Resources For The Sandwich Generation: Self-Care Leads To Better Caregiving Featuring Elizabeth Miller

Self-care is never selfish. Especially if you are a caregiver to an aging family member. If you don't take care of yourself you will not be able to take care of others. It's like when you fly and they tell you to put your oxygen mask on first. So let's make self-care a priority. Your aging family member will be much better off with you being healthy.

About Elizabeth

Elizabeth Miller is a family caregiver advocate, speaker, author, and Certified Caregiving Consultant. She obtained a B.A. in Journalism from Penn State University and has worked in corporate IT and strategy roles for over 20 years. Elizabeth’s personal experiences caring for aging parents with chronic and terminal illnesses and for a sibling with developmental disabilities inspired her to create Happy Healthy Caregiver in 2015.

Through her coaching services, speaking, award-winning podcast, book, and online community, Elizabeth helps family caregivers infuse caregiving and self-care with their busy lives. Elizabeth has been a presenter at the 2016-2019 National Caregiving Conferences. Her story was featured in Woman’s Day and Health magazines. She is the host of the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast on the Whole Care Network, author of Just for You: a Daily Self-Care Journal, and facilitates an Atlanta support group for family caregivers called the Atlanta Daughterhood Circle, which was featured in the Washington Post.

As a full-time entrepreneur, Elizabeth works with employers interested in supporting their working family caregivers and with companies interested in amplifying their brands and services. Her interactive presentations offer practical solutions for caregiving and self-care. Topics range from preparing for a caregiving crisis, sharing the care with family members, self-care strategies, and balancing work and family.

about Happy Healthy Caregiver

Happy Healthy Caregiver is a lifestyle website, podcast, and consulting business that helps family caregivers create time for what they love and find time for their own self-care while juggling the responsibilities of caregiving. The daily demands of being a family caregiver is emotionally overwhelming, stressful, and physically tiring. Being a caregiver often leads to neglect of the caregiver’s own health which can result in obesity, fatigue, depression, anxiety, and other physical and mental health disorders.

The Happy Healthy Caregiver resources help family caregivers regain balance and control of their personal health and happiness while caring for others. With the Happy Healthy Caregiver resources and community, caregivers no longer feel alone and burned out but rather armed with the tools and support they need to prioritize and optimize their health.

The rich content on Happy Healthy Caregiver focuses on helping caregivers make small healthy changes, reclaim their time, ask others for help, express their emotions and needs, and better understand care resources and options.

The Happy Healthy Caregiver site and podcast covers topics that teach and encourage self[1]care for the caregiver. Each blog post, podcast episode, and instructive video shares tips and systems for time management, nutrition, revitalizing self-interests, exercise, and building a care team.

www.happyhealthycaregiver.com

www.AGEUcational.com

Full Transcript Below

 

Resources For The Sandwich Generation: Self-Care Leads To Better Caregiving Featuring Elizabeth Miller

Fri, 9/24 10:36AM • 54:19

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

mom, caregiving, day, care, dad, life, felt, big, people, caregiver, call, lived, family caregivers, kids, frankly, person, Elizabeth, books, parents, Roy, Resources for the sandwich generation

SPEAKERS

Terry, Elizabeth, Roy Barker

 

Roy Barker  00:02

Hello, and welcome to another episode of AGEUcational. I'm your host Roy,

 

Terry  00:05

I'm Terry

 

Roy Barker  00:06

Of courece podcast that brings you information on aging on the aged. We hope to you know, if you're taking care of a loved one, we hope to give you some hints and tips that may make your life a little easier. And if you aren't growing old, such as I am, you know, we want to try to age gracefully. We don't want to outlive our wellness. And so we'll try to provide some information on healthy aging as well. So today, we also have guests on a lot so today is no different. We have Elizabeth and Terry, I'll let you introduce her

 

Terry  00:40

Elizabeth Miller is a family caregiver advocate, speaker, author and certified caregiving consultant. She obtained a BA in journalism from Penn State University and has worked in corporate IT and district strategy roles for over 20 years. Elizabeth personal experience caring for aging parents with chronic and terminal illnesses. And for a sibling with developmental disabilities inspired her to create happy healthcare happy, healthy, give her caregiver, excuse me, happy healthy caregiver in 2015. Through her coaching services, speaking, award winning podcast book and online community, Elizabeth helps family caregivers infuse caregiving and self care with their busy lives. Elizabeth, thank you so much for being here. We're so happy to have you.

 

Elizabeth  01:30

Thank you. I'm delighted to be here and to talk with you all today.

 

Roy Barker  01:35

So tell us a little bit I mean, I think Terry kind of outlined your story. But if you want to expound on that a little bit, you know, kind of how you got here. And then of course, you know, some of the things that you've been doing for the last few years.

 

Elizabeth  01:48

Thank you. Well, yes, the caregiving for me was not, you know, an overnight crisis. It was a slow mudslide, frankly, that I saw coming, and could not really do anything to stop it. Even though we tried. I've got I had rather two aging parents who had multiple chronic illnesses, and also a mother in law who had lung cancer.

