You know, you go into it and you’re like, this is gonna be fine. Everything’s gonna be fine. And it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. ALS is brutal and so, yeah, there’s a lot of the stress of caregiving and then the emotional part of watching your person just sort of wither away cause ALS is cruel like that.

Are you caring for others while working and trying to live your own life? Wondering how to find the time for your own health and happiness? Well, you’re in the right place.

The Happy Healthy caregiver podcast, which is part of the whole Care Network, is the show where real family caregivers share how to be happy and healthy while caring for others. Hello and welcome. I’m your host, Elizabeth Miller. I’m a fellow family caregiver, a care. Advocate, a professional speaker, author, certified caregiving consultant, and certified senior advisor. If this is your first time listening, thank you for being here. This is a show produced biweekly to help family caregivers integrate self-care and caregiving into their lives. Each episode has an accompanying show notes page.

If you’d like more detail about the topics, products, and resources. We speak about or you want to see any of the related photos, you’ll find the show notes by going to the website happyhealthy Caregiver. com, and underneath the podcast menu, click the image or episode number for today’s show. The link for the show notes will also be in your podcast platform’s episode description. Now, let’s get to it. Let’s jump into this episode.

Before we get into this episode with our guest, Hope Cross, I first have a couple of announcements for you. The first one is, is, I don’t want you to miss the boat. I hope that you’ve heard us talk about the self-care at C Cruise, and it’s not too late to join us for this October 2025 cruise. I am one of the cruise directors along with several other care advocates in this space, and we want you to come for the respite, come as a caregiver, come as a person who loves cruises, come for the respite and leave. with the community and a whole lot of resources to help support you in your caregiving journey back home.

It’s gonna be a fabulous cruise on the Norwegian cruise line on a new ship Aqua. We’re going to some great destinations and I would love for you to check it out, and I’m gonna share the link in the show notes of how you can connect to get all of the details. I want to thank today’s episode sponsor, Rare Patient Voice. So, did you know that you could earn cash in exchange for sharing your opinion? Well, Rare patient Voice or RPV helps connect researchers with patients and family caregivers for over 700 diseases and conditions.

RPV provides you the opportunity to voice your opinions, to improve medical products and services while helping you earn some cash in the process. If you’re interested, you can join the RPV panel at rarepatientVoice. com/happyhealthy caregiver. I want to share a book that I recently read called The Island of Sea Women by Lisa C. It’s a historical fiction novel about female friendship and family secrets on a small Korean island. Two best friends from different backgrounds begin to work in an all-female dangerous diving collective. The book takes place over many decades, beginning in 1930s and into more modern times.

I gave it 3.5 stars, round it up to 4 stars because I learned something new, admired the writing, and enjoyed chatting about the book with my daughter who also read it. It’s got some though very Disturbing scenes that literally made me cry, which isn’t a norm for me during reading, although it is a norm for me on this podcast, frankly. But these horrific things need to be written about and shared as we need to read them so that we don’t relive them. An interesting book based again on some real history that happened.

I’m gonna share the link in the show notes so that you can check it out. My favorite thing that I want to share with you this week is spindrift. It’s the spindrift sparkling water. Don’t you love that sound? Although this is just sparkling water, nothing too crazy happening here. This one is the grapefruit flavor that I’m drinking, but I like the lemon and the lime and several of the other flavors that they have. I have found that this is really the only sparkling water out there on the market that’s flavored, that is flavored with real fruit.

You know, natural flavors can sometimes mean a lot of different chemicals. So this has real ingredients. It’s Bobby approved. On this app that I, you know, love to scan things and see if, if things are Bobby approved. And frankly, it’s delicious. They have a soda that is also out there, but I haven’t tried it yet. So stay tuned for what I’m thinking about that. But I’m really intrigued about it because I love the spindrift sparkling water.

Let’s meet today’s caregiver in the spotlight. Imagine stepping into a marriage, knowing you’re immediately going to become a full-time caregiver.

That was Hope Cross’s reality when her husband Steve was diagnosed with ALS while they were dating. For 9 years, she cared for him up until his passing, and it was a journey filled with love, challenges, and deep emotions. Hope has openly shared the raw and unfiltered sides of caregiving, offering a rare glimpse, frankly, into the realities many face but sometimes don’t discuss. In this episode, Hope shares how she navigated life after loss, rediscovering herself, and ultimately launching a therapy practice focusing on family caregiving, trauma, PTSD, grief and anxiety.

We also explore the powerful role of art, nature, friendships, writing, and even our own noses in the healing process. Enjoy the show.

Hello, Hope. Welcome to the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast. Bye. Thank you for having me. Excited to chat with you today, fellow Georgian, by the way, which is exciting. Hope was just telling me she moved into a loft in downtown Atlanta and we just moved my son to downtown Atlanta. So, love that. But we always kick off some things with just some mindset, you know, positive mindset, things I’ve collected over the years that have kind of spoken to me as a caregiver and res.

with me. So I wanted to get your thoughts on this. It says, the time to relax is when you don’t have the time for it. And that’s actually by an author, Sydney Jay Harris, but the time to relax is when you don’t have the time for it. How do you feel about that? Does that resonate with you? Well, if you’re not going to make time for it, your body is going to make you make time for it. And so, yeah, I absolutely agree with that because whenever life is crazy and it’s like, oh, I don’t have time for that.

