Real Food Stories
The question of "what to eat" can feel endlessly confusing, especially when we contend with our own deeply ingrained beliefs and stories around food. Blame social media, the headline news, and let's not get started on family influences. Passed down from generations of women and men to their daughters, it's no wonder women are so baffled about how to stay healthy the older we get.
As a nutritionist and healthy eating chef, combined with her own personal and professional experience, Heather Carey has been connected to years of stories related to diets, weight loss, food fads, staying healthy, cooking well, and eating well. Beliefs around food start the day we try our first vegetables as babies and get solidified through our families, cultures, and messages we receive throughout our lifetime.
We have the power to call out our food beliefs so we can finally make peace with what we eat and get on with enjoying the real food and lives we deserve. Listen in to find out how to have your own happy ending to your real food story. Connect with Heather at heather@heathercarey.com or visit her website at www.heathercarey.com or www.greenpalettekitchen.com
Real Food Stories
98. Mastering Self-Care When You're the Caregiver with Jeanette Yates
Women in midlife are often found in the Sandwich Generation - caught between the responsibilities with children and taking care of aging parents.
Join me as I talk with Jeanette Yates, founder of The Self-Care Giver, a space to understand and empower yourself during this sometimes overwhelming time of our lives. As a certified life coach with a wealth of personal caregiving experience, Jeanette shows us how uncover practical and actionable self-care strategies tailored for those in the sandwich generation.
Jeanette shares her journey through the challenges of caring for an ailing parent while raising her own family, all amidst the personal transitions of midlife. Her valuable insights and candid stories highlight the importance of adapting self-care practices to prevent burnout and maintain well-being.
Setting boundaries can be a tricky business, especially when guilt comes into play. In this episode Jeanette explains the art of saying no without feeling like you're letting someone down. We discuss how understanding the true needs of our loved ones can ease the caregiving burden and lead to healthier family dynamics.
Learn about sustainable strategies for managing responsibilities and protecting your mental and emotional health by setting personal limits. Discover how viewing boundaries as flexible gates rather than rigid walls can help balance caregiving roles with self-care.
Finally, we turn the spotlight on the four pillars of self-care: sleep, hydration, nutrition, and movement. These essential elements form the foundation of a healthy lifestyle, particularly for those navigating the complexities of midlife changes and family caregiving. Explore the concept of the "sandwich generation" and how embracing life's transitions can lead to personal growth and empowerment. Listen in for a conversation that not only champions self-care but also encourages redefining societal expectations and finding joy in the caregiving journey.
More About Jeanette HERE on her website
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Hi everybody and welcome back to the Real Food Stories podcast. Today I wanted to talk about self-care while caregiving because, as a woman in midlife, yet another term came up for me that I had only heard of recently, and that is the sandwich generation. So the sandwich generation refers to middle-aged adults, often in their 40s and 50s, who are caring for both elderly parents and their own children at the same time, which, if you can do the math, can lead to a lot of stress and burnout. Going through perimenopause and menopause is hard enough as women, and I think that we're pretty just tapped out from that. So this is not the time for our self-care to slip, but unfortunately for so many of us, it definitely can. So I'm bringing on an expert today to talk about how we can maintain our self-care and sanity while caring for others at the same time. So I wanted to introduce you to Jeanette Yates.
Speaker 1:Jeanette is a certified life coach, yoga instructor, meditation teacher and a lifelong caregiver. As a founder of the Self Caregiver, she has dedicated her life to helping caregivers prioritize their own self-care and avoid burnout. Jeanette hosts the popular podcast from Guilt to Good Self-Care Solutions for Busy Caregivers, where she shares her expertise and interviews other experts in the field of caregiving and self-care, and Jeanette's signature program, the Empowered Self-Caregiver Cohort, helps caregivers develop sustainable self-care practices tailored to their unique needs and circumstances. Her approach combines self-awareness, self-advocacy, self-compassion and self-care to help caregivers rediscover their worth and reclaim their time. Welcome to the show, Jeanette. Thanks so much for being on here, and I know we have a lot to talk about. So I first wanted to just hear your story and how you got into this field, and I know this is so important now that I am at this age in midlife, where I am sort of sandwiched between these two worlds.
Speaker 2:Yes. So it's interesting because my journey started before I became a sandwich generation caregiver. I was actually just a caregiver because my mom has been sick since I was about eight years old, and so I grew up as a caregiver. In some respects, of course, it looked different as an adult than it did when I was a child, obviously, but there's been always a component of take care of mom. So I do have a husband, a family. I've raised two boys. They're I mean, they would like to tell me they're adults, but they're 20 and 18. So they still need a lot of help.