 

So my husband and I found ourselves squeezed in the sandwich generation taking care of two active kids in their middle school, and just starting high school years, and our aging parents, also in the peak of our career years, and we were overwhelmed and we felt isolated. So I was looking for resources, that that could help me. And really, I wasn't finding a whole lot. So I just started pulling in my journalism skills from the past.

 

And writing became very therapeutic for me. I started layering on different things, you know, became the certified caregiving consultants, so I could not only learn the skills myself, but how to coach other people, and then the podcasting and just speaking, things like that, because I just feel strongly that caregiving and in particular self care for caregivers, I felt, I don't know how you all felt, but I felt very invisible in the health care system as a family caregiver. I felt like people were really quick to tell me how I could take better care of my loved one, particularly.

 

My mom is where I had been done with primary caregiving and so she you know, had COPD and diabetes and, and mobility challenges and edema and sleep apnea. And, you know, here's here's tips on how you can do better nutrition with your mom, here's how you can get her moving more, but nobody was really seeing me as a family caregiver. And I just was not okay with that.

 

Terry  03:43

Yeah, my dad, we had a long my dad had Alzheimer's and for like, at least a dozen years, you know, and we lost him in 2014. But my sister and I kind of tag teams and if we didn't, you know, back then even we didn't have any anything any kind of it didn't feel like there was a community you know, as far as that caregiver and and the self care that's particularly the self care issue, because we would just it just stacked on just like you were explaining how it happened to you guys. Everything just kind of stacked up. Yeah, you already have

 

Elizabeth  04:24

a really full plate. Hey, let's just layer this big caregiving heat. Helping on the air and Terry, I'm sorry about your loss. My dad had also passed away in 2014. And that's when when we moved mom, she they were living, they were retired. They lived in Florida. I live in Georgia, and we move mom to Atlanta area. And then we also had to figure out what to do with my brother who is older than I am but has a developmental disability. And so we were luckily I have sibling helpers. You know, we've Some of my family that are great helpers and some not so much but we're consistent there we know we know who to who to go to

 

Terry  05:08

yeah and so many people do it have to do it on their own and being long distance I mean how do they do it? What kind of what kind of help can they get as far as you know if they're if it's a long distance

 

Elizabeth  05:27

well I mean for us when I was primary caregiving for my mom and then we we tag teamed in my family at some point mom lived in an assisted living near me which I know people think is like oh well what's the big deal she was in assisted living you know, it's still a lot of work and she was grieving she had never really lived on her own she went from her parents to marriage and you know.

 

I had to teach her how to advocate for herself we talked you know about boundaries you know, using trying to get her to meet me halfway on using the activities in making sure she was set up and it just it was a lot still on my plate and I felt bad that I couldn't be there as much as I wanted to the guilt was was definitely thick but then I was lucky like you said you know there's always some things we can be grateful for in our experience and I was grateful that I had the sibling help and my sisters lived in the northeast.

 

I had a couple brothers here locally so we did divide and conquer the long distance help they could you know do my one sister did all the bill pain you know, we just changed all moms bills to go directly to her another one that my parents had a summer home in Michigan she was managing that property She was also taking care of all my brother responsibilities because my mom was really no help with my brothers like we were guardians for him before we were really guardians for him. Um, and then just just locally, my brother brothers You know, one of them ended up doing some grocery shopping for my mom visit you know, we were trying to divide up our visitation so that mom had more local company you know, she wasn't as isolated so we did divide and conquer where we could.

 

Roy Barker  07:11

No, yeah. You mentioned this misconception about assisted living because there's I think it depends on where that person your loved one is in their journey. But it's a big change and so I think you know, the way that you kind of well my opinion it's like sometimes they can go into a shell when you when they make that move, and if they don't have that family interaction, and it's you know, they'll sit in their room and just wither away.

 

So I think that family involvement to get them involved in their new community, excuse me, but then also it's an unfortunate thing to say but a lot of times we spend the majority of our time managing the assisted living community to make sure that they're doing you know the things that they need to be doing and given our our loved ones the attention so it's not

 

Elizabeth  08:06

no it's not it's not a cakewalk. I learned a lot through that experience we actually had mom and two different assisted livings nearby you know the first one we picked because it had all these wonderful amenities It was like a country club frankly.

 

And you know, we kept saying my my sisters and I particularly and you know we at first we were looking for a place for both my mom and my dad to live and then my dad passed away and he was the stronger of the two of them which happens a lot in elderly couples and he was the glue frankly and he would have been the mayor of that assisted living you know, so we we switched to just finding a place for mom and we you know, thought she would really gravitate towards the amenities and the activities she we set up her room beautifully you know.

 

Everyone commented we tried to make it as much like her home as it possibly could be and we even stayed there the first couple weeks to try to get her acclimated and dine with her. And she just like you said, boys, she just was you know, my dad was the socialite of the two of them and he was the one that kind of pulled her out of things and she was content with going to her room but yet would complain a lot mostly to me about you know.

 

Well they didn't get my dinner on time it came up and it was cold or it well you're supposed to go