Reclaiming Joy in Your Day-to-Day: Micro-Moments for Caregivers

Caregiving can slowly shrink your identity.

Appointments. Medications. Advocacy. Logistics.

But you are more than a caregiver.

In Season 2, Episode 9 of The Caregiver Cup Podcast, we’re talking about something that often disappears in heavy seasons: joy.

Not big vacations.
 Not unrealistic positivity.
 Not pretending things aren’t hard.

But tiny, daily micro-moments of joy that help caregivers recharge, reset their nervous system, and protect their emotional health.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

✔️ Why joy is not selfish — it’s stabilizing
 ✔️ How chronic caregiver stress impacts your ability to feel light
 ✔️ The science behind why small positive moments build resilience
 ✔️ Practical categories of joy (music, rituals, sensory moments, laughter, identity joy)
 ✔️ A simple “3 J’s of Joy” framework you can use immediately
 ✔️ Reflection questions to help you rediscover what fuels you

Cathy shares a personal story from Denis’ stem cell transplant season — finding a quiet gazebo in the middle of hospital buildings and choosing to focus on spring buds, birds, and stillness. The situation didn’t change — but the moment did.

Because if caregiving takes up most of your day, joy has to live inside your day.

This episode will help you remember:

You are more than the hard things you manage.
 You are allowed to feel light in heavy seasons.
 And joy doesn’t wait for caregiving to end — it lives inside it.

🎧 Listen now and take one small step toward reclaiming joy in your caregiving journey.

