Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Welcome back to Louis Body and mindful caregiving. I'm Crystal Jakowski, your host, and I'm glad that you're here today. I am hailing back to the very early beginnings of Lewy body and mindful caregiving and I am reminding you how important self care is. Self care is absolutely required. It is not optional. And I want to hit on it again because it's that important.
[00:00:34] Before I start in on everything I'm going to say, I always start with self care. And what did I do for self care? I took a couple days and I went with some girlfriends that I've known since 6th and 7th grade and did a whole bunch of puzzles and enjoyed a few days removing ourselves from our own realities. And that was absolutely gorgeous and beautiful and I was super grateful for it.
[00:00:58] The topic today, self care is required.
[00:01:02] I want to start with a statistic. And that statistic, I can't even talk.
[00:01:09] That statistic is that 60% of caregivers pass away before their loved one does.
[00:01:17] 60%. Why is that? That is because the caregivers typically stop taking care of themselves because they are so focused on taking care of their loved one, they stop taking care of their own doctor's appointments. Oh, well, my knee hurts, but it's not that big of a deal. I'm, I'll deal with it later. I won't, I won't worry about it. Or, you know, my tooth hurts, but I don't have time to get to the dentist, so I'm not going to worry about it. Um, I'm a little down, but that's okay.
[00:01:49] Caregivers typically push off their own care, medical, mental, emotional care, in the name of taking care of their loved ones instead because their loved one needs so much. Because their loved one has so many doctor's appointments. Well, I don't want to go to my own doctor's appointments when I'm already doing so many with my loved ones. So this is just, I don't want to go get my annual checkup to make sure that I'm healthy and okay. I don't want to go do that kind of stuff because I'm already tired taking care of my loved ones and making sure that they have everything that they need. And the problem with this is that so many things can get missed and caregivers end up at a long, slow, steady decline as well. And before you know it, the caregivers are actually passing and then the loved one is left without somebody to take care of them.
[00:02:43] I want to revisit this right now, because it's come up a lot lately. I've been talking with friends who. Life just seems to be so big and swirling, and so many things are going on and so many things are happening, and people keep saying, gosh, I just. I don't have time because I've got this going and that going and this going and that going and this going and that going, and this fell down, and I've got that problem, and I'm dealing with all of these issues, and. And I always ask, well, what are you doing for self care? How are you taking care of yourself? How are you taking a break? And they're like, ain't nobody got time for that, really? I don't have time to do this. I don't have time to do that. What do you mean? Take ten minutes for myself, honey. Ten minutes.
[00:03:29] There's so many people lately who have just pushed off self care as a poo poo, it doesn't matter kind of thing. And it drives me nuts. I myself, my mom, at the beginning of this year seems to be really declining quickly, and, uh, I didn't think that she would be around this long.
[00:03:50] And then we changed her meds, and when we changed her meds, she popped back well, in the beginning of the year, because I didn't think she would be around. I didn't plan any trips. I didn't plan any little escape getaway kind of things. I just said, I'm here to take care of mom. This is the way we're going.
[00:04:09] The problem with that is that I need regular escapes. I need to get out of the frying pan, not into the fire.
[00:04:19] I need to take a break out of that hot tub that's called a pot on the. On the stove. And I need to cool down and refuel me. And I haven't done that at all this year.
[00:04:32] I've just been here and present. Yes, people have come into town and visited, but coming into town and visiting is completely different than me removing myself from the pressure cooker that is taking care of my mom.
[00:04:44] Now, I was. I've known for a few months now that I was steadily getting a little bit more frustrated, a little more tired, a little more emotional. I was struggling a little bit more. As far as just general life and getting through things, it was just a little bit sluggish, but not horrible. And I knew that it was because I needed a break. I knew it was because I needed to get away and have a breather. Whether that was by myself or with my husband, it didn't matter. I just knew that I needed to take some time. And yet choosing to find that time for myself was something I was avoiding.
[00:05:25] So I then spoke with a girlfriend, and this girlfriend was giving me the same song and dance. I'm so busy. There's so much going on. Um, grandma wasn't doing well. Mom is not doing well. Dad is declining. Like, she's dealing with that parent, um, aging parent issue.
