The Overstretched Caregiver: Everyone Needs You at Once

0:00You're listening to the Mindful Mama podcast episode number 578. Today we're talking about the overstretched caregiver.

0:11Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have. And when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clark-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting course and teacher training, and I'm the author of the international bestseller, Raising Good Humans, Raising Good Humans Every Day, and the Raising Good Humans Guided Journal.

0:51If you're a nurse or future nurse, you know how challenging and rewarding this career can be. Hi there, I'm Nurse Mo, creator of the Straight A Nursing Podcast. I'd love for you to join me every Thursday as I teach nursing concepts and share tips to help you succeed in school and at the bedside. Each episode breaks down often complex information so it's easy to understand so you can feel more confident whether you're taking an exam or taking care of patients. So subscribe to the Straighten Nursing Podcast, and I'll see you on Thursday. Hello, welcome to our first ever live recorded podcast. We have an audience today.

1:33It's So cool. And I'm here with Dr. Christopher Willard, a father, a clinical psychologist, author, and consultant based in Massachusetts. He has spoken in 42 countries and has presented at two TEDx events. He's the author of 21 books, including Alpha Breaths, Growing Up Mindful, Feelings Are Like Farts, College Mental Health 101, and he teaches at Harvard Medical School. So and Chris is here. We're here to have a conversation together as the co-founders of the Mindful Parenting Institute, which maybe we'll tell you a little more about later. It's our new thing. And I'm so excited to be here with Hunter, who I've known kind of on and off online and then hanging out in Abu Dhabi for a few days, getting to know each other better.

2:18And Hunter is the author of an unbelievable bestseller, Raising Good Humans, which I saw how many copies you sold. You are such a rock star. The Mindful Mama podcast, which is absolutely phenomenal. I've been on it. I've listened to it. Everyone should check it out. She is also a mostly mindful mama. No, always mindful mama to her kiddos based in Delaware. And so we're just so excited to be here. Yeah, with all of you today. So thank you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And we mentioned the Mindful Parenting Institute. So we're co-founders of the Mindful Parenting Institute. and what we have started to bring the tools of mindfulness to more caregivers worldwide.

2:59We want to raise resilient, confident kids in all phases of the parenting journey. And we're going to be doing that through a couple of different initiatives. And just to let you know up front for you guys who are here live, we'll be diving deeper into the subject of sort of the overstressed caregiver with more personal support and a coaching group that you'll have the opportunity to be a part of. And we're going to tell you about that at the end. Absolutely. So listen, who here in the audience is in the sandwich generation? Put a Y in the chat if you are. But yeah, this is why we're here. The idea is that if you are feeling like this is really hard, it's because it is.

3:43And I think, Chris, you're feeling that more, right? You're feeling the sandwich more. I'm feeling pre-guilt about the sandwich because my parents are farther away. Oh, so many whys. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, these last five years since the pandemic, you know, right? I mean, the day I had, my son was supposed to be born. My sister called me and told me that she had cancer. And then three years later, my mom got cancer. And then the pandemic began and it was like having kids, caring for my mom, you know, and these like horrible, horrible choices of like, do I take my mom to the doctor or do I take my son to swimming lessons?

4:26Like, you know, and just pulled, stretched, squished like, you know, this isn't the sandwich generation. This is like the bottom of the backpack wrapped in tinfoil, totally smashed sandwich is kind of how it's felt between caring for my parents, caring for my kids, the state of the world. Right. All of this. And then it's been kind of in different sorts of waves over time since then, right? You know, my mom did pass away. My dad's doing great these days. But it's like there's always something. You're only as happy as your happiest kid, right, or something like that. And then also like these other people in our lives who depend on us, whether it's our jobs, whether it's our parents, other relatives, our spouse who's maybe struggling, right, friends that are going through it, and of course our kids.