Transcript

When Roles Shrink And Self Gets Lost

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode of the Caregiver Cup Podcast. It's Kathy here. We are in season two, and we're already into episode nine. And I want to start out this episode with something that might feel tender, something along the caregiving journey. That somewhere along this journey, our titles start to shrink. They start to change. Just think about it. We become a caregiver and we jump into the job. We become an appointment scheduler, a medication manager. We're advocating for our loved one. We're doing all these administrative things like insurance and billing and pre-authorizations. We're doing the nursing tasks. We're keeping a calendar and trying to keep on top of everything. We might be researching and on and on and on. And slowly that title can start to crowd the others, meaning our caregiving jobs, responsibilities start becoming our main plate of responsibilities, and we lose sight of ourselves because you all know behind that caregiving title, you may be a music lover. Think about you, a friend. Maybe you're a coworker, an artist, maybe you're a gardener, maybe you're a dreamer, maybe you're a sports fan or a music, an opera singer, maybe you're a coffee drinker. You're a woman with personality. You're a woman with history. You have your own preferences, you have your own quirks, you have your own strengths, you may have your own profession. You have a full identity, and you had one before caregiving, and you still have one now. It just may be a little bit different. It just sometimes gets buried under all of our caregiving responsibilities. And I have to tell you, today's topic is one of my favorite topics, especially when we're referring to caregivers, because this topic of joy, I truly believe joy is our fuel right now. It's not denial, it's not pretending things aren't hard, but our fuel, our fuel to keep us going. And you may have heard me talk about one of my favorite people, Hoda Copy. One thing I love about Hoda is how she finds light in heavy conversations, even in grief, even in hard season. She laughs, she tells stories, she looks for moments of joy. She doesn't ignore the hard. She just refuses to let it in or let it be the only thing in our room. Again, it's fuel for it. Joy is the fuel that keeps going, it fuel the fuel that stabilizes you, the fuel that helps you show up again tomorrow and the next day and the next day. Joy doesn't mean you don't care deeply. Joy means your heart still has oxygen. And today I want to talk about reclaiming joy, not in the big, unrealistic ways, not booking a vacation, however, we may all want one, and not pretending everything is fine, but in tiny daily micro moments. Because if caregiving takes up most of your day, joy has to live inside of your day. And again, in those micro moments, and you deserve that. Let's talk about why this matters now, because joy isn't fluff, it's not denial, it's not pretending things aren't hard, like I said. Joy is not ignoring reality or minimizing your pain or forcing gratitude when you don't feel like it. Joy isn't something very different. I mean, joy is something very different. Joy is a nervous system reset. Joy isn't a reminder of your identity. Joy is a signal that you are more than the crisis. And there's research behind this. Her name is Barbara Frederickson. She's a psychologist, and she talks about something called the broader and built theory. It's simple terms. Positive emotions, even small ones, broaden your thinking. They help you uh help your brain see options, they increase creativity, they increase resilience, they reduce the stress response. Even micro moments of joy can lower cortisol levels. That stress hormone that runs high in caregivers. Laughter increases endorphins. Music regulates the nervous system. Gratitude journaling has been shown to improve sleep and emotional regulation. So this isn't about being happy all the time. It's about giving your nervous system relief. I know that I threw a lot at you, but I want you to grab bits and pieces of this because caregiving keeps your body in a low-grade stress state. Think about appointments, uncertainty, advocating, watching someone you love suffer. Your body needs micro releases. And you can't usually get that, but joy can provide that. So let me make this personal and share a little bit. During hospital sessions, I walked the halls with music in my ears, or I walked to and from Dennis's hospital uh room. Not because it wasn't serious, it was very serious, but music steadied me. I journaled gratitude in waiting rooms, not because I wasn't scared, but because it anchor me. Dennis and I shared funny memories even in the chemo chairs, even in his hospital stay. We laughed, not because cancer was funny, but because seriousness cannot be the only thing in a room and in that season that we were in. And here's what I noticed: those small moments didn't change the diagnosis, they changed capacity. They gave me just enough emotional oxygen to keep going, and that matters. Because if caregiving takes up most of your day, joy has to live inside of your day, not wait for a vacation, not wait for 10 minutes at the end of the day. You cannot postpone all light until after this is over. Some caregiver seasons last years. You might be one of these listening there