PODCAST · health
Caregiving Comforts
by Denise M. Brown
You do the work without the title. You feel like you're constantly canceling plans, running on empty, and wondering how long you can keep up this pace. Sound familiar? Caregiving Comforts is the first and only podcast designed specifically for those overwhelmed moments when you need comfort, not another lecture about self-care. What Makes This Different: Episodes are just 2-3 minutes—perfect for your busy, unpredictable schedule No interviews, no experts—just authentic understanding from someone who's been there Content comes from 30+ years of writing comfort for family caregivers like you Pairs with weekly blog posts for deeper reflection From the author of the Take Comfort book series You'll Find Comfort For: Those days when you need a break but can't take a break Feeling like life has canceled you The exhaustion that no one else understands Wondering if you're losing your
Episodes
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During Caregiving, Where Does the Love Go?
Caregiving can bury the love under stress until it feels like it's gone. If you've had days where you couldn't feel loved — even by the people who love you most — this one's for you. A short practice to help you find your way back to it. Resources Calculate your caregiving value. We have two…
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During Caregiving, Naming Your Scope of Work
You know your days are full. But do you know how many different kinds of work you're actually doing? This week, we're breaking down the scope of family caregiving — the nine distinct domains your work spans, often within a single hour of a single day. We'll walk through what it looks like to map...
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During Caregiving, Managing the Difficult Memories
Your day feels like it's stuck on a loop. And it's not just the routine — it's the memories. The moments that broke your heart. The things you heard that you wish you could unhear. They slide into your mind uninvited, again and again, even when you're trying so hard to move past them. You…
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What's Your Caregiving Value?
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...
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During Caregiving, You Can Get Tired of Trying
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...
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When Your Caregiving Life Feels Like Such a Different Life
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...
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During Caregiving, Managing Mistakes
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...
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During Caregiving, What's Luck Got to Do With It?
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....
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During Caregiving, Your Thoughts About the Mess Others Make
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...
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During Caregiving, The Reality of Your Reality
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…
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During Caregiving, You Build
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?…
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During Caregiving, How Do I Fit My Life?
Rearranging your home is something you can see as you go. Rearranging your life during caregiving is different — it requires trust before you can see the results. In this episode, Denise explores what it really means to add help, shift schedules, and remake the shape of your days when you can't…
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During Caregiving, You Can Wonder: Is This All There Is?
Some days, caregiving feels like pushing a boulder up a mountain — moment by moment, with no end in sight. In this episode, Denise sits with the question that can rise up on those days: Is this all there is? This short reflection explores what happens when a hard day becomes, in our minds, a hard...
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During Caregiving, How Do You Cope With So Many Endings?
Too much ends during caregiving — the life you knew, the services you counted on, the friendships that couldn't hold the weight of it. In this episode, Denise explores what happens when you give yourself an intentional beginning in the middle of all that loss. Because with every ending, a new...
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During Caregiving, They Defer While You Do It
There's a word your family uses when they want to sound supportive. Defer. "We defer to you." "Whatever you think is best." "We know you've got it covered." That's not support. That's a load — handed to you, wrapped in a compliment. You can defer, too.This week on Caregiving Comforts, we're…
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During Caregiving, Where's the Love?
During caregiving, the certainty we once felt — of being loved, appreciated, and supported — can quietly slip away. When the people in our lives struggle to show up, we begin to doubt what we once knew to be true.In this episode, we explore what happens to love during caregiving. Why it feels...
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During Caregiving, Dealing with Mansplainers
You know more than they do. You live this caregiving life every minute of every day — and yet, the mansplainers show up anyway, ready to tell you what you should do based on a headline they skimmed or a story they heard through someone's cousin's best friend's brother.In this episode, we talk…
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How Do We Cope with Our Painful Caregiving Days?
Twice the pain. That's what family caregivers carry — their own suffering and their caree's. In this episode, we sit with the moments when we really, really want caregiving to end, and we explore what that wish is really telling us. Because inside that longing is something healing. In our being,...
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When Caregiving Saturates
You are filled with the stuff of caregiving — the decisions, the schedules, the unexpected problems, the constant adjustments. You cannot take in any more. Yet more keeps coming. That's when saturation turns to drowning, and drowning turns to tears. In this episode, Denise offers a gentle…
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During Caregiving, the Search for Completion
Caregiving can feel like one long list of incompletes — the to-dos unfinished, the routines abandoned, the projects stalled. But what if life isn't grading us at all? In this episode, Denise explores what it means to be a beautiful work in progress, and why moving from one moment to the next is...
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The Weariness from Sharing a Life with Caregiving
Caregiving asks you to share everything — your family's private details, your caree's fragile state, your needs, your fears. It can feel like you're an open book with no say in who reads it.In this episode, Denise explores the quiet exhaustion of constant sharing and the relief that comes from...