5:09I mean, it is just, you know, squished in so many different ways. And I think too about when I was a kid, like I remember my mom was an only child. And so she really had it when her mom was sick. And I remember feeling really abandoned, you know, in many ways. And I'm fine. You know, my mom and I worked through that. But it's hard. Everyone, it's hard on everyone. It's hard on you. It's hard on kids. It's hard on parents. It's hard on everybody. It's just really, and there's no like right answer. I just want to say too, I think, you know, you were saying kind of pre-guilt, but I just think normalizing that, like we've all been through it, going through it, or we're going to be going through it at some point.

5:48And it's just hard. Yeah. I mean, I'm so sorry about your mom, Chris. That's going to be incredibly hard. I mean, it just, to me, it really goes back to like, I get so frustrated. Sometimes I feel like all these conversations I have on the podcast, so many of them, it's because of like we have these we're set up in these ways that are so unsupportive for people to live you know if you lived like if everybody on my street if it was like aunties and uncles and cousins all around me like within walking distance of my house like i'm sure that would be really really annoying a lot of the time but but it's like i feel like this pressure that we feel is extraordinary for humans to feel.

6:36Like it's not what life evolved to be as humans. Like for the 100, 200 ,000 years we were humans, I don't think that this is what people were feeling. So if it's feeling really, really hard, I mean, it's not like you should be doing it some better way and you would be okay. or was there something wrong with you that makes it especially hard with you and it should be okay. Not like everybody else is doing it. It's fine for them. It's actually not fine for them. And there's all these, you know, it's all these obvious things, but all this invisible stuff too. Like, God, if you think about all the logistics of life and then if you think about, what if you're a single parent?

7:24You know, what if you're sharing custody? Have a special needs kid. I mean, I think about family coming into my office later and dad has a chronic illness and the kids all have their own challenges. And it's like just even that stuff. I mean, it's like so many different possibilities that can make it so much more challenging and so much more stressful for the caregiver. Yeah, yeah. So we're going to take a quick poll of our live audience. Who's caring for kids? Put a K for kids in the chat if you're caring for kids. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're all here. Okay. Who's caring for parents? Put a P in the chat if you're caring for parents.

8:08Okay. Yeah, lots of caring for parents too. Okay. We're seeing that. Yeah. And so, yeah, both. Put a B in the chat for both if you're doing both. B. Yeah. B plus if you've also got an uncle that's moving right now, like I do, into assisted living and all of that too. So, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really, it's like, it's not, it's the pain, the difficulty of it. It's not a personal failure. It's just like, it's this structural reality, I think, that we're facing. Yeah. Well, I think that's such a... No wonder everyone's tired. Yeah. I mean, that's such a helpful reframe. It's not us. It is the way, you know, we don't live in villages and in tribes and in these like kinship networks.

8:51We are, you know, in this pretty individualistic society where you're supposed to either do it all yourself, which I think is especially a pressure on women, you know, or that it's, you know, if it's not do it all yourself, it's like, we'll just hire someone. But that's also so impersonal. It doesn't feel great either. And also leaves us with feelings of guilt. It is really not easy without easy answers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So we're going to talk about it. We're going to have some tools also at the end for people, some really practical tools. But let's, Chris, talk about what makes this uniquely hard.

9:23It's really about these opposing needs, right? Like opposing what we're talking about, what kids need, and then what parents need. And they're really different. So different. I mean, kids need like such a certain kind of presence and energy and attention, right? As well as all the logistics and stuff like that. But for us to really be there for them and be smiling. And we pick them up at the bus stop or whatever it might be. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we want to show them the delight when they come in the room. But how can you do that? Okay, sorry, you're so stressed. No, seriously, though, Hunter. I mean, like, that's it.

9:59It's like off the phone call, the third phone call with like a parent caregiver. And it's like, okay, put on my smile at the bus stop. Like, it's just like, that is so hard. And then parent aging parents, they need, you know, that they need tremendous amounts of patients. Often they need repetition. Often they need advocacy. Often they also need, you know, logistics of rides if we're worried about their driving these days or if they're injured or if they're, you know, and like also someone to take notes at those doctor's appointments, you know, because they're, I mean, when we're stressed, our brains shut down.

