Resilient and Sustainable Caring

Karen’s timely work goes beyond the resiliency support we see in healthcare today. This is a practical guide for truly sustainable self-care translating to the care of others. Health systems would do well to implement such a program. We all stand to learn what is at the core of our doubts and discomfort. Digesting and internalizing this book, especially in the company of others, is truly the beginning of mastering joy in our work.

Karen’s book and work provides a life-changing roadmap for living your best life while caring for others, with the power to change the health care landscape.

The unattended emotional toll of caregivers too often results in a stress-filled workplace, career-ending psychological trauma, or even suicide. Karen’s book and work will help you recognize, understand, and support a healthy, sustainable alternative.

Karen’s work and book is a tremendous resource, providing relevant, real-world examples and advice for sustaining caring roles for both individuals and teams. The strategies outlined in each chapter are easy to follow. It is a guide to promote personal growth for creating the balance that we all so desperately crave and deserve.

I had the opportunity to work with Karen in several areas here in Honduras. She really cares about people. Karen is helping the people in Honduras in a really smart way, as she is a applying everything that she studied in University. In global brigades I had seen her work and she is trying very hard to help us understand the cultural dimensions so that we can have better results working with people from different cultures. Karen is a great leader because she has not only invited us to put in practice good principles but also she is coming all the way from the States to personally teach us.

The Reverend Doctor Karen Schuder led the education time at our last Presbytery Meeting, focusing on Resilient and Sustainable Caring. Topics covered included compassion fatigue, anxiety as a contagion, defusing emotional triangles, boundaries, and strategies to manage anxiety. It was great material, engagingly presented, and very relevant to the work of pastors and to the life of the church. One of the most honestly helpful discussions we've had in years. Thank you, Karen!

Karen’s book is a powerful tool. If you read it and put it into practice, you will surely live with a better quality of life as an individual, as part of a family and a community. Karen provides a wisdom that helps people live more vibrantly.

Karen’s book is a wonderful read! It provides insightful and encouraging advice on how to balance our various needs. I have benefited greatly from Karen’s advice and thoughtful sharing of her experience. As an immigrant, full-time employee, daughter, wife, and mom of two young kids, I always strive to balance my work and my family and different cultures, as well as the needs of others and myself. Reading this book helps me find a better way to strike the balance in seeking true meaning in my life.

Karen has been a great help through her collaboration with Global Brigades to further develop our women’s empowerment initiatives. She traveled to Honduras to work with us on the ground building evaluation tools and working on improvements for Global Brigades’ Women’s Conferences. Karen is also actively working with our Micro-Finance team in the area of cross-cultural and ethics education, an initiative that we hope to continue to partner on moving forward.

Karen is a dynamic leader that transends and thrives in various cultural contexts. Her high level of compassion, commitment, and pursuit of social justice is only matched by her high levels of professionalism and pragmatism. Karen has significantly elevated our annual women’s leadership conference in Honduras and our cross cultural ethics workshops for our microfinance program.

Thank you to Karen for being willing to work with our families involved in our Staying Ahead Program at Community Action Duluth. The Family Systems Theory exercise that she introduced which focused on considering the existence of two forces in our lives: Individuality- The need to be a separate person and Togetherness- The need to be emotionally connected to others, was one of the most powerful and effective sessions of our 12 month community leadership program. Her work is exciting, relevant and very effective.

Thank you Karen for investing in people striving to find significance in their lives!

The world needs caregivers, and caregivers need this book, as did I. Using her own years of experience and research, Rev. Dr. Schuder has written an indispensable book with practical strategies, resources, and inspiration for achieving resilience and sustainability in personal and professional helping roles. Infused with hope and compassion, this book served as a supportive guide for me while caring for others.

When people like you come to a community and they see how a woman can make a wonderful work helping them, they developed skills and start to believe in themselves. How you saw in El Cantón, they started speaking and they started to comment about their ideas and how growing up they business ideas. Is amazing how people like you star helping people even when you don’t say anything. That’s a gift!

Is important to say that developed leadership takes a lot of time and is not easy to changes they opinions about them, but with initiatives like the women’s conference and people like you (with a beautiful soul and heart) help a lot and that kind of things.

Having spent twelve years under the leadership of Karen Schuder I feel qualified to express how much she and her training skills have meant to me. Her guidance is more than a little responsible for the advancements in our organization while engaging our members and encouraging them to do their best.

Dr. Schuder’s work helped me shift my focus from making decisions based on approval to a purpose-driven outlook. This freed me to make a major career and life change that dramatically improved my resilience and ability to serve others while caring for my needs. Karen made me feel supported and valued at a time when I was experiencing burnout and exhaustion. She helped me see the value I bring to others because of the person I am, not just because of my role.

Karen’s comprehensive guide is based on research and lived experience. It is a welcome gift for helpers at any stage in their career, from starry-eyed beginners to exhausted senior staffers.

Rev. Dr. Karen Schuder met with our team of childcare providers to host a Family Systems Theory training, and not only have I noticed positive changes within our team communicating with each other, but have also noticed healthier communication between our team members and our children, parents, clients, and colleagues. We are looking forward to future training, as it has helped us so much!