Month: June 2025

Being a caregiver comes with its challenges and rewards, especially when you are placed in the unexpected position of caring for a relative or loved one diagnosed with dementia.

When a loved one cognitively declines, the question is not whether your life will change; the question is how will your life change? Most of us jump right into what our loved one needs – from the right care and medical team to ensuring their home is fit for this next phase of life and everything else in between.

As you step fully into the role of a caregiver, you may experience a myriad of feelings such as stress, concern, confusion, resentment, fear, or even exhaustion. It is a position no one anticipates nor has experienced until they go through it. Conversely, the one needing care may also feel overwhelmed and guilty knowing their health problems are a burden for someone else.

When all your focus is on the care of another, it can be difficult (and not even feel possible) to step away from caregiving duties and care for yourself. However hard it may be, this is the only way you can ensure you continue to have the strength and energy to care for another.

Here are a few tips to help establish some balance, especially if you are just getting started in your caregiving journey.

Critical Decision Making

Have discussions with your loved one early on, so they can be part of crucial decisions related to health care directives before you need them. You may also wish to discuss and outline how they want to receive care when there is flexibility. This allows you to know what your loved one’s wishes are, and it alleviates the responsibility of making the decisions on your own.

Take Breaks

Each day, carve out breaks to be alone or do something just for you – take a short walk, read a book, watch a favorite show, or call a friend. Use these moments to de-stress. Even taking a few moments periodically throughout the day for some deep breathing, meditation, and mindfulness practices can do wonders.

Fuel Your Body

When you are meal planning for your loved one, include yourself as part of the equation. Prepare nutritious meals and snacks (or have someone prep them for you) for both of you to have on hand, especially when days are tougher.

Always have hydrating beverages close by, like a water bottle or warm cup of herbal tea. And add movement to your daily routine, such as getting fresh air on a walk or doing gentle yoga at night.

Find Support

Join a caregiver’s support group so that you can ask questions, lessen the feeling of isolation, share stories, and lean on others that may be going through similar situations. 

Get Help

Consider hiring a professional to help at home and allow you to take those much-needed breaks. You may also consider a consistent schedule with other family and friends to allow for a little time away. Respite stays at assisted living communities can also provide a wonderful time for your loved one and you to take a break. It can be arranged for just an afternoon or for several days, even weeks.

Consider Your Options

If caregiving begins to feel like too much, it is never too early to explore other options like an assisted living and memory care community. Doing your research early can alleviate stress down the road should you need help more promptly.

While it is important to be proactive and do your best to establish healthy routines early on, that is often easier said than done. Be extra mindful of key signs of burnout: lack of sleep, feeling physically and/or emotionally drained, being easily agitated (unlike your usual personality), seeing dramatic weight loss or weight gain. These are all signs you need to take better care of you.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What challenges are you facing as a caregiver for a loved one with dementia? Do you have any favorite self-care practices to help relieve stress? What new self-care practices will you implement into your everyday routine?

Here’s our honest thoughts.

No matter how old we are, it’s
always exciting to have something to look forward to. Working, enjoying retirement,
or a little of both. Anticipation is a lovely thing.

Every year, I set major goals (also
known as BHAGs, or Big Hairy Ass Goals) which allow me to plan for, train for,
and do what I love. By any measure, as we begin to face the end of our lives,
even if it is a few decades away, it makes sense to give ourselves permission
to do what we love.

This year is as wild as usual. But this is what puts the bird in my chest. It is most definitely not for everyone, nor is it a statement that anyone else should do the same. It does ask, what might give you joy? What will you give yourself permission to experience?

Comparisons Can Be a Bit Unfair

Some time ago, I wrote an article which offered up some of that perspective, and included a few tales of women who had gone on to do some pretty interesting things with their lives. One had become a trapeze artist in her 80s, for instance.

To quote my own words:

Whether that’s a different kind of work, a new skill or making a move to a new town makes no difference. The point is to point ourselves in a new direction to see where it takes us.

