You shoulder responsibility for many lives. Sometimes that leaves no time or energy to take care of yourself and your family. You know you could use some help in getting through the work day, but often you find yourself in a culture or climate that discourages asking for help.
You learn how to compartmentalize your emotions. The trauma of school and postgraduate training get shoved into one compartment. The grief over losing a client goes in another. The anger with a patient who continually breaches your boundaries goes into yet another. There’s never time to examine and to heal. You may carry shame and trauma that’s buried so deep, you think it’s completely forgotten.
You’re exhausted. You may feel isolated, vulnerable, and stressed. You may feel envy and resentment toward your colleagues. On top of it all, you may be feeling guilty about those negative feelings.
AWA offers the Caregiver Project to help cope with some of that.
The Caregiver Project for Professional Caregivers is an online writing workshop for those who have lost touch with the passion they once felt in caring for clients, who have lost touch with what brings joy to their lives. The rigors of work have caused social activities and social supports to fall away.
Expressive writing has been demonstrated in research to be associated with fewer visits to the doctor because of stress-related illness, improved immune system functioning, reduced blood pressure, improved lung and liver function, improved mood and affect, and a feeling of greater psychological well-being.
You do not need to consider yourself a writer to join and benefit from these workshops. The AWA method has a proven track record of holding safe, generative and supportive space where both writers and writing can flourish.
The Caregiver Project is a chance to experience writing in a group with peers, both professional and family caregivers, who deal with similar challenges every day. It allows them to connect, to express themselves and to learn, through bearing witness and having their own writing listened to, that they are absolutely not alone.
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In March and April of 2023, AWA will be offering six stand-alone, introductory sessions to writing in the AWA Method with those who provide professional and/or family caregiving. To see dates and times and to register, please visit this link: The Caregiver Project Introductory Sessions.
Registration is on a donation basis, from free to $30.
Please feel free to share this information with anyone you know who is providing care.