that you feel like you've been a caregiver for years and years and years. Some caregivers, caregiving situations last for decades. Joy isn't the reward at the end, it's the fuel in the middle, it's the fuel every day. If caregiving takes up most of your day, joy has to live inside your day, not waiting for vacation. And that is not selfish. It's science, it's sustainability, it's survival. And so I this is the favorite part of my piece here that I want to talk about because all right now we get into the fun stuff, and this is where we stop talking about theory and start talking about real life because joy doesn't have to be big, it doesn't have to be expensive, it doesn't have to be planned six months in advance or even a week in advance. It lives in micro moments like tiny shifts or small rituals or five-minute resets. And let's break these down into categories. And I don't have all of the every single micro moment possible. So you're gonna be able to take some of the things that you hear and say, that doesn't work for me, but this does. And it's just gonna be able to spark your pieces. But I broke it into categories. The first one is music moments. Music is one of the fastest emotional shifters we have. For me, it's 80s music. For me, it's also listening to music that I listened to while I was growing up as a kid. Sometimes 70s music, sometimes my mom and dad's 50s music. It was things like that. There is something about turning on like an 80s playlist while I'm cleaning or driving that instantly changes my energy. Not because my situation changed, but because my nervous system did. It almost sucks me right into one song, can shift my mood. One song I can dance in the kitchen for a break. One song in the car before you drive, or you walk into an appointment, or you go grocery shopping, one worship shop, a worship song on a drive might give you hope and inspiration. One funny podcast episode that makes you laugh out loud. Music interprets heaviness, it reminds you who you are. Sometimes joy is really three minutes long, and that's gonna be enough for you today. Yeah, it might be. Another category is I want you to think about ritual joy. Joy often lives in repetition, it's the small things you do on purpose. My super hot black coffee in my mug. Yes, I cannot just drink coffee out of the pot. I have to throw it in the microwave for 30 more seconds. So it's like piping hot. It just and it has to be black. That's my ritual. It might be lighting a candle in the morning. It might be five minutes of journaling with my hot black cup of coffee. It might be a short nightly refres uh reflection practice as I'm uh rolling back the covers on my bed, as I'm brushing my teeth. I might do listen to my music, or I might say a prayer while I'm doing that. These aren't dramatic, but they're grounding. They say to you, this moment is mine. Caregiving can feel reactive all day long. Rituals, like ritual joys, give you something predictable, something steady, something chosen. Maybe for you it's doing the dishes. You have to do the dishes every night. Maybe there's something that you can do with your dishes that brings you joy. Maybe it's finally I can go ahead and put my earbuds in for a little bit, do the dishes and catch up on my favorite podcast, or listen to my music, or talk to a friend. And when you choose joy, whether it be music joy or ritual joy that we've talked about now, it feels powerful. Okay. The another category is sensory joy. Joy doesn't always shout at you. Sometimes it whispers. Maybe it's stepping outside for fresh air to get the sun in your face or the cold or the warm air. Uh, for me, it's walking Lucy and Eddie. I I find that I don't want to go sometimes, but when I'm out there walking with them in the fresh air, I saw my first robin yesterday. We see bunny rabbits, we see, you know, the blue sky, the sunrises, whatever. It's sensory joy. It might be putting your hands in the garden. I'm I love that. Another one for me is sitting in sunlight for five minutes drinking my cup of coffee, standing on my porch, or when my mom was in hospice and when I was rotating with my brother and sister, that she had a patio deck and I would go stand out there for five minutes. Maybe it's climbing in fresh sheets at night, and that brings you joy. Sometimes joy is just comfort, sometimes it's quiet peace. It might be the nurse while you're in patient hospitals while Dennis was in patient hospital, and she said, Do you want me to grab you, you know, a drink? And I said, Yeah, that would be really nice. And I and I said, Okay, I'm gonna, you know, sit with Dennis and have this hot cup of tea or whatever it would be. And when your days feel loud with responsibility, quiet comfort becomes sacred. Okay, another category is laughter and connection. I chunk those two together. This one matters. So many caregivers I've really interviewed on podcasts or talked to, they talk about humor. They share inside jokes with their loved ones, they watch funny shows together. Or now I show a lot of funny videos to dentist. They send memes to their siblings or their friends, or their friends send them back to them. They laugh in hospital rooms. You have to find humor in little things so that keeps you going. Joy can coexist with your loved one's condition. For example, joy can coexist with chemo, joy can coexist or coexisted