Susanne White - Caregiver Warrior

As caregivers, we have so many things that hit us all the time, and we can't always nail these things down by ourselves. Who helps you?

What does that look like? I'm Peter Rosenberg, and I want to tell you about a program I've been a part of now for almost 10 years, and that's Legal Shield. For less than $30 a month, I have access to a full law firm that can handle all kinds of things.

If I get a contract put in front of me, if I got a dispute with something, doesn't matter. I've got a full law firm that can help me navigate through all the sticky wickets that we as caregivers have to deal with. Power of attorney, medical power of attorney, I will.

Every bit of it. As a caregiver, we need someone who advocates for us, and that's why I use Legal Shield. So go to caregiverlegal.com. Look on the left-hand side where it says Legal Shield. Just select it.

It turns purple. It says, pick a plan. It'll give you some options.

If you don't need any of those, don't select them. Check out, and be protected starting today. That's caregiverlegal.com. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg, and we're so glad that you are with us. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Some years ago, I met a wonderful lady named Suzanne White, and she was on my program when we were back in Nashville. It's been way too long, and she's got a new book out called Self-Care for Caregivers. Her website is Caregiver Warrior, and she is one, and I'm glad to have you back, Suzanne. It's been way too long, so thank you for being back, and I apologize for taking so long to get you on this program.

Oh, listen. Anytime I can be with you, I will wait forever, so I'm happy to be here. Very gracious of you. Bring us up to speed on your journey first, then we'll get into this new book. Folks that don't know you, haven't met you before, tell us a little bit about your journey.

Yes, I will be glad to do that, happy to do that. So, you know, I was a caregiver for my parents and other family members, and so often I would feel lost and alone and realize that they don't tell you anything, like they don't tell you about this stuff. So, I was blessed to take care of mom and dad, and during that journey, since I didn't get along with mom too well, I had to make lots of changes in my life. And I figured, you know, let me just jot some of this stuff down, because I was a singer-songwriter, you know, I used to be a lyricist, so I knew that writing stuff down and journaling for me would really be helpful.

So, I kind of kept a log and little notes here and there. So, as I finished and they both, I lost both of them within seven weeks of each other, you know, I just figured maybe some caregivers out there could benefit from some of the mistakes I made. So, I started blogging, you know, and I came up with Caregiver Warrior, because I think that caregivers are warriors, I think they're out there fighting every day. And I started a blog and a website, and it seems to be helping people. So, here I am, Caregiver Warrior, and trying to save one caregiver at a time.

Well, and you're not a timid person, you are a fighter, and you bring a great deal of passion to everything you do. Tell me about this book, Self-Care for Caregivers. Self-Care for Caregivers, it just came out, I mean, it's brand new. Just brand new, and it's...

I don't even have my copy yet. Which is a shame. That's okay.

We gotta change that. I got you. So, how about that? So, but tell us a little bit about this book. Well, you know, I'm so excited because it's actually in my hands, you know, it's incredible when you have a creative process and it's in your head and then you put it in your hands.

So, I actually have the hard copy in my hands. You know, I took notes and I just thought, you know what, let me jot this down. And as I was doing stuff on Instagram and all my social media and everything, Adams Media, which is a division of Simon Schuster, came to me and said, hey, would you ever think about writing a book? And I went, funny, yeah, I would do, yeah. They said, well, we'd like you to do something for you, for us. So, we jumped at it together and they have been absolutely lovely. And I came up with Self-Care for Caregivers.

It's 140 tools and tips and strategies that I came up with and really an easy to read, jump in anywhere in the book, guide for caregivers to help them prioritize themselves. What does that look like for you? Give me an example.

I mean, granted, I know kind of what it looks like for me, but for you, what does that look like? It looks like being self-aware. That was the big ticket that drove me home, was that I had to be self-aware. I had to be self-aware of what I was physically feeling, what I was emotionally feeling. I had to really lock into what was going on with me on a daily basis. And I always say, caregivers need to take their emotional temperature.

I really had to do that because I tend to be a control freak and a perfectionist. And I push my own feelings down and I'm not aware of, I wasn't as aware of my body and my mind as I should have been when I was caring for other people. Because I'd start to get snarky. I'd start to get like emotional.

I'd start to get angry, short-tempered, frustrated, and exhausted. So, for me, self-care really began when I looked in the mirror and said, you know what? You're really focused on them.

You need to focus on you a little bit. Like, how are you feeling? You know how they're feeling. You know what their temperature is.

You know what's going on with them. What's going on with you? And that's how I started the self-care process. You've been doing this a while, talking to other caregivers and so forth and getting out there fighting this battle. What has surprised you about you through this journey? I mean, the things about you that you just didn't even realize you had in you.

