For the Caregiver: Providing Yourself Emotional Support on Your Caregiving Journey

A loved one's terminal illness diagnosis can be terrifying. If we hold onto that fear and carry it into a caregiving role, we will be left exhausted, ill-equipped to cope, and feeling powerless. What's more, we will find it extremely difficult to be the supportive, comforting presence our loved one needs-and the caring friend we need to be to ourselves to process our grief.

Through personal memoir, the author shares how allowing fear to rule her experience of her mother's illness and death resulted in great difficulty coping. Several years later, when her husband of twenty-one years received the devastating news that he had terminal cancer, she was determined to approach this caregiving experience with love rather than fear. Through self-love and self-care practices, she learned how to manage her emotions, develop resilience, and be fully present to experience the joy and beauty of their final chapter together as well as process the pain of his passing.

For the Caregiver will show you how to access the greatest source of strength and power available to you-that found within. You will learn how to practice self-care and self-love through mindfulness, self-talk, meditation, journaling, and movement exercises. By allowing love to empower you, you will gain strong coping skills that will enable you not only get through this difficult time, but to be fully present to enjoy the precious time remaining with your loved one.