You’re going to either have to make time for it or your body’s going to force you to because it’s vital. It’s the only way you can keep going. We’re not machines. Oh, exactly. I know. I think a fellow podcaster and podcast guest, Peter Rosenberger said that if you’re either going to make time for wellness or you make time for illness, so it’s kind of a similar way. Yeah, yeah, that’s really good, yeah. It is true. It is true. Well, tell us a little bit about your caregiving story, Hope.

So, I was a caregiver for my husband for 9 years. We actually met in 2011 and dated for 4 months and he got diagnosed with ALS. And I went with him to the doctor’s appointment and on the way home, he was like, you don’t have to stay with me through this. This is gonna be terrible. And I was like, what are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere. And the very next day, he took me for a walk, already somehow had a ring, and proposed and said, Well, if you’re not going anywhere, will you marry me?

And I said, Yes. And we got married in 53 months because he wanted to be able to still walk down the aisle and be able to talk and do all the things. So it was quite a whirlwind. And I will admit I was a bit naive as to what ALS was going to bring. I was gonna ask you like. I’m sorry, my, my grandmother’s second husband had ALS, but I was so young that I have very little memory other than he had a machine that would talk, and that’s all I really remembered.

So I think, you know, you go into it and you’re like, this is gonna be fine. Everything’s gonna be fine. And it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. ALS is brutal and I think perhaps beyond just the disease it’s like watching your person wither away little by little was probably the hardest part because he just lost a piece of him every few months to the point where then he was just completely bedbound on a ventilator. He talked through a machine. He got fed through his veins.

Like his stomach even shut down and so yeah, there’s a lot of the stress of caregiving and then the emotional part of watching your person just sort of wither away because ALS is cruel like that. Yes, yes, so you, you, you had 9 years together. Is that, I don’t know enough about the statistics around ALS, but is that A lot for ALS 2 to 5 years and you know, because he did, he did a trick and he did a ventilator and he was, he was willing to do all of the things is what extended his life longer.

If he hadn’t wanted to do any of that, the 215 or 25 years would have been accurate. Do you think that your naivety and naivety, how do you say that, was a gift? Actually, yeah, I mean, and, and to be honest, it was one of those things like when I first saw Steve, I walked into a restaurant and I saw him with my friends and it was the first time I ever saw someone’s energy. It was really, I was like, am I getting a migraine? What’s, what am I hallucinating?

What’s happening? And then I met him and I’m like, I feel like I know him. Like there was just a strange familiarity that I I still to this day can’t really explain it. It’s probably beyond what we know in this world. So it was a really easy, yes. Because I wasn’t thinking about what ALS was going to bring, and I think I was just thinking, we’re young, we got this, it’ll be fine. How long has it been since Steve passed away? On April 25nd, it will be five years.

Wow, wow, yeah. So while you were caregiving hope, like what did you find was helpful to you? Like during this really heavy ALS experience and being a newlywed at it, you know, to, like, what was helpful? Forgiveness for myself was helpful. And then finding a creative outlet, like I became an artist while being a caregiver because I just needed something to do. We were stuck at home, like we literally never left the house unless we were going to the hospital. And if we were going to leave the house, it was a big production.

Like we needed a lot of help and backup ventilators, oxygen tanks, all of the things, and I, I needed a creative outlet because I felt like I was going stir crazy being home and I needed something to like transmute all of the stress and the pain. And also to forgive myself because there were times where I think prior to this, prior to being a caregiver, that version of hope was, oh, I’m an angel and I don’t have any monsters and there’s no like, there’s no shadow. What are you talking about?

And then I met all of my shadows immediately and you’re human. Exactly. And then I had to learn to live with them and not like hate myself for it. And I think that’s one of the most important parts that for caregiving for me was learning to accept myself in all of it. And find a way to still keep me as an important person, which is where the art came from cause if all you’re doing is pouring into the other person, of course, you’re gonna Go a little crazy.

Yeah, you’re gonna snap. I mean, it’s, it’s almost like you’re in a war zone, right? Like you’re, you’re in this extreme pressure cooker. And so there, there’s gonna be emotions and things that are gonna come up and you’re being stressed in ways that you’ve never been stressed before, you know, with the emotions and the t. And you’re the person that’s keeping all of the wheels moving and, and learning on the job is exhausting, frankly, and you’re learning on the caregiving job. I love that you talk about the self-forgiveness of that because I do think it’s an important part of accepting our past and our present and and healing in many ways. Yeah.

What, you know, you, I have followed you and we’ve connected before, so I’m gonna kind of poke at some things I’ve seen, but I know that you have felt like you were on a pedestal as a caregiver. Can you talk about what that what that was like? Yeah, so, because we got our story, we got married so quickly. Say yes to the Jurass Atlanta, picked up our story and wanted us on the show. And at first I was like, no, I don’t want any more drama. There’s enough drama.

Like ALS is enough drama. And then Steve, my husband was like, think about the ALS. So, and I was like, OK, we’ll do it. And so that kind of gave us a bit of a platform and so I kind of realized early on that just like talking about it online was going to be helpful for me, but it was also how I was going to connect with people in my community, with the ALS community, caregivers, etc. And so I just started sharing all of it and somehow in that sharing, because I would share like cute little dance parties and all the fun things we did, people would start to say, oh man, I wish I could be like you.