Speaker 2:And then my mom's care about 10 years ago took or my mom's health about 10 years ago took kind of that downhill turn to where she needed more and more care, to the point I was really in that sandwich where I'm doing all the mom things, I'm working, I'm taking care of my mom in some aspect every single day, multiple times a day. I'm going to her house, then we're hiring care and I'm going to her house, and then she's in a wheelchair and then she's bed bound and now she's in a nursing home and so, yeah, so that's my story in a nutshell and what I learned and the reason I started the self caregiver is. I realized that really self care is only talked about in kind of platitudes in the caregiving space, like don't forget to put your mask on so that you can before you put the mask on others. Like I don't like, okay, what does that even mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what does that mean? I know that that's a line that's so overused. Yes, Make sure you take care of yourself before you can take care of others.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like, or you'll hear like you can't pour from an empty cup. And it's like yeah, yeah, you also can't pour from a broken cup, a cup with holes in it. You know like I can take a metaphor I'm a former English teacher, so like I can take a metaphor and beat it into the ground, so don't get me started. But the bottom line is can take a metaphor and beat it into the ground, so don't get me started. But the bottom line is there's not enough real practical advice or suggestions or steps for people in this sandwich to use to actually take care of themselves. And, to your point, with your audience, we're already having to take everything that used to work for our care. We used to be able to work out X amount of time and eat XYZ and feel okay and handle it and mix it in and it's fine. And then all the stuff that was working, it's not working anymore because we're going through baromenopause or menopause, and so we have to flip that script and at the same time, we have to also add an additional component of caregiving that we weren't used to having. And, by the way, our kids are going off to college, so we're an empty nest, but not. So there's all this stuff going on and it's a. It's not a great time to just tell somebody like don't forget to put on your mask, like that's not helpful. So I came in, I wanted to come in and say, okay, this is what we mean when we say take care of yourself, so anyway. So what I try to do is take a. So I started with myself and I looked at my own experience as a caregiver and said and I looked at my own experience as a caregiver and said, okay, I am doing all of these things. I'm doing yoga, I'm reading my journal or reading my Bible or reading my self-improvement book, I'm journaling, I'm breathing, I'm eating, I'm cooking all the things. I'm eating all the things and I still feel like junk all the time. I'm not. I'm cooking all the things, I'm eating all the things and I still feel like junk all the time. I'm not feeling any better.
Speaker 2:So I knew that it wasn't a matter of just doing some self care thing that was like pre prescribed by someone else, like, oh, I really love this, or oh, you should do this, it'll make you feel better. That what it really is is about learning to listen to your body. That is trying to tell you what it needs. Typically for caregivers, it's more sleep and more water Just FYI, spoiler alert and then doing those things. But even that isn't enough, because no self-care is going to actually tend to your soul, tend to your body, tend to your mind. If you don't believe that you deserve it or you are too distracted to be present in that moment, do what it's telling you to do. Be present in the moment and remind yourself and really believe that you deserve the care that you're giving yourself. So that's how I, that's what we do in my program.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's so you're teaching real, like actionable skills, right and to get out of the mindset I think of, of thinking that you have to do it all Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was speaking with a caregiver the other day and she said I just, you know, I feel so guilty because I had to. You know, my loved one had to be cared for by somebody else. I couldn't do it and I said well, does that mean you're not a caregiver? Or does that mean you, as the family caregiver, recognized what was going to be best for your loved one and you got the care they needed? To me, that's a good caregiver, instead of thinking no if I'm not doing it myself, instead of thinking no if I'm not doing it myself, that doesn't count, when really the goal is not for us to always be the person doing, it's to facilitate what's best for our loved one. You know, and, and you know. I could go on about and, and, and there's a bunch in that, but, like, in general, it's this idea of like. Let's redefine what it means to be a caregiver. Let's understand what we have the capacity to do and then doing enough and letting that be enough.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like there's no straight definition of caregiving, because what I think in my head, what? When I think of caregiving, you're just like selfless. Right, You're just outputting, you're burning out. But that's how it's supposed to be, right, You're supposed to just be this, just pool of energy that just gives, gives, gives.
