Caregiver, Love Thyself

Self is a stranger to many people who never met a stranger in their life -- people who sense another's needs across the airport, but have no understanding of their own inner struggles.

These people are experts in the Other. They bore secrets, tended wounds, and ran to rescue starting in childhood. They gravitate toward helping professions like nursing, teaching, pastoring, counseling, mothering etc. So, obviously, I'm one of the people I'm talking about.

I coached a group of nurses on self-care yesterday. I always open the session asking "Why nursing?" so we hear why each chose this profession. Invariably, someone tells how they started caring for others as a kid. This time, to make the group aware of that common bond, I asked them to raise their hands if they had been secret-bearer, soother, bandage-applier, or other caregiver in childhood. Twenty-three nurses in the room -- 18 hands raised (mine too).

When you start doing something as early as childhood, your identity gets all wrapped up in it. Many caregivers don't know themselves without other people to care for. I didn't know who I was, because I built my identity to suit the needs of others.  It seemed natural to go into a profession where my daily work turns on expressions of compassion.

Not knowing myself, I couldn't create boundaries around my identity, capacity, and responsibilities. I never responded "no." I never turned off.

It still hurts to look back at how deeply this type of living wounded me and impacted my family. 

Reblog: M. Kircher's "Failure Isn't"

While in Laguna Beach, at Rob Bell's Craft Lab, I met Melissa, a Young Adult fiction author, who writes as M. Kircher. We walked a mile back to our hotel, in the dark, and had one of those conversations that just bubbles up and over itself -- immediate connection. We also "learned" to surf together, which she perfectly captured below (I'm the solitary learner on the far left of the surfing photo).


At Craft Lab, Melissa posed a question to Rob about failure, and his answer helped revolutionize my thinking. I planned on blogging about it, but the work has already been done so much better by Melissa! With her permission, I'm reblogging her entire post, titled "Failure Isn't." Fear of failure has haunted me my whole life, and I can point directly to moments where that fear kept me from pursuing dreams. If you can identify, you need the humor and clarity below. If something resonates, please comment on her blog, here.

You can find Melissa's website at www.mkircher.com. Look after the post for information on purchasing her books.



Failure is a word we all fear. No matter your age, your stage in life, your gender or personality, a sense of failure is something we try to avoid at all costs.

I’ve been grappling with failure a lot over the past six years or so (maybe even my whole life)—what it means, what it looks like and if this nebulous ball of crap actually defines me or not.

I’ve decided not, but it’s taken me a while to arrive at this conclusion.