10:27It's so hard to listen to, you know, what are the options for moving? What are the options for my treatment? And I remember one of the heartbreaking things when my mom was so sick is like, she's old and all her doctors are old and they're all retiring. Like all of her caregivers were retiring and are getting sick, you know? And so it's like just this loss on all these different levels and we're scrambling to build a new team. And so we're pulled forward and backward. What's the saying about, you know, of course your parents pressed their buttons. They're the ones that installed them. But like the way that then we're trying to care for them while they're pressing our buttons.

11:01And it's like, I mean, that thing of like, I remember when my mom had cancer, my sister said, you know, well, you know, you get, you know, maybe like a liver transplant or whatever, but you don't get like a personality transplant when you're when you're ill. It's like all those same beautiful things about someone and all of their kind of challenging, you know, kind of rough edges really come out. And so we're pulled in so many directions and the guilt in so many directions, too. So, yeah. Yeah, you get this guilt of like, am I doing enough? I mean, I guess I remember watching this with my parents, my parents taking care of my grandmother when I was a teenager.

11:39And, you know, they had her live in her house for a year. And then they had set some boundaries for their own sake, I guess, and they moved her into assisted living. And I was really sad about that, but I wasn't the one doing all the work. And so there's this guilt and sadness there. I think with every decision, there's not like a great answer with any of the decisions. Someone feels left out or let down or just confused, including us, right? It's like my kid's confused about this change from living with us to moving out and they're sad about it. And also, so am I, even though I'm also relieved.

12:13It's so many, like Daniel Tiger tells us we can have more than one feeling at once. And that was so helpful to know when I was going through a lot of this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then you feel distracted with your kids, right? And that's one thing. I mean, if you're a listener to this podcast, we know the best thing we can give our kids, right, is, I mean, that's kind of the definition of love is like attention. And here are two parties that you love so, so much pulling your attention, right? And attention is a finite resource. You know, we don't have this, right? Yeah, right. Okay, so it's this emotional double bind.

12:55You're probably feeling distracted, feeling guilty about that, feeling like we're not doing enough. And I imagine there's guilt in work too. Chris, I imagine when your mom was struggling, was going to appointments, and you're distracted with your kids, I bet you were just not your most amazing self at work. Right. Compassion, fatigue, empathy, fatigue, all of that. And then different people in different situations. My sister and I in different financial situations. She not working with Gabe, which gave her lots of time to visit at every possible moment for six hours at a time. Me being very geographically close so I could visit my parents for 10 minutes a day.

13:39And both of us feeling like the other wasn't doing enough. Right. When actually we were just doing different things. Right. But feeling both guilty and resentful, you know, on the on the sibling side of it, too, being, I think, incredibly challenging in these different ways, too. So, you know, that kind of impacting things in these different ways, too. And then, yeah, as you were saying, I mean, you know, and the stuff about kind of the invisible load, I don't know if you want to kind of kind of kind of riff on that a little bit, but no one else quite knows that we're going through this. And that's even our partners or other people in our lives, like just how much we're holding emotionally in these different ways, too.

14:19Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.

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14:58You don't have time to tell them at all. You're running from a logistical thing to thing to thing in the scheduling, remembering everything, you're worrying about things, anticipating things that could go wrong as well. Yeah. We have in our notes here a real helpful attitude, I think, for this. And I think this is so, so important. And this idea of radical acceptance. Were you able to practice that when you were in this intensely difficult moment? I was able to think about Bride just sitting under. I mean, there were moments. There were absolutely moments of just that. A good friend of mine has a tattoo that just says, right now it's like this.

15:49And thinking about Jameson's tattoo and the kind of Buddhist-y wisdom of that, of like, yep, this is just what it is. This too shall pass. right? You know, feelings are like far still eventually fade away, right? Just, you know, whatever kind of we want to say about it. But like trying to remember that this is, you know, that there is this thing of impermanence and some radical acceptance around this is about as hard as it might be. And I'm surviving so far. I am getting through it in one piece. My parents are getting through it. My own kids are getting through it. My wife is getting through it, you know, And that there also is, I think when there are rifts too in the family and with siblings and other people, like remembering that like this, you know, in a sad way and in a kind of helpful way, like this is temporary.