Speaker 2:Well, and that is the definition that a lot of people I mean, that's the unwritten definition is, you know, your parents gave to you, so now it's your time to pay them back, which, of course, no one's gonna. I mean, like that's just kind of the idea that people have. And but you know what's interesting, we were talking before we hopped on. You know, depending on where you grew up in the country or you know where you grew up in the world, what it means to be a caregiver is completely different. So, you know, for some people it's like find the best place for them to, you know, find the best assisted living facility, and in other areas it's, you know, restructure your entire home to allow for the person to move in. And it just kind of depends. You know, in some cases it's, you know, your loved one living with you or you quitting your job or you moving in with them. You know it's it's the actual like what you need to do, like the task or the responsibilities, is really different for each person. So what I like to do is pull it all the way back and say, okay, what this looks like is going to be different for every family, but you really can, as a caregiver, just say my job as a caregiver is to give or facilitate the best care for my loved one without losing myself.
Speaker 2:And I think one thing that's been missing is we've just been saying either I got to give my loved one the best care period, it doesn't matter if I go bankrupt and physically all the time, lose my family, lose my, you know am uncomfortable, you know, whatever they need, I have to do it.
Speaker 2:I think we just stop there and we don't consider ourselves or our family members as part of the equation, ourselves or our family members as part of the equation. So you know, like, I have children and a husband who also I am in relationship with, and if, when I'm caregiving for my loved one, that pulls me out of being able to be in relationship with my husband and my children, me out of being able to be in relationship with my husband and my children, then that's a problem. That's not healthy. And so learning to do what is in your capacity to do and that changes, you know. You know you have to constantly assess, like, what is my capacity right now? What do they need right now and how can, can we, how can I serve them the best?
Speaker 1:and sometimes that means not doing everything yourself so what if you are the person who has to do everything, or how do you set those boundaries? I mean, you know you can't there. I just know some people you know that are just you know. I, you know that are just you know. I think you mentioned before that that's just what you do. Your parents get older and now you have to give back to them, you know. And then also you have your children Right and of course you're giving to them. That's like, I guess, a given.
Speaker 2:You know, that's your responsibility, that's your responsibility.
Speaker 1:So how do you set? You know, it's easy to say, I just need to have, I'll, just kind of boundaries or limits on how much I can write everything. But but what if, like, you physically need to be there? And how do you? I don't know, how do?
Speaker 2:you work that out without without like, totally burning out. Well, so you know and it was when you were reading my bio I was like, oh, I need to change that Because I've had a. I've had a you know, realization. You know, because I was burned out and then I got out of burnout and then so a lot of times I'm like I help people avoid burnout and it's like, well, really, you know, when you're trying to figure out what you can do and how it's going to work and all this kind of stuff, there's a lot of variables that are shifting.
Speaker 2:We talked about that menopause, kids going to. You know kids at different stages. You know parents, their health is up and down and you know who knows. So, even you know, when you get something figured out as changes, you're, you may like get pretty close to burnout. You may experience that fatigue, that overwhelm, and so what we really want to start with is when you're realizing, okay, I'm at like I'm doing all I can do and I'm this is, you know, I'm starting to crack Like we we all feel that we a lot of times, I think we don't look at all of the options available to us because of the role that we play in our family.
Speaker 2:So you know, if we are the ones that you know, maybe our parent prefers to care, you know, for you know, or you know my case I'm the only my mom's only child, so like it is what it is. But there was a long time where I was like well, I mean, I'm the only my mom's only child, so like it is what it is. But there was a long time where I was like, well, I mean, I'm the only one, so I'm the one that has to do it. Well, eventually, what happened is I had to be able to say to myself and to my mother yes, you need more than what I'm giving you right now, but I cannot give it. So we are going to have to think outside the box and come up with another plan.
Speaker 2:And, as the caregiver, as the family caregiver, primary caregiver, whatever you want to call it, I had to help my mom figure out what other options are available to her. And so that's where the boundary starts is. Sometimes it's just a conversation, it's just a. I'm not saying you don't need it, I'm saying I can't provide it either physically for me it was like physically I couldn't do it, but also, you know like I have to work eight hours, I have to work 40 hours a week, you know and you have your family right, and so you know, sometimes it's just that you know, and I think, having that first boundary of being able to say, yes, they need something, I can't, you know, I'm providing at my capacity.
Speaker 2:Like I can't do anymore right now, like maybe in the future, like that's another thing, things can change. But when you've, when you've hit that capacity or you're hovering near it, you have to include yourself in the equation. That's, that's really. All I'm asking caregivers to do is, like include yourself in the equation, include your family in this equation, include yourself in the equation, include your family in this equation.
