Caregiving Your Way: The Small Shifts That Change Everything (Season 2 Finale)

Season 2 of The Caregiver Cup Podcast has been all about one powerful idea:

Caregiving your way.

Caregiving often begins suddenly. You step in, respond to needs, and do whatever it takes to support the person you love. But over time, many caregivers find themselves living a rhythm they never intentionally chose — one that can leave them exhausted, overwhelmed, and wondering how to sustain the journey.

In this Season 2 finale, Cathy reflects on the powerful lessons shared throughout the season and the voices of caregivers who reached out with their stories.

Together, we revisit three meaningful shifts that can help caregivers create a steadier caregiving rhythm:

• Allowing support instead of carrying everything alone
 • Reclaiming small moments of joy in everyday life
 • Protecting your energy with healthy boundaries

Cathy also shares inspiring messages from caregivers across the country who are navigating their own caregiving journeys while balancing work, family, and emotional challenges.

This episode is a reminder that caregiving doesn’t have to follow a single path.

Every caregiver’s story is different.

Every situation is unique.

But even small shifts — asking for help, protecting your time, reclaiming joy — can create meaningful change.

As Season 2 comes to a close, Cathy invites you to reflect on one simple question:

What is one small shift you want to carry forward in your caregiving journey?

Because caregiving your way isn’t about perfection.

It’s about making intentional choices that sustain both you and the person you love.

And if you’re listening today, remember this:

You are doing meaningful work.
 You are showing up with love.
 And you are not alone.

Season 3 will continue the conversation by exploring the deeper emotional seasons of caregiving — burnout, grief, identity shifts, and how caregivers refill their cup when it spills.

