Caregiving teaches us how to keep moving through the hardest moments. Finding ourselves again may require learning when it’s OK to stop.
When Someone Depends on You, You Keep Going
I think part of what keeps a caregiver going is the simple fact that you have to keep going.
You must get to the next appointment. You must make the next decision. You must figure out how to navigate the next medical crisis. Someone you love is depending on you, and there often isn’t time to stop and consider how you’re doing.
You figure out what needs to be done, and you do it.
Pressure becomes fuel. You learn to function in the middle of uncertainty, exhaustion, and fear. You become the person who can handle things, even when you aren’t sure how much longer you can keep going.
Maybe this is part of why our society places so much emphasis on staying busy. We believe that if we stop, something will fall apart. If we miss a deadline, we might lose an opportunity. If we aren’t constantly doing something, we might be falling behind.
And when you’ve spent years in survival mode, keeping busy can become more than a necessity. It can become a habit, an identity, and even a way of measuring your worth.
What happens, though, when the circumstances that required you to keep going change?
When Life Changes, Your Role Changes
I spent five and a half years as a caregiver for my husband, Mike. During that time, we drove more than 57,000 miles to see specialists, navigated my own breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, and raised a son who went from middle school to high school, with all the activities that come with those years. We also had two grown sons who were out of the house.
There was always something that needed my attention.
Then Mike died in 2018, the day after my last chemotherapy treatment.
Suddenly, I was a widow. That fall I became a grandma. After one more school year, I became an empty nester when our son went to college.
The life I had known had changed dramatically.
I had spent years being needed as a wife, caregiver, and mother. Those roles had shaped my days, my decisions, and much of my sense of purpose. Now, the demands that had filled so much of my life were different.
I had more freedom over my time, yet I didn’t necessarily know what to do with it.
I had completed the two-year Equine Gestalt program just five weeks before Mike died. It took me about two years to begin finding my way back to that work. I was making plans to build my practice when, in 2020, my dad died.
Then, in 2021, my mom decided to sell the house where my parents had lived for 50 years.
Life kept happening. There were more transitions, more adjustments, and more people I loved who needed me in different ways.
And I kept going.
Somewhere Along the Way, I Lost Part of Myself
Photo courtesy of Roderick Bloom
Looking back, I can see that while I was navigating all those changes, I was also trying to figure out who I was becoming.
I wasn’t needed in the same way as a caregiver or a mother. The structure that had organized my life was gone, and I was left with questions I hadn’t had the time or energy to ask before.
Who was I outside those roles?
What did I want for myself?
What did I want this next chapter of my life to look like?
I knew I wanted to build my Equine Gestalt practice. I knew I wanted to help others experience the kind of connection and transformation I had experienced through my work with horses.
Yet knowing what I wanted and finding the energy, clarity, and sense of self to move toward it were two different things.
For so long, I had measured progress by what I accomplished and how well I cared for others. When there was no immediate crisis to solve, no appointment to get to, and no next decision demanding my attention, I sometimes felt as though I should be doing more.
Not having to keep going felt as if it were holding me back.
I had learned how to push through. I hadn’t yet learned how to move forward in a different way.
And I don’t think I’m alone in that experience.
When caregiving changes or ends, we may feel relief, grief, or a mixture of emotions we struggle to put into words. We may grieve the person we lost, the life we shared, or the role that gave our days a sense of purpose. We may also expect ourselves to be ready to move forward yet find ourselves feeling lost instead. Sometimes, it isn’t until the urgency subsides that we realize how exhausted we truly are.
We can be grateful for a little breathing room and still struggle to figure out who we are without the responsibilities that once defined our days. After spending so much time focused on someone else’s needs, finding our way back to ourselves can take time.
What If You Don’t Have to Keep Proving You Can Do It?
What happens when the very thing that helped you survive becomes the thing that keeps you from moving forward?
The ability to keep going is a strength. It helps us navigate circumstances we never imagined facing. It gets us through the long nights, the difficult conversations, and the decisions we wish we didn’t have to make.
