Believe Big Podcast

73-Marika Humphreys - Caregiving & Intimacy, Finding Connection in Challenging Times

• Ivelisse Page and Marika Humphries • Season 2 • Episode 73

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When a spouse or loved one is on a cancer journey, very often they are supported by a caregiver which could be you.  But, who supports the caregiver?  It's a big job and an important one that requires a lot of love, encouragement and energy.

On today's Believe Big podcast, we welcome Marika Humphries, a resiliency coach for caregivers. 

Marika takes us through part of her journey after her husband's cancer diagnosis, as she  emphasizes the importance of reframing caregiving as an opportunity for growth rather than a burden.  She advocates for self-care practices to manage overwhelming mental chatter and allow oneself to experience and process emotions effectively while caring for others.

Join me today as Marika offers many suggestions that support and encourage those who are tending to their loved one during a difficult season.

Connect with Marika Humphries:
https://coachmarika.com/

Suggested Resources:


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Ivelisse Page:

Hi, I'm Ivelisse Page, and thanks for listening to the Believe Big Podcast, the show where we take a deep dive into your healing with health experts, integrative practitioners, biblical faith leaders, and cancer thrivers from around the globe. Welcome to today's episode on the Believe Big podcast. My name is Ivelisse Page, and it's an honor to be with you today. Often we have guests on the podcast who are cancer thrivers sharing their stories. Today, we take a new look at the cancer journey from the perspective of the caregiver. Today's guest is Marika Humphries, who is a resiliency coach for caregivers. Overnight, Marika's whole life was turned upside down by her husband's cancer diagnosis. However, that challenge became a source of growth. Now, Marika is a resiliency coach who teaches and coaches unexpected caregivers how not to become a victim of their partner's cancer. Marika is a passionate advocate that caregiving for your spouse is not just another thing to add to the to do list. She believes you must revise your approach and start implementing new habits to make this challenge an opportunity to grow, not a source of depletion. So well said. My goodness, Marika, welcome to the show.

Marika Humphreys:

Ivelisse, thank you. And it's a pleasure to be here.

Ivelisse Page:

Well, our listeners are always interested in discovering what our guest's favorite health tip is, and I'm sure you have many, but can you share one with us?

Marika Humphreys:

Yes. I was just thinking about this as I've listened to some other health tips from past guests. Mine is very specific to mental health or kind of as an aid to your mental health and it's especially useful when you're going through a difficult time, at least I have found that in my own experience. And that is to do a thought-download, which is a little bit different than journaling in that the idea is to take all the mental thoughts and worries and fears and just all this mental chatter that we have going on in our heads and put it on a paper just download it out of your head. And the idea behind that being that we tend to just we tend to ruminate right and especially when we're going through something big or we have a looming decision or we've just gotten very difficult news whatever it is we tend to have just a lot of mental chatter and you want to get that out of your head and the process of doing that can be very cathartic, just getting it out. And ideally you do it on a regular basis. But I think as a part two to this is asking yourself, okay, what of the things that you're worried about often or questioning, what do I have control over and what do I not have control over? I'm really separating out those two things I think can just be a really helpful exercise. I do this still in my life, but I've found it most useful when I'm going through really tough times.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah. That's such great advice. I heard someone recently. Give me the analogy of a suitcase and all of the emotions and things that when you're starting on a trip, it's neatly folded, it's into the suitcase, everything's clean. And as your week goes, things are getting dirty and just shoved into the suitcase and, and you bring everything back home. But you wouldn't think to take that same suitcase that you just took from that trip on a new trip without cleaning it and refolding it and repacking it. And it's similar to like what you're saying about our minds and our emotions that every day, we need to unpack those things. We need to clean up our souls in essence and make sure that we're not carrying those heavy things around that, that can weight us down. And so I love that, that you just shared that. Thank you.

Marika Humphreys:

So that is a fantastic analogy. I've not heard that before, but I love it. It's so, it's. It's fantastic. And I might use that again.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah, it's, it's, Dr. Rob Riemer. He wrote the book Soul Care and he shared that and it just really stuck with me. So feel free to use it, it was his analogy, not mine. So what are some common challenges you've been there, you understand it. So what are some common challenges that caregivers face and how can they navigate through those challenges? What have you found to be helpful?

