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Caring for Someone Without Losing Yourself
For anyone looking after a parent, partner, child or friend who needs a lot of help. Each day is one small way to keep a little of your own life, rest and support alive while you care for them.
Caregiving · Caregiving · Self-Care · Boundaries · one to-do a day · you choose how many days
The first seven days
- Day 1Write down three things that are yours alone, outside of caregiving, and put the list where you will see it tonight.
- Day 2Sit down for five minutes with a cup of something warm before the next task, and let the task wait.
- Day 3Drink a full glass of water before you pour one for the person you care for.
- Day 4Name one feeling you have about caregiving right now, out loud or on paper, without deciding whether it is fair.
- Day 5Text one friend a single line about your own day, not about the person you care for.
- Day 6Start a note on your phone called "What helps" and add one thing that made today a little easier.
- Day 7Ask one specific person to handle one specific errand this week, and give them the day and the details.
Further into the year
The to-dos keep changing as the year goes on. A few from later in this theme:
- Day 30Invite the person you care for to teach you something they know, like a recipe or a card game.
- Day 60Find out what the person you care for would like to do for fun this week, and do one piece of it.
- Day 120Write down one hope you have for yourself in the next year, separate from caregiving.
- Day 240Schedule your own annual physical, and put it on the calendar in the same color as theirs.
- Day 365Thank yourself tonight for the care you gave, and for the care you gave yourself.
How a challenge works
A Theraglee challenge is a theme with one small to-do for every day of a year. You choose how long yours runs, anywhere from a week to the full year, and each day you get the next to-do: something that takes a few minutes and fits inside an ordinary day. Tick it off when it is done. Nothing is scored and nothing is lost if you miss a day; the next to-do is simply waiting when you come back.
Challenges come with a free Theraglee account, which never asks for a card. Your progress stays private to you.