In This Together: Building Resilience When Caregiving for Your Partner

20. Embracing Help as a Strength When Caregiving

July 09, 2024 • Marika • Season 1 • Episode 20

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What if the very thing you fear – asking for help – could make you a stronger, more resilient caregiver? Today, we explore the transformative power of seeking and accepting assistance in caregiving. We'll shine a light on the beliefs that hold us back, from fearing weakness to the misconception of excessive self-reliance, and show how these mental barriers can be rethought and overcome. Learn why vulnerability is a strength and how requesting help is a form of resourcefulness that can enhance your caregiving journey.

Join us as we dismantle the internal barriers that prevent caregivers from reaching out for support. We challenge the myth that self-reliance equates to strength, advocating instead for a balanced perspective that recognizes the mutual benefits of giving and receiving help. By reframing unhelpful beliefs, caregivers can liberate themselves from the fear of burdening others and embrace a more sustainable approach to managing their responsibilities.

Finally, discover the practical strategies that can make a world of difference in your daily routine. From discerning which tasks can be delegated to considering options like meal prep services, this episode offers actionable advice to help you build resiliency skills and avoid burnout. Embrace the growth opportunities that come with asking for help, and find out how shifting your perspective can lead to a more fulfilling caregiving experience. Listen in and transform the way you view support, making it a valuable, ongoing resource in your caregiving toolkit.

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.

Marika Humphreys:

Hello caregivers and care partners. It is great to be back with you. Thank you for joining me each week and I really hope you're enjoying this podcast. I hope you've learned a lot and I would love to hear questions you have or anything that you're particularly struggling with as caregiver or a care partner. Please send them to me. You can email me, marika, at coachmarikacom, and I would love to hear what you're struggling with.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, so today we are going to talk about asking for help and accepting help. Both of those things come up for caregivers, and so a lot of people really struggle with them. There are times in our life when we face difficult challenges and we may not have all the help and support we need to get through them. Sometimes that can be financial resources that we lack. Sometimes we lack emotional support. Sometimes we just lack help with tasks and chores. Sometimes we need help thinking through a problem. The kind of help we often need will evolve in the caregiving journey and may be different depending on where you are.

Marika Humphreys:

For a lot of caregivers and care partners, asking for help or even accepting help when it's offered is often difficult, and a lot of us try to handle everything on our own. We try to go it alone. We just don't think that we should ask for help. I think there's all kinds of things, but while there is always value in looking for your own solutions and trying to do things on your own, there is also value in getting help, and that is because in your caregiving journey, there will be times when the struggle may just simply be too much and you'll either need help, or there just may be times where you want help. Both will happen, and I want you to have the skills around how to ask for help and accept it. So today I want to make the case for why asking for help when you need it and accepting help when it's offered is valuable and important, and it's something that I think all caregivers and care partners should really develop.

Marika Humphreys:

All right, so let's get into it. We all face challenges in life. All people do, and some people have no problems asking for help when they're going through something difficult or when they feel like they need it, and other people really, really struggle. Today I'm going to focus on the people who struggle, or at least struggle getting help in the things related to caregiving, because sometimes it may be easy to ask for help in one area, but not in another area. So today we're going to focus on people who struggle with asking for help around caregiving or their situation in which they're a care partner, because I was definitely one of those people and I didn't really realize it was hard for me to ask for help until I was in a situation where I was just really struggling and there were various times during my husband's cancer battle that were just hard and overwhelming and tiring. All of it right. And those are the times when it's just really useful to ask for the help that you need, because some things are too much for us.

Marika Humphreys:

As humans, we are meant to help each other out. We are not meant to go this path in life alone. And yet so many of us struggle to ask for help. When people offer, we decline it. Sometimes we think we would just rather suffer and struggle on our own than ask for help. So why is this so hard? Why is it so hard for so many of us to ask for help or even take it when somebody offers it to us? And the reason is actually simpler than you think it is because of the thoughts we have about asking for help or accepting help.

Marika Humphreys:

I want to take a minute here, because this is literally the difference between someone who has no problem asking others for help and someone who really struggles. It simply comes down to how they think about it. That's it. There is nothing more in the way than your own thoughts and meaning you have given asking for help. We give a lot of the things meaning that just don't serve us. So if you struggle with this, it's because in your mind, whether you realize it or not, you're thinking some version of if I do this, it means this bad thing. If I ask for help, it means I'm dependent on others.