Marika Humphreys:

Yeah, I would say the most common challenge that I encounter, and that I also experienced, is probably overwhelming burnout. And they, I think, can show up at separate times, overwhelm is often in the beginning when you are maybe new to the caregiving experience. For me, that was after a diagnosis which, when you're loved one is going through the diagnosis and the newness of that is overwhelming. And for the caregiver, it's a very similar experience, I think a similar feeling, but you're experiencing it from a different perspective. And in caregiving, I think in many circumstances, and certainly dealing with cancer, often it can be a quite lengthy journey. It's not something that, like I always compared to like the flu, you have it for at the most a week, even COVID, maybe several weeks, but, cancer is a whole different ball game. And, as a caregiver, I think fatigue and burnout is probably the number one challenge that caregivers face. And how to overcome that, if that's even the right word, it's probably a better to, better word is to cope with it. I think is you have to start thinking differently about the role of being a caregiver. I think most people's tendency is to just add it on in their life. And, that's how we approach any challenge in any, crisis that comes up. We just we deal with it. But when that time goes on, caregiving requires mental and emotional and physical energy, that will run out if you don't learn to balance other things in your life. And that's not the approach we often take. It often takes getting to this fatigue point to where we're most of us think, okay, I need to do something differently, but you feel like often as a caregiver you feel like there's nothing that can give. How do I give? So, I really think that dealing with fatigue, you have to realize, first of all, just give yourself some credit for the role and the energy that it takes. And that's no small feat. And then, make adjustments. It's hard, but making adjustments in your life whether that's simplifying or prioritizing or simply recognizing that certain things, you can't do the same standards, hiring help, whatever it is, that you're able to do that is the switch has to be that I do need to make adjustments in order to sustain my own energy in all of those areas and show up for my loved one in the way that I want to. That, that was a huge kind of thing that I had to go through and recognize that I couldn't just do it all, and make that adjustment myself.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah, that's so important. And I feel we have resources. We have I Have Cancer, Now What? And in every module there are tips for the caregiver and once a caregiver, you feel like you have to do everything for your loved one. And like you're saying, the fatigue will set in quickly. And so it's really important that you find, set up your support team, like people set up a physician team. You need a support team that's going to surround you and help you with things that they can do so that you can focus on the things that only you can do for your loved one. And and that's something that people try, don't realize or slowing down, like you're saying. I feel when we were going through our cancer journey, we slowed down everything. We stopped our weekly participation in all the activities that we had going on. And we did that for a year and it was the best thing. And many people think, Oh, I don't want my kids to feel like they're being left behind or I don't want them to feel left out. And actually it's the complete opposite. Your family gets stronger, it's united. And then there's not that stress of having to be there or everywhere for the spouse that's actually doing the driving. So that's really great advice to really plan these things before the fatigue sets in. In your blog, you talk about the importance of loving your spouse or loved one unconditionally through through something like cancer. Could you provide some insights or advice for caregivers on how to cultivate and express this in a tangible way?

Marika Humphreys:

Yeah, I think what can come up in, and what I've encountered with coaching people when their partners have cancer and I think it applies to any loved one. The struggle, we each go through this struggle in our own way, and often the response and how people deal with it is different. My late husband, he went through periods of time where he was just angry. He lost some use of his body, and I think he got frustrated with cancer and the impact it had on his physical body. And that for him came out a lot in anger. I've had several clients where their partner is coping and it may not feel like coping but it is coping through anger but that can be really hard to deal with and understand even as a caregiver and as their partner. And your response may be different, right? Some, women tend to withdraw and shut down. I think these are generalizations, but people often have different emotional responses. And I think where the loving unconditionally comes in, especially as when you're not on the same page there. That's when I think it's really challenging. And you have to just know that emotions and how people cope, even when it looks like not coping, right? A lot of times it doesn't look like they're coping, but we're all doing the best we absolutely can. And it's all just a process too, and sometimes we have to work through these messy emotional processes. And again, as the caregiver, there is a tendency to want to comfort or fix or jump in and try and help, and that often is not helpful. And often, the person will feel misunderstood and not heard when you want to fix it. But in and even though it comes out of love, often this desire to help, but lots of times we just need to express ourselves and we just need to be heard and let our pain come out and just be acknowledged. So I think if you can recognize that however your partner is dealing with cancer again with that diagnosis which you know, I have not gone through that experience so I can only imagine but I did see what my husband went through. We're just giving them space to navigate it how they're able, at that time, and that's where loving unconditionally just, I think there's a lot of space involved and you can love even from a distance, like, I had to realize that when my husband would get angry, that was really hard for me, and for a long time I would try to prevent him from getting angry by trying to make sure I didn't upset him or things didn't agitate him. That was a completely fruitless attempt because I can't control his emotions, nor can we control anybody else's emotions. So, what I learned to do and found most useful was to just simply love him. And sometimes that meant doing it from afar, like giving him space to rage and then come in and just, one time he asked me to hold his hand and love him and that is where I really realized like you can't fix it for them, nor they need you to, but you can always just love them and love them through all the ups and downs and the hardship. And that can be challenging sometimes.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. I think many caregivers, may struggle with feelings of helplessness, because they can't change the circumstance, especially when they're in pain. What advice do you have for caregivers and finding balance between providing the care and accepting the limitations that you have?

