Being Present — Blog — Courage to Caregivers

MARCH 2024 NEWSLETTER: Living Mindfully - Presence is the best present 💝

As a caregiver, do you feel you're mindful (living in the present moment) or is your mind full (overwhelmed, scattered, trying to do too much, or multi-tasking)?

For me, I find myself constantly teetering between BOTH, but if I'm being honest, I most often find my mind FULL. But 2023 my intention was to be more present - for myself and others. I made a concerted effort in my goal setting to focus on the here and now. 2023 quickly became one of my most challenging caregiving years. Caring for aging parents (and bonus parents), as well as a young adult with a traumatic brain injury, is hard on a good day - and we had many road blocks with detours in 2023. I lost sight of ME and felt pulled in too many directions.

Mindfulness is the ability to focus on the present moment while calmly recognizing and accepting your thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. Mindfulness is being fully present, aware of where you are and what you’re doing while not being overly reactive or overwhelmed by what is happening around you. When you are mindful you are free of both the past and future and free of judgment of right and wrong. Mindfulness for caregivers means learning to live in the moment, accepting the reality of your situation, and filtering out distractions.

Check out our entire March Newsletter focused on MINDFULNESS here!

Appreciate the Little Things

“Now is the time to be aware of the present moment. I let go of the past and the future.” – Positive Psychology

Have you ever truly focused on something simple that you’re doing … without any distractions … something like eating a strawberry? If you do, you might notice both the simplicity and the richness of your action and the strawberry. You might close your eyes, take small bites, and savor the taste, smell, and feel of the strawberry with each bite. In doing so, you become fully present in that moment, and you may feel a sense of peace or wonder come over you.

MindfulnessKristi HornerMarch 14, 2024Being Present, Living Mindfully

March Newsletter: Mindfulness - Presence is the best present 🎁

Mindfulness may feel "trendy" or just an "overused" term to you. Before we launched Courage to Caregivers in 2018 - it did to me, too! As I have come to understand, appreciate, and aspire to make mindfulness a practice in my daily life, mindfulness has become my #1 coping strategy for the stress of caregiving.

I face stress as a caregiver each and every day. I support a young adult with a traumatic brain injury and aging parents (one newly minted 90-year old) - both living in our home. Using mindfulness as a coping strategy for the stress of caregiving, I am able to better regulate my emotions, sleep better (and return to sleep more effectively), notice when I'm not focused on what's IN my control, and find myself simply more present. I also love that mindfulness is rooted in COMPASSION - and we're all born with the capacity to be mindful.

I now find myself focusing on my breath (it truly can be that simple - and our breathing meditation classes have shown me just that), using affirmations and intentions and focusing on the present.

Mindful Magazine (our go-to for all things MINDFUL) has an excellent definition of mindfulness: "Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. Mindfulness is a quality that every human being already possesses, it’s not something you have to conjure up, you just have to learn how to access it."

Check out our entire March newsletter focused on Mindfulness here.

Slow Down … Be Present

“When you are present, when your attention is fully in the Now, Presence will flow into and transform what you do. There will be a quality and power in it.” – Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

No matter what we have going on in our lives, there are times when we need to slow down, be present, and be mindful. Mindfulness is the ability to focus on the present moment while calmly recognizing and accepting our thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. Being mindful frees us from being stuck in the past or trying to control the future. It allows us to be aware of where we are and what we’re doing while not being overly reactive or overwhelmed by what is happening around us.

For caregivers, mindfulness means learning to live in the moment, accepting the reality of our situation, and filtering out distractions.

MindfulnessKristi HornerMarch 9, 2023Mindfulness, Being Present, Living Mindfully