Anything
new that we begin breathes new life into our hearts and souls, and, in every
way imaginable, makes us feel young all over again.

I also wrote, “We begin where we are.” Life is always reinventing itself.

There Are No “Shoulds”

Of course,
no one has to go out and do adventure travel. Or become a trapeze artist. These
are just stories that delighted me and inspired me deeply. That’s why I shared
them – to inspire you to find something that breathes life into your very being.

That’s the
spirit of all these stories. Some won’t speak to you. Some will. The trick is
to not take it personally. What applies, drink it in. What doesn’t, just pass,
as in a lively game of bridge.

One
woman’s “Everest” might simply be getting up the courage to travel to the next
state to see the Grand Canyon for the first time.

And of
course, many have to deal with physical limitations, just as I do. One of my
closest friends, a woman in her 60s, just had a hip replacement. A lifetime
runner and skier, she has had to ratchet some of that back. She decided to
shift her focus.

Much of How We Age Is in Our Hands

Depending
on how you and I care for our aging bodies, we can exercise control over the process.
It’s not all dependent on genetics (actually, only a very small part of it has
to do with DNA) or the lucky draw.  

There are many articles saying
that exercise keeps our bodies strong. Some even go on to declare that skipping
a few decades in our middle years and returning to exercise later in life can gain
back the benefits we would have experienced had we never quit.

In fact,
the benefits last far
longer than we might have thought. You and I may not get our tiny waists back
(if we ever had one) but we can live longer, better, and fuller lives for it.

So, should
you start running marathons? Of course not – unless that’s what you want. But movement, of any kind, matters. It could
be Gentle Yoga, Pilates, or just walking. It doesn’t matter, as long as you do
it.

What Puts the Light into Your Life?

For some
of us, just getting out of the chair to go outside and garden sets the world on
fire. For others, it’s traipsing across Siberia by horse. Neither is a
statement of status, but a story of being alive and enjoying it. Each is full
of its own challenges, pains, hurts, heartaches, and losses.

The
question is, what determines a well-lived life for you?

We all
deteriorate somewhat over time. We all have to make allowances for injury (my
hand is up here) or periodic illness (my hand is also up here). But in no way
do those things have to prevent us from following our passion, setting goals,
and living a very full life.

It’s your life, your one wild and precious life, the only one you and I have.

Find
something or someone that inspires you personally. Ask how that speaks to the
bird in your chest. Then ask, what on earth is keeping me from giving myself
permission to do (as best I can, at this point in my life) what I most
passionately wish to do?

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What BHAG did you write this year? What is going to light up your life in a new way? How do you set goals that work for where you are, right now, that will give you joy? Let’s have a conversation!

What’s the bond between the brothers like now?

The tao that can be told
Is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
Is not the eternal Name.
Tao te Ching: 1;1

These words resonated within me the moment I read them. To me, they revealed something profound: that the deepest truths cannot be captured in words or names. Unlike other spiritual traditions that give the divine many names, Taoism suggests the ultimate reality is beyond naming altogether.

Many of us, journeying through our 60s and beyond, have accumulated a lifetime of knowledge and certainties. Taoism offers something refreshingly different: an invitation to embrace mystery and find wisdom in what we don’t know.

The Unnamed Path

Taoism, also spelled Daoism, is a philosophy from ancient China based on the Tao (the Way). What makes it unique is its insistence that the Tao cannot be defined or grasped intellectually. I find this liberating. After decades of trying to figure everything out, here I found a philosophy that celebrates the unknowable.

The tradition tells us that the Tao Te Ching was written by Lao-tzu, the “Old Master,” as he was leaving court life behind. The work’s 81 short chapters read like poetry, full of paradoxes and contradictions that somehow point to deeper truths.

The Power of Yielding

I would say that the most distinctive Taoist wisdom is Wu Wei. Often misunderstood as passive “going with the flow,” in truth Wu Wei is about strategic yielding and knowing when not to act. To put it in the kind of poetic terms that give Eastern philosophy such a beautiful understatement, it’s the wisdom of water wearing away stone, of soft overcoming hard.

