This book offers support and advice from Zen tradition for anyone who is living or working as a caregiver. The author is an educator in the Soto Zen tradition and the executive director of Zen Caregiving Project in San Francisco, where he lives and practices. He developed with a colleague a volunteer training program a decade ago called Mindful Caregiving Education, or MCE, and that curriculum forms the backbone of the present work.
Remer’s goal is to “provide access to tools that support the emotional well-being of caregivers,” and these are organized within four parts: Mindfulness, Compassion, Loss, and Intimacy. We found the most original material in part two on Compassion, particularly chapters 13 and 14, “Barriers to Compassion” and “Overcoming Barriers to Compassion,” where we learn that “blocked compassion is extremely common” and barriers to compassion include perfectionism, judgment, guilt, fatigue, embarrassment, resentment, fear, disgust, and what Remer calls “moral distress,” more common with paid caregivers than among volunteer ones.
The practices at the end of the thirty chapters are not particularly unique, focusing on the familiar tools of journaling and reflective questions; but within each chapter the author uses advice, personal anecdote, and shared experiences of other caregivers to help the reader learn how to create intimacy with oneself in order to prioritize self-care in the messiness of life, death, and caring for others.