Marika Humphreys:

Yeah, I do think that this experience for everybody, whether you are facing the diagnosis yourself or as the caregiver, it's making some peace with the things in the world and in our lives that we do not control. And that's a very hard thing for all of us. But I think cancer puts it very up close and personal with you that a lot of other life situations don't create. And feelings of helplessness is huge, especially through the pain. And in cancer, it's known for all the side effects of just the treatment alone. My own experience with that was after my husband's initial diagnosis, he did go through an intense chemo regime that left him feeling utterly awful, bloated, nauseous, just miserable for like about 10 days afterward, and I'm sure many listeners can compare or have some similar story. And it was so hard for me to just see him in pain, because there literally was nothing I could do. Even though I tried, I wanted to, right? My instinct was, I should fix this for him. I should be able to help him. And that, for me, created, like, when we want to try and fix it, or in my case, and I think this is how a lot of us feel, is, I felt like it was my responsibility, I'm his spouse, I should be able to make him feel better and yet, I couldn't. There's some things you can do, you can comfort, and you can get medication, and you can make phone calls, and you can provide some assistance, but it's pretty limited. And when you fixate on wanting to comfort them, and it's not something you can control, the challenge with that as a caregiver is you end up feeling like, anxious, and agitated, and hopeless. And when we're feeling that way, it's really hard to be loving, and patient, and calm. And when we want comfort, we want someone who's loving and patient and calm. And so the idea is like learning to see that especially their pain, whether that's often physical pain or emotional pain, realizing that is not something that you can control. They often don't need you to, right? They're not looking to you to do that. They know your own limitations as well. When you can let go of that sort of pressure we often put on ourselves then you can, it's easier then to be just loving or be calm, or compassionate, when you stop trying to fix something you can't.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah, so what types of communication strategies or tools do you suggest for caregivers to offer that effective support, while also caring for their emotional well being? What are some practical strategies when you're communicating with them that you can do?

Marika Humphreys:

Yeah, so I think here the words are less important than how you think about it, and what I mean by that is when you are thinking, I need to fix this, the words that will come out is, well, what can I do? How can I help? Tell me what to do, that's what I would say, usually. And in this busyness, when you can relax into or let go of that responsibility and think, okay, I'm just going to be here. Words around that, these are just suggestions, right? It doesn't really matter, it's the emotion behind it, but I'm here for you, how can I support you. And sometimes no words at all. Often, like, hospital situations or environments where just holding their hand or maybe, physical touch, massage of their shoulders or something. In thinking about love and comfort, that can be, I think, tremendously helpful. Like, again, the words are less important. It's the emotion behind it. And when that emotion comes from love and support as opposed to anxiety or feelings of helplessness, knowing that nothing you can say is going to make it better. Right? You can't say some magic words to make things, go away. None of us can do that. And we want to but often our loved one doesn't need us to say that. They don't expect us to have magic words, and yet we get into this thinking, I was literally just talking to my client about this very thing, and she actually is a physician. So, even harder for her as a caregiver and a physician, she's used to giving powerful words, but with her husband, she can't. And I had to really, we had to really talk about, he doesn't need you to, you are also his wife, and he just wants your love and support, and sometimes that's just being present in the room, or holding a hand but I think saying like, how can I support you, or I'm here for you, I think those are also just really open ended ways to convey love and connection.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes, I know, Jimmy, for me, as Christians, there's a verse in the Bible that says, when you are weak, I'll make you strong. And I think that, it's amazing that the fruits of the spirit, the first three are love, joy, and peace. And I feel like for him, he said, when I was, when I started my day with the Lord and just really had him fill me with his strength for that day when I was even just so tired. I had unsurmountable strength that I didn't even know I had because I wasn't just always depending on myself. I was depending on his strength that he gave me. And then there were times where, like you said, he didn't know what to say, but he would just pray in the mornings that God would give him the words that I needed to hear that he would be that listening ear for me. And I know that was just so meaningful to know that, he was spending that time so he was in the alignment with God so that his words came out gracious and kind and supportive and, didn't stray from that and cause contention and irritation and, being upset or whatever the other feelings would be. So, I think that's another factor for a lot of those in the Believe Big community that have God as their source of strength, that they know that, hey, When you are weak, he makes us strong. And so don't feel like you always have to rely on yourself, so those were some great words that you shared that made me think of that as you were speaking.