I think of this whenever I see someone struggle with something like a jar lid or ketchup bottle. The harder the person tries, the more stuck it becomes. But when they relax and apply gentle, steady force, the jar opens easily, or the ketchup flows. This is Wu Wei: achieving more by forcing less.

If you’ve spent much of your lifetime pushing hard to achieve, Wu Wei offers a revolutionary approach. It’s not about giving up but discovering that gentleness can be more powerful than force.

Nature as Teacher

Another thing I love about Taoism is that unlike philosophies that look to abstract principles, Taoism finds wisdom in observing nature directly. Water especially embodies Taoist principles, because it yields to any container yet can carve through rock. It always seeks the lowest place, yet nothing is more essential to life.

The Useful Emptiness

One of the concepts of Taoism I find most intriguing is the value of emptiness. Lao-tzu points out that a bowl is useful because of its hollow space, a room because of its emptiness. Or, to give you my favourite metaphor of this kind, the space between the spokes makes the wheel.

In my view, this speaks powerfully to our life stage. We often fear the “empty nest,” the spaces left by retirement or loss. But Taoism suggests these empty spaces are where possibility lives. Without emptiness, there’s no room for anything new to enter.

Living the Paradox

As you’ll learn if you study Taoism, it delights in paradox: “The wise are not learned; the learned are not wise”; “When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly.” These paradoxes aren’t just clever wordplay, though. They point to a way of embracing life’s contradictions.

And embracing those contradictions, I believe, is particularly relevant as we age. We can be strong and vulnerable, wise and uncertain, grieving and grateful, all at once. Instead of choosing sides, Taoism invites us to hold opposites together. I for one have been grateful to accept the invitation!

The Uncarved Block

Taoists speak of “Pu”: the uncarved block, representing our original nature before society shaped us. That original nature is something we must discover and embrace, though the idea isn’t to allow yourself to lapse into childishness. Rather, in what I think makes for a subtle but profound distinction, it is to rediscover childlike wonder. After decades of being carved into roles – professional, parent, caregiver – we can return to our essential self.

Soft Overcoming Hard

“Nothing in the world is softer than water, yet nothing is better at attacking the hard and strong.” This Taoist principle transforms how we might approach challenges. Instead of meeting force with force, we can be like water: persistent, patient, finding the cracks.

What has helped me to appreciate the value of this principle is spending time with friends and loved ones who have faced serious illness. In my experience, the ones who fight hard often exhaust themselves, but the ones who are like water – flowing around obstacles, adapting, persisting gently – often fare better.

Action Through Non-Action

Wu Wei’s deepest teaching, in my humble opinion, is that we can accomplish more by doing less, so long, crucially, as when we do act, we do so at exactly the right moment. Like a skilled sailor who uses wind and current rather than fighting them, we learn to work with circumstances rather than against them.

What might this mean in practice? The examples I would give are waiting for the right moment to have a difficult conversation or recognizing when a problem will resolve itself without our interference.

The Mystery Remains

“Those who know don’t talk; those who talk don’t know.” In a world where millions of words of, to be quite frank, questionable worth are disgorged into the public domain every day by artificial intelligence and social media, Taoism values the wisdom of not-knowing. What we have here isn’t ignorance. No, it’s recognizing that life’s deepest truths can’t be captured in words or concepts.

For those of us who’ve spent decades accumulating knowledge, this is both challenging and freeing. This is because we can finally admit we don’t have all the answers – and that’s perfectly fine. The mystery remains, and that’s where the magic lives.

Taoism, then, offers something precious in our age of information overload: permission to trust the wordless wisdom we’ve developed over a lifetime. Like water that finds its way without maps or instructions, we too can navigate by feel, by intuition, by the unnamed knowing that comes with experience.

Questions for You:

Have you discovered the power of yielding rather than forcing? What has nature taught you about resilience? How do you make space for mystery and not-knowing in your life?