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  • What's Your Caregiving Value?

    What's Your Caregiving Value?
    2026/08/03
    You've done the math on everything else. Grocery bills. Gas mileage. The cost of the good coffee versus the store brand. But have you ever done the math on yourself?

    This week, we're putting a number on your caregiving — a real one, built from what more than 500 family caregivers told us about their days. It might make you feel seen. It might make you angry. It might do both at once.

    We'll walk through where that number comes from, what it means when someone questions your worth, and why the title you should be using isn't "caregiver" — it's CEO.

    Stick around for the number. Then decide what you're going to do with it.

    Be sure to calculate your value: caringourway.com/value

    Resources
    • Calculate your caregiving value.
    • We have two tools that connect you to more comfort:
      • Find a podcast episode that eases the pain from a tough emotion
      • Read a message that soothes what aches in your heart and soul
    • Tell Medicare you deserve support.
    • Purchase Denise's five-book Take Comfort series so you always have comfort with you.
    • Image by Edar from Pixabay


    Caregiving Comforts offers exactly what you need: 2-3 minutes of genuine understanding, comfort, and hope. Every Monday, Denise M. Brown shares reflections that speak directly to your caregiving reality—the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the moments when you wonder if life has canceled you.
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    8 分
  • During Caregiving, You Can Get Tired of Trying

    During Caregiving, You Can Get Tired of Trying
    2026/07/27
    You spend your day trying. So why does it feel like you spend your day failing?

    If you've ever felt like you're working with old pieces that don't fit the new puzzle life just handed you — no matter how much you ask, delegate, or research — this episode is for you.

    In this week's Caregiving Comfort, we sit with what trying really costs, why it can feel so futile, and the truth about what trying actually means versus what failing actually means. If you've been close to giving up on trying altogether, listen through to the end — there's a different way to think about the break you need.

    Resources
    • Purchase Denise's five-book Take Comfort series so you always have comfort with you.
    • Calculate your caregiving value.
    • We have two tools that connect you to more comfort:
      • Find a podcast episode that eases the pain from a tough emotion
      • Read a message that soothes what aches in your heart and soul
    • Tell Medicare you deserve support.
    • Image by Mike Sweeney from Pixabay


    Caregiving Comforts offers exactly what you need: 2-3 minutes of genuine understanding, comfort, and hope. Every Monday, Denise M. Brown shares reflections that speak directly to your caregiving reality—the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the moments when you wonder if life has canceled you.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    4 分
  • When Your Caregiving Life Feels Like Such a Different Life

    When Your Caregiving Life Feels Like Such a Different Life
    2026/07/20
    Ever sit in a room full of people and feel like you just don't connect the way everyone else does? Like the conversation is happening in a language you almost speak, but not quite? In this episode, we sit with that feeling of being on the outside of "common" and what it might actually mean about the life you're living.

    Resources
    • Purchase Denise's five-book Take Comfort series so you always have comfort with you.
    • Calculate your caregiving value.
    • We have two tools that connect you to more comfort:
      • Find a podcast episode that eases the pain from a tough emotion
      • Read a message that soothes what aches in your heart and soul
    • Image by Samuel Stone from Pixabay


    Caregiving Comforts offers exactly what you need: 2-3 minutes of genuine understanding, comfort, and hope. Every Monday, Denise M. Brown shares reflections that speak directly to your caregiving reality—the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the moments when you wonder if life has canceled you.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    5 分
  • During Caregiving, Managing Mistakes

    During Caregiving, Managing Mistakes
    2026/07/13
    You didn't make the mess. But somehow, you're the one cleaning it up — in your day, and in your life.

    Maybe you've wondered it too: did I get someone else's life by mistake? Because surely this can't be the one meant for you.

    The wreckage piles up. It discourages you, derails you, and leaves you flirting with a bitterness that crowds out any sweetness left to find. So what do you do with all of it — including the biggest mistake of all, the one the Universe seems to have made in handing you this life?

    This week, we sit with that question. And we find our way toward something you didn't expect to hear.

    Resources
    • Purchase Denise's five-book Take Comfort series so you always have comfort with you.
    • Calculate your caregiving value.
    • We have two tools that connect you to more comfort:
      • Find a podcast episode that eases the pain from a tough emotion
      • Read a message that soothes what aches in your heart and soul
    • Image by congerdesign from Pixabay


    Caregiving Comforts offers exactly what you need: 2-3 minutes of genuine understanding, comfort, and hope. Every Monday, Denise M. Brown shares reflections that speak directly to your caregiving reality—the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the moments when you wonder if life has canceled you.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    4 分
  • During Caregiving, What's Luck Got to Do With It?

    During Caregiving, What's Luck Got to Do With It?
    2026/07/06
    We're told family caregivers should feel grateful — lucky, even — to still have their caree with them. But what happens when the person is here and also, somehow, gone? This week, Denise sits with the uncomfortable gap between what we're supposed to feel and what caregiving actually feels like.

    There's a curse in that gap. There might be a spell that breaks it though it's not the one you'd expect.