Transcript

Season Finale Thank You

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hello, my friend, and welcome. This is the final episode of season two of the Caregiver Cup podcast. And it's Kathy here, and I want to start with something really simple. And that's a huge thank you. Thank you for walking through the season with me. Season two was all about something many caregivers don't realize they're allowed to do. And that is caregiving your way. Because caregiving often starts for us. It starts we have to just step in, we have to respond, we have to handle things. And before long, we're living a rhythm that we never intentionally chose. This season has been about slowing down and asking, what if caregiving could be steadier? What if we could create a rhythm that really protects our energy, our mental space, our joy, and other support systems? And some and something else has been on my mind lately. Over the years, I've spent, I'm laughing because I've recorded this piece right here several times and I still hiccup it. So I'm just gonna go with it. Because and sometimes, and and and something else has been on my mind lately. And maybe it's just because I wrote it weird. But over the years, I've spent tons of times in the hospitals, in the waiting rooms, in hallways, in clinics, and you name it. And everywhere I go, you see caregivers. I see caregivers. Sometimes we recognize each other right away because we can relate to them. Maybe it's somebody walking in with a notebook or a folder ready to take notes into an appointment, and some or someone sitting quietly beside their loved one. Maybe they're having a conversation, maybe they're quiet, maybe it's someone pacing the hallways while they're waiting for their loved one for their test, or they're just getting up and trying to move to keep their energy up. And over the years, I've started noticing something. You know what it is? No two caregivers look the same. Yeah, we could get into all of the dynamics of what it looks like, but I want to get a little bit uh deeper because we're all doing this our own way. And I'm I envision people, just think about if we could envision people walking the hallways or we see other caregivers and there's these cartoon bubbles around them, and we could we could be this medium that looks into them and tries to figure out what they actually do outside of caregiving or what they're going through. It would be really neat to go ahead and analyze. Now, this this is just the quirk side of Kathy. Can you imagine you'd walk into a wait waiting room and see these bubbles popping out of the caregiver? It would say one bubble would say caregiver, the next bubble would say mother, the next bubble would say daughter, the next bubble would say medication manager. The next bubble could say mean that they're professionals and an accountant. You see another caregiver and you see caregiver, you see daughter, you see advocate, you see exhausted, and they're exhausted today. You see another bubble saying, Still, but I'm still taking a walk today. Okay, so that might be a one. You see another one where a bubble says caregiver again, but then you see spouse, and they you even see that they're married 25 years. You can also see a bubble that says running on coffee. You could see another bubble saying, I stayed up and Googled symptoms until 2 a.m. You could see another bubble saying still trying to stay hopeful. Maybe you see another caregiver and it says caregiver for the bubble, another bubble, friend, you see another bubble saying line dancer, you see another bubble saying stressed and struggling with time today, and you see another bubble saying, but still finding hope and moments of joy. You might see those. If we could see the bubbles above people's heads, or maybe even our head, we'd realize something very quickly. There isn't one way to do caregiving. There is not one caregiver that looks the same. There are thousands of ways. Because every caregiver is balancing a different life, a different family, and a different set of responsibilities. And that realization is exactly what inspired me to write this season or to you know to put out 11 episodes about caregiving your way. So over the past few weeks, we've talked about a lot. In episode eight, which was just three episodes ago, we talked about building a support system blueprint. What would that blueprint look like, similar to building a home? Episode eight or episode nine, we talked about reclaiming joy and in everyday moments, just little moments. Last episode, we talked about choosing your yeses and protecting your no's because the season was all about boundary setting. Each F episode offered a different tool, but tools only matter if we use them. So today, in our final wrap-up of season two, we're talking about a moment to reflect and then turn that reflections into continued action because caregiving your way isn't just an idea, it's something we build one small choice at a time. And you know what? I don't know if we talk about it, but I want to just do this plug quick. And you know what? We're gonna try small steps, and sometimes they're not gonna work, and so we try something new. One of the biggest things I've learned over my caregiving journey and through hearing so many of your stories, whether you're a podcast listener or you see me on Instagram or you respond to my emails, is caregiving doesn't look the same for you and I. It looks totally different. If we lined up uh 10 people, we all do caregiving differently. We all walk a different road. So we're balancing caregiving with a full-time job. Some of us are retired and caregiving has been our primary focus now. Some of us are raising our kids while we're caring for an aging parent, and that's called the sandwich caregiving generation. Some of uh you are caring for your spouse, but some of you are still caring for your parent, a sibling, a child, or even a close friend. Some of you are caregiving for a neighbor. And each of us, each of these roles brings different