Howard Brockman - Essential self-care for caregivers and helpers : preserve your health, maintain your well-being and create effective boundaries

Praise for Howard BrockmansEssential Self-Care for Caregivers and Helpers

Howard Brockman has created the manual for any professional or nonprofessional caregiver who serves with the intention of making a difference without losing him- or herself in the process. This is a well-written book that will help anyone become more conscious of their empathic practice, teach them how to skillfully balance it and at the same time, not be overwhelmed by their vocation. A must read!

DR. JOE DISPENZA, bestselling author of

Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind as well as
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

Howard Brockman provides an insightful, broad-ranging, sophisticated look at the way subtle energy affects the caregiving process and the well-being of the caregiver. This book offers spiritually and energetically cogent ways to promote corrective self-care in the midst of high-intensity giving, both the professional and personal kind. This is a strong mix of the theoretical and the practical.

BELLERUTH NAPARSTEK, LISW, Author of Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal, and creator of the Health Journeys guided imagery series

Brockmans Essential Self-Care for Caregivers and Helpers brings a bold new perspective to the age-old challenge to caregivershow to stay well while attending to the suffering of others. He carves out a wide arc as he describes the myriad influences that can cause caregivers and helpers to slide into burnout and absorb toxic energies from those they help. Considerations of ones basic temperament along with innovative self-care strategies make this a must read book for professionals and home-based helpers alike.

DR. FRED GALLO, author of Energy Psychology and Energy Tapping for Trauma

A wonderful book for anyone who cares for others. I found the advice to be insightful, thoughtful and compassionate. Keeping oneself in good mental health is critical for our well-being and those we care for. I think this will become a critical resource for caregivers.
I highly recommend this as a book you keep close to your heart.

Professor Zorba Paster, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Host of public radios Zorba Paster On Your Health

For 40 years I have insisted to my patients that their primary responsibility is to take care of themselves FIRST so that they can help others. Health care personnel are just as much in need of SELF-Care, as their primary responsibility. Here is the foundation for all to heed!

C. NORMAN SHEALY, M.D., PHD

President, Holos Institutes of Health

Professor Emeritus of Energy Medicine

Essential Self-Care for Caregivers and Helpers will be just as helpful and relevant to the millions of baby boomers taking care of aging parents as to those in the helping professions. Howard Brockman emphasizes what too many people know yet tend to overlookwhile helping others, one must still practice excellent self-care in order to stay well. He helps the reader understand vicarious trauma and how to distinguish its signs and symptoms from healthy stress. Helping doesnt have to be depleting or traumatizing as long as we understand how to create and maintain healthy boundaries. Brockman describes just how this is done. Congratulations for a job well done!

SHARON CASS-TOOLE, PHD, Integrative Psychotherapist, Toronto, Canada

Howard Brockman gives a great new spin to empowering the lives of caregivers. Working with energy psychology and core principles of consciousness, this book gives specific, useful examples of how to handle challenging situations and maintain your own healthy home frequency. Brockman is a good writer, too! Easy to read and understand, with interesting case studiesthis is a resource youll want to keep near at hand.

PENNEY PEIRCE, author of Frequency and The Intuitive Way

Howard Brockman has mined a wealth of cutting edge ideas and methods to pull together a useful and empowering guide for caregivers.

DAVID FEINSTEIN, PHD
Co-Author, The Promise of Energy Psychology

Essential Self-Care for
Caregivers and Helpers

Preserve Your Health,
Maintain Your Well-Being and
Create Effective Boundaries

Howard Brockman, LCSW

Columbia Press LLC
1620 Commercial St. SE
Salem, Oregon 97302

Copyright 2012 by Howard Brockman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, utilized, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Dynamic Energetic Healing and are registered trademarks of Howard Brockman and The Heart Center Incorporated (an Oregon Corporation).

Editor: Linda Jenkins

Cover image: Willow Arlenea

Illustrations: Andrea Foust

Cover and book design: Jerry Soga

Composition: William H. Brunson Typography Services

Proofreader: Abigail Whitney

ISBN 10: 0-9766469-5-1

ISBN 13: 978-0-9766469-5-2

Library of Congress Control Number 2012903611

To find out more about Howard Brockmans work and order books directly from the publisher, go to: www.DynamicEnergeticHealing.com

Book Disclaimer
Howard Brockman
Essential Self-care for Caregivers and Helpers

The information contained in this book, including ideas, suggestions, remedies, approaches, techniques, methods, and other materials, is provided only as general information and is solely intended for your own self-improvement and is not meant to be a substitute for medical or psychological treatment and does not replace the services of health care professionals. If you experience any emotional distress or physical discomfort using any of suggestions, remedies, approaches, techniques, or methods contained in this book, you are advised to stop and to seek professional care, if appropriate.

Publishing of the information contained in this book is not intended to create a client-therapist or any other type of professional relationship between the reader and the author. The author does not make any warranty, guarantee, or prediction regarding the outcome of an individual using this book for any particular issue.

You agree to assume and accept full responsibility for any and all risks associated with using any of the suggestions, remedies, approaches, techniques and methods described in this book and agree to accept full and complete responsibility for applying what you may learn from reading this book. By continuing to read this book you agree to fully release, indemnify, and hold harmless, the author, and others associated with the publication of this book from any claim or liability and for any damage or injury of whatsoever kind or nature which you may incur arising at any time out of or in relation to your use of the information presented in this book. If any court of law rules that any part of the Disclaimer is invalid, the Disclaimer stands as if those parts were struck out.

DEDICATION

To my wife Anita and my sons, Noah and Elias,
whose experience of deep and enduring relationship
continues to nurture and support me.

I have been in the helping professions since I began teaching at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, in the late 1970s. I had recently completed my masters degree in social ethics and religious studies at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. I was unable to get a job in the greater L.A. area, so my wife, my new son and I decided to move to Oregon to escape the sprawling and smog-laden L.A. basin. I was twenty-six years old and had romantic aspirations of having a small farm in the country. My inner drive to pursue the subject areas of my masters program led me to a job in the Religious Studies department of Oregon State University, where I replaced a professor who was on sabbatical. For the next few years I taught small colloquia in the university honors program. I found this work very gratifying except for one thingI had a strong desire to go deeper into the interpersonal context than the academic environment allowed.