16:37Like, you know, things actually come back together sometimes when a crisis has passed or sometimes, you know, after a death or after, you know, all the work of getting someone into assisted living or, you know, something like that, we can kind of come back together with relief. And I think making room for that, that there may be conflict now, but we can keep our hearts open for reconnection in the future or just better connection in the future. And we keep it about logistics and not emotions or the other way around, depending on what we can do on those different days. So the radical acceptance, I think if we can access it, it can be so helpful.

17:13Yeah. Right. Tara Brock, Pema Chodron, things fall apart kind of wisdom of radical acceptance. And what you're describing too is just remembering that you can always, always begin anew, right? You can always begin again, whether it is at a death or whether it is at a, okay, next time I see my sister, whether it's next time I see my mom, I can begin anew, whenever it is. I can, the next time I see my kid, I can, you know, I can do a small act. I can, you know, put a hand in my heart. I can take a breath. I can be compassionate to myself and then say, I am so happy to see you, you know? Yeah. And maybe that will bring some of that light in our eyes.

18:04Just the words. Well, and living, I think, as you said, in those moments of like, okay, here's not just this too shall pass this really miserable kind of time, but also this moment is beautiful. this moment of like just total connection with my kid or this moment when my mom is able to be 100 % present and not sort of like falling into dementia or my dad is able to like settle down and really remember how to all be supportive together or you know that the treatment team is all on the same page for whether it's your kids or your parents and even if your parents aren't going through a crisis I'm kind of describing a crisis but like just still taking those moments of like, wow, I had a really great walk with my kid.

18:47I think one thing that both youth and age teaches us is in some ways how to be in the moment and appreciate it. I think about times that have like, okay, I'm going to put my phone away and just follow my kid around and that'll be my mindfulness practice for the day. It's like 10 minutes of just walking around. One of the, maybe three weeks before my mom passed, she wanted to go outside and we took a walk and it was like early spring and it was, and I was just like, holy crap. Like, you know, she was so appreciating the, the, the cherry blossom starting on the trees and the, the, the, the warmth in the air and the sun and the breeze on her cheek.

19:20And I was like, okay, I can be here for this and see the beauty that she's able to access in this really challenging time. And so it can actually, we can allow it to them be this thing that brings us into the moment. And then the chaos ensues and she falls on the way back up the stairs into the house and like these things like that. But there's still that treasured moment. And I don't forget that last walk I took with my mom. And I did actually forget until now that she fell coming in the stairs on the way in that day. But it's like when we can kind of savor those moments and hold on to them, that also keeps us going to find those kind of green shoots of hope in some of the, whether it's dark times or just the chaos of it all too.

20:01I think it's so powerful to be able to do. You're describing the story that we're telling too about this. Like at the end of that day, what is the story you tell about this day when you're squished in your panini? That was from our studio audience. I like that. When you're a panini. but like what do you tell yourself about that day right are you telling yourself a story can you look back and say oh there was this lovely moment where mom touched my cheek or we what we saw the the the the buds on the trees or are we am i saying to myself it's all falling apart and she's falling down the stairs right like it's like it's um it's a really interesting moment of modeling for our kids how to handle things when we're squeezed.

20:48And I think it's really important to remember, too, that this isn't, we're not just talking about mindsets here. Mindsets are important, but it's not just mindsets. This is our biology. This is our nervous system. This is the reality of our nervous system. So, you know, if you're a sandwich generation caregiver, you're living with your nervous system in this low-grade threat. Yeah. And you know, some people have heard me talk about like sort of how to stop yelling. And one of the things I say is like, the best way to stop yelling is to reduce your overall stress in your life. And yeah, it's like, great, that's an easier said than done.