Speaker 1:So I know a lot of people would feel guilty having that conversation, you know, and, and, and I'm just curious, how did your mom receive that conversation? Was she? Was she open to having it? Because I would imagine that there's people who that's just an option to have it, and then they would feel guilty even saying that to their, their parents.
Speaker 2:Well, one of the things. It's really interesting that you say this, cause I just did a workshop on how to say no and and mean it but also not feel like you're being mean. So it basically addresses this thing and, of course, for me the conversations pretty much always happened with my mother, because I'm the only person, but sometimes these conversations have to happen with your siblings, with your spouse, with your you know, like, depending on who's part of the care team for your parent, your aging parent. So I think you know, to be perfectly honest, this was not one conversation, this was a series of conversations, this was a series of broaching the subject, listening to my mom, like what is what you know?
Speaker 2:A lot of times sometimes our parents, our aging parents, kind of disguise things to where it doesn't look like what it is and you're like wait, what is she really? What is really going on here? So sometimes you have to get to the root of the thing. So, like my mom would you know, need you know, want me to come over every night for dinner, let's say okay. Or at dinnertime, not for dinner, and really I'm like what, like, why? Like she has a food and really she wasn't, she didn't need dinner. She needed, she felt lonely or she, you know, or may. And then eventually there was a little component of, well, I can't really get dinner, but I don't, you know, I don't want to say anything, so if I just say you know something else then. So sometimes it's a matter of like finding, like, what are they really needing here and adjusting that a little bit, you know, like working with that first and then working more into that conversation of like, okay, I can do X. You know, here are all the things that you need on a weekly, monthly, daily basis. Right, these are the things that I can do and not burn out. Now, of course, in the short term, emergencies happen. Things, you know, flip the table when we have to go all in and we're up at the emergency room all night or whatever. But we can't do that consistently. So we want to have a place where we're like, yes, I can come over once a day. Or, you know, I can do X, Y, z, this is something manageable. But beyond this we're gonna need to get some additional support.
Speaker 2:Now, if you have family that is willing or maybe not willing, but is at least around, you can have those hard conversations with them. Like I said, it doesn't have to be one conversation. It's more about like hey guys, I am burning out. I know that I'm the primary, you know, of all the siblings, I'm the one that does the most care and I'm still willing to do that. But I'm just telling you I'm at my like. I can't do any more than this. I'm already doing XYZ. I can't do any more. Can we readjust the duties here a little bit or hire additional help if that's appropriate and available to you?
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of different strategies and ways to broach this where it's not just like one day. Like one day you're burning out, you're deep in the pit of overwhelm and despair, and the next day you've got beautiful boundaries and everyone is, you know, happy and well-rounded and all that kind of stuff. That's not how boundaries work. That's not how we work. We just need to start. You know I'm not a big like manifested. You know, blah, blah, like. I'm not really big into that, really big into that. But like the idea of like.
Speaker 2:Just explore the idea in your brain of saying no or I can't, or not, now or later, any of those. Just explore the idea and then say, if I could say no to one thing? What would it be? That's what I always tell my caregivers that I work with. You don't have to say no to all the things Cause, like when you're drowning, you're like I don't want to do this anymore, I can't do this anymore, and you're like just want to shut it all down. You're going to I don't know if any caregiver resonates with this or any person that's listening. Maybe you don't even consider yourself a caregiver. Maybe you're just overwhelmed in general. Have you ever just wanted to get in your car and drive until you couldn't? You know like.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, just drive and drive, and drive.
Speaker 2:Right. For some people that are like no, I hate driving. I don't know, maybe for you know, it's like I want to go into the, to the beach and walk as long as I can. Or I want to you know, go to the museum and, and you know, be enveloped in a beautiful painting, whatever. Right, we all have that like get me the heck out of here, I can't stand it anymore. Okay, yes, we want to throw everything out, but that's not possible. We live in the real world. We do take care of other people as part of our existence as humans. If you could stop doing one thing, one thing, what would it be? And then to circle back on the guilt, that could be a whole different series. Actually, that's what my podcast is about.
Speaker 1:We talk about it. You have to tune into your podcast to find out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tune into my podcast. From Guilt to Good, because that's the hardest part is like, well, I would do it. Like, yeah, I really want to say no to this one thing. If I have to do this thing one more time, I'm going to go nuts. But then, if I say I don't want to do it, I feel guilty. Well, I have some news for you.