emotions, different dynamics with whom we're caring for, different responsibilities, different daily realities. Your personal circumstances shape your caregiving experience, your professional real responsibilities shape it too, you know, because some of us can't quit our job to caregiving, or we want to keep our career and do caregiving at the same time. Some caregivers are juggling meetings and deadlines and even work travel while coordinating doctor's appointments and medications and home health care and so on. Others have stepped away from our work or reduced our hours in order to be present for the person that we love. And then there are health situations that can be incredibly different as well. Some of us are providing care at home every day with our loved one that we live with, or we've moved in our parent or our child into our home. Some of us are advocating hospital stays along hallways and waiting rooms. Some of us are caregivers to a family member or a loved one in a long-term facility. Some of us are coordinating care from afar, making phone calls and managing appointments and advocating from another state or city. Some of us are walking alongside of our loved ones through hospice care. And then some of us, if you think about it, some of our loved ones have our chronic illnesses, which means they're over time. Some of us know that our loved one has a terminal illness and nothing is going to improve. But then there are some caregivers that are doing an injury and caregiving for their loved one through an injury or surgeries or long recovery seasons. So caregiving is so, so intense. Some of us are doing it short, a short-term stint, but intense. Some of us are doing long marathon caregiving requiring constant adjustment along the way. And because of all these different circumstances, there is no one perfect caregiving formula. There is no checklist that works for everyone in every situation. But there is something powerful about building a caregiving rhythm that works for you. Not based on what someone else tells you is the ideal formula or looks like. Tammy is caring for her husband, and I'm not sure what PSP stands for, but I'm assuming it's definitely chronic. And she says it's declining rapidly. At the same time, she's maintaining her full-time job. Wow, Tammy, and managing their horse farm on her own. She wrote something that I want to that really stuck with me, and I want to read it to you because it's simple, but it's powerful. She says the demands feel impossible for one human being. Your words helped me breathe and reminded me that doing my best is enough. And Tammy, what great advice. You have to breathe, and it reminds me that we're doing our best, and that's enough. And that's the reality, man, many, many caregivers are living. Balancing responsibilities feel enormous. And while showing up with love and dedication every day, caregivers are caring so much. You and I are carrying so much that people see, that people don't see, I mean. And yet we're keeping up, or we're trying to keep up, or we're deciding what is priority and what isn't priority. And that's exactly why this season has been about something so important. And I don't want you all to forget about the fact because when Tammy said it feels impossible for one human being, I want you to hear this, Tammy, and I want others to hear this. You have permission to ask for support. And if you can't find the support, you have permission to just do enough. You have permission to protect your energy. You have permission to allow joy to still exist in the middle of caregiving. Because caregiving your way doesn't mean doing it alone. And hopefully you can find something that will help. And if it's not a body, maybe it's an efficiency, maybe it's saying no to something else. Um, when I was working full-time Pam uh Tammy, I went ahead and talked to my team and said, I'm juggling a lot with my situations. And so my team allowed me and granted me grace on occasions as well, or helped me through deadlines and so on. It means making intentional choices about the things that help sustain the journey. Because a lot of us are our journey isn't just a short stint, it's a marathon. And that's what we've been exploring this season for a long time. So when I read the messages like Tammy and soon to be others, I'm gonna read for you. I'm reminded why this season mattered so much. Caregivers are carrying so much responsibilities, emotions, uncertainty. And often we're trying to figure out while we're figuring out all of this while we've we're living it. And that's really what season two has been about. Not adding more to your plate. We can't go ahead and stop and hit the rewind button and do it again. We just have to move through the season and we're stumbling and making mistakes or realizing things along the way. We we don't want to add more to our plate, and we're trying to figure out what we can do. But and this season, we're and and with these suggestions, I don't want you to add more to your plate. I want to help you build a steadier way through caregiving, a rhythm that protects your energy and supports a person you love. And before we close into uh before we close the season, I want to talk and want to bring up three small shifts we've talked about already, but I want to bring them up again because I don't want these small shifts to become complicated. I just want you to start hearing these mindset shifts over and over again because sometimes you need to, as adults, we need to hear it three to seven times before it sinks in. This is the this is the adult educator in me that I did for many years in my corporate job. And so I wanted to bring this back. The first shift that we I want to bring back again is protecting your energy. And we rarely give ourselves permission to protect our energy, but caregivers are used to pushing through. We rush, we squeeze it in, we power through exhaustion, but I'm telling you, it's gonna catch up with you. But protecting your energy doesn't mean you're doing less