The challenge comes when we continue operating as though everything depends on us, even after our circumstances have changed.
We may keep ourselves busy because slowing down feels uncomfortable. We may take care of everyone else because we’re not sure what taking care of ourselves looks like anymore. We may criticize ourselves for not accomplishing enough, even when we’re still recovering from years of emotional and physical demands.
We may even feel guilty about wanting something for ourselves.
You don’t have to wait until your caregiving role changes to give yourself permission to rediscover who you are.
You can begin while you’re still caregiving.
You can acknowledge that you are more than the person who remembers the medications, manages the appointments, makes the phone calls, and holds everything together.
You can have dreams that have nothing to do with caregiving. You can make room for curiosity, creativity, and joy. You can begin asking what you need, even when someone else needs you, too.
This isn’t about abandoning your responsibilities. It’s about remembering that you are a person with needs, hopes, and possibilities of your own.
And you don’t have to earn that right by doing everything else first.
Finding My Way Back to Myself
Today, I’m back in a part-time caregiving role with my mom and our son. I remember how much purpose caregiving gave my life, and I still find meaning in being there for the people I love.
I also recognize how easily I can slip back into doing mode.
There’s always something that needs to be done. There is always another task, another decision, or another way I could spend my time being useful to someone else.
The difference is that I’m learning to notice when I’m doing that at the expense of myself.
My own journey back to myself has included returning to Equine Gestalt and spending time with the horses who helped me reconnect with parts of myself I had lost touch with.
Working with horses gave me space to slow down, pay attention to what I was feeling, and become curious about what was happening beneath the surface. Horses are highly attuned to human emotions, and being with them offered me a different kind of awareness—one that didn’t depend on having all the answers or figuring out what to do next.
I didn’t need to be the strong one, the capable one, or the person who had everything figured out.
I could simply be present.
That experience is part of what inspires my work today, including Discover The Kaleidoscope Within, where I help people explore their experiences, discover new perspectives, and reconnect with the possibilities within themselves.
Sometimes we become so accustomed to seeing ourselves through the lens of our responsibilities that we forget there are other ways to see who we are. A change in perspective can reveal possibilities we couldn’t see before.
Finding yourself again doesn’t necessarily mean becoming the person you were before caregiving. Life has changed you. Your experiences have changed you.
It means discovering who you are now, what matters to you, and what you want to carry into the next chapter of your life.
You Are Allowed to Change, Too
Life changes. Our roles change. And we change.
There is no deadline for rediscovering yourself, and there is no requirement to have a clear plan for what comes next.
Maybe you’re still in the thick of caregiving, with no idea when things might get easier. Maybe your caregiving role has ended, and you’re struggling to find your footing. Perhaps your children have left home, your career has changed, or you’ve experienced a transition that has left you wondering what your life is supposed to look like now.
Wherever you find yourself, you don’t have to keep moving at the same pace simply because that’s what you’ve always done.
You can pause.
You can ask yourself what you need.
You can explore what brings you joy, what you’ve set aside, and what you might want to experience in the future.
You can be the person who cares deeply for others and the person who makes room for yourself.
Both can be true.
You have spent so much time figuring out what everyone else needs. What might happen if you gave yourself the space to discover what you need, too?
You don’t have to stop caring for others to start finding yourself again. You can begin right where you are.
Ready to Make Space for Yourself?
If you’re navigating caregiving, a major life transition, or the feeling that you’ve lost touch with who you are outside your responsibilities, I’d love to talk with you.
Through my work as a Master Equine Gestaltist, I partner with horses to create experiences that help people slow down, reconnect with themselves, and discover new possibilities. We can explore what that might look like for you, whether through individual work or Discover The Kaleidoscope Within.
You don’t have to figure it all out before you begin.
Click the button below to schedule a Zoom conversation with me.
Let’s talk about where you are now and what finding yourself again might look like for you.
Every story needs a soundtrack.
This is the one I’ve chosen for this post—sometimes because of the title, sometimes the lyrics, sometimes simply the feeling it stirs in me.