I wish I could be as hopeful as you and I wish I could always be happy like you, and it really made me uncomfortable because I was never perfect. And I also then realized it was my cue to start sharing a lot more of the human side of things. So I would share stories like I just yelled at Steve for going to the bathroom today because I don’t have any help. Like, can you imagine somebody just simply having to do the thing that a human body does and somebody yelling at you for it, like, and I was very vulnerably share it online.

Even though I didn’t always want to. Yeah. What what kept me doing it though was the feedback loop because there was a lot of caregivers that would come and they would say, you know, thank you, because I feel horrible when I’m the mean nurse, and it’s like, you can’t help it sometimes, right, like 2100 o’clock in the morning. and all of a sudden you have to deal with poop by yourself. How are you supposed to like always expect yourself to show up being like, it’s OK, everything’s great.

And so I think sharing that actually also is part of what the forgiveness part aspect came from because it was saying, hey, it’s not that I’m like necessarily proud of this side of me, but this exists and I’m accepting her and loving her and like welcoming her to the table. While also understanding that like, it’s a way for me to continue to learn to pour into meat because I was so empty. Yeah, yeah, you have to process it all, right? Like it’s just like it is, it’s pressure cooking inside of you and I think, you know, you were sharing probably when there wasn’t a lot of people sharing about it.

Like now there are a lot more content creators is what we’re called now, you’re right. Which I’m grateful for too because also these people need to make a living in, in a very flexible way. So, but sharing the, the good, bad, and the ugly, I think is important to, to like you said, not feel like you’re on a pedestal to, to normalize the, the real parts of caregiving cause we’re not doing anybody favors by just showing the, the, you know, the, the positive sides. It, it’s almost like I get kind of annoyed.

by sometimes the caregiving marketing that’s happening, like, yeah, we don’t dress like that. We don’t, you know, that’s not what we look like. We we look like we’re one step away from living on the streets, you know I very intentionally was like never getting ready. Now when we we would film for our documentary and there were a few times where I’d be like, you know what, I kind of want to feel like a human today. Yeah get dressed and like He and I would do photo shoots when we got bored because it was another creative way of expressing ourselves.

And that was really fun for a while because he would pick out clothes and you’d be like, Oh, I think you should pose like this. So, yeah, we would do that, but yeah, you’re right, most of that I’m in like the same sweatpants for 25 days. What’s remind me the name of your documentary. I want to link to that too. for Steve. Say it again. For Steve. Hope for Steve. Yeah, I mean, could you have a better name, Hope Hope Cross? Yes, my mom was on point. Yes, I know.

It’s hope for Steve, so we’ll we’ll link to that. It’s on YouTube. It’s on Amazon and iTunes. I think it probably is on YouTube at this point. Who knows? Yeah, I’ll find it in case you know on YouTube. Yeah, Amazon and YouTube. Did you find help through, I know one of the events I spoke at one time was ALS of Georgia, probably, I don’t, I think it was after the and ALS, but where was that like an organization that you reached out to or were you just, did people connect you to things like that?

Yeah, um, the ALS Association was was not as helpful and but it is also prior to the ice bucket challenge. So there wasn’t a lot of funding, but we ended up just from sharing and everybody ends up becoming Facebook friends with everyone. Like as soon as somebody gets diagnosed, everyone just kind of finds each other, which is really beautiful. The ALS community is strong and resilient and ended up introduced to a company called Angels for ALS and then ALS TDI was the one that we ended up with telling our friends to donate to if they wanted to make a donation because they were actually working towards research.

What was it? It was Angels for ALS and what was the and always ALS and ALS TDI are the ones that we always work with. And then, you know, I don’t know if you know if you’re familiar with Steve Gleeson, the football player, but he has ALS himself and sends people Toby’s, which is the speaking device, and so, you know, he’s literally Saints played for the Saints. Yeah, I mean, like, I’m always grateful for people who are uh and have more of the celebrity because they’re bringing more awareness, right, to these, and yet we also need, there’s 25 million plus family caregivers.

I don’t know how many are ALS caregivers, but you know, we’re, we’re everyday people too. So, but I love that when they bring, they kind of shine a spotlight on some of those issues and the ice bucket challenge, we all remember that. I definitely, I know that you also You know, you talked about self-forgiveness, you talked about giving yourself grace in these moments, and the creativity, like what, what did the creativity look like for you during caregiving? Journaled my whole life, and so I just started doodling in a journal, and then we were making paintings with my husband.

He would paint, we put paint on his wheelchair and he would drive over canvas. And so there was just all kinds of art supplies in my house. So I was like, I’m gonna try painting. It was terrible. I mean to my standards at first, but I mean, I think it’s always The trick to push past that, oh, I’m not good at this. Let me give up. And that’s when you actually. And that’s when the magic happens. So, I started painting, I did weaving, I made mosaics. I literally did every creative.