Marika Humphreys:

I'm going to go through all the reasons here in a minute, but that sentence, the meaning that you've given asking for help, is what is holding you back or what is making it uncomfortable, or something that you avoid or struggle to do. Because how you think creates how you feel. That is the sequence. We don't just feel things magically. We think a thought that creates our feeling. So you really want to know what is going on in your brain so that you can understand why you feel the way you do, and then from there you can choose to.

Marika Humphreys:

What I always recommend is shifting your focus, shifting how you think so it's really important for you to figure out what you're thinking when it comes to asking for help, and therefore I am going to go over 10 reasons that come up for people who struggle asking for help. Some of these were things that came up for me, some have come up for my clients, and some are just ones that I just see, and you may identify with one of them or several of them. So if you don't actually know in this moment why asking for help is hard for you, as I talk about this, you may discover your thoughts that you have in the background, because it's only our thoughts that are in the way. Once you figure this out, you can then decide to think differently. That is the amazing thing that we have, that our brain gives us the power to do. We can choose to think what we want, think in ways that serve us and serve our goals. So I'm going to go through each one of these thoughts and make a case for how you might think differently.

Marika Humphreys:

Asking for help means one of the first reasons, and these aren't going to be in any particular order. I'm not blank enough to handle this on my own, so fill in the blank. I'm not strong enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not resourceful enough, I'm not successful enough to handle this on my own If I have to ask for help. We have some thought that makes asking for help mean I'm not enough in some way, and this is often one of those thoughts that can be in the background. You may not be conscious of it if you think this. So you want to uncover your thoughts around this. What does it mean about you if you ask for help? Think about that right now. If I'd said you have to go ask for help tomorrow, what's the thoughts that come up? This can come up particularly when it comes to asking financial help, because money is often in our society a sign of success in achievement, and then if we feel like we need to ask for financial help, it means that we have failed or we aren't successful enough in some way. I will share a story with you.

Marika Humphreys:

At one point in my husband's cancer battle, we discussed asking for financial help by doing a crowdfunding campaign. So one of the websites out there is called GoFundMe and it's a crowdsourcing place. You explain your situation and you ask for financial donations, and people do this with business ideas, but often it's around medical situations like an unexpected medical event and now you're saddled with bills. If you live in the United States and this is one way to get some financial support from anybody. It can be friends, but it can be people you've never even met. So GoFundMe is one of the websites and we had talked about doing this and I was the one who was going to set it up and I had everything I need. It's super simple to do, but I could not get myself to actually do it and through a coaching session, I discovered that it was because I thought asking for financial help meant we weren't successful enough to handle the bills on our own and I felt like it meant we were failures.

Marika Humphreys:

So if you are deep down thinking that you aren't enough, in some way you want to uncover that Enough of what right? In my example, it was successful enough. We aren't successful enough, and this is one of these types of beliefs that can show up in our lives in various forms. So if it's showing up for you right now, it probably has shown up for you, this feeling of not being enough in some respect in other aspects of your life. So once you identify it, then you can question it. Is that really true? Are there examples of other people who've asked for help? Yet you would never think of them as not smart enough or strong enough or successful enough.

Marika Humphreys:

And when I did that, when I actually got on the GoFundMe site, there were all sorts of people who were asking for help with medical bills and I am sure, at all sorts of income levels, people with lots of money can still have a ton of medical bills that they can't handle right. I mean, unfortunately that's the American system, that's the boat we're in, but my point being, there was examples of people in the world who had lots more money than we do and also were asking for financial help. So this idea I had in my head was just simply a thought that I had kind of just adopted over time in my life. That wasn't serving me in this case. So once I saw it, I could question it and I could let it go. So just be willing to investigate your own belief about what you aren't enough of when it comes to asking for help, and I just want you to sit in that question. Is that really true?