[00:05:50] And she was like, I just. I just can't. With my job and my family and, um, my part time job and all this stuff and trying to get down to visit my mom and take care of things so often, I just. I have no time for me. So that was my excuse to give myself a little self care. And I grabbed another girlfriend and I said, we're going. We are going, because she needs us and she needs to be reminded of her value and the fact that self care is extremely important because she didn't know that these, me and this other girl are also going through aging parent challenges. And so she's not alone.
[00:06:28] So we planned this back in June, and just planning the trip gave me a boost. I knew that a break was coming. I knew that I could step away. I knew that everything would be okay and that I was going to have more self care so I could do self care. My little bits of self care along that keep me kind of even killed, and that I would have a bigger dose of it in August.
[00:06:57] So we planned this. And I told her, I told the friend, we're coming into town now. It's totally up to you as to whether or not you're going to join us. We are going to be in town these days, so you need to decide whether or not you're going to join us. But regardless, we're going to be doing some puzzles and we want to finish the one that you started forever ago. So let's. Let's do this. So you can come by for five minutes. You can come by for a day or two. We don't care, but we are coming into town.
[00:07:30] This gave me a boost in some ways. I was sharing to be selfish. I was sharing my knowledge and my time for self care with her because I was selfishly getting self care for me as well. It was beautiful. And she ended up coming. She ended up spending a couple of days with us. And in so doing, we also did some. We did a drum circle and we. We did a couple of sound baths. And we were able to connect and relax at the same time.
[00:08:02] And she was able to reconnect like one of the sound baths was done with a person, a woman that she has known for years and years and years. And she has built drums with this woman, and she has.
[00:08:16] She has opportunities for sound baths and drum circles regularly. It was an opportunity for my friend to reconnect with her friend that would encourage the self care.
[00:08:28] Additionally, we did another sound bath at another location, which reconnected her with another person that was able to support her. And we reignited this desire in her to fuel herself, fuel her needs. And it was absolutely beautiful because by the time that we left, she was like, I get it. I feel so much better and I'm going to be doing this, so I'll be checking in with her. But in the same aspect, it's a complete reminder for me that self care is unbelievably important.
[00:08:56] If you don't take care of yourself, you will decline.
[00:09:01] If you are declining, then are you fully able to take care of your loved one? Are you able to give them your best?
[00:09:13] If you are declining, if you are exhausted and emotional, then all of those other people that you have as an excuse that you can't do self care because this person needs that, and that person needs that, and that person needs that.
[00:09:28] What happens when you run yourself into the ground? You hit burnout and none of those people can rely on you. They kind of have to figure it out themselves.
[00:09:37] Some of them can figure it out themselves now and stop draining you of your energy because you choose to pull back some of that energy. Some of the people that we help, we help. And it fuels us as well. Some of them kind of take and take and take. Now, our loved ones are a completely different story. Our loved ones take a lot from us because they are not in their right minds. They do not have the mental capacity to understand what's going on. They do not have a normal. And we cannot treat them like that. And because of that, and they need us, we need to make sure that we are fueling ourselves because they can't fuel back so much. We can find the joy, we can find the funny moments. We can figure out how to uplift ourselves while we're with them.
[00:10:26] And yet there is this part over here that just is what it is.
[00:10:32] It will be a challenge, and we need to replace that which is given out so that we can continue giving and not declining. I cannot tell you how important this is. I can preach on it, hammer on it for the longest time. And I really, I know that some people really don't hear it or don't believe it until they are in burnout and learn the hard way. I know there are some people who listen and learn, luckily by hearing. Instead.
[00:11:06] I will say this.
[00:11:08] As long as you say I can't and I don't have time. You are absolutely right.
[00:11:18] As long as you say I can't do this and I can't do that, you have already decided that it is not possible.
[00:11:26] If you say I don't have time for this, I don't have time for that, you have already created the fact that you don't have time for that.