Speaker 2:In order to not feel guilty, you just have to do it. You just have to practice saying no and then reminding yourself that you're a person worthy of the same attention, the same care, the same breath, the same life as you want for the people around you, your children, your parents, whoever. So a lot of it is, you know. And if you want to do deep work, you dig a little bit deeper as to, like, why are you feeling guilty? So for me it was like I'm never doing enough. I'm never, you know. And then, if so, if I, if I'm already not doing enough and I do less than I'm going to feel even guiltier. But then I flipped that and I said you know what, I'm doing. Everything I can, I'm burning it out. I'm just falls to the wall, whatever you want to say, and it's not enough.
Speaker 2:So, since it's not enough, I did one less thing. Still not going to be enough. Less thing, still not going to be enough. What is one thing? What is the one one thing? Either way, I was going to have that guilt for a while. So I just decided you know what, I'm just going to do one less thing. And then I saw that the sky didn't fall, that things still got taken care of. You know, I didn't stop giving her her meds. That wasn't the one thing. Right, you have to be practical, but you know, there's always like the one thing. And then you just start reminding yourself of things that you know are true. Yes, your loved one needs care, so do you. It's just, it's just remind, it's just practicing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good. It's a good, I guess, time to explore your own worthiness. You know that you are also worthy of care, and it's not just about everybody else around you, which I think women grow up believing, right, that we're just the output. But I love how you said that, just to like how to say no, just to start by exploring the idea, right, so you don't have to just jump in and no, that's it. You know I'm not, I'm not doing this, or just no, and then be overtaken with guilt. But you can just start by kind of circling around it and explore what it would feel like to say no to one or two things.
Speaker 2:Right, and a lot of times we feel like the boundary is about what the other person is doing. We have to stop them from doing something. And really, another thing is no, the boundary has nothing to do with them. It's all about what you are willing to do or not do, and how they respond is really irrelevant. Now, obviously, we want to be kind in the world, but it's not your job to make sure other people like to change other people's behavior. This is about your behavior. Other people's behavior this is about your behavior. So think about what you want your behavior to be and then set the boundary around that.
Speaker 2:Also, when we talked about capacity, that's another thing. It's like, once you figure out what your capacity is, this said that you know in my program, that's what we do. We like what is your capacity? Are you working over it? And 99% of the time people are like, yeah, yeah, I'm way over. So you figure out your capacity and then you build your boundary to protect that capacity so that you are not constantly going over it. And then another thing you know we talk about metaphors that boundary is not a wall, it is not a big or it doesn't have to be. It may be eventually. You know some boundaries have to be walls. When we're talking about the boundaries you need in caregiving, this is a gate, this is a fence with a gate.
Speaker 1:A gate, you know you can open and close, it right, you can open and close it.
Speaker 2:That is up to you, because the boundary is about you, not about what the other person does. So you know, a lot of times when somebody starts banging on our gate, we would just want to be like stop it and go open the gate. Well, really, what we need to do is be like nope, that's why the gate's there, to keep people from busting through, and I'm not gonna go adjust that gate. And then other times the gate does need to be open and you do need to go over and do the thing right. But I think too, we think, oh, if I set this boundary, then like my first boundary I talk about in the say no workshop was like I'm not going to come over every night at dinner. I'm going to be with my family for dinner.