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During Caregiving, Missing What's Gone
What happens when caregiving takes away the life you had — your schedule, your patience, your joy — and leaves guilt in its place? In this week's Caregiving Comfort, we explore how to grieve what's gone, release the guilt, and discover that what you've kept is enough to build something even...
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During Caregiving, You Can Wonder: What's the Point?
When schedules fall apart by Monday afternoon, when you're training yet another home health aide, when that weekend away seems impossible—you can't help but ask: What's the point of all this? Why bother? In this week's Caregiving Comfort, Denise talks about what to remember when caregiving feels...
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During Caregiving, Why Can't Someone Else Just Take the Lead?
Why does it always fall to you? Why are you the one making the difficult decisions, starting the uncomfortable conversations, and speaking the heartbreaking truths?In this episode, Denise explores the weight of caregiving leadership—and why you're actually the one best equipped to carry it.…
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During Caregiving, How Do We Manage Uncertainty?
n this episode, Denise shares her latest Caregiving Comfort, "Thank You for Being Our Certainty" and the real conversation that inspired it—a community member's honest reflection on searching desperately online for answers that don't exist, only to pretend those fragments of information provide...
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During Caregiving, Boiling Over with Purpose
Family caregivers boil over for really important reasons. Join Denise as she reframes your breaking point—not as failure, but as evidence that systems have failed you. Discover how to turn your boiling point into a teaching moment and powerful advocacy. Resources Join us for Coaching for…
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There's Always More To Do During Caregiving—Choose Yourself Next
There's always another request, another thing to organize, another person who needs your help. But what about what you need? In this episode, Denise explores the guilt and pressure that keep caregivers from prioritizing themselves—and offers a simple but powerful permission: 'I'm next.' Discover...
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During Caregiving, Who Gets the Participation Trophy?
You do all the work. You manage all the responsibilities. You carry all the heartache. And when family members show up for one afternoon, they want their participation trophy. But where's yours? Listen in as we talk about the gold medal only select few earn—and how other family caregivers can see...
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During Caregiving, Where's the Happy Holiday?
Caregiving doesn't take a holiday—and neither do you. As the season of Happy Holidays approaches, many family caregivers face a tension: How do you make room for Merry when caregiving demands continue? Resources If you need extra support and comfort over Christmas, please feel free to stop by our...
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During Caregiving, Where Do I Belong?
Your life changes so much because of your caregiving responsibilities, leading you to wonder where your life went. You may wonder: Where do I belong? In this episode, Denise offers a comforting perspective on where you belong. Resources If you need extra support and comfort over Christmas, please...
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A Caregiving Break From Bad News
When family caregivers hear they need to take a break, it often misses what they really need—a break from the constant bad news. In this episode, discover how to give yourself the good news your mind and heart are craving, and why daydreaming isn't escape; it's preparation for the life you're...
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A Caregiving Comfort: Demand
Demands pile up in caregiving—from your to-do list to care plans to systems that seem to multiply on their own. But here's what many caregivers don't realize: when others make demands of you, they also give you authority. In this episode, we explore how you can reclaim that authority to create a...
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Quieting the Caregiving Noise
Caregiving creates a unique kind of overwhelm—the constant demands from others mixed with the internal chorus of worries and doubts. In this episode, Denise explores how to navigate both kinds of noise and reclaim your sense of calm. Stop by our community, CaringOurWay.com, and tell us how you'll...
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During Caregiving, When a Brochure Isn't Enough
When you're in the midst of caregiving, a diagnosis, a crisis, or a major transition often comes with the same response: a brochure. But information isn't always what you need—you need real help. In this Caregiving Comfort, we explore why caregivers so often feel handed a piece of paper instead…
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During Caregiving, What's Enough?
Feeling like you're never doing enough? This week on the podcast, we're challenging that voice and asking the question that changes everything: "What's enough for me?" Discover how knowing your personal threshold for "enough" isn't selfish—it's essential to having enough of yourself for as long…
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The Family Caregiver's Groundhog Day
Feeling stuck in an endless loop of caregiving? This episode explores the reality of caregiving through the lens of an unpredictable television series and shares thoughts on how you can take back control. This week's Caregiving Comfort is inpsired by the word "Series" which was inspired by the...
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A Caregiving Comfort: Chirp
Caregivers are surrounded by chirping—demands from others, doubt from within. In this week's comfort, we explore what happens when you decide to listen to a different kind of chirping. Step outside with us as we discover what the birds have to remind you about yourself. Resources Enjoy more...
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A Caregiving Comfort: More
Sometimes You Just Crave More When you're a family caregiver, you crave more—more time, more money, more support that actually helps. But when that good stuff feels out of reach, it's easy to reach for something else instead: more sweets, more scrolling, more of whatever numbs the stress. In this...
