Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Hello and welcome back to Louis Body and mindful caregiving. I'm Crystal Jakowski, your host, and thank you for joining me today.
[00:00:18] We always start with self care. Self care. So what did I do for self care? Honestly? I got an emergency appointment with my talk talk so that I could work through some stuff.
[00:00:28] I gave myself extra naps and I gave myself extra compassion because I was feeling a ton of emotion. And that really feeds into what I want to talk about today on this episode is all of our feelings, all of the feels that we have.
[00:00:49] Caregiving is a challenge. It can be exhausting and overwhelming. It can be draining. It can bring joy and happiness. You might find things that you get to laugh with your loved one about and really find that silver lining in the moments that are there.
[00:01:10] But the reality is that it's often more heavy, weighty, challenging than it is uplifting and joyful. It takes more of our time and energy than most other things that we do in life and our focus.
[00:01:31] I mentioned that I ended up having to get an emergency meeting with my talk doc because of some emotion that I was feeling. Now I'm an ordained minister and a life coach. I have done a lot of personal work with my inner child and my childhood and the patterns and beliefs that I have bought into and let continue affect my life as I move forward. Control was a big one. I needed to control everything around me and it stemmed from a childhood thing.
[00:02:04] I figure out how to deal with that. I figure out how to find the gift in that, and then I'm able to move forward and I don't need as much control. Now I'm able to say, all right, I've made my effort, I've done what I could and I'm going to let it go. I'm much better at letting it flow as things come instead of needing to control every little thing, which is a huge gift.
[00:02:27] Recently I had some emotions come up that were upsetting and frustrating. I could literally feel my walls being erected and I was angry, I was bitter, I was stewing and seething. I was really upset and struggling.
[00:02:50] And I want to tell you about it because every one of these feelings is valid. Every one of these feelings is true. It is what I am going through. It is what I'm feeling. It is what you may go through, what you may feel. And I think that our first reaction is to judge them as I don't need to deal with that or it's not real or maybe we feel guilty for having those emotions, especially when they're aimed at a certain person, a loved one, I think we often try to tamp them down because emotions can be so big and overwhelming. We enjoy the ones that are in the middle because it's nice and easy. We enjoy the ones that are high when we're laughing and having a great time with friends and we're just living life and really happy.
[00:03:39] We don't really like the lower ones. We don't really like the ones that pull us down and make us stress and struggle.
[00:03:47] Ironically, anxiety is actually one of the higher emotions because it's extra energy as compared to the ones where we just want to curl up in bed and stay there all day long.
[00:04:00] These emotions that I had, I felt unbelievably irritable, guilty and frustrated.
[00:04:11] I was mad that I was having these emotions, these thoughts, these feelings.
[00:04:17] I had given a sermon in a church talking about love and how we can give love to other people and how we can be love ourselves. And we need to start with that love within.
[00:04:33] And then these emotions come up with my mom and I felt frustrated because how can I practice what I preach if I'm erecting walls and being angry now?
[00:04:46] Going to be very blunt, raw and honest with you. My emotions were around giving my mom a haircut and changing my mom's sheets.
[00:05:03] Whatever your relationship is to your loved one, you will have things come up that are frustrating and challenging to deal with. Any amount of history that you have with them can have within it little triggering things that are upsetting and frustrating and knock you the wrong way. And the challenge is in not reacting to them, not being angry, not yelling at them, recognizing that it is not them, it's the disease. But in whatever just happened, it hit a sore spot.
[00:05:47] From a past experience that you had with them that fed into this emotion.
[00:05:57] You. Right now I'm talking about past experiences. Right now I'm talking about those kinds of emotions that are really deeply seated. Those are not the only emotions that we are going through because just like those thoughts that we have are normal and we're thinking, gosh, I just wish that this would go faster. And then you feel guilty for that. What's the emotion behind that thought? Is there fear? Is there pain? Is there upset?
[00:06:26] What is it that's behind that? Are you tired? And then you feel guilty for thinking that way or feeling that way.
[00:06:36] What I want to encourage you to do is acknowledge that you have that emotion and then sit back with it and understand why.
[00:06:47] Where is it coming from?
[00:06:50] What need do you have that needs to be met so that you can be okay. Emotions are simply letting us know that there's an issue.
[00:06:59] They're letting us know that attention is required some way, somewhere in some space.
[00:07:09] Some of the lighter, less deep emotions might be easy to put on a shelf. It's, you know what? I'm really tired and frustrated this morning, but I need to go help take care of her meds. So I'm just going to take that and I'm going to put it in a box and I'm going to set it on the shelf, acknowledging that I'm going to pick you right back up when I walk out of my mom's house. But right now I need to just kind of bottle and set that aside. There are some that we are able to do, and I use that regularly. I often say, all right, I've got to go out to moms. And when I say those words, I'm going out to moms, I'm going to check on her because she lives 100ft out my back door.