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, the next thought that often comes up for people if I ask for help, I'll appear weak or I'll have to be vulnerable. For many people, the idea of needing help from others means that they must be weak, so asking for help feels very vulnerable and for some people it even feels unsafe. So some people feel like they need to have this protective shell around them and nothing can go in or out, and needing help feels like they have to break that shell and let someone in. And it's kind of this idea that as long as people see me as strong and handling everything, as long as people see me that way, then I can believe that about myself. So often I think this thought comes from not wanting to confront in ourselves this aspect of our humanity that we are vulnerable. Every one of us is vulnerable in some way. And what if being vulnerable is okay? What if there is nothing wrong with vulnerability? In fact, vulnerability can be a strength? What if willingness to show your vulnerabilities actually means you're incredibly strong? When I think of others who've talked publicly about their mistakes or their struggles or mental health challenges, I often think of them as incredibly strong and brave because they are sharing something so intimate and vulnerable. So what if you could be vulnerable and also be brave? Just ask yourself that.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, number three I want to be, or I should be, self-reliant, and if I have to ask for help, then I'm not self-reliant. This was another one of my struggles when it came to asking for help. I was raised to be very independent and self-reliant, and those are qualities I do think I have and I really value and I like those qualities about myself. However, I had an all or nothing mentality when it came to thinking about being self-reliant, meaning I thought I should always be self-reliant and therefore asking others for help meant I was dependent on them. It meant, in some way, that I couldn't take care of my own problems, and one thing that really helped me was recognizing that my thinking about being self-reliant didn't have to be one extreme or the other. It wasn't either that I'm completely self-reliant or, on the opposite extreme, I'm completely dependent. There is a middle ground and in many ways, you can think about asking for help when you need it as a form of resourcefulness, which is often a quality of people who are self-reliant. Being resourceful means looking at all your available resources and making use of them so other people can be a resource. Getting help is utilizing a resource. Getting help is a utilizing a resource. So if you have thought this or some version of it, that you should be self-reliant or you want to be self-reliant. I want to invite you to consider that it doesn't have to be one extreme or the other, and I want you to also consider that asking for help is actually being resourceful. It's taking advantage of all of your resources.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, number four on the list I don't want to bother other people with my problems. That's a big one. I bet a lot of you have thought that in some form. I don't want to bother other people, I don't want to burden them. This is another big blocker for a lot of people, and I totally get it, and I think this comes from recognizing that, yes, everybody has busy lives, everybody has their own problems to worry about, so we don't want them to take on our problems in addition to their own right. We don't want to burden them, and especially with people we care about, you don't want to add extra burdens to the ones that you love.

Marika Humphreys:

But I think there are a couple things to think about here. First of all, if you've ever helped someone, did you feel like it was a burden or did you feel good about it? Did it make you feel good to be able to offer help. If you felt like it was a burden, then that is probably why you think this way, one of the reasons because we tend to think other people see through the same lens that we do and think there is truth in that some people do find it hard to say no. So, when it comes to asking for help, I do really think you want to be considerate about who you're asking, and because we don't always know all the other things that people are facing.

Marika Humphreys:

You can give people out an easy way to say no, something like if you have too much going on right now, I totally understand. Or, even more simply, say something like it's okay to say no, I'm going to ask you this, but it's okay to say no. Please tell me no if you aren't up for this, that is totally fine, and that may be a way for you to think about it, so that to get over this idea that you're burdening others. But if you do offer the option for them to say no, you have to really mean it. You can't just say it and then later feel resentful or angry about it. So I'm going to talk more about that at the end, but offering help or helping someone else out is something also that feels good to do. I want you to keep that in mind.

Marika Humphreys:

When we help others, we feel good, and so when someone offers help, if you're thinking I don't want to burden them, that will keep you from accepting it, but again, I want you to remember that it feels good to help others. This is something that we give to others our time and love and support and help. Sometimes it's financial help, so we can give this gift to others by letting them help us. If it helps you to kind of think of that in that way, I really believe that's true. Right, we deny others that feeling. When we don't let them help us, we deny them the opportunity to feel good about it. Right, helping others is always one way that we can give of ourselves. That's why people donate to things and volunteer for things. People like to help. I truly believe this and especially the ones that offer to help are truly wanting to help.

Marika Humphreys:

There are some people who offer a sense of obligation or because they're a people pleaser, and sometimes offering to do things is a form of people pleasing. That is true. However, you have no idea truly what people's motivations are for offering, so it is not worth trying to figure it out and trying to guess and trying to make assumptions about it. They're just offering because they feel obligated or they're just offering to be nice? Don't do that to yourself. You have no idea. Assume that if they offer, they want to help. Don't try to outguess what their motivations are. And let people help you. Right, it feels good to help others.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, number five on the list I don't want people to feel obligated, so I just talked about this a little bit, and this one is very much related to. It's really another version of not wanting to burden other people by asking for help or accepting their help, and it feels like a nice thing, like not wanting people to feel obligated. It sounds like it's me being nice, but it's also trying to control other people's emotions, and that's something that you simply can't do. People are in charge of their own emotions. You can't control how they feel. If they feel obligated or not is outside of your control.

