nobody wants to hear that. It is very off-putting when someone worries about you because, in a way, the message we get is like they don't believe in us or they don't trust us. And you may not be thinking that, but that is how it comes across. If you can put yourself in that situation, when we come and we offer help from a place of worry like I'm worried about you, you need to go get help or you need to see counseling or you need to not be yelling so much and handle your anger. Likely the response is going to be I don't need your help, don't tell me what to do. That's usually the response most of my clients experience when they try to help their partner.

Marika Humphreys:

What we're talking about here is how to shift away from that worry, that really ineffective, ineffective, whatever the word is emotion, and shift to a place of belief and strength and then offer help. I mean, imagine if you said, hun, you are incredibly resilient and it seems like maybe you're struggling and I'm here to help. That feels very different than I'm, so worried about you. I think you need to go to counseling. So I'm just giving you some examples. But it does feel different from the person you're offering help when you come at it from a place of worry, versus coming at it from a place of believing that they're already strong. I know that all sounds great in theory. If you can get yourself there, great Makes sense. Makes sense that it's going to be more well received when we can believe in our partner. So how do you get yourself there? Okay, so I want to give you three steps today to actually get yourself from a place of worry to a place of believing in their strength.

Marika Humphreys:

The first step is that you have to notice when you're in a worried state. Worry is a state of mind and then we feel it in our body. Okay, so you have to notice when you're having those thoughts that goes like what, if, what, if, what, if, and, like my client, one of my clients used to call it going down the rabbit hole. You have to notice when that's coming up for you, or you may notice the physical sensations that you're feeling in your body, like anxiety. I think anxiety is probably the biggest feeling that worried thoughts create is anxiousness, anxiety, agitation in our bodies. Okay, so you have to notice it when it happens. That's the first step. The second step is worry does create a physical response and it depends on how frequently you're feeling worried, but it does put your body on high alert so often.

Marika Humphreys:

The next best thing, especially if you're feeling intense anxiety, is to calm your physical body, take a few minutes and calm your nervous system. The way to calm your nervous system there are several ways. One of the easiest ways is by breathing and just taking some deep breaths. That is one way to calm your nervous system for like a minute. One of the things that I like to do and this is what I tell myself whether I'm experiencing worry or any negative emotion is, I tell myself breathe it in, marika, and that is a reminder for me first of all, to take a breath and relax into that emotion.

Marika Humphreys:

Emotions like worry. We want to tense up and resist them, so when you breathe them in, it's a signal to your body to relax the other way. This is a technique that I teach my clients, but you can also Google it and it's called tapping. I love tapping. It's a technique that anybody can do and I will link to the show notes to a tapping meditation. Tapping is a way to calm your nervous system by tapping on pressure points. So you literally tap on areas of the body when you're feeling worry, and again, I'm going to link to a tapping meditation the show notes. It's just free on YouTube. So tapping, if you've not heard of it, that's a great way to calm your nervous system for any emotion, but it's super useful if you're feeling a lot of worry or you're in a very agitated, worried state.

Marika Humphreys:

So that was step two. The first one is you've got to notice it when you're in it. Step two is calm your body, calm your nervous system, especially if you're very agitated. And then the third step is decide to believe they are resilient. Now, notice, I said decide. This is a decision. You can decide what you want them to believe, regardless of what you are seeing happen in your world. Right, whatever the circumstances or whatever your partner is displaying in the moment or over the last several days, you can still decide to believe they are resilient.

Marika Humphreys:

One of the ways I find that makes this easier is by making a list of all their strengths. This is something I do with my clients. If this is a struggle for them, simply make a list. We go what are all their strengths, what are the ways that they are strong? And it can be things they've done in their past. Think of the ways that they are coping that you may just not be realizing or kind of thinking of.

Marika Humphreys:

So often we judge our partner because the way they cope is different than how we cope. So we kind of subconsciously judge them as oh, that's not good, you should do this, but that's how they cope. Right. With my husband it was anger. He needed to vent that anger. He was feeling it and he needed to vent it and that was part of his coping mechanism was venting his anger. And you've got to recall that to your attention right by making a list of all the ways that they are strong, all the things that they've done before in their past that help them build their resilience.

Marika Humphreys:

There's lots of ways we show our strength. Your partner probably has strategies that are just different from yours, so call your attention to them by making a list. And then I also find it very helpful to have a sentence that I say to myself to remind myself of their strength Once I've kind of giving myself some evidence. Right. When you make a list, all you're doing is giving yourself evidence to focus on, instead of the evidence that you feel is in front of you at the moment One of the things that I say to myself still to this day they will get through this. I know that. They are strong. That is something you can use with your partner if that feels like that's a good one for you. They are strong. I believe in them. They have done hard, hard things before and they can do this too Something like that.

Marika Humphreys:

So those three steps are how to shift your mind and shut down that worry over your partner. We all have agency over our own thoughts, and simply deciding that your partner is strong and resilient, no matter how they behave, is one of the things that you can do. When you do that, it not only benefits you, but I honestly believe it is a gift that you can give to them, because believing in someone, especially when they may be doubting themselves, is one of the most beautiful gifts you can give. You can do this with other people as well. You can offer help from that place of believing that they're strong, and it will come across very differently than offering help from a fear or worry over their weakness.

Marika Humphreys:

Here's the crazy thing is, when you decide to believe that they're strong, you will start seeing all the ways that that's also true. You'll start seeing how they actually are strong. So go out this week and start noticing any worry that you have. There might be some triggers for you might come up in certain areas or certain people. If you've got worry around your partner, start noticing it. Use those techniques I talked about to calm your physical body and then decide to believe when they are strong and prove to yourself how that is true. All right, caregivers, I will see you next week.

Announcer:

Thanks for listening to this episode of In this Together. If you would like to learn more about Marika's work, go to www. coachmarika. com.