Life After Caregiving: Finding Your Footing

When caregiving ends, it can feel like standing at the edge of a cliff—grief, uncertainty, and a quiet question echoing: “What now?” In this heartfelt episode of Island Treasures, we explore the transition from active caregiving to life beyond the role. Whether your caregiving journey spanned years - or months, the ending often brings a profound shift in identity, routine, and emotional landscape.

In this episode we talk about the “treasuring” phase of caregiving, where former caregivers are invited to reflect, regroup, and rediscover purpose. This phase is a time to honor memories, process grief, and ask meaningful questions like “Who am I now?” and “What brings me joy?”

We also speak about the course, Finding Your Purpose After Caregiving, designed to help caregivers recalibrate and move forward with intention. Plus, we preview upcoming episodes featuring guests who’ve navigated this transition—some with clarity, others still finding their way—all offering hope, inspiration, and shared wisdom.

This episode marks a new season for the podcast, one that embraces renewal and celebrates the courage it takes to step into life after caregiving. Subscribe to the podcast and join us on the 23rd of each month when new episodes drop. 

✨ Suggested episodes to revisit:

• “Moving Forward After Caregiving” with Licia Thompson
• “Caregiving Unveiled: True Purpose for an Encore Career” with Bill Cohen

Transcript

Thank you for tuning in to the Island Treasures Podcast.

We value the insights shared by our guests and hosts, but it's important to note that their personal experiences are intended to inform and encourage, and not to replace professional, legal, or medical advice.

With that, we are ready for today's exciting episode. Hello, and welcome to Island Treasures podcast. We're entering a new season with a new direction.

For years, we've walked alongside caregivers in the midst of their caregiving journey, offering resources, support, encouragement, and community. Now, as we shift our focus, we'll be exploring what comes after caregiving.

I'm your host, Alison van Schie, inviting you into conversations with former caregivers. Each episode features honest reflections on what comes next, stories of resilience, renewal, and rediscovery.

And since the podcast comes to you from Vancouver Island in Canada, you'll hear the occasional episode that explores a different kind of treasure, local places and experiences that make the island itself something special.

Whether you're navigating life after caregiving, or simply curious about the treasures held within Vancouver Island, I'm glad you're here. Let's explore new treasures together.

When you're in the midst of caregiving, you may wonder, will this ever end? In many cases, the answer is yes.

Whether you've been a caregiver for years, and it's truly become part of your everyday life, or if your season of caregiving has been relatively brief, when caregiving ends, you may find yourself feeling lost.

The role that once filled your days is suddenly gone, and with it, the presence of your loved one, leaving a huge hole in your heart, and lots of grief.

As a caregiver consultant, I've walked alongside caregivers through the six stages of caregiving, and through the tender moment when their loved one passes, at which time many find themselves trying to regain their footing, adjusting to a life that

feels unfamiliar, as so much was wrapped up in their role as a caregiver. To some extent, when their caregiving season ended, it was like they'd fallen off a cliff. Okay, maybe that's a tad too dramatic.

Instead, perhaps they felt they were standing at the edge of a cliff, their balance teetering. And that's a perfect place to yell, What am I supposed to do now? But who will hear their cry?

Many of the supports they garnered as a caregiver will slowly disappear now that they're no longer looking after their loved one.

As they work through their grief and give themselves time to catch their breath, they may reach out to a bereavement group, which is a welcome idea for all who are grieving and need support.

As I mentioned earlier, there are six stages of caregiving, and that's according to the consultant training that I received.

The final stage being the treasuring stage, where after the loved one's care recipient passes, the now former caregiver often finds themselves feeling completely lost. And yet, it is at this stage, they have many opportunities.

Opportunities to explore, to rest and recover from the years of running on empty. Opportunities to inventory what new skills they have developed, to find new ways to share with others, and to look at themselves in the mirror for personal reflection.

To do this, they may find themselves asking questions such as, Who am I now? What would I like to do? What would I like to be or become?

What brings me joy? What brings me peace? What do I value most?

There are so many questions that one could ask when doing some personal reflecting. These questions are necessary, and a first step in moving forward. And you know what?

The skills and insights they gain during caregiving don't just disappear when the caregiving role ends. These skills and insights have become part of who they are now.

This is the time when the former caregiver can also begin to reflect on their memories with their loved one. To review the whole experience, the good and the bad parts.

In time, working through this phase, caregivers can find themselves being able to focus on the good memories. That's why we refer to this as the treasuring phase.

When working with caregivers, I saw firsthand that when their loved one passed away and their caregiving role changed, they needed healing and attention to different needs.

Many still needed support to help them navigate this stage, especially when they felt they'd lost their identity. It was a time for them to rediscover who they were and to map out a plan moving forward.

I created a course to help them find their footing for caregivers to regroup and recalibrate in this brand new phase.

I called my course, Finding Your Purpose After Caregiving, and designed it to help former caregivers define an agreeable path forward while simultaneously processing their emotions, especially their grief.

Some were able to rediscover and reconnect with familiar parts of their former selves, helping them devise their plans moving forward, while others enjoyed exploring different prospects for their plans to move forward after caregiving.

As with many of life's challenges, the transition itself can be unsettling. But for those moving forward after caregiving, the experience, compounded by grief and loss, makes this phase especially difficult.

This new direction for the Island Treasures podcast was purposefully chosen to provide encouragement to those who may feel as though they are standing at the edge of that cliff as their season of caregiving has ended. It's a time for renewal.

Together with the Caregivers' new season, Post-Caregiving, the podcast's new season will bring in guests who will share how they've made their transition from active caregiving to post-caregiving, how they've moved forward after caregiving, and how

they've processed and even continued to process their emotions, and how they found new purpose after caregiving or revived a former purpose. They will share what they're doing now.

This post-caregiving phase will look different for every former caregiver. Some will have things figured out and will have settled into their new rhythm. Others may still be trying to figure things out.

Each one's journey is unique, but there will be common threads in their experiences that may inspire and give you hope so that you too can consider the post-caregiving phase as the treasuring phase of caregiving.

You may find this is the time that you can start to heal. And healing isn't about forgetting your loved one, or the trials and the struggles and the challenges and the joys that you went through.

It's about integrating what you've learned into who you are now in your life after caregiving.

As you wait for the upcoming episodes, you may wish to check out some of the earlier podcast episodes that touched upon life after caregiving, including Moving Forward with Licia Thompson.

Now Licia is a former caregiver for both her parents, and now she's a reinvention strategist. Another suggested episode is called Caregiving Unveiled, True Purpose for an Encore Career, and that's with Bill Cohen. Thank you for tuning in today.

It means a lot to have you here as we explore this new chapter together. We recognize the courage it takes to not only be a caregiver, but now to step into life after caregiving.

Future episodes will air on the 23rd of each month, so we invite you to subscribe to the podcast and join us regularly, whether for an episode that speaks to life after caregiving or one that highlights the many treasures of Vancouver Island.

See you next episode.