Marika Humphreys:

So if someone does feel obligated, it's because of how they are thinking, not because of your asking, and it can be very useful to give people an easy way to say no, as long as you genuinely mean it. So if someone is offering help, again, assume their offer is genuine until you're told otherwise. Don't fall into the trap of trying to guess or interpret their motivations. It is just not useful and you can be completely wrong about it. So just don't let yourself go down this path. Assume they are genuine in their offer and again, if you want to offer a way to say no, make it easy for them to say no or decline. That is always just a useful strategy and can make it easier when you're asking others for help, okay.

Marika Humphreys:

And then number six on my list is want things done a certain way, and if other people help me, they're going to do it the way that I might not like. Want things done a certain way. This is what people who like to be in control often struggle with, because when you have others help, they may not do things exactly the way you like. So it may feel easier to just not have any help. But I really think this is worth evaluating for yourself. If this is where you struggle, it's worth taking a look at this.

Marika Humphreys:

One of my clients currently has struggled with this very recently. She's a physician. She is an incredibly capable woman who's used to having a super busy schedule, a ton on her plate. She's efficient, she's good at getting things done, she has a lot of responsibility in her job and she also has young children at home, and she's good at managing it all. But her husband's cancer has forced her to really confront her limitations. She is not a superwoman, I mean. While she is incredibly capable she has the same amount of time and number of hours in the day as every single other human being and she has limited energy, just like every other single human being. His illness has forced her to confront those limitations and she quickly realized that she just simply didn't have the time nor the energy to do everything, like to add all the caregiving duties on top of all the things she was already doing.

Marika Humphreys:

So she has really worked in reaching out to others and asking for help, and she has had to become really aware of her own tendency to just want to do things on her own, because that's always where her mind goes is I just need to fit it in, I need to just get more done, and so we've worked on this together. While that's her default thought I just need to do more or I just need to be faster, more efficient she also recognizes that she can't. That is not actually possible anymore. She is at this point in her life with the situation she faces and it's just not possible to do more. She will burn herself into the ground and she gets that, obviously. But it means it's a hard struggle for her because that is her tendency.

Marika Humphreys:

So in that process of getting help from others, she has also had to let go of some control, and I know that can be challenging for many of you, for anybody who thinks of themselves a control freak if you use that term for yourself, asking for help and letting others help you. It's an opportunity to grow. It's an opportunity to learn how to let go of control in certain areas. Now I want to say that it doesn't mean you just give up all control and you don't have certain standards and certain things that need to be done a certain way. But it is a good time to get really clear with yourself on what is important to you that needs to be done a certain way and what isn't. What are things that you can let go of, because a lot of times when we get in the habit of being in control and having control over everything, we don't make that distinction and there are for things that you can let go. So you have to figure those things out. It's such a good skill to work on. I know it's hard, but it is such a good skill because in caregiving or as a care partner, trying to be a control freak comes at the cost often of your mental health and simply your energy. We all have a limited supply of energy. It's a resource that we have to renew, and so that often takes some time.

Marika Humphreys:

Number seven is asking for help is a hassle or it's just easier to do it on my own. This is also very similar to what I just talked about. Sometimes just getting help feels like a hassle and it feels easier to just do it on our own. I totally get that. However, there is sometimes a cost to always doing things on your own right. What is the cost that you are paying if you don't go through the hassle of getting help? Is the cost that you're just continually exhausted? Is that worth it? Continual exhaustion leads to burnout for caregivers, and burnout will lead to a whole bunch of other problems and often health problems for the caregiver themselves. That is super common for caregivers and it's often because they burn themselves out. They try to do everything, and it might feel harder at first or like a hassle to ask for help and to have to manage others when they help you, but it is a skill that does get easier, and the energy you do save yourself by not trying to do everything on your own is huge. All right.