Speaker 2:Well, obviously, if there's an emergency and she's, you know, fallen on the floor, I'm not gonna be like, nope, sorry, it's dinnertime, and my boundary is that I don't come over at dinnertime. No, you go over, you help them out, you know it's like that's, that's the gate right. So with caregiving, you have to do that. But and that's what makes it a little bit harder for you know, because, like when we're, you know, setting boundaries with you know people we don't want in our lives anymore. It's like no contact right. Well, obviously we can't. We don't do that with caregiving. But so those are just a few things, few things to think about. Like, the boundary is not about separating you. It's about enabling you to have a better relationship, not only with your loved one that you're caring for, but also the other people in your life and yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree 100% with that. Boundaries really are. It's not to, it's not about them, it's not about fixing them, or boundaries are for you, yeah, and and that takes some exploration of of what those boundaries are. And this is a lot of exploring, right and and again, because if you're used to, if you've grown up in a certain way with certain beliefs, and this is what you're supposed to do and, of course, you're supposed to take care of your parents and be selfless and burn out, then it sounds like it takes some inner work right to really get in touch with your guilt and and your and your emotions around around setting boundaries in the first place yeah, and I think one thing I learned and it was part of my, it was something I learned as I went through recovery from my own um, disordered eating issues and stuff when I was younger is we, you know, a lot of what is going on in that is trying to avoid feeling a certain way Like I don't want to feel that way.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to do this to try to not feel this way, when really I had to learn the feeling is not going to kill me. What I am doing to try to avoid feeling that way may actually hurt me or, you know, be devastating. And so I feel like the same thing kind of happens in caregiving is we don't want to feel guilty, we don't want to feel like we're disappointing our family, we don't want to feel, you know, we don't want to make anybody mad. You know, especially if you grew up as a people pleaser and you're the, you're the fixer in the family and really we have to just learn that like, yeah, that's that's going to take some time to like work all the way through, but also feeling, feeling that way isn't going to kill you, it's just uncomfortable, learning to be uncomfortable for a few minutes, or even, you know, like I used to say no to my mom, like that whole. You know, like I'm not coming over at dinner time and she may. You know, I get like a ton of texts or phone calls or whatever. Please look, you know, and it was like I would be really stressed out and it would be very I would wonder am I doing the right thing or not? But I sat in it because I really felt like it was important to be home with my family, right, and I learned that things are, she was still going to be okay, right, she's still going to be fine.
Speaker 2:I began to feel less uncomfortable the more I practiced, you know, and I started to experience some fun stuff with my family, so that I wasn't focused on what I wasn't doing. I was focused on what I was doing. I think that was another thing to that kind of got me over that guilt. But sometimes you know that that space of that discomfort is so uncomfortable we don't even want to deal with it, when really we just can say, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try this. And this is another thing.
Speaker 2:You can always make a different choice If you set the boundary and it's terrible and horrible and you've, you know, you've tried it and it's just miserable and you're miserable, and they're miserable, everybody's miserable. You can adjust the boundary. I wouldn't recommend taking it down altogether, but you can adjust it. It's all about practice. But the idea that we can never say no, or the idea that there's selfish and selfless and nothing in between, is also kind of not right either. I don't think. I don't think there's like you're either wholly selfless or you make one choice that's different than that and you're completely selfish. You know, I think there's a center and that's perfect, and that's a perfect, perfectly appropriate place to be right, yeah, and that takes again.
Speaker 1:I think, going back to like that it just takes a certain or a shift in thinking because of how we were raised and and you know I love how you just said like you know that your feelings are okay, like feelings can feel overwhelming and scary and but they're just feelings, they will come and they will go, they will pass and it's it's okay to feel all of it right and knowing that they will not absorb you and kill you right, well, and like you know, yeah, like we.
Speaker 2:I think it's so interesting that, um, we, a lot of times I think we feel guilty because we have taken someone else's expectation whether it's our parents, or maybe it's just like the people that you live around or what you grew up with, or whatever and you're like oh, this is what it's supposed to be. And it's like did you even ask your parents if that's what they like? Do you? Do you even know? Like I remember, when I first got married to my husband, like his mother was like super organized and dinner on the table. You know all this kind of stuff very. And so I thought like I had to do that too, because that I was like, well, that's what he grew up with, it must be one of the ones.
Speaker 2:And so, like every day I'm like hustling, trying to like figure out how to cook. Wish I had known you, um, like get it all on the table by the time he got home from work and he was like you know, like why are you doing? Like you know you don't have to do this, right, like you know that, like I can eat dinner at seven, I don't have to eat it at six, like I'm not starving to that and I was like, oh, I thought this was like your expectation. He's like, no, that's what my mom did and that was fine. But you don't have to be my mom.
Speaker 2:You know, like you don't have to do everything exactly the same way, and so I think we can also like the caregivers in your, in your mind, that you, you know maybe the way your parents took care of their loved ones, or you know your community or your extended family, like that does not have to be the same for you. You can create your own caregiving definition, your own, and it can evolve and change. It's okay. It's okay to make you know different.
Speaker 1:No good point. I mean same as as just even raising your kids, right. You don't have to do it the same way your parents did it for you, or and even you know, like I don't know, in just the stage of life we're in right now, and like menopause and perimenopause, is that we don't have to. We could do things differently, you know not by like society standards or even just how we learn like our mothers were doing it Right. Yeah, we can. We can flip the switch and and think outside the box.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is not midlife crisis time, this is midlife awakening. We're finally like just step into it Because it's, you know, this is a great time in your life to finally not be afraid, and and and do what you know, you know, and with perimenopause and menopause, your body is really talking to you.
