Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver with Gretchen Staebler

You'll love this episode with Laura and Gretchen as we talk about Gretchen's experience caring for her mother.

Gretchen left her job and friends on the East Coast in 2012 and returned to her childhood home on the West Coast to companion her 96 year old mother from whom she had been 'comfortably distanced' for 36 years. Her degree in counseling didn't help with this gig! Gretchen is the author of Mother Lode: Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver.

We discuss what helped Gretchen remain sane:

Maintaining her old habits/tapping into her old selfHer weekly writing group: "writing saved me"YogaListing 5 things she is grateful for dailyKeeping a list of what happened, what she did about it and the outcome

Gretchen has a fabulous website with pages I had fun exploring such as recipes, reading lists, and an encouragement page: gretchenstaebler.com

She is also known for her amazing blog and welcomes your stories, too: https://gretchenstaebler.com/blog

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