with me with hospice. Joy can coexist with uncertainty. Laughter doesn't minimize the situation, it humanizes it. It says, We are still us. What did you love before caregiving? For me, I swear I am the sports freak in the house. My husband isn't. I love sports, I love books, uh, decorating, reading, planning parties. Oh my gosh, I love doing that. Bowling, maybe it's Pinterest boards or podcasting or gardening. What is your identity? I just recently started, I was painting for a while, but now I'm starting this diamond painting where you you stick these beads onto a board and it's kind of like painting, but you put the beads on it, it becomes beautiful things. And I'm doing like hanging, um hanging uh hummingbirds, and they're you can it with little hooks on the end and beads on the bottom where you can hang it from a window or your your car mirror or whatever it would be. And I'm I'm finding it so so fun just to go ahead and it gives me, it doesn't, it uses my hands, so I'm not on social media or on my phone, and I can either listen to music or I can do it while I'm watching TV. You don't need to reinforce the full hobby, you don't need a three-hour block. Think about just a micro version of it. That's why I bought these small little little hummingbirds because I could work on it for just five minutes and it and I have it on a desk and I could go back to it. Uh so whatever it would be, you can, you know, if you like to go ahead and and watch a sport, maybe you can get your loved one to watch it, whatever it would be. If your loved one, if if your loved one, or I'm sorry, if you love reading, just do one chapter. If you love sports, watch one quarter. If you love decorating, just rearrange a shelf for now. If you love planning, plan a tiny theme dinner with your loved one or invite somebody over, and I'll just kind of give you a distraction if it's not too much. You are more than the crisis. Identify uh I'm sorry, identity joy reminds you of that. So think about what you've loved and what you've done, uh what you've loved in the past. Could you do a micro version of that, more or less what I'm getting to? So those are the categories. Let's bring this together. Here's what I want you to hear. Joy does not require permission from your circumstances, it requires intention for you, not big intention, just tiny intention. Because if caregiving takes up most of your day, joy has to live inside of it. You you're not gonna wait for after. And I I I promise you this: these micro moments, they add up, and it's just like, like I said, a fuel or a spark. They stabilize you, they soften you, they remind you you're still here. For the longest time, I when I was um taking care of my mom and Dennis and stuff, I couldn't paint. I couldn't do the diamond painting. So, you know what I did instead? I got an adult coloring book. And I colored for five minutes while sitting with with Dennis in the hospital, or put it on my nightstand before bed, and I I scribbled a little bit on it while I was going for bed. And that mattered. So let's let's get honest here for a minute. If joy is fueled, if joy stabilizes us, if joy helps our nervous system, then why do we stop allowing joy to come in? Why is it one of the first things to disappear? Caregiven often stops joy because we feel guilty, we think we don't deserve it, we think joy means we aren't talking or uh taking the situation seriously. We're simply too tired to initiate it, and there's something else happening underneath that, and you know what it is? Chronic stress, which changes the brain. I'm just gonna take a drink of water here in a minute. Research shows that long-term stress, like ongoing caregiving stress, increases our cortisol levels, can re and can reduce our ability to feel pressure. It can dull the reward system in the brain. That's that means something is not what I'm trying to say, it that means sometimes it's not that you don't want joy, it's that your nervous system is stuck in survival mode. When you're in survival mode, think about what your brain does. Your brain prioritize prioritizes problem solving, it scans for dangers, it anticipates the next crisis. Joy to you doesn't feel urgent in that situation, so it gets Out. It leaves your brain. This is very similar to exercise. We're the first to skip it. I'm talking for myself. Maybe you are more disciplined than me, but I'm sure not. My brain in times of busyness, it'll say, I don't have time. I have too much to do. I'll do it when things calm down. And then what happens? We feel sluggish. I feel heavier. I feel more stress. And joy works the same way. It feels optional until we realize it's essential. It's what we need. There are also statistics that show caregivers experience significantly high levels or high rates of stress, anxiety, and even depression compared to non-caregivers. Studies suggest that 40% of caregivers report high emotional stress. And I think that's a low stat. When you're in that state, joy doesn't feel neutral, it feels indulgent. But here's the reframe I want you to hold on to. Joy is not feeling selfish, it's stabilizing, like I said. Joy regulates your nervous system, joy lowers your stress hormone. Joy increases resilience. Joy improves emotional flexibility. Just I want you to think of something really bizarre right now. Just think about it if you had, and I