Marika Humphreys:

Number eight I don't know what I need help with. That is a thought that many of us have. I remember thinking that exactly when we were in a particular crisis period and people would say oh, I'm happy to help, just tell me what you need. And I would think to myself I don't even know what I need. Now that is actually something I want my clients with, because we do need things and do want to encourage them to take others up on offers to help. But it does just require a matter of thinking about what you need and being willing to ask for it. Sometimes it's I need help with the laundry For some people that may feel awkward to ask for. Other people may not care. Again, it's what we think about our laundry. Some people feel like it's private. Other people are like whatever it's laundry.

Marika Humphreys:

So when you say I don't know what I need help with, it's probably not true, but it also can be hard to think about what we actually need, especially when we're in a crisis period and we're just focused on getting day by. So it is something I help my clients think through, and when you ask yourself that question, I bet you will come up with an answer. I really want you to develop the habit of thinking about getting help as just a resource that you're always considering, not just in crisis periods, not just when you're overwhelmed. Right, help should be a resource that you always think about, whether it's paid help or free help, getting assistance is always an option to consider. Okay, so good question to ask yourself. Instead of I don't know what I need help with, a good way to focus your brain is ask yourself how could I get help with this or what would I like some help with? When you start asking yourself that on a regular basis, you will have answers. You will start thinking about it from different perspectives. Maybe you get help with meal prep. Maybe somebody buys you a membership to one of the umpteen different food service companies now that send you packages of food already made. Right, that is one way of getting help. That could be a huge time saver. So asking yourself the question what could I get help with, what do I need help with? Is just a better question to ask than letting yourself say I don't know.

Marika Humphreys:

Number nine, again, is similar in that when people often think I don't know who to ask or how to ask for help, both of those are I don't know questions, right, I don't know who to ask, or I don't know how to ask for help. It's hard only if we think it's hard. The problem with I don't know thoughts are that they just aren't useful. They will block our brain, and we all do it. I do it as well. I'm better about catching myself, but anytime we tell ourselves I don't know, we will stay in the place of not knowing because our brain won't look for answers. It's an easy answer for our brain to give us, though it's easy response to give I don't know. It's kind of a cop-out in some ways, but it's not like we do that intentionally right.

Marika Humphreys:

Usually those things come from fatigue and exhaustion and lack of energy, and this is where building your resiliency skills can really come in handy, because if you are already exhausted, it is harder to problem solve, it is harder to find solutions. You simply just don't have the mental energy or the emotional energy to be creative, to think through problems, clearly be calm enough. And that is exactly why I coach caregivers on building their resiliency skills, because we need to be good problem solvers as caregivers and care partners and we simply can't be when we are in burnout and overwhelm. So just know that I don't know is easy answer but not useful. A better way to think about it is how can I ask for help or who could provide help? Just rephrasing that thought into a question will get your brain looking for answers and you can simply start by searching the internet. A Google search will give you probably amazing results. I bet there is a ton of responses for just both of those questions separately. How do I ask for help? Do a Google search and I'm sure you are going to get a ton of advice on that. My advice is you simply ask for what you need. Don't be afraid to ask for what you need. Just don't let yourself say I don't know.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, number 10, I don't need help, I'll figure it out. I kind of fall into this as well. Less now, but I definitely did. It goes along with being self-reliant. I'll figure it out. I think it's a great thing to tell yourself I'll figure it out, I can figure it out, but it's just one of those sneaky thoughts that you want to be really aware of, because, while it is great to be able to figure things out on your own and that is absolutely a skill you should always be developing and it's also great to get help. Both of those are true. Both are very useful skills, especially as a caregiver or care partner. Remember, there is a middle ground here. It doesn't need to be all one or the other. Both skills are useful in life in general. Being resourceful, figuring things out on your own is useful, and knowing how to ask for help, knowing when you need help, is also useful. So it doesn't have to be all one or the other. You want both skills, especially as a caregiver. Sometimes you're going to figure it out on your own and sometimes you will want to get some help. So those are the 10 thoughts that I see often come up a lot for people and hopefully, as I've talked about those, you will maybe find what your blockers are.

Marika Humphreys:

And the last thing I want to say, this topic around asking for help is when you do ask for help, there are two important things to keep mindful of. One is that it will work the best when it comes from a clean emotional place and when you are willing to let go of the outcome. And I'm going to explain what I mean about both of those points. When I say it should come from a clean emotional place, I mean that when you ask for help, you don't want to have the feeling of being entitled or angry or frustrated. Those are not clean emotions to ask for help from. You want to clean up your own thinking and your own emotions first, because people will pick up on that energy. Whether you say it outright or not, people will pick up.