[00:11:36] If, on the other hand, you say I can find some time for this and I can find some time for that, a completely different story unfolds. Before you. She now before she was at I can't. I can't do 20 minutes for self care. What are you talking about? And now she's I can do a monthly sound bath. I can do a monthly hourly sound bath like it's a full hour and I can do a class at that store once a month because they offer that all the time and I can go do that. She went from I have no time to I can do at least two a month.
[00:12:17] That fuels me.
[00:12:20] She flipped that switch because she had us pushing her and helping her. You can flip that switch too. What can you do to bring you joyous? What can you do to fill your cup in the, in the, in the same idea of changing your perspective from I can't to I can. I need you to set an intention.
[00:12:43] If you go get a pedicure and the whole time you're on your phone responding to emails or scanning social media or whatever it is that you're doing and you're just frustrated because you can't get enough stuff done, you did not fill your cup and you leave that pedicure just as frustrated as when you went in. Now, you might have beautiful toes that you get to look at and maybe smile about every now and then, but you don't feel fueled the same thing for reading a book on the couch. Or maybe you love to woodwork and being in the wood shop brings you joy, but if you're out there working on a project and it's a have to, not a want to, then it's not filling your cup. You have to change your mindset and say, I am setting aside. I am making an intention. My intention is I am going to go get a pedicure and for that hour, I'm setting my phone aside. Nobody can bug me. I am going to sit in here and enjoy the moment.
[00:13:42] If you set that intention, then when you leave that pedicure, you will absolutely feel better.
[00:13:49] Your cup will be filled a little bit more. You can set the intention. I'm going to spend an hour reading this book that I've really wanted to read, and that's going to fill my cup. I'm going to feel great because I finally read a little bit of that book. You won't feel like you wasted time on the couch reading a book. You're actually going to feel like, hey, I'm so glad that I gave myself permission to do that.
[00:14:15] Change it up. I was doing flowers for something, and in the past, a long time ago, I used to think, I would love to work in a flower shop. I think that would be so much fun. And I did a little bit of an internship in high school. It was like a. An intern week for a week. You get to go do something. And I was like, this is really fun.
[00:14:36] Well, I was doing these flowers and I was kind of like, I don't want to do these flowers. I don't want to have to deal with all this stuff. And kind of had an attitude about it. But then there was this point, and I thought, crystal, you used to want to do this. You used to want to play with flowers and make beautiful arrangements for people.
[00:14:58] So is this a want to or a have to now you get to play with flowers instead of looking at it as this boring have to. Well, I played with flowers and they were absolutely beautiful. And I had a change of attitude while I was doing it, which means that then it became a self care and joy and it was fueling me instead of this negative another, it's just another thing on my plate and I'm so frustrated with it.
[00:15:23] What can you find that brings you joy, that fills your cup, that brings things in? Instead of putting the negativity or putting the energy out all the time, how can you release that negative weight and instead lighten everything up? By finding joy and doing a little bit of self care. It is imperative that you fill your cup. It is imperative that you take care of you. That is the only way that you will come out of this better than when you started.
[00:16:01] And I say better.
[00:16:06] In some ways, you're not going to feel better because this is a really rough road and you're going to be exhausted and frustrated.
[00:16:13] But in other ways, you will be better because you got to love on your loved one and you got to learn a lot of lessons, and you got to remind yourself about your own self care, and you got to learn compassion. And who knows when you will be able to be able to be the strength and the support and the encouragement for somebody else who has to go through this. You will be stronger because you went through this and you kept your head about you and you kept your head strong and held high.
[00:16:44] Self care. Self care. Self care.
[00:16:49] Thank you for listening.
[00:16:51] Thank you for joining me on my journey with my mom.
[00:16:59] I sincerely hope that it brings a little light to your day.
[00:17:04] Knowing that you're not alone, that's what helps me and my girlfriends. Knowing that we're not in this alone. And we can call each other and we can cry, complain, laugh, whatever it is, but we each understand. Oh, man, that's a rough one. I hear you and I love you and I'm here for you.
[00:17:22] That's what we do for each other. That's how we help each other. It makes the load a little bit lighter. And calling and sharing my trials with my friends is another form of self care.
[00:17:34] Self care all the way. Take care of you so you can take care of them and come back next time. For Lewy body and mindful caregiving. Take care.