want you to picture this. You had a big tree in your backyard with a roped swing in your backyard. And every time you felt increasing stress, you went out and swang on that swing for just a few minutes. And you just let the breeze flow through your hair and pump your legs and just did that. Something beautiful happens when you allow it. Now we don't all have the luxury of a swing, or maybe that's not your cup of tea, but whatever it would be. When we feel joy, your loved one feels it too. I've seen it with Dennis. When I'm lighter, he's lighter. When I laugh, he softens. Energy is contagious. Your steadiness becomes the room's steadiness. And here's the deeper truth. Allowing joy doesn't mean you aren't taking care caregiving seriously. You're not concerned about your loved one. It's it's not true. It means you're taking sustainability seriously. You can have both. You can be responsible and finding moments of joy. You can be realistic and light. You can be serious and still find some laughter or maybe even a smile. Joy does not cancel grief. Joy does not cancel pain. And sometimes it makes the hard parts survivable. Let me tell you what that looked like for me. Last year, around this time, Dennis was going through his stem cell transplant pre-process. We were getting all ready to go to Freighter. And the pre-process meant rounds and rounds of meeting with doctors and getting all of the pretests done and more chemotherapy. It involved isolation precautions and long days and uncertainty. And yet it was spring. The trees were budding, flowers were just peeking out of the ground. The birds were loud, like they were celebrating something. And when we got to the housing house, Kathy's house, I noticed there was a gazebo outside, probably down the hall and probably 30 feet from the back door. It was nothing fancy. It was a beautiful uh uh wooden gazebo with chairs in it. And all around it was big hospital buildings, parking ramps, cars driving by. So it wasn't really quiet, but it looked peaceful. Um, and so I but when I sat in the gazebo and looked out over, they had a pond there with with um geese and birds and different things like that and ducks, something shifted. For a few moments, I let myself ignore the hospital background. I focused on the smell of the air, the sound of the birds, the tiny green buds, the sunlight on the water. The transplant process didn't change, the diagnosis didn't change, the logistics didn't change, but for that moment, the moment did. And the moment recharged me. I didn't change the situation, I changed myself for one moment, and that was enough. During really intense seasons, I've learned to reach for small moments of joy, and maybe you find your place, maybe you find your mindset, maybe you find you know an action, not big plans, not elaborate outings, just micro joy, like a song, a walk, a five a quiet five minutes, journaling in for one page. But when things feel more routine, a little more controllable, then you can stretch your joy out a little longer or wider. I reach when things were a little bit calmer, I reached out to family and friends. Asked them, can we take a walk? Can we go to lunch? That's when I got home. A fun night out, a movie, maybe, a musical, a special event, because joy doesn't always have to be quiet. Sometimes it's shared, and I don't want to lose sight of something important. Joy can live within with your loved one too. It's not always separate. Sometimes it's with your loved one, maybe it's a short walk together, maybe it's playing cards, maybe it's working a puzzle together, maybe it's watching my husband. We watched Survivor together. We did that through his whole transplant process too. And when I couldn't be up in the hospital with him, we would talk while Survivor's going on or text and saying, What did you think? Oh my gosh, what did you think? And doing that, or maybe it's laughing at small at something small. Just last weekend, Dennis and I went to my granddaughter's school musical for a couple of hours. We weren't in care. I wasn't in caregiving mode. He wasn't in in um post-transplant process. We were grandparents. We were smiling, we were clapping, we were whispering comments to each other. That was joy. Not because everything is easy, but because we're still living inside the season. That's what I want you to hear. Joy isn't waiting at the end of caregiving, it's tucked inside it. And sometimes you have to look for, have to look for it in a gazebo next to a parking ramp. Sometimes you have to find it in a hospital hallway. Sometimes you create it within with a playlist in the kitchen while doing dishes. But when you find it, it steadies you and steadies and steadiness changes everything. All right, let's make this simple again. Because when caregivers hear add joy, they immediately think, oh my gosh, one more thing on my plate, right? So I want you to give yourself small, memorable, and doable things. I call it the three J's of joy. And I do that so maybe you can remember it. Just five minutes is the first one. It's the J, just five minutes. And if you can't do five minutes, just one minute, just two minutes. And don't think of it as an hour, not a weekend away, not a major life overhaul, just a few minutes. Sitting outside, listening to one song, reading one chapter, chapter, standing in sunlight, calling a friend, watching