Marika Humphreys:

If you are feeling entitled, like you deserve help this comes up a lot with family members, like they should be helping me and they're not. If you are thinking that when you ask, it's just not going to go, well, right, it's just not. And it means that you have to clean up that thinking first and your emotions. So you have to be willing, kind of let people be where they are. And then, secondly, when I say let go of the outcome, that really comes back to letting people say no or decline, being genuinely willing to hear that when you ask for help and that may seem difficult because you may have figured out wow, I really do need help here and now I'm asking, and it may feel like a rejection, but remember you also don't want people to help out of obligation. Help should be a win-win right. It should be I need help and you want to give me help, and it's a win-win right. We both win here. You get the feeling of helping someone and feel good about it, and I get the help I need.

Marika Humphreys:

If one person is helping out of obligation, that's not a win-win right. So you have to genuinely be willing for people to say no because, honestly, we don't know what other people are going through or we don't know what their struggles are, and there may be something going on in their life that they simply can't right. So no does not have to mean anything about you, it's always about them. Don't have to take it as rejection. Shouldn't make you mad. You shouldn't feel entitled.

Marika Humphreys:

People say no, make it easy for them and, again, one way to do that is to say hey, listen, if you're super busy or you just can't do this right now, I totally understand. I just thought I'd ask and see if you were available, something like that. I think it depends on the relationship you have with the person, or what you might say and how much you want to make it easy. If you have a real honest and open relationship with someone, you probably don't need to do that With someone you know less. Like when my husband was going through cancer, we had all sorts of people offer help, and some of them I didn't know really well, so I might say that to someone that I didn't know really well. That felt uncomfortable.

Marika Humphreys:

I also recommend the strategy of using a proxy, so it's like a close friend or a relative or a sibling who can ask for help on your behalf, and the reason why this works so well is they often have less issues about asking for help than you might. But also it can just feel less awkward for them and they can be a go-between. You can tell them this is what I need, I need help with the laundry, I need someone to mow the yard, whatever they can ask for help, and it's just makes things easier. So that's an idea too. But you do need to have your emotions cleaned up and ask from a clean emotional place and be willing to let go of the outcome. Be willing for people to say no, or I can't, or I'd really rather not, or some version of that, and it needs to be genuinely okay with you if they say that Okay.

Marika Humphreys:

So I hope that, as I've talked about all of those different thoughts many people have that who struggle with asking for help you've recognized some of your own thought patterns and you've seen the ways that they might be useful, and perhaps I've made a case for how you could think differently. But you first have to see your own thinking before you can question it and shift your thinking. I think asking for help should be a resource that we always consider, whether that's free help, paid help, whatever form it comes in. Getting help is just one more tool in the toolbox. So what I'm going to leave you with here and close out this podcast episode with, is some thoughts to borrow around asking for help, because I've mentioned in the beginning that we can shift our thoughts and decide what we want to think about something. So once you've recognized your unhelpful thinking, we want to think about something. So, once you've recognized your unhelpful thinking, I'm just going to offer you some thoughts that you can try on and see if you like them and choose to believe them.

Marika Humphreys:

Okay, it's okay to ask for help. Simple thought it's okay to ask for help. I'm okay with being vulnerable. Asking for help is a sign of strength, not of weakness. That's a great thought. Accepting help is how I take care of myself and my challenges. That's another great one, right? Accepting help is how I take care of myself, and if people offer, it means they truly want to help. So feel free to try on any of those thoughts and just kind of see if they sit with you. If you believe them and it feels also true, then you want to practice it.

Marika Humphreys:

When your old thought patterns come up and they will that's when you practice the new thought. Remind yourself If people offer, that means they truly want to help. Remind yourself it's okay to be vulnerable. Asking for help is okay. That is how you practice a new thought. That's how you shift your thinking. It does's okay to be vulnerable. Asking for help is okay. That is how you practice a new thought. That's how you shift your thinking. It does require you to be deliberate in how you think, but that is your opportunity to grow. So, caregiving, being a care partner, those can be long journeys. Don't try to go it all alone, without any help, and if you are willing to get over your own self-judgment and your own negative thinking, you will discover how amazing and wonderful other human beings can be. They really are. I think we had such amazing help and people were truly amazing. Let's see the amazingness in the human spirit that is out there, whether they're related to you or not. Okay, all right, my friends, I will see you on next week's episode.