    Resources
    • Purchase Denise's five-book Take Comfort series so you always have comfort with you.
    • Calculate your caregiving value.
    • We have two tools that connect you to more comfort:
      • Find a podcast episode that eases the pain from a tough emotion
      • Read a message that soothes what aches in your heart and soul
    • Image by Sabine18 from Pixabay
    About Denise

    Denise supports individuals managing difficult life experiences with coaching, planning and training. Through her work, Denise helps clients find hope, possibilities and a path forward. Denise began helping individuals who care for a family member in 1990 and launched a business to help them in 1995. She created one of the first online caregiving communities in 1996 which she managed until its sale in 2020.

    Denise now develops and delivers training programs for the workplace and for individuals who want to coach family caregivers. More than 400 individuals from eight different countries have enrolled in her training programs offered through her company, The Caregiving Years Training Academy. Her training programs have been approved to provide Continuing Education Units to health care professionals, including nurses, and human resource professionals.

    Denise also hosts an online community, CaringOurWay.com, that supports individuals during and after their personal caregiving experience. Community members enjoy free workshops and special events like the Caregiving Listener Project and the 36-Hour Christmas Chat. Denise is the author of several books that provide insights, comfort and hope to those who care, including The Caregiving Guide, Your Go-To Reference and Companion During All Stages of Your Caregiving Experience, and After Caregiving Ends, A Guide to Beginning Again. Her free resource, A Workbook for Your Workplace Wellness, helps individuals who care, grieve and work.

    Denise began helping her parents in 2004 after her father’s bladder cancer diagnosis. Her mom, who had Parkinson’s disease, died in August 2022, one year to the date after Denise’s brother died. Her father died in July 2023.

    Next Avenue named Denise a 2017 Influencer in Aging, one of “50 advocates, researchers, thought leaders, innovators, writers and experts who continue to push beyond traditional boundaries and change our understanding of what it means to grow older.” Her insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, US News & World Report, USA Today, SmartMoney.com, Time magazine and Chicago Tribune.



    Caregiving Comforts offers exactly what you need: 2-3 minutes of genuine understanding, comfort, and hope. Every Monday, Denise M. Brown shares reflections that speak directly to your caregiving reality—the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the moments when you wonder if life has canceled you.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    4 分
  • During Caregiving, Your Thoughts About the Mess Others Make

    During Caregiving, Your Thoughts About the Mess Others Make
    2026/05/18
    Sometimes, before you can let something go, you have to let yourself feel it first.

    This week's Caregiving Comfort sits with the revenge fantasies that family caregivers rarely admit to — the ones about the doctor who made the diagnosis so hard, the sibling who promised to show up and didn't, the health care professional who left your caree unable to rest. The ones that feel a little too satisfying to visualize.

    You don't have to apologize for any of it.

    And when you're ready, there's a pivot waiting — back to your life, your energy, and the quiet knowledge that some people have already earned exactly what's coming to them.

    Resources
    • Purchase Denise's five-book Take Comfort series so you always have comfort with you.
    • Calculate your caregiving value.
    • We have two tools that connect you to more comfort:
      • Find a podcast episode that eases the pain from a tough emotion
      • Read a message that soothes what aches in your heart and soul
    • Image by Basil Smith from Pixabay


    Caregiving Comforts offers exactly what you need: 2-3 minutes of genuine understanding, comfort, and hope. Every Monday, Denise M. Brown shares reflections that speak directly to your caregiving reality—the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the moments when you wonder if life has canceled you.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    4 分
  • During Caregiving, The Reality of Your Reality

    During Caregiving, The Reality of Your Reality
    2026/05/11
    You share a little of what your day looks like. And someone tells you that you're exaggerating.It's one of the more isolating moments in caregiving — having the weight of your experience questioned by someone who isn't carrying it. In this episode, Denise speaks directly to that frustration, and to what it means to hold your ground when others doubt your reality.

    Someday, they'll know. Until then, you do.

    Resources
    • Purchase Denise's five-book Take Comfort series so you always have comfort with you.
    • Calculate your caregiving value.
    • We have two tools that connect you to more comfort:
      • Find a podcast episode that eases the pain from a tough emotion
      • Read a message that soothes what aches in your heart and soul
    • Image by Alexa from Pixabay
    • Enjoy the podcast, below.


    Caregiving Comforts offers exactly what you need: 2-3 minutes of genuine understanding, comfort, and hope. Every Monday, Denise M. Brown shares reflections that speak directly to your caregiving reality—the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the moments when you wonder if life has canceled you.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    9 分
  • During Caregiving, You Build

    During Caregiving, You Build
    2026/05/04
    You build every day — pushing, patching, hammering solutions together. But where's the building?

    In this episode, Denise explores the structure family caregivers actually create: precise, fragile, and holding everything together. What happens when you start building in what you need, too?

    Resources
    • Purchase Denise's five-book Take Comfort series so you always have comfort with you.
    • We have two tools that connect you to more comfort:
      • Find a podcast episode that eases the pain from a tough emotion
      • Read a message that soothes what aches in your heart and soul
    • Image by Pexels from Pixabay
    #caregiving


    Caregiving Comforts offers exactly what you need: 2-3 minutes of genuine understanding, comfort, and hope. Every Monday, Denise M. Brown shares reflections that speak directly to your caregiving reality—the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the moments when you wonder if life has canceled you.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    4 分