one funny clip, whatever it would be. Maybe for you it's a five-minute nap. I'm gonna close my eyes for five minutes. Caregiving often waits for big blocks of time. And caregivers, I should say, wait for big blocks of time. And you know what? We may not have that. And we talked about it. Joy works the same way, and small doses, repeated consistencies are powerful. And here's something important: your brain will respond to even short positive experiences. Research shows if one, if only one, takes seconds of consciousness, notice a positive moment and notice how it's going to shift you. Just a few minutes, just five minutes, it can count. Okay, the second three J's of joy is join it to something else. Join it to something else. Caregiving days are full. So don't add joy as a separate event. Do it with something else. Music and dishes, a podcast and a walk, lighting a candle while you're doing your morning meds or while you're winding down for the night. Gratitude journal while your loved one is getting labs drawn. Sunlight and taking a phone call. An audible book while you're driving. Or maybe you buy a cup of coffee while you're picking up and doing your errands, whatever it would be. Or if you like soda or whatever, I'm I'm a coffee lover, so I'm kind of biased here. You're already doing the task, just in view something else into it. This is how joy becomes sustainable. And for you, maybe maybe if there's too much noise and you just turn off everything and you just drive and roll your window down and listen to the outside. It doesn't require more time. This one doesn't. It just requires your attention. So join it with something else is a great starter. And then the last one, the three joys, is journal. If you're already journaling, journal it. Journal your joy, not in a compliment compli, I can't talk a complicated way. Just note it, name it, savor it. I love the way the air smelled today. Maybe that's one. Or that song lifted me up. Because sometimes you walk into an appointment and they have some music playing, and you're like, oh, I love that song. Maybe I laughed in the kitchen today. Maybe the sunlight felt good. For me right now, my little joy is I'm planting seeds of flowers this year ahead of time, and my my plants are growing. Every time I look at them, I'm like, I have geraniums and marigolds growing right now. Um, I felt steady, maybe you say, for a moment. Joy grows when acknowledged. There's research in positive psychology that shows we have an when we intentionally reflect reflect on positive moments, we amplify them. Your brain starts looking for more. I said this in many moons of podcasts ago, but you can train your brain. And if you train your brain, it's it's as simple as, okay, you're going to notice all the white cars. You're going to be able to see how many white cars you see, or you look for yellow doors. All of a sudden, you're going to notice front doors that are yellow. Just like joy. If you start saying and recognizing and practicing joy, you're going to start, your brain's going to start looking for more joy. You train it to notice. Caregivers can train your brain to scan for problems. Journaling retrains it to scan for light, scan for joy. And that doesn't mean you're naive. It makes you balanced. Bring it together. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, start here. Just five minutes. Join it with something or journaling it. That's that's it. Not a personality change, not a life transformation, not something added to your plate, just a micro moment. A micro moment to remind you, you are still here. You are still alive inside of this. You are more than the hard parts as well. So before we close, I want to invite you to pause. Pause right now. Not to fix something, not to plan, not to overhaul your life. Just reflect. I want you to think about, and you can write these in your journal if you want to. If you don't take these on a walk, I want you to think about these. I'm sorry, I'm reading my notes here. I want you to reflect on these questions here. You, if you want to reflect them on a walk, if you want to reflect them in a journal, or you want to just think about them now. Sorry, I have tons of notes, and my notes are not this time, they're not nicely written out. They're like scribbled all over the place. So I'm just going to give you the three questions to ask yourself. Um, when was the last time I truly laughed? Here's a reflection for you. It's not a polite smile, not a quick chuckle, a real laugh that softened your shoulders, that maybe even made you cry, that maybe whatever it would be. And it could be your loved one saying something totally weird and you just laugh and you're laughing and you're laughing, or maybe it's something that you just watched. When's the last time? Another question what used to bring me, what used to bring you joy before caregiving? If you think of days or things that you've done before caregiving that brought you joy, was it music? Was it reading? Was it a a musical or sporting event? Was it doing something outside? Was it meeting up with a friend for lunch or coffee? Was it maybe you're decorating or maybe whatever? Was it planning something fun? What was what used to bring you joy? Maybe you volunteered, whatever it would be. Is there a micro version of this that you can still do that's going to bring you a