Speaker 1:It's really telling you what it wants you know, saying no to your, your loved ones, and and what if that doesn't get received very well? I mean, can you still? Is there hope to just still maintain a relationship? You know, you know, like your example, your mom wanted you to come over every single night for dinner and and that might feel like great I'm setting my own boundary, I'm saying no. Look at me, you know I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm preserving my. You know my sanity. But how did it? How? You know what if the person on the other end doesn't receive that Well, how do you maintain that relationship and still say no?
Speaker 2:Okay, so a couple of things. One every situation is different and I'm not advocating that you do anything that you feel is not appropriate or dangerous or anything like that. In my situation, I knew that I did not, that me not going over to my mom's house during the dinner hour, couple hours, was not going to be a detriment to her care, it was not unsafe, it just it just was not something she preferred. Okay, so that's where I started my boundaries. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:So that is where I would advocate you start your boundaries is we're not talking about you know a care.
Speaker 1:This is like neglecting her for days and like keeping her right.
Speaker 2:This is like you know I'm going to do and so, and then, just like we talked about with boundaries a few minutes ago, how she felt about the boundary was really irrelevant. True, right, I know that sounds rough, I know that sounds like you know, but you know, first of all, explaining mom, I'm not going to come over every night at dinner because and you don't really like some people would say you don't even have to say because it's, you can just set the boundary. But you know, especially if you're trying to like, not be mean, you'd say you know, dinner time is really the only time we're all home, you know, and so I really want to be there so I can hear about how my kids are doing, make sure they got their homework and check. At the time this was going on, they were still, you know. You know they could be home alone, but you know, still, like you know, we need to make sure we're getting homework done and stuff.
Speaker 2:You know, as my husband, this is really the only time that we're we're all together in a way that's not busy. So I'm going to start doing this in a way that's not busy. So I'm going to start doing this Now. How can we set you up for success while I'm not here. And then you know, she said, you know well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. And so I found I helped her find solutions for the things that she was saying that she needed me there for. So, instead of me coming over to prepare her meal, it was like, well, the caregiver that's here during the day, before she leaves at five o'clock, she needs to make sure your meal is ready for you. You know what?
Speaker 2:I'm saying so, yeah, and then how my mom felt about like, after I've done all I can do, I've set the boundary, how she felt about it I had to let go of, that was not my responsibility, her feeling. You know, we can be kind, but we're not, we're still not responsible for other people's feelings. We cannot change the way other people feel, or their or what they do. So, you know, I think that's one thing we also I, I used to say all the time like I just want my mom to be happy. But sometimes what made them happy? First of all, it wasn't the safe thing. It wasn't the safe thing for her, it wasn't the healthy thing for her. And so instead of saying, well, I just want my mom to be happy, I said, well, I just want my mom to be safe, I just want her to be healthy, and if she can be safe and healthy and happy, yay. But those are the things that I had to focus on. And, um know, of course this is all over simple. You know this is oversimplification. This is a process. This is something that you have to really ponder and think about.
Speaker 2:I do do have a way. You know, one of the things that I do offer is like a session where I help you figure out what that boundary is Like. What's the first boundary you can set realistically? You know it's probably not the one you want to set, the big one that you're like, oh yeah, that's, I need a boundary right there. That's probably not the first one, but there's probably one that we can. We can set. And so I walk, because every situation is different your relationship with your parent, maybe good, maybe not so good, maybe there's a little history there that has to be dealt with too. So there's a lot of that as well. And also full disclosure. I was in therapy, so I had a really good therapist, so that is also very helpful.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah, that's. I mean it sounds like great. It, depending on the level of your relationship and where you're at that, it might require therapy, but but you provide the, the skills and I and I think direct, you know the direct line into just caregiving. So I have one just last question. I know we at the very beginning you just mentioned journaling and you know all those self caregiving like things. You know that might work and might not work. So do you have like a self care, like like a toolbox of self care things, cause I know what works for some people it doesn't work for others. I'm a huge journaler, I love to journal and like bent into my journal, but some people are like no thanks. So what are the top like self care giving things that you would just write. I mean, I know this is, this is probably it's fine.