21:23But like, you have to have the phone always on, right? You're always waiting for the call. you're never, never fully off duty. And so this chronic caregiving is really directly leading to chronic stress hormones, right? So we have notes in here about how it can really lead to high rates of things like depression with Alzheimer's. I mean, it's real. I think it's like the number one risk factor for depression is caring for someone with Alzheimer's, you know, which, which is, you know, my mom had dementia in addition to her. It was a rough few years, Hunter. I was going to tell you my friend's house burned down in the middle of this too.

22:07You know, probably actually related to my mom's dementia tragically. But, but again, right. That, but that, I mean, like, you know, the depression that, that sets in when you're caring, when you're the primary caregiver of someone with dementia and you're stuck in the house. My dad, even after my mom died, talked about how long it was before he felt like he could even leave their apartment because he was like, I still feel like I need to be around. I still feel like I can't even run out and go get a gallon of milk for the coffee because it's like forgetting what if something happens while I run out.

22:36And all of that, that kind of our nervous system takes a while to reset. But certainly when we're in, that's PTSD, obviously. But it's like when we're in it, right? It's like and our brain shuts down, like our patience isn't there for our kids because it was all day with our parents. Our decision-making capacity is shot because it was like, which of these 50 doctors or medications should I take for my parents and which of these 50 therapists should I pick for my own kid? And which is our memory. We forget things, right? People fall back into old patterns of drinking or distractions or things like that just to kind of shut off, right?

23:12The feelings of joy start to, like, they're dulled, they're muted. And then if we feel good, like, we start to feel guilty. It's like, oh, I shouldn't be enjoying this movie. I shouldn't be enjoying actually having a night out with my partner, right? I should actually be back home checking on the kids, or I should be actually, you know, calling, you know, help from my parents or something. It's awful, like, and it's, but it doesn't have to be, you know, entirely, you know, I think I'll just remind people they're not alone in this too. This is something – I think I'm being so dark here. It's like, you're not alone.

23:46You're not alone. But, yeah, a lot of people are going through this. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, yeah, if you're feeling really snappy at your kids, we've talked a lot about caregiving a parent and the effect on a kid, then you're feeling snappy or feeling guilty and the empathy, right? Like if I'm – they're saying, oh, Hunter said to practice some reflective listening and you're like, wait a second, I ain't got it. It's not there. I don't have the empathy, right? But that's what your nervous system is doing. It's kind of keeping you ready to respond to a threat and that's not your fault and you're not alone.

24:30Well, then with all of this, like, though, to get a little darker, we have work. We think we're going to have balance and I think we've just got to say it. balance at times like this. Balance is a myth. Balance is a myth. You may not be able to, you know, you're probably not going to be able to be perfectly balanced. It's about, can you be balanced enough? Well, I love that. Balanced enough. And then radical acceptance around this is going to be a time that's unbalanced, which actually then gives us tremendous practice for just like the acceptance that life is always out of our, it's always unmanageable is always out of our control um but too right when we it's like this is the you know this is where we're in the in the deep training um for it um and uh yeah but it's it's like it may never be um you know even though it can kind of come and go in waves i think um it's it's not so predictable um yeah i think it might be very reassuring to listen you guys can tell us in those studios but like if you feel like i'm very reassuring to hear that it's really hard for everybody sometimes i when i hear podcasts with like you know my friends send me like life optimizers who are like talking about the amazing things they do before like 5 a.m i'm just like oh god i'm a terrible person what's wrong with me why can't why can't i do all those things before or 5 a.m.

26:00But yeah, I think it's actually really reassuring to talk to you, Chris, and be like, okay, he's written 21 books and he's feeling overwhelmed and it's really hard. Yeah. Yeah. Let us know in chat. So let's talk about some actual practical tools that can help. So we have some ideas of things that can help. So Chris, you want to talk about this for first one, the idea of shrinking the day. Absolutely. I think it's like, I mean, thinking, I remember when I first had a kid, I was like, went to my meditation teacher. I was like, how am I going to meditate? And she's like, forget meditation. Don't worry about it.