Wow, that's such a great question. And it has to come from another caregiver because caregiving is a journey for everybody, for those we care for and for us. You know, everybody changes, I think. There's a lot of adaptation that you have to go through. But I think for me, caregiving, what really surprised me about me was how I could function being completely exhausted. Like, I had no idea how resilient I was. I knew that I could get things done because that's my personality and I've done it in business. What I didn't understand about myself was how I was unstoppable. Like, I would stop for myself before I would stop for the people I love. I mean, I think the energy is God-given. I mean, the energy that we have as caregivers, and we have to be really careful because it can be dangerous because we can run on nothing in the gas tank. And I think, you know, it surprised me how I could keep going.

And what surprised me was how damaged I could be from it. You know, that I get. And we push ourselves, I often say we push ourselves recklessly, hurl ourselves recklessly at something that cannot be changed. And we end up becoming brittle in the process. And you and I have had that conversation before.

When you get out there and you're starting to see people engage with this book, you know, what are you hoping that your readers are going to, because I think, let me set the table on this one. You and I have been doing this for a long time. There are things that we do that are very obvious to us, but they're not necessarily obvious to anybody else just because we've been doing it out of time. And obvious becomes obvious right before it becomes obvious. And so one of the things that I try to remind myself is that what I'm doing every day, I just kind of get into this pattern. I'm doing it out of expediency and out of necessity. Other people may have no clue to how to incorporate this in their own life.

Talk about that in your book and how that's going to affect people in their journey. Yes. And yes, you and I really get it. And I think that's the thing with so many caregivers. First of all, a lot of caregivers don't even realize they're caregivers. I mean, if you're helping anybody out with anything, you're a caregiver.

Second of all, you don't realize how isolating it is and how you isolate. I think that caregivers don't realize that they want to fix everybody and fix everything and we can't. That's not what this is about. We can't control everything. And I think you have to learn these things. I think that when you first go into caregiving, you think you're going to do it all, you're going to do it all perfectly, and you're going to do it all alone. And wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

That's not how it works. Um, you know what I mean? It's an, you know, and you're, and, and you're going to get burnout. We're all going to get burnout. You know, when people say, oh, you know, avoid caregiver burnout. You can't, every single caregiver I know gets burnout, but I think that's one of those things I'm going to have to write down, avoid caregiver burnout. You can't love that. I'm going to, I'm actually writing that one down.

You can't, it's impossible. It's, it's an, we, with the blessing and the goodness of our hearts, we're trying to do something that is devastating for all involved. You cannot avoid caregiver burnout. My whole thing is, do you want to hit the wall with caregiver burnout at 10 miles an hour or 150 miles an hour? That's the thing we can control. In other words, if you're aware of yourself and you focus on you and you try to prioritize things that make you feel better in your life, when you do hit that wall of caregiver burnout, it's not going to be so devastating. And it's not going to take you a week to get back to, back to your better self. You know, I think that's the thing that's, that's so important is that if you, we have to think of ourselves as athletes.

We have to be in the best form we can be body, mind, spirit. In the world of professional athletes, I'm a bowler. There you go. Well, I love that. What, just out of curiosity, what speed did you hit the wall at?

Well, the first time I hit the wall, I hit it 150 miles per hour. And I, and that's what, that's the message I wanted. The other message too, is that there is no perfect caregiver and there's no perfect way to do it. And there's not a book.

You can, I mean, you can buy a book that can give you suggestions and guide you, but there's no rule book. Everyone is, you know, everyone is doing the best they can. So I hit it. I went into it thinking that I had all the answers and I was going to do it. And I understood everything. And I hit the wall and thank God I knew other caregivers and I called them.

That was the first thing I learned. How hard was that phone call? You know, surprisingly easy because Peter, I was so bad. I was physically and emotionally so freaked out. I was shaking. I had the shakes. I was literally like shaking. I, I, I, I was in a state of terror. I thought something, I just, I can't tell you how upset and frightened I was physically and spiritually and emotionally.

So scared that I, thank God I picked the phone up. I'm glad you did. And I'm glad that the journey that you've been on since that phone call and you're, you're helping a lot of people, including me. And I, I, I'm just very grateful to have you as a part of this.

And the book is called Self-Care for Caregiver Suzanne White caregiver warrior.com. She's a great friend of the show, great friend of mine, and we're going to have you back on soon. Okay. All right, my love. Thank you so much. And remember, you're just brilliant the way you are right now. Thank you very much. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. We'll see you next time.