Speaker 2:The answer is it depends, but I'll also give you an answer, okay, yeah. So I would say you know, one thing I hear all the time is like I want to do more. You know, I want to work out, I want to eat better, just, but I'm just so tired, you know, and it's like okay, especially if you're burned out or close to burned out or overwhelmed caregiver, or mom who's in midlife and is trying to figure everything out, mom who's in midlife and is trying to figure everything out. If you are, if you're listening to your body and all it is telling to you is take a nap, get more sleep, take a nap, get more sleep. Chances are that is the self-care that you need first. So the first thing I recommend for most overwhelmed caregivers is are you getting enough sleep? And it really doesn't matter how long you're in bed. I need to know. You know, you want to know. Are you sleeping? And you know there's a lot of tools out there. I wear a whoop that tells me how good my sleep was. But you know, you know, when you wake up in the morning, are you? Do you feel like you're refreshed, do you not? You know that kind of thing. So, first of all, like, just try adjusting your sleep routine, and really it doesn't have to be that complicated, you know, go to bed a little early, get up a little later. Somebody said how do you get enough sleep? You know, that was something somebody asked me on you know Instagram the other day, and I was like hey, you know what, you know how I get enough sleep. I prioritize it Right. That's the end, that's it. Yeah, so that's number one sleep, sleep, sleep.
Speaker 2:The second thing is hydration and then nutrition, kind of in conjunction with each other. If you are eating things that are not making your body happy, if you're not getting enough water, then all the other things just fall apart. Okay, you're not getting enough sleep, first of all. That's the thing you know. You can go without water and food for longer than you can without sleep, without it having permanent damage, though, and it's a lot harder to recoup. So if you've gone without food or water and then you hydrate and eat, your body recovers faster than with that sleep deficit. So, sleep first, nutrition and water, and then movement is my fourth thing, and when I say movement, I mean any movement. It does not have to be on a treadmill, it does not have to be some kind of formal routine. Just move your body. Dancing in the kitchen counts. Dancing in the shower counts, just be careful with the slippery. But yeah, those are my four things.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so sleep, hydration, nutrition movement yes, I mean I mean right things we should all be doing anyway, yeah, but, but I know it's the same for our children, it's the same for our parents, the same for us say, when we're just going through the menopause transition, everything right, all these things become just really even. I don't know if they become more important they have always been very important but really I think it's an opportunity to remember that. So we need to-.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a time to double down on what we already know is helpful. Instead of saying I'm going to push it to the side because this is more important, we have to say no because this is important caregiving for our parent, tending to our children, working, you know, having our career because those things are important. I need to take care of myself and I need to sleep, hydrate, eat and move daily.
Speaker 1:Yes, great, okay, well, yeah. So, beyond that right, go get a massage and go like these are the core.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, please do all those things too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So thank you so much. I really appreciate you just having this in-depth conversation with me. I think it's definitely needed. People don't really talk about this. It's not you know, it's sort of a secret, hidden thing that we have to be taking care of so much for so many people and then also try to focus on ourselves at the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So for a long time it was like, after your kids are gone and into adulthood, then you start taking care of your parents. Well, that's not the way it is anymore too. I think that's another reason it feels more like secret. You're like wait, I'm not done doing this one thing, and now it's time to do this. And oh, by the way, I'm going through menopause, like. I think part of it is. That's the sandwich just isn't about having one thing on one side and one thing on the other. It's also about that squeeze.
Speaker 1:Right in, right In the middle. Yes, no, I know, when I first heard that, the sandwich generation was like, oh no, what's that? Like, really, like I it's. No one prepares you for this, for a lot of this stuff, right? They don't prepare you for empty nesting, they don't prepare you for menopause and they don't prepare you for having to take care of your parents at the same time as you're taking care of so many other things and you're still well into your career and you're still, you know, like living it's, yeah, so it's, it's a lot that this, this time of our lives, is. There's a lot going on, so we really need.
Speaker 2:But you're here and I'm here and we're here to help, right, absolutely Make that banging the drum. Yes, absolutely Thank you so much for having me today. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:It's been a wonderful conversation. Yeah, and just tell me just quickly how can people get in touch with you, and I'll link anything in the show notes too.
Speaker 2:Well, of course, in on Instagram, I'm the self caregiver. I'm on there. A lot hang out there all the time. If you go there and find my, there's the link to the podcast and all that over there. And then also, since I mentioned it, that I'll make sure you have the link to the say no workshop that people can sign up for as well, and so they can get that and the resources that come with that as well, because there's a workbook and video training and some different things that will help them. We talk about that first boundary, all those things.
Speaker 1:So I'll make sure you have that as well? Great, that sounds like something people definitely will need. Love it, okay. Well, thank you so much and carry on.