[00:07:50] When I say those words out loud or to myself, it is my preparation. It is my mental, physical, emotional check mark. It says, okay, we're going to get ready and we're going to do that. So check your emotions. Check where you're at on the way out there in those hundred steps. Make sure that you are releasing everything you can so that when you walk into her space that you can be as clear as possible, so that you can be as loving and compassionate and kind so that you can be present. Meaning I can be present when I sit down on her couch and she's not going to think that I'm irritated and upset with her and shrink back.
[00:08:35] It is a conscious effort to do that.
[00:08:39] She's my mom.
[00:08:41] I'm 47 years old. There's a lot of history there, and some of it's upsetting and frustrating and some of it's okay. And then there's everything in the middle.
[00:08:53] I have to figure out how to be okay with both of those. When you are dealing with your loved one, you have to be okay. You have to figure out how to navigate all of the fields that are there.
[00:09:09] And if you do, it's better. I'm just saying that this that I most recently came up against. I told you it was literally about cutting her hair and helping her change her sheets.
[00:09:22] When I first recognized that, that's what I was upset about. I was ashamed.
[00:09:28] I was really ashamed and I felt very guilty because seriously, I know how to cut hair. It's not a big deal for me. I just follow the lines that somebody else has previously cut in there. I was my husband's barber all throughout Covid because he couldn't go in and get it done. But I knew how to do it, so why not? I cut my kids hair. I cut my own hair for quite a while when it was super short and I could just use the buzzers.
[00:09:55] I'm okay at cutting hair. I'm not great. I'm not a professional. I haven't been trained. I just know how to cut hair. It takes ten minutes to do a quick trim on my mom's hair.
[00:10:09] And even before she got Lewy body, or she was diagnosed with Lewy body, even before then, I had this block, this frustration, this irritation of, I don't want to cut your hair. I don't want to cut your hair.
[00:10:25] Why not? It's not that big of a deal. Just if I'm cutting jays, I might as well cut moms. If I'm not cutting jays and I have an extra half an hour, what's the big deal? I took my mom for a haircut this last time. She insists on going to great clips because she only has to spend $20 plus the tip. But in going to great clips, that means that she gets whoever is first available. She doesn't want to schedule with a certain person. She just wants to go get her haircut.
[00:10:59] That means that she has a rotating cast of characters, and with Louis body dementia, she gets super anxious, and she gets stressed out very easily. So going to a new person and having to deal with that, the hairdresser needs to know, what do you want done? And my mom will say, just trim it. It's fine.
[00:11:18] Okay. How do you want it trimmed? Do you want it the same that it was? Any of those additional questions just start to stress her out, which means that the hairdresser kind of flies blind, but kind of does what they think they can do, depending on the hairdresser, does she get someone who's patient and good with people who are older, or does she get someone who just kind of chitchats the whole time through, and you don't really know what to say to converse with them, and you're just kind of stuck in the chair listening to them rattle on about hiking or whatever that is. That is obviously not something that you do.
[00:11:56] She happens to get somebody who was chatty this time, and they would do one little snip, and then they would talk for a couple of minutes, and then they'd do another snip, and then they'd talk and then they'd do another snip, and then they'd talk. And I finally went over and asked her how she was doing and if she needed things to just kind of move forward. And she said, yeah, I'm really struggling. And the guy goes, okay, well, we're done. And we went home.
[00:12:22] Well, the next day, mom was very frustrated because they didn't layer the back of her hair at all. They didn't shape it the way that she wanted. They really didn't do much. Well, they couldn't do much because she wasn't able to express what she wanted, and I didn't help take care of that.
[00:12:40] So then she's complaining about her hair not being great, and we're having a family gathering.
[00:12:46] So she mentions it. And every time she mentions it, my whole body tenses up, and I'm just like, I don't want to cut your hair.
[00:12:55] And then I feel bad because I just gave a talk on love and how we can all be love.
[00:13:04] Well, I'm not practicing what I preach there, am I? Okay, well, now I feel guilty.
[00:13:10] That really sucks.
[00:13:14] And then her bed.
[00:13:17] She needed to change her bed, but whenever she does, her back hurts for a couple of days. And so she really probably shouldn't be changing her bed anymore. And she's also more of a fall risk now. She's really struggling. She is definitely declining. And the thought of changing her bed, my walls go up, and I just kind of get irritable. So using my own tools, I asked myself, what's really going on? Why do I feel this way?