caring. It means being more intentionable, intentional about how you move through your day. One listener wrote to me, and I think it was Patty, but if it wasn't, I didn't write it down. But one listener said to me, This week, I'm protecting my energy. I'm reminding myself that I can move at a reasonable pace during the day. I don't have to rush. And if I don't get a good night's sleep, I reassess my plan for the next day to see what can wait. And I as I was reading this, this is a Rose. So thank you, Rose. She talked about um, you know, she doesn't have to rush. And each day you want to assess, saying, if you woke up dog tired, do I really have to do these things today? Or what are my priorities? I love this. This is exactly what we talked about in episode 10: choosing your yeses and protecting your no's and giving yourself permission to adjust when you realize your you need your energy and what your when your energy is needed. Shift number two talks about reclaiming joy. And and really, this is something caregivers often feel guilty about. Yeah, joy. But joy doesn't wait until caregiving end. It has to live inside of the days where you're living right now, and often it shows up in really small ways. One listener, and her name is Kathy. She smells it a little bit differently from me, but thank you, Kathy. She shared something that made me smile. She told me she stopped watching the news or doom scrolling on her phone. Instead, she started started going to mass every week and setting up lunch dates with close friends. And she said something really simple but powerful. She said what a huge different difference it had made. And if you think about it, what could you do that would make a huge difference? Is it uh I I call my sister twice a week. And sometimes it's 10 minutes, sometimes it's an hour, whatever we decide to talk about. And it's nothing, it might be something really silly. And we talked about if you could live a decade of your life differently. We talked about that one night, and it was just so fun. It was something different, or have you watched the show? But you you want to think of what you could do instead of maybe it's doom scroll scrolling through the news, or it's something that you do that you want to do. Maybe at night, instead of you falling asleep in bed, you're throwing in an extra load of wash or you're doing something. No, think about what could make a huge difference. These are micro shifts that we talked about in episode nine, small changes, but meaningful ones. Because joy doesn't erase the hard parts of caregiving, but it refuels the caregiver who is carrying them. And maybe a small shift is listening to your favorite music or reading a fun book in your bed before you fall asleep. The third shift is honoring your energy. And this is a little bit what Rose talked about before when she was talking about if she wasn't feeling it. But caregivers often expect themselves to operate at the same level every day. But that's not how life is or caregiving works. One listener, Rose, again, she shared something that really resonated with me. She told me about a Pilates instructor, instructor she had who would say, Move as today's body will allow. Move as today's body will allow. And Rosa said that perspe that perf the that perspective really helped her think about caregiving differently. Some days we have more energy, some days we have less energy, some days we're emotionally strong, and other days we're simply doing the best we can. By honoring your energy in the moment, allows you to move through the day with more grace. Instead of fight, fighting yourself, you work with what you're you work with where you are today. And Rosa, I want to thank you for that Pilates instructor's advice. And this is the part I want to talk next about where you You're gonna want to find your own shift because sometimes when caregivers hear ideas from other caregivers like support and boundary and joy and protecting your energy, it can feel overwhelming. Like we have to change everything all at once, but that's not what this season was about, and I'm hoping you don't think this way. I want you to maybe you just brainstorm some small shifts that you can make, but and I'm shaking my finger at you, I only want you to try one. Try one, one for a week and see if that will help. It's about small shifts, small choices, slowly changing your rhythm. And you know, I'd love to continue to hear from you because your small shifts will help other listeners think about ideas. Here's another listener. She said, Your podcast gave me a lot to think about. I'm focusing on joy and writing in my journal now. And if that slows you down and you love to write in a journal, and you're finding that that's just bringing you peace and calm, do it. That's it. Not a complete life overhaul, just one small practice. Joy and journaling. And I love that because something sometimes the most powerful change starts with something like journaling that is simple. Maybe for you, the shift looks like taking a short walk. Don't force yourself to take a mile or go for three miles or power walk. Just do the walk, however long you feel like it. Don't force yourself. If writing one thought in a journal and you only have the energy to write one sentence and it brought you peace, do that. Maybe it's asking for help with one task. We talked about this a lot. Maybe it's protecting your inner evening of rest, and you're just feeling like I have to shut down and it's eight o'clock, I'm going to bed. Your loved one is sleeping, I'm not doing anything more. I can't, and stop beating yourself up. Get a good night's sleep. Your body is telling you something. Maybe it's giving yourself breathing room. It doesn't have to be big, it just has to be intentional because when caregivers begin making one small shift, something important starts to happen. You begin to feel a little bit more steady, a little more supported, a little more like yourself. And those small shifts over time begin to shape the caregiving rhythm that