When my wife Karen came home from the hospital, I had to bathe her. This was the most difficult thing I had to do. It was stressful because I had never done anything like that before. I also had to look at all her scars from her many surgeries. I could tell that my wife was also having a difficult time as well. I finally said to her “we are both stressed out right now, let’s try something different.” Then I said, “Let’s have some fun and do this differently.” We decided to tell jokes and laugh a little from that point on, which completely turned a stressful situation into an easy lighthearted one.
Because of my caregiving experiences with Karen, my book The Intentional Caregiver was birthed. It’s about my twenty year journey as a caregiver and includes insights and wisdom that I learned along the way.
I realized during my book writing process that I became a successful caregiver because I learned the art of self-care. It was critical for me to remember to take care of myself along the way. In fact, the subtitle of my book is Mastering Self-Care.
I’ve learned that men in general don’t practice self-care. And I know first-hand that they should, but they simply don’t know how.
For this reason, I’ve created a self-care retreat for men that debuts in 2020. Details will be announced soon (I couldn’t be more excited)!