[00:13:48] I ended up saying, crystal, just put your big girl panties on and go cut her hair. It will make her feel so much better. It will make her feel so much more confident. While we're gathered together with family, you can give this to her. And as I'm talking myself through this, I realize that we're coming up against childhood issues.
[00:14:13] And there's this little girl, me, this little young Crystal, who is standing there stomping her feet and folding her arms and angry and bitter and cranky.
[00:14:30] She was mad.
[00:14:32] She was really mad that I had not stood my ground and said, I'm not going to cut her hair. And in that moment, I recognized that this was something much bigger than just my own emotion. This was inner child work. This was going back to my training as a life coach.
[00:14:52] This could also illustrate some of your challenges and issues. And that's why I share this experience and this story.
[00:15:03] I went ahead and cut her hair, but the way I cut her hair was not super loving. I mean, I was fine. I just let her know, hey, I'm cutting it, mom. It's not the greatest cut because, you know, I'm not trained, but let me just do this really quick. And I'm definitely layering it, but it might be too short. You might not be thrilled with it, whatnot.
[00:15:27] I probably could have been done a better job if I hadn't been so emotional and recognizing this inner child that was so angry and upset.
[00:15:38] So she's done. I got her haircut done, and now her hair is just a little bit too short, and she has to use the curling iron, and the curling iron means she burns her fingers and sometimes she burns her ears. So I've created a whole nother problem, all because I cut her hair when I was a little bit irritable instead of taking a breather. Now, I don't know how I could have dealt with that better. Knowing that I needed to get the haircut done, knowing that I was irritated and frustrated. Perhaps I could have taken a breather and given myself some hot tea and really relaxed. But this emotion was really being drummed up. This emotion was drumming up so much that my back muscles were tightening up. And I wanted to cry and I wanted to stomp, and I wanted to yell like in my own home. I was just kind of.
[00:16:42] I was truly challenged. And my husband kept asking me, hey, how can I help you? And what's going on? Do you want a bath? Do you want, what self care do you need? And I just kept saying, I'm fine. I'll be fine. I'll figure it out. I'll be fine. But the more I tried to dig into this and the more I tried to understand this little girl who was creeping up and not fully understanding the whole emotion that was there, the more frustrated I got. And that's why I ended up calling my talk doc again. Talk docs, you guys. A therapist who is well versed in caregivers is the best gift you can give to yourself to help you through this entire experience.
[00:17:22] They understand. They know, beginning to end. This is not easy.
[00:17:28] So I went and I emailed my talk doc, and that was on Wednesday, and she said, I could get you in on Friday morning at 09:00 a.m. And I said, done. I will be there. So I knew I had less than 48 hours before I would go in and be able to talk to her. And I sat in her office and I sobbed, and I sobbed and I sobbed. And I explained to her where I was at and what I was feeling and these immense emotions that were just coursing through my being and how upsetting and frustrating it was that this is over a haircut.
[00:18:09] How I kept judging the stupidity of a haircut and how frustrating it was that I had given this talk, this sermon on love and christlike love and God's love and spreading love from one to another. And here I struggled to spread love to my mom by just giving haircut and the self judgment that was coming from that.
[00:18:59] And after sitting there and talking and looking at my poor little inner child and what she was trying to tell me, I realized that the love that I needed to show, or need to show right now happens to be love to myself, love to that inner child, compassion to that inner child. Acknowledging that, buddy, emotions are hard and emotions are telling us something.
[00:19:36] What I learned from this, and I'm still processing, as you can see, is that my mom is my mom, and my inner child really wants to keep it that way.
[00:19:51] My inner child doesn't want to be the parent.
[00:19:56] She doesn't want to be that person. She just wants to be the kid. So she's okay as long as I am doing all of the things that support my mom, because she's my mom. So it's okay that I take her to the doctor's appointments and help her out medically. It's okay that I go out and make sure that her meds are up to date all the time. It's okay that I help with her finances. It's okay that I help her socially. It's okay that I help her in any way. That is a child helping a parent.
[00:20:30] But as soon as it comes to something that is more like me taking care of her as a child, like a parent cutting their child's hair, I'm not.
[00:20:50] My inner child is not in a space to be able to handle that. And my emotions are what let me know that. That's the challenge. That's the problem.
[00:21:04] As I've gone down this journey with my mom, there have been so many emotions that I have sifted through and worked through. And the beautiful thing is that as I acknowledge what the emotion is and what it is trying to tell me, then I am better able to give it a hug and move forward. It means that the next time something comes up, I'm not as upset and frustrated about it and I'm better able to manage it because I have confronted the emotion that was there and I have given validation to the emotion that was there and why it was there. We are going to go through so many emotions and we are going to hit so many inner child issues throughout this entire process.