works for you. There's no shame in asking somebody to pick up a loaf of bread and you know some fruit for you for the next day. Hey, if anybody, you know, you do a text, a group text. If anybody's going to the store the next day, I'm running low on this, and it would save me so much time. That's a shift. And as I read the messages again from com from the listeners and think about the stories, I'm reminded of something really important. Caregiving can feel incredibly isolating too, right? There are days when we feel like we're the only one carrying this, the only one juggling the appointments, the only one with these responsibilities, the only ones feeling these emotions, the only one feeling uncertain. But the truth is, my friend, you are not alone. We are caregivers feeling it. There are caregivers everywhere that are feeling something like this or feeling like this. The hospital waiting rooms, driving to work, walking the halls, sitting beside someone we love, eating our breakfast or our dinner alone, watching the same reruns with your loved one. My dad would do the wagon trails and I don't know, the gun smoke and stuff. And I'm like, oh my God, if I have to listen to this one more time, I'm gonna scream. I feel like I don't get out and I'm watching these reruns over and over. And when I read messages from caregivers across the country, though, I'm reminded of the strength of this community. Even though many of us have never met in person, there's something powerful about knowing someone else and they understand. Someone sometimes just hearing someone say, I understand, or I can feel your pain, or I'm walking this the similar road too. It makes this journey feel a little bit lighter. And that's one thing I love most about this podcast episode. I'm not getting paid. I'm not buying, I'm not promoting this with sponsors. I'm just doing this because I feel this is my calling. This is what I want to do. I want to talk to other caregivers. It reminds us that every one of us, even though caregiving can feel lonely at times, there's a whole community of people out there walking beside you and I. And that connection matters more than we really realize. So as we close out season two, I can't believe it was 11 weeks. I want to leave you with something to think about. What is one small shift you want to carry forward into your caregiving season right now? Not 10, just one. Maybe it's asking for help with something you've been carrying alone. Maybe it's protecting your energy by setting one boundary. Maybe it's calling a therapist and you want to talk to somebody. Maybe it's adding a moment of joy back into your day. Maybe, like I said, it's a walk, it's a conversation, it's a quiet cup of coffee. Maybe it's your, you know, maybe it's a favorite music that you sit in the car and while you're doing errands, you sit for five more extra minutes and listen to music. Maybe it's caregiving your, you know, your own way. Caregiving your way is not about perfection. It's not about getting everything right. It's about making small intentional choices that support both you and the person that you love. And if you're listening to this right now, I want you to hear me clearly. You are doing the best you can in the situation you often that was often unpredictable, you emotional and demanding. Caregiving asks a lot of you. But the care, the patience, and the dedication you give every day, it matters. Some of you may feel proud of the caregiving that you give every day. Some of you may have different emotions. More than you realize, though, it matters. So as we look ahead, in one, two, I'm counting the weeks, three, in four weeks, season three is going it is going to happen. We're going to explore something many caregivers experience but always don't talk about openly, and that's the harder emotions. We're going to talk about those emotions. I know I've talked about them in different bits and pieces throughout, but season three is going to focus on the harder emotions of the seasons of caregiving. We're going to talk about burnout and resentment and grief and anger and all of those things. The identity shifts that happen when caregiving becomes a central part of your life. Because the truth is, sometimes caregiving and the cup, caregiver cup spills. There are moments when the weight feels heavy, moments when you question yourself, moments when you feel overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted. And in care in season three of the Caregiver Cup podcast, we're going to talk about those moments honestly. But more importantly, we're going to talk about how caregivers move through them, how we refill, refuel, I can't see it, how we refill our cup, how we reconnect with ourselves, and how we move forward and continue to move forward with resilience and support. So I am super excited about this one, just like I was with season two. So before I wrap up, I want to leave you with this this final little statement here. Caregiving may shape your days, but you still get to shape how you move through them. You, and no matter what your caregiving journey looks like, whether you're in a hospital, in a quiet home, in a nursing home facility, driving between appointments, or simply doing the best today, you are doing meaningful work, my friend. You are showing up, and you're showing up with love and hopefully love for yourself and your loved one. And that matters. Thank you for spending this season with me. Thank you for sharing your stories. Don't lose sight about the fact that there is a link there where you can text me and share continue to share. I hope you support me by following my podcast, sharing it with others. And there's a contribution button there too. If you want to help me with just the equipment costs, there's a donation button there that you can do that as well. I want to thank you for being part of the Caregiver Cup community and listening to season two. And I'll see you in just a few weeks in season three. So take care and my friend, and I'll just say bye for now.