I was collecting hobbies. You were trying them all on, yeah. I really was. I found a lot of healing through journaling as well, and I know we’re gonna, we’ll talk about the journal when we get to the self-care, but I do think like, I honestly think everybody is creative. Yeah, they just have to find the right outlet for them, like not all of us are writers or painters, but we might, maybe we make jewelry, maybe it’s doing mosaics with broken pieces or um I I think caregivers are creative problem solvers in many ways.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, caregiving is one of the most creative ways you have to figure out how you’re gonna prep them and what, you know, what you’re gonna make for them, and there’s just so many things that you just have to Figure out by yourself, basically. Yeah, yeah, and then as soon as you got it figured out, it’s gonna flip on its side and you’re gonna have to figure out the next creative way, right? To, to do it. How, I know you mentioned, did, did the creativity help you with your anxiety?

I think you had talked before about how you had to manage your anxiety through this process. Yeah, I think creativity helped me with my anxiety, but I actually think Allowing myself to say it out loud to people helped me with that and meditating and moving my body because we didn’t leave the house. So, you know, walking’s always been my favorite thing to do, like going on a hike or going for, and I couldn’t really do that. Like I’d walk around our house and our yard, but it just didn’t hit the same, so that’s when I found yoga and just needed to flow through it.

But honestly, my community, while I was stuck at home helped me with the anxiety, um, because All the things that I would do if I was out in the world I couldn’t do. And so oftentimes I just had to call a friend and be like, I’m freaking out. And you know, towards the end of Steve’s care, he was really, really sick. His lungs were in complete failure, and they would plug up and I had to clear plugs just for him to be able to breathe. And it was really scary and it happened like pretty much all day.

I was just on the clock. Watching his lungs, and I had some friends that would just come sit. They had no idea how to help other than just be there cause they knew how just absolutely frazzled I was. My nervous system at this point was so, it was so bad and it was amazing that even the anxiety got worse after Steve died. So like then I had to basically figure out how do I go back in the world, and creativity helped with that, but Actually making myself going and doing things is the number one thing that helped with my anxiety after that.

Like I would try new things or I’m like, OK, I’m gonna go to the grocery store. The grocery store for some reason was such an overwhelming place for me to go. I had been getting my groceries delivered and it just, for some reason, every time I walk in there, I’d be like, OK, I can’t breathe. I have to leave immediately. And so I just used it as my of testing how I can get through it. So I go try things, walking through the grocery store, always with the permission that I could leave.

I’m like, if we need to bail, we bail, and we don’t shame ourselves. And eventually, I made it through the grocery store, checked out, and yeah, little by little I would go do more and more things in the world in order to build up my confidence again. A lot of self-talk, I’m sure. Yeah, yeah, I mean, the, you know, hope 53 like after Steve passed away. And rediscovering yourself, like, you know, what did that look like? Well, immediately after Steve passed, I was lost because my identity was completely wrapped up in being a caregiver, and it felt like it was my purpose, and so then I just couldn’t understand what I was supposed to go to next.

And you know, then a housing situation happened. I ended up having to Moved from the house he and I lived in within 25 months of his passing. And so my friend and I went and bought a house in the mountains. I just kind of reached out to her and I was like, look, my credit is ruined because I hadn’t been paying my student loans the whole time. I haven’t had a job in 2100 years. I’m not even rentable at this point. Like, I don’t know what to do. I need to move, and she’s like, We should buy a house.

And I was like, OK, that’s cute. And she’s like, no, you know, like her credit carried me. I sold so much of our stuff like Steve and I were borderline hoarders of all the things and raised enough money for the down payment and her and I buying that house, we moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains for a little bit. I just needed nature. Uh-huh. And it was one of the best things that’s ever happened and it’s built me entirely back up in terms of credit and that’s why I was able to just buy my own place.

Amazing, amazing. And then how have you been earning a living? Oh yeah, so when Steve first passed away, I have a master’s degree in clinical psychology, and when he first passed, I was like, mm. There’s no way I can’t imagine going back to being anyone’s therapist right now because of the heaviness of what you’ve been through. I was just still like in PTSD. So I, I developed a really bad rash while I was a caregiver and it took about 26 months after caregiving for it to really go away, and I really needed to heal before I felt like I was going to be in a position to sit with anyone else’s stuff, because I felt like I was just gonna get triggered and be like, that’s not a problem.

What are you talking about? And That’s not, that’s not a real problem. Let me tell you what I’ve been through. Yeah, exactly. That’s not, that’s not helpful for anybody, especially me. And so I took a year of just trying to sell my art, which It was also stressful because it’s like it was COVID. The world was not really up for spending a whole lot of money and I was like, here, buy my art, please. Yeah, I took a year of just really kind of focusing on my healing.

I would go do the things to get rid of my anxiety and I would go build myself up. I did a lot of hiking as rewards. Like I set myself up, OK, you go do this hard thing. And then we’re gonna go on a hike as a reward, and it really helped me actually. is your kryptonite, it sounds like, yeah, she’s my, she’s my number one. She’s my muse, but I am applying for. Like 30 random jobs, like for a service, just all these random jobs, and none of them called me back.

And so I waited a few weeks and I was like, no, I really need a job, like this selling art thing isn’t happening. So I applied to 3 of the therapy jobs around the area and they all called me the same day and I was like, oh, I’m sure during COVID. Like, who didn’t need therapy, right? Exactly, yeah, but I was, you know, I just felt like it was a sign. It was definitely, you know, you were ready. I was ready. I had gotten to a point where I had been out in the world.