[00:22:01] Every one of those emotions is valid. Every one of them is real. Every one of them deserves acknowledgment and compassion.
[00:22:15] I believe that if we give ourselves and that emotion that is coming up, the attention and awareness that it deserves, it will be easier.
[00:22:28] It's entirely possible that once I have worked through this inner child issue, these emotions that I'm having right now, that I will eventually be able to give my mom a haircut. And it's not going to matter that I will either find somebody like the people that come in and clean her house. Maybe they can change her bed sheets twice a month. Whatever that is. I will either find a way to work through it, or I will have dealt with the emotion enough that I will be able to take care of this issue that is in front of me every time something has come up and been upsetting and emotional. If I sit back and understand why and where it's coming from, I can typically move forward with greater ease, with more compassion towards my mom because I actually gave more compassion to myself.
[00:23:25] Get that? It's the whole self care cycle. I'm able to give more to my mom because I gave more to myself.
[00:23:34] I'm able to be kinder to my mom because I was kinder to me. I can love my mom more because I loved myself more.
[00:23:44] Your emotions, acknowledge them. A new trick that I learned at my talk, doc, I'd like to share with you.
[00:23:58] You see that emotion, and I use this trick with everything in life. It's not just my mom. It's not just caregiving.
[00:24:07] I'll be going through life and all of a sudden there will be emotion there. Whether it's grief or frustration or irritation at someone on the streets or whatever it is, I will have this emotion and I'll say, oh, I absolutely see you. I acknowledge that anger is sitting right here and that I'm feeling a little bit of anger and frustration.
[00:24:34] So you are welcome to come and sit with me. I still need to function for the day. I still need to be active. I still need to complete some stuff. I still need to take care of work and my mom and the kids and all this stuff. So I acknowledge that it's there. And while you can sit with me, you can't take over because I still need to do some stuff.
[00:24:57] And throughout the day, that emotion may completely dissipate. All I had to do was acknowledge that it was there.
[00:25:05] Sometimes that emotion says I'm still here. Like this particular one, I'm still here. You haven't dealt with me yet. And I'll need to stop and I'll need to take some time. There are occasions where I'm able to, if it doesn't go away after a day and it still sits there and I mow it over and I'm constantly revisiting it, then I might sit in meditation with it and say, okay, so what's going on? What are you bringing to my attention? What do I need to know or do? What do I need to be aware of in this situation?
[00:25:40] And I will be able to work through it in that way. And then there are the bigger ones, like this one where I actually needed external help. I needed my talk talk to help me through it. Regardless of which emotion it is, it doesn't matter.
[00:25:56] What matters is it's telling you something. It's making you aware of something. And it's an opportunity for you to grow. It's an opportunity for you to pause, do a little self care, reregulate your system because you are aware of whatever this emotion is, whatever this issue is, and then you can move forward.
[00:26:19] If one day I'm able to cut my mom's hair and not have this little inner child be really upset, then that is fantastic. That is great. In the meantime, I'm going to make an extra trip to great clips and find out how I can make an appointment with a specific hairstylist each time so that my mom can go to the same person and she knows exactly, or he knows exactly what my mom needs and wants and it will be smoother. And instead of letting my mom make an appointment, I will take care of the hair appointments and I will make sure that we're already set in expectations that will remove a bunch of the stress and the anxiety because my mom will get a consistent haircut and I am taking care of my inner child, and then my mom gets to pay for her haircut.
[00:27:08] On changing the bed, I can have somebody come in every other week and change her bed, and then on the other weeks I can go in there and do it. Am I okay with that? If I deal with this inner child thing, what do I need to do? In the meantime? I'm okay if my husband comes and helps me change the bed, because then I'm not doing it by myself. It's not an act of service just from me to my mom because I'm getting help.
[00:27:32] I can find ways to help love myself, give myself compassion and understanding with this issue while still taking care of my mom and meeting her needs.
[00:27:46] I can give myself that break. I can give myself the self care that I desperately need while acknowledging these very challenging, difficult emotions.
[00:27:57] Every one of them is real. You will come up against them. You will have to deal with them. Especially if you have history with your loved one.
[00:28:09] Let's face that. They wouldn't be your loved one if you didn't have history.
[00:28:14] It's a challenge. You can do this.
[00:28:18] Give yourself some love.
[00:28:22] And I hope you come back next time for the next installment of Louis body and mindful caregiving. Until then, take care.
[00:28:30] Close.