spark or a little fuel of joy? And then the my last question, oh, actually, I have my last two questions. I have one, two more here. For the third third one being, what tiny micro moment of joy could I add this week? That's not going to be overwhelming, that's not going to be an added task. Maybe it's one song. Maybe it's one walk. Maybe it's lighting a candle or a scent. Maybe it's texting or calling somebody. Maybe it's finally looking at that book and saying, I'm gonna read a chapter. It's not a weekend away, but just one moment. And my last question is, what could I s where could I soften my day just a little? Not change it completely, not escape it, just soften it a little. Maybe it is. Maybe it's instead of pushing through and doing one more thing today, I'm not going to do it. I'm gonna soften it a little bit and just go sit outside for a little bit. Sometimes we think joy has to be loud. Sometimes it's just choosing to take the moment gentler. And as you reflect, don't judge what comes up right now when you're thinking about these. If you realize that you haven't laughed in a long time, you're not a failure. That's just information. That information gives you power. Take these questions with you this week and just reflect on them. And if you want to laugh, then maybe you just kind of look for moments of laughter. Maybe you scroll some videos, or maybe you know, you eventually look for, you know, a comedy show to watch, whatever it would be. Let them walk with you today and let let them walk beside you because joy doesn't always need to be chased. Sometimes it just needs to be noticed. And you know what I when I this that's been our theme with uh uh season two is just really take one small action step towards it, such as a small word, or and and just carry that in the heavy seasons with you. And remember the three-letter word joy can be fuel for you. The little things that keep you going, these are the little things that can recharge your battery, it's a little thing that can fend off negative mindset. And you know, maybe you're putting something on your um phone screensaver that brings you joy. Maybe it's a picture of your grandchild. Maybe it's a fun quote or a meme that you just, you know, pee your pants looking at. I don't know. Think of something that you can always do. Maybe it's putting a sticky note on your mirror while you're brushing your teeth that is going to go ahead and give you some inspiration. Uh you know, maybe it's calling your friend and saying, I need to add small moments of joy. Do you have anything that you have in mind? Maybe it's re-watching a favorite show. Oh my gosh, you know what I did the other day is I watched the Brady Bunch, an episode of the Brady Bunch again. And I I grew up that with that as a kid. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm laughing at it because it it was so simple and so quirky, but I watched it. Maybe it's buying flowers at the grocery store and putting those where you can see them every day. It's one small act because joy comes, it compounds. Tiny moments add up, and you don't need to transform your life. You just need to soften one corner a day. So before we close again, I want to say this clearly: you are more than the hard things you manage, you are more than appointments and medication charts and insurance calls. You are allowed to feel light, even in heavy seasons. Joy does not mean you're ignored, you're ignoring reality. It means Means you're protecting your humanity. And if you think about the entire season that we've been going through here, we've talked about rhythm and we talked about boundaries and we've talked about protecting your mental state and space. We've talked about building support. And now we're talking about the fuel, and that's joy because rhythm keeps you steady, boundaries protect your time, mental space protects your peace. Support protects your capacity, and joy fills it all. Or I'm sorry, fuels it all. Not fills it all, but fuels it all. It reminds you who you are. Joy stabilizes your nervous system and recharges your battery. Joy pushes back against the slow creep of negativity that can impact your health. Caregiving may shape your days, but joy reminds you you are who you are. Or maybe that this is the line you carry with you. This is one maybe you want to write down and put on a sticky note somewhere. Joy doesn't wait for caregiving to end, it lives inside of us. Yes, joy lives inside of us. We cannot wait for care for caregiving to end because our health will suffer. And you deserve to have joy inside of it. Even here, even now, even in this season. So, my friend, I wish you joy. I wish you rhythm. I wish you peace. Finding those small moments of joy today, tomorrow, the next day, they will make an impact and they will refuel you. And there's going to be some days where you can't find joy. You just can't find it. And you are in the darkest days. But just remember, you'll you can find it the following day. If you fall off the bandwagon, you can get back on it because joy will always be there in all different categories. So I'd love to hear from you again. When you um get done listening to this podcast, remember there's a text at the bottom. Click on that and tell me your small moments of joy. And hopefully in the next few weeks, I'll share some of those on this podcast. Bye for now.