I was therapying my friends basically anyways. And so what I was really delighted to discover though is that I’m actually a far better therapist now than I was before caregiving. And it’s because I am able to hold so much space for so much. I don’t really get overwhelmed by the trauma and it’s actually feels really like a purpose again. And it also makes me just feel thankful that it proved that the healing that I did worked because of how I’m able to sit and hold space with people.

Mm. And actually, also my like biggest lesson, you know, you, you go to school, you learn all the things through the books, and there’s all these techniques and there’s all these things, but then it’s like really the personal experience is more what I pull on than I ever do anything I learned in school. Yeah, I mean, that’s why, I mean, life experiences and that, you know, that’s why honestly, I’ve chosen to only spot like caregivers on this podcast because like there are experts, but are you really an expert in caregiving?

You haven’t had lived experience through it. So, my choice, my podcast, I get to do what I want here. So, you know, I want to spotlight the real experts because I want to hear from other people like, how did you do this? How did you unpack this and learning, learning from people all the time because it is, we’re, we’re different people, and though someone might be listening to Hope Story today and like, oh, I’ve never thought about painting. I’ve never thought about different types of art. Let me see how that makes me feel and I got really curious during caregiving about the things that people said helped them.

So we, you know, trying them on like clothes, how does it make me feel? am I, am I in the mood for this today, and developing your tools and you need different tools for different occasions. And I, you know, I, I think certainly caregiving helps, helped with that, where now I have this toolbox. It’s like, there’s something in here somewhere, you know, if you’re digging through it. Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s where you have built up this so many different tools over the 9 years and then then the training, obviously the the professional training that you have.

But it is interesting that you went through this really intense caregiving, traumatic experience, frankly. And you know, you tried to run from it, maybe, but like, hey, no hope, we need you, come back here. And how are you feeling about that decision now? I love what I do. It’s been really the most that I’ve experienced is walking alongside with my clients. So when I went back, I started really slow, you know, my supervisor, I had to start my license process all over because I didn’t keep up with anything, and my supervisor had Left the field for 10 years to be a mom.

And so whenever I told her my story, I just, you know, my supervisor got to know every piece of my life, which was really helpful to have that kind of a safe space to say, hey, I’m trauma or trigger or whatever, and she would help you walk through it. And she said, I really highly recommend you ease back in. And so I did. I eased back in and my roommate and I would go. Travel or we would go, you know, hiking a lot and then I finally got a full case load and I found myself invigorated by it and not drained by it.

And that’s when I knew I was ready to be able to keep up that kind of a case load. I love what I do. I really, I think whenever I was in the caregiving trenches, I tried to find a therapist and it was hard because I didn’t think Anybody really ever understood the actual caregiving aspect of it. And so I basically gave up on therapy 4 separate times while I was a caregiver, and thinking back to her, thinking back to like caregiving hope, who was just broken, I want to be the person that she needed and so that kind of feels like a full circle moment that feels really quite beautiful.

So yeah, I really, it makes me happy. So do you specialize in helping family caregivers? Yeah, I help with specialize in caregiving. I specialize in grief, obviously because I want that so personally as well, and anxiety because, you know, a girl who used to have panic attacks in the grocery store knows anxiety like the back of my hand, PTSD and depression, but yeah, like, you know, caregiving clients actually make me feel so alive because there’s so many times that they’ll say something like, I just needed somebody that actually under.

that and it kind of affirms that, yeah, I feel like part of the whole journey was so that I could be right here. Yeah, amazing. And how do people, you know, what’s the name of your, do you work for yourself now? Yes, I work for myself now and so my therapy practice is coming back to hope and it’s for all of Georgia clients and I can be virtual and I can do some coaching out of state, but it has to be, it has to make sense because coaching and therapy are so different.

How do you describe the difference? Because I’m, I’m a coach for caregivers. I don’t do a lot of it because, you know, mostly focus on the speaking and so forth, but how do you distinguish the difference between a coach and a therapist? Well, for me with therapy is there’s people that are in like a really vulnerable state and I would be basically on call for them, you know, I’m always like, send me an SOS and, you know, we’re mandated reporters and so like if I’m in the state and somebody’s saying, hey, I’m like feeling like I’m actually kind of wanna. myself.

It’s easier for me to actually intervene with somebody in the state. So if somebody’s in that kind of a deep dark hole that there’s a potential for that, it just feels risky to do that with somebody who’s out of the state that I couldn’t like reach. I want access to knowing their state roles or how anything works. And so usually for coaching, I, I like to see people who are a bit more already past that, if that makes sense. You know, they’re feeling more stable and because, you know, like when At one point whenever I was needing to talk to somebody, there was a point where if somebody would have, like, if I would have said the right words, somebody could have hospitalized me.

And I even said it to my husband one day, I was like, if I was practicing, I would hospitalize myself right now. So, like I understand how deep and dark it can get, and that’s where I think the line is. Yeah, no, I felt the line before and I’m like, I am not equipped and qualified to help you and I love that you’re in Georgia. I’m like, but I don’t. Hope, you know, if they’re in Georgia. So amazing. So still, whether they’re in state or out of state, still kind of go to coming back to Hope and inquire.

