You deserve to set boundaries. Yes, YOU.

This free public group is for everybody to talk about boundaries and Human Giver Syndrome. You are welcome here if you are in any stage of caregiver responsibilities, and if you are a sandwich family caregiver or parent! (Not sure what stage of being a caregiver you are in? Check out my podcast, episodes 45-48, for more information.) Professional caregivers are welcome here too.

How do you know you need boundaries? One powerful sign is spending too much of your time and energy feeling resentful, rushed, run down, burned out, irritated, grumpy, overwhelmed, overlooked or taken for granted. 

Human Giver Syndrome is the set of beliefs that says some humans "should" pour out everything - their time, energy, money, and emotional life - to make sure their people succeed and thrive. It's a belief that has existed for thousands of years and it's embedded in a lot of families and cultures, BUT that doesn't make it true or right for you.

This is a place for healthy community support for caregivers and sandwich family caregivers who want to set and enforce boundaries. In this community, nobody is going to "should" all over you. We talk about possibilities and what can be, not what you should do or should feel. We don't let anybody tell you what a "good" caregiver would do in your situation.

Hi there! I'm Kay Coughlin. I'm an entrepreneur, mother to two teenage boys, wife of 26 years, and I'm also the primary caregiver for my own mom (so I am a "sandwich family" caregiver). My mom lives next door to us in central Ohio. I lived way too much of my life without understanding boundaries and without feeling like I had a right to set them for myself. Turns out I was living with the unspoken expectations of Human Giver Syndrome too - even though I never asked for it or agreed to it.

I created this community to be a place to get the help to live MY life that I can't find anywhere else. It's a safe place for all of us - family caregivers, sandwich family caregivers and professional caregivers - to figure this out and support each other, together.

I'm a fiercely independent woman, and I started dabbling in setting boundaries a couple of decades ago, but I didn't know what I was doing. So I got it right sometimes and I got it wrong a lot more. I just couldn't find the help I needed. I couldn't find anybody who wanted to talk about boundaries, so I stumbled around trying to figure it out for myself. When I became an early-stage caregiver sometime around 2009, my boundary issues and Human Giver Syndrome status got to be way more difficult for me to navigate.

My business is called Facilitator On Fire and you can find the website at FacilitatorOnFire.net. I am a life coach for family caregivers and I do a training for businesses called "Building Trust Across Generations." You can find my podcast, which is also called "From One Caregiver to Another," here.

We are committed to creating a community that is a safe place to express yourself and ask difficult questions. You won't be able to see anything in the actual forum until you join. Since this is a free community, there is no risk to you - if you don't like the forum, you can remove yourself any time you like. (See what we did there? We're demonstrating healthy boundaries already!)

If you would like more information, have a question about this community, if you would like to schedule a podcast interview or keynote address or if you have any other media inquiries, go to FacilitatorOnFire.net/LearnMore for contact info. Thank you!