Marika Humphreys:

Yeah, that's beautiful. It gives me chills to think about it too.

Ivelisse Page:

Well, in your experience what are some common misconceptions or misunderstandings that caregivers may have about their role of supporting a partner with cancer? Like, how do you reframe these perspectives? Like you did with the one that was a physician. She's so used to giving an order and, they follow my prescription, take your supplements, how do you coach people on changing that perspective?

Marika Humphreys:

I think yeah, I think some of the misconceptions for caregivers is this idea that they need to do it all or be everything for their partner. And again, I think that's just a natural, a natural tendency. And that alone is one of the things that I think definitely leads to burnout. And one of the things I sometimes do with my clients is have them define the role of caregiver for themselves. And what I mean by that is, I sometimes compare it to like, when you get a job, there's a job description. There's these defined tasks that you are expected to do. And yet as a caregiver, we don't have that. So we just try to take on everything. That's the expectation often we put on ourselves, but maybe it's, maybe somebody else is putting some pressure on you, maybe your partner is. But when you sit down and think about who do I want to be during this time? What is most important to me? And just clarify the values or the most important aspects of this role to you. Perhaps it's connection or just support or like one of my clients would say advocacy being able to advocate and getting really clear on like the top, two or three things and then focusing your role around that. Other things, the rest can maybe you get help for. Maybe some things you'd let go, just gives you clarity on what to focus on. And I think there is no one right way people are constrained by varying limits on their times. Some people are raising kids, all sorts of differences in our constraints on our time and mental and emotional and physical constraints, right? Some people have their own health issues. So it needs to be something that is most important to you. And thinking about how you want to show up for your loved one helps you define that and prioritize. And then be willing to either seek help, reach out for help for those other things, let them go. Like for me that was, my husband always did the cooking, I did the cleaning, and we used to have the kitchen clean every night, and I just got to a point where I was too tired, so letting it go was like an aha moment that I could just let some standards slip. And, as I always tell people, it's like, this is just for now. We don't know how long"for now" is, but it's not a forever thing. But whatever it is, be willing to let certain things go if they're not the priority. Right. And a lot of times we try to juggle,

Ivelisse Page:

And being willing to accept help. I think that sometimes, people like myself or our personalities that can be like, I will do anything for anyone, but I was in the mindset as, Oh, I don't want to put them out by asking them. I need help here or I need help there. I need a ride. I just would feel badly. And I still remember my sister in law would say to me, she said, Ivelisse, when you don't allow people to help, it robs them of the blessing. And I think that's something really important for anyone who's being a caregiver, that it's okay to ask for help. It's okay, like you're saying, to let things go that aren't as important. There are so many healthy home delivery systems, and we can put some of them in our show notes, that can deliver food meals already prepared that will comply with whatever diet your loved one is on. So that is such a great thing. It's okay to let that go. Don't feel like you have to keep everything together that was before the diagnosis, so great advice there. What are some proactive measures and self-care practices. So what are your favorite self-care practices that you share to caregivers?

Marika Humphreys:

Yeah, the first one that I teach everybody and that I learned and did myself is the thought download. And that process helps, it helps you separate out your thoughts, which are often judgments, worries, fears. All of these things from the circumstances that you're facing, and that's the process that I teach clients and that I learned myself too because we often have the reality of our situation, and then we have all of our thoughts and fears and judgments about our reality. And the thoughts and fears and judgments will come from your background, from past experiences. Some things are very triggering for people, or if you've ever experienced a loss, you start, worrying about that, or, it's just full of a lot of clutter, so the Thought Download is probably one of my favorite health practices for caregivers. Really, for anybody. Definitely for anybody because it can help you separate out the mental turmoil from the situation and get some clarity on the clutter in your brain or helping to clear up the clutter in your brain. The other one that I also teach my clients and I think is huge for anybody going through a major emotional event, is really learning how to be aware of and allow the experience of the emotions that come up. And what I mean by that is, most of us are like, if we just take crying, for example, because most people are familiar with crying or anger, right? Those are two emotions that we all have experienced in life. But we are familiar with them because they have the like a physical outlet, right? Anger, people usually yell or maybe slam doors. With crying sadness comes out in the form of crying. But there are so many emotions, fear, anxiety that we experience And when you learn how to notice them, notice the emotion as you're experiencing it, like, Oh my gosh, this is anxiety, let's take anxiety for example, and then are able to actually just give yourself a moment to allow that emotion, like, I'm feeling anxiety, and it's okay. And if you can, the kind of the advanced version of this is to try to see how this emotion feels in your body. So for me, anxiety is like this buzzing in my stomach. When you do that the process of doing that, just being aware of it, you separate yourself from the emotional experience. The process of doing that, first of all, lessens the intensity of the emotion that we're experiencing. No matter what it is, when we start observing it. It's less intense, or the experience of it is less intense, and teaching this, it's also underscored by the idea that emotions are part of our human experience, and they're not bad, right? We have wonderful emotions, right? There's just a spectrum of emotions. Some just are uncomfortable to feel. Things like fear is a big one. But when you learn to just allow it and give yourself permission to feel, it has this, I call it magic because it has this amazing ability to, that emotion will go through you. And it's, it will go quicker than what we, than when we try to push it away. Which is what most of us do on instinct. We try to push away the emotions that we don't want, right? Fear is a really good example because that also comes up for caregivers a lot. And we don't like to feel fear. And we think if we just ignore it, like it'll go away. But in fact, the opposite is true. I always say it waits for us. And often it can just build in intensity actually. So those are probably the two biggest health tips that I teach caregivers both because they're not things that we know about, right? We know about the other things these are things that we just don't, we don't learn normally.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes, that is really good. That's one thing I learned this summer especially while I was on sabbatical. And it was, when you're dealing with emotions, it's so important not to just shove them down and keep moving forward. When you have things in your life that are disappointments or things that upset you, or you don't keep shoving them down because they are going to come to the surface and they actually can cause physical illness and other things that it can wear your body down the stress of it. And, one of the tools that I learned from our friends at Soul Shepherding was that they have something called Breath Prayers. And it's like what you're saying. You'll see it almost like an ocean wave that you breathe in. And like at the top of the wave and then you exhale and it goes back out into the ocean. But the breath prayer is like taking a favorite scripture or something that is really powerful to you. So for me anytime I had that feeling in my chest or like you're saying that knot in your stomach I would say in Jesus name and I just like breathe that in. And then I would say breathe out, not my strain. And then it was releasing that burden. I was feeling what I was feeling. I was validating it, but then I was using those breath prayers to really fully heal, help to heal those emotions too, and let go of them and not hold on to them. So I really love that tip that you just shared, that second one. That's really excellent. And I know our time has already come to an end, so quickly, thank you so much for everything you've shared. Is there anything that you would like to share briefly that I didn't get a chance to ask you that you felt was really important to share to caregivers that are listening today.

Marika Humphreys:

I think getting support sooner than later. And partly because it's something I think it's something we hold off on. I know I did. And I see it in a lot of caregivers as well. The mentality is you just you go all at it with, everything you've got and then over time you will end up slowly exhausted. So the sooner you can get support, really the better, to ideally prevent that burnout. But then start equipping yourself with tools because when you are getting supported yourself, like you mentioned with your husband too, and just the prayer he did in the morning was part of him getting support that helped him sustain and be there for you in the way that he wanted to be, I'm imagining, right, but that's what we all want is we want to be there for our loved ones, but often we have to have support of some sort in order to do that, in order to shore up our own strength. And that's something I would encourage to do sooner. Before you think you need it now. So that you have it, right? So that you don't get to that burnout period. Because that is no fun. Being in a place where you're so miserable yourself and then guilt comes up for people. They feel so bad and they're miserable, but they feel guilty because they don't have cancer. Like, my problems are small, I literally just had that conversation the other day. It's super common. So, yeah, that's what I would encourage. All the caregivers out there.

Ivelisse Page:

Thank you. That's really great advice. And we will put links to your coaching website so that people can get a hold of you. We will also put links to our Healing Strong has support groups just for caregivers. So if people are interested in that avenue as well, we'll put several links down that people can use as a resource if you're not sure where to go, or you're about to reach burnout or you're fatigued. Get the help that you need, get the support you need. And we here at Believe Big are also here for you, but Marika, thank you so much for joining me today. And thank you for everything that you've shared. And I know it's going to be a tremendous blessing to those who are listening today.

Marika Humphreys:

Well, you are welcome. And your story I've listened to several episodes and your story is very inspirational as well. So thank you for what you do. It's a wonderful thing.

Ivelisse Page:

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