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A Caregiving Comfort: Marathon
Caregiving can feel like running a marathon you never signed up for, one where you suddenly find yourself at the front, heading into the wind, while everyone else follows at a safe distance. In this episode, we explore how to keep going when you're not sure how long the race will last. Discover...
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A Caregiving Comfort: Done
You're done. Just done. Done doing it all on little sleep and with little help. Done trying, deciding, worrying, and supporting. In this episode, we explore what it means to feel completely finished and why that feeling deserves acknowledgment, not judgment.When you're so exhausted you can barely...
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A Caregiving Comfort: Turn
You're always the one taking the turn. Everyone else gets to step away, but somehow you're still there—stuck in place while the life you want seems to pass you by. In this episode, we explore what happens when we compare our caregiving lives to everyone else's seemingly easier ones, and how that...
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A Caregiving Comfort: External
In this week's Comfort, we explore the reality that caregivers often work in silence, rarely receiving the recognition they deserve. While we all crave appreciation, waiting for others to acknowledge our efforts can leave us feeling isolated and undervalued. Perfect for family caregivers who feel...
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A Caregiving Comfort: Start
If you've ever had an idea or project you've been itching to start but keep putting off because of the uncertainty in your caregiving situation, this episode is for you. We'll challenge the belief that starting something you might not finish is a waste of time, and reframe what it really means to...
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A Caregiving Comfort: Score
Feeling guilty about mentally "keeping score" of who shows up and who lets you down in your caregiving journey? In this week's Caregiving Comfort, we explore how that inner calculator isn't petty or vengeful—it's actually strategic intelligence. Learn to reframe your awareness of support patterns...
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A Caregiving Comfort: Watch
Watch. It's what others check for the time so they can make their dinner reservations, arrive on time for their coffee date with friends and catch their favorite show when it airs live. For you, it's not about the treat of going out for dinner or the joy of connecting with friends or the fun of...
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A Caregiving Comfort: Impact
For everyone else, it's a simple run to the grocery store. For you, it's a complex puzzle you put together to keep your caree safe while you literally run through the grocery store as quick as you can. For every action you take, there's impact. Resources Stop by CaringOurWay.com and tell us about...
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A Caregiving Comfort: Title
You do the work without the title. But what title could accurately represent the impact you make? Resources Stop by CaringOurWay.com and tell us about your title. You also can purchase Denise's five-book Take Comfort series so you always have comfort with you. Enjoy the podcast, below. =========...
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A Caregiving Comfort: Make Up
You can't make up how hard your days feel. So you make do. Resources Read more Comforts and enjoy our support at CaringOurWay.com. You also can purchase Denise's five-book Take Comfort series so you always have comfort with you. ========= About Denise Denise supports individuals managing…
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A Caregiving Comfort: Break
When you know you need a break yet can't take a break, you can feel like you're stuck in a broken life. How to break free? Resources Read more Comforts and enjoy our support at CaringOurWay.com. You also can purchase Denise's five-book Take Comfort series so you always have comfort with you....
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A Caregiving Comfort: Pace
You may wonder: How long can I keep up this pace? Denise offers a suggestion to help you keep the pace. Resources Read more Comforts and enjoy our support at CaringOurWay.com. You also can purchase Denise's five-book Take Comfort series so you always have comfort with you. ========= About Denise...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
You do the work without the title. You feel like you're constantly canceling plans, running on empty, and wondering how long you can keep up this pace. Sound familiar?
Caregiving Comforts is the first and only podcast designed specifically for those overwhelmed moments when you need comfort, not another lecture about self-care.
What Makes This Different:
Episodes are just 2-3 minutes—perfect for your busy, unpredictable schedule
No interviews, no experts—just authentic understanding from someone who's been there
Content comes from 30+ years of writing comfort for family caregivers like you
Pairs with weekly blog posts for deeper reflection
From the author of the Take Comfort book series
You'll Find Comfort For:
Those days when you need a break but can't take a break
Feeling like life has canceled you
The exhaustion that no one else understands
Wondering if you're losing your
HOSTED BY
Denise M. Brown
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Caregiving Comforts have?
Caregiving Comforts currently has 132 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Caregiving Comforts about?
You do the work without the title. You feel like you're constantly canceling plans, running on empty, and wondering how long you can keep up this pace. Sound familiar? Caregiving Comforts is the first and only podcast designed specifically for those overwhelmed moments when you need comfort, not...
How often does Caregiving Comforts release new episodes?
Caregiving Comforts publishes regularly with 132 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Caregiving Comforts?
You can listen to Caregiving Comforts on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Caregiving Comforts?
Caregiving Comforts is created and hosted by Denise M. Brown.
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