Yeah, and my other website is um Hope from Earth, that’s also my Instagram, and that’s where I have like coaching. I have an online class. I have my blog. OK. And that blog I’ve been writing since during caregiving times as well as after caregiving times, and there’s just lots of, sometimes I go back and read an old blog and I’m like, well, I’m kind of inspired by. Yeah. So. Is a therapist that’s focused on caregiving specialty? Like, is that becoming a common thing or are you a rare bird out there?

I feel like I’m a rare bird out there because I haven’t found anyone else, um. If they’re, if anyone’s listening to this and they also do the same, please comment because I don’t know anyone else that actually specializes in caregiving. So it’s so needed. I mean, there’s so many, so many, many things that, and I know, you know, you’ve talked to about like the PTSD, the grief and grief too, I’m I’m assuming is not just for grief of somebody dying, but the grief feelings that we have of a loss of what our life, we thought it was going to look like and And all of that.

And do you, do you encounter a lot of people that are experiencing like caregiver fatigue? And is that the same thing as compassion fatigue? It’s the same thing. Yeah, I think it’s called same thing, different words. Yeah, actually, caregiving fatigue is happening even beyond just caregivers, you know, their parents, teachers, therapists themselves get caregiving fatigue, so it’s quite a common thing. I always say that you can’t pour from an empty cup, but then that phrase has gotten so misunderstood. Because sometimes people are like, oh well, I have to set a boundary because they’re going to drain from me.

I can’t pour into these people, but actually pouring into people fills your cup. It’s, you can’t do anything for anyone if you’re not also taking care of yourself. Right. And I remember whenever I first heard caregiving fatigue, I was a caregiver, and I remember like watching a video and they’re like, the only real way you can combat it is to take care of yourself. And I was just like, great. Like I just remember being so one more thing to do. I just wanted there to be like an, I don’t know, an abracadabra, you’re out of it.

And but it really is that you have to make sure that you are loving yourself, make sure you’re drinking water, make sure you’re eating food, you know, the things that are so easy to forget when you’re a caregiver. And then that’s where the creativity also came in because I wasn’t doing anything for myself, you know, and my husband was a huge sports person, loved, like watched all the sports, all the sports talk shows, and I could not care less. So I remember thinking, OK, if this is gonna be, he’s stuck in bed, he gets to own the TV like, get out of bed, I can walk outside, I can look at the birds, like he has the TV, but if I’m going to be in there with him, I don’t want to pretend to care about sports.

So let me figure out a hobby I can have with me. Yeah, that was in hand as well. So you heard this thing about caregiver fatigue and then you’re like, oh, another thing to do. But it did ignite something where you felt like, I mean, you get to a point at some point, I know I felt That way we’re like, well, I got to at least try because I know what this looks like and this isn’t this isn’t sustainable and helping me, so I have to kind of figure out how to make it work.

The most beautiful things that I learned through Steve was just like self-discovering myself because I don’t even think I knew what would fill my my cup. Like I didn’t even know I had shadows, even though I knew everyone did, but like, you know, I was in such denial of any of that. And so I think there was a lot that I got to learn through just being in the Depth, which is really nice. And I think the most important thing I learned was what can I do to make me feel like I still have any care left to give.

Yeah, and it was, you know, nature became a big thing at that point. I became obsessed with birds, which still very, very obsessed with birds, and we just started setting up feeders outside and watching birds, and I got a camera and I like, my friends all chipped in and got me a big lens so I could take pictures of birds. And so there was a lot of, OK, this makes me feel happy. This is Filling my cup and there’s a lot of attention to really just being in that awareness and mindfulness of like, oh, I feel like I could strangle my husband right now.

What’s wrong? Oh, I haven’t done a thing for myself. I don’t think I sat down all day. I probably haven’t drank a sip of water, you know, it’s being able to check in with yourself. It’s so, you know, it’s until you start to do it, you don’t really become a believer in that, in that process. Um, do you have one of those fancy cameras with the birds where they like, they come up and you can see. No, your feeder. I don’t. Oh, that’d be a good gift for you.

Like a friend of mine posts these videos on Instagram where all the visitors that come to her, and my mom would have loved it because she got, you know, she was bed bound the last two years of her life and, and she wrote books about animals and stuff, but she loved the birds, so I’ll have to see if I can find the app. Thing I’m talking about or I’ll ask my friend what it, what um she has so I can link to it in the show notes because it’s, I’ve I’ve, yeah, it’s really cool to kind of just see them and they’re all so beautiful and so interesting and, and they’re just so cute and they all have different personalities and yeah, we had a hawk that would come visit us and actually I am convinced that the hawk was a messenger because we started to kind of like, you know, I documented my life.

We made a documentary. I journal like obsessively. I would write everything out with Steve Labs, how he was doing that day. I was studying to be an herbalist, so he was kind of my subject because he had an IV and so he had a nurse or a following him doing labs each. And so I would be open with her and say, hey, we’re going to try this tea. If anything gets bad on this labs, we’ll stop it. But if anything gets better, let’s keep going. Like, you know, we have really good communication, which is really fortunate.

I had a beautiful team. And I documented that like crazy. And so actually documenting the hawk visits, the hawk would come visit every single day before a hospital visit. And I was like, oh, OK OK. When I would see the hawk, I’d be like, and then without fail, a hospital visit was happening. I’m like the hospital monthly, but was it, was it a helpful way to kind of prepare you? Yeah, I felt like he was there to or he, she, they were there to inspire me, um, just to remind me of my power because that’s kind of how I sees powerful, and I’m like, OK, so yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and you know, yeah, birds are a reminder of that. They’re these little fragile looking things that can like, you know, soar, you know, do amazing, amazing things. Well, I love that, you know, you shared a lot about how the self-care during the process and this, the self-discovery, I think is really cool. And I’m glad that Steve encouraged you to do that, you know, that, um, to fulfill that. You also, I came across one of your videos that I absolutely loved on YouTube. I stalked you a little bit, hope, as I do for my future guests, but Um, you did, you did one where you were talking about romanticizing your life, and it’s probably a couple of years old, this video, but I’m gonna link to it and that kind of helps you maybe after caregiving ended, but talk about romanticizing your life and like what we can, what are the little things that we can do to amplify that.

I think the roman Fantasizing your life thing is it actually started when I tried to date because I just wanted somebody to come romance me and it wasn’t happening and and like a prince charming. I was like can somebody just come bring me flowers and look at me as I’m sitting on a picnic blanket and be like, you’re beautiful. And so I’m like, why do I need someone to do that? Why can’t I pick a? and set up a blanket and make a whole picnic and have a picnic with myself.

And it really became a thing. Honestly, I think I was romanticizing my life even while I was a caregiver. Like this goes back to the photo shoots, like when days felt really crummy, we would just put on music and dance. Like, it’s basically making sure you’re in the moment. And making the best of the moment and being intentional about it. And so it’s like, I don’t need someone to take me to the park for a picnic now. I’m going to pack my cute little picnic basket. I’m going to wear a cute little dress and bring me whatever snacks I want, maybe some champagne, whatever.

And it’s been really a kind of cool thing to be able to say, uh, this is my life and I get to be the creator of it and I don’t need Someone else to come along and make it whimsy whimsy whimsical yeah, waiting, waiting for this. It’s like you can, you know, Miley Cyrus, you can buy I can buy myself flowers and all that. And then I know we, I had a, I interviewed a young caregiver, Ashley Bendixen, we’ll link to her podcast, but she talked about dating herself and like Traveling with herself and, you know, kind of redis kind of the again, the self-discovery, rediscovering yourself.

So, and I’ve enjoyed seeing that. Like my sister was a caregiver for my mom many more years than I was a caregiver. And so, after caregiving ended for her, she had a whole, you know, a 3.0, we called it Suzie 1003 because She was divorced, that was kind of the 2.0, and then, um, but it’s been fun for me to watch her do this self-discovery and like she’s, you know, an avid golfer now. She rediscovered her art and she’s got, you know, she’s got her stuff in different galleries and you’ll have to follow each other.

Um, like I want to meet her, please. Yeah, she’s an oil painter is mainly her platform, but I’ll, I’ll link to the after Cargiving Es episode too, and we’ll of course link to your stuff so that people can see. your creative outlet and the things that are available. What does self-care look like for you now, Hope? Honestly, now it’s getting off my phone. Going out like an unplug. Yeah, it’s more of an unplugging and going outside, taking walks. I’m really, if I get caught up in whatever moment I am in, I forget to eat and that’s like maybe left over from caregiving because that was my thing I did then too.

So it’s being really mindful of, did I eat today? Did I have enough protein? So not eating is your thing. Like I still sometimes will get caught up and be like, oh, I forgot, did I, yeah, I never forget to eat. I’m the opposite. I, in my family, we eat for all the emotions, the happy, the sad, that this like it’s, you know, we plan one meal at the next meal, like, yeah, it’s a hard habit to break, but I can totally identify with the getting outside, like after this I’m gonna take my dog for even like 1015 minutes.

I just feel like Reminds me of Pac-Man, actually. Do you ever, did you ever play Pac-Man? And like you, you eat the power pellets and you just like, uh, like I feel like I’m just like energizing and like, you know, yeah, so I got to go out and get some power pellets outside for sure. Well, let’s, let’s, you know, you talked about journaling. I journaled a lot during my early caregiving years in particular because it was a way for me to help process stuff, but I wanted to write a journal with caregivers in mind.

It’s not just for caregivers, but where they could try it on and see if it fits them. This one is a prompted journal with with different prompts inside. Yeah, so let’s, let’s give you, let’s give hope some prompts today, um. OK, 5 senses, right? But we don’t talk about the smelling scents very much. But what’s one of your favorite scents smells? Inc. Do have a certain brand or honeysuckle flowers? Yeah, actually, any incense. I really am like unhealthily obsessed with things burning. So you burn the sticks, more of an incense person than a candle person. Yeah.

Do you have a brand that you like? Um, I don’t know. OK. OK, that’s OK. I just thought like, oh yeah, I only use this brand. I love this you know the census thing, like I used to go into the hospital and I would tell the doctors what infection Steve had in his lungs based off the smell. And initially they were like, OK, that’s not science. Like we can’t use that. And then like. Within probably a year of them doing the test and coming back and they’re like, I think Hope said that they would start him on the antibiotics based off my nose.

And then your husband smelled a certain way and then which infection he had. They smell differently and I think it was just my nose is like a weird blessing and curse. It’s like a hyper. sensitive. And yeah, I would come in and I’d be like, it’s pseudomonas, it’s leci, and like I just knew it, and they would obviously still do a sputum test because they had no choice but to make sure they were scientific. But they would start him on the antibiotic based off my sense after a year. Wow.

I mean, we’re the experts in our care recipient for sure, but that is amazing. Yeah, weird superpower I can tell people about. No, but it’s like intuition. There is this some, you know, thing about the intuition. So I love, you know, that you form these patterns that does say a lot about how many infections he had too. Like it wasn’t very, very antibiotic resistant. Yeah. Yes. um, OK, if you wrote a book, Hope, or another book if you already wrote one, what would it be? What would it be about?

Yeah, I’m trying to write a memoir. It’s been. In process for 15 years, basically, yeah, well you need a book deal. Whoever’s listening, give this girl a book deal to get her over the, you know, for the last 5 years, because you know I was coming up on the 5 years, I was hesitant to write the healing part of the book because I’m like I’m still living in it, but once I bought this loft, I was like, I walked in with my real estate. Agent, I looked at him and I was like, I’m going to finish my book here.

And he was like, didn’t even know you were writing a book. Cool. Yeah. So, yeah, I feel definitely ready for that. Yeah, well, I think I feel, yeah, I think there is moments for all of that. You’ve got to be in the mood. It’s not something you can like make yourself very well sit down and do to do. What’s some of the best advice you ever received? For caregiving or in general? Anything could be whatever comes to mind. Hm, best advice I’ve ever received. Or is there like a saying that you say that somebody has shared with you that helps you.

I think the best advice I ever received was whenever I was having a lot of anxiety. Oh, I remember I was in the hospital with Steve and I yelled. I yelled at a doctor. It was not my finest moment, you know, they had messed something up with Steve and I was just not OK with it. And I yelled at the doctor, and I remember one of the nurse friends came in and I was so embarrassed and I was like, I just, I feel like I just made a complete idiot of myself, and she was like, he’s not going to remember this in like a week.

You might remember it, but like, no one remembers your cringy moments like you remember them. They just, he’s had 100 of these moments. It’s OK, like you got, you’ve got to stop thinking that this is going to be forever. And like that doctor and I ended up being friendly with each other, like, you know, he came in a year later to visit visit Steve and I was like, Oh, it’s so good to see you, and we were fine. And like he acted as if I never yelled at him.

So I think we are much harsher judges on ourselves, and we sit and cycle through our embarrassing moments when everyone else has forgotten about it and already moved on because they’re thinking about their own. Yeah, it’s so true. Like, will it matter in 5 days? Yeah, 5 years, 5, you know, 5 months. Yeah, exactly. That was good advice. Yes, nurses are, they’re they’re smart, savvy people. Well, is there any anything else that you wanted to add, like any party mos of wisdom for caregivers and then how do people stay in touch with you?

I think if I were to give caregivers like a little pep talk, it would be to allow all of the feelings because we get so hesitant to allow the anger or to allow the sadness or because you know where there’s like this interesting perception that caregivers are supposed to never show their feelings to the person they’re taking care of. They’re supposed to be the rock, they’re, and it’s like that’s not fair. And so don’t feel like you need to do that. It’s OK if you’re angry, it’s OK if you’re sad, it’s OK if you’re freaking out, you know, it’s 100% normal and it’s, you still are worthy of love and you’re still doing an amazing thing, even if you called your person a name or yelled, like you’re still doing an amazing thing and just Give yourself grace.

And yeah. And then what did you ask me? Oh, how can people stay in touch with me? Um, you can follow me on Instagram. I’m Hope from Earth. That’s also my YouTube channel, right? I think that’s my YouTube channel. It’s Hope from Earth. Yep, Hope from Earth is your YouTube channel. OK, I’m like I don’t even know my own YouTube. Yeah. Hope from Earth. com is your art in your blog. Coming back to hope is your therapy, and then yeah, YouTube Hope from Earth, Instagram Hope from Earth. Amazing.

Like my email box is always open. If people want to message me anything, I’m always here. Well, thank you for not deserting this space, but if you choose to do that in the future, we would totally understand, but yeah, um, just, you know, really grateful to, um, you know, for you to share your lived experience and now kind of helping others work through their trauma and their experiences and feeling the feels. So thank you so much, Hope, for doing all that. Thank you for, thank you for what you do.

I’ve been watching you for the last, I think we got in touch like 6 months ago. Yeah, maybe a year ago even, yeah, time flies, but I just, it does fly. Watch you because you are really serving a great purpose out in the world while you’re also caregiving still, you said, so yeah, I’m a different season. I’ve had some, you know, we’ve had good little intermissions, but I think, you know, especially if you started young, like you’ve started caregiving really young, we’re gonna, there’s gonna be other instances of caregiving in our life and hopefully, you know, the, the lessons and the things we’ve learned from the new one.

Inform the next one. So, yeah, it’s, it’s been interesting to kind of experience this again with, with, with my brother in a different, in a different way. But yes, I learned so much from all the people that have spotlight in the show and then of course we’ll stay connected and and learn from that. So thank you so much, Hope, for coming on the show. Thank you.

If you’re a fan of this Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast, then you’re gonna love Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver podcast, which is also part of the whole Care Network family.

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Thanks for listening to the Happy Healthy caregiver podcast on the Whole Care Network. I hope this episode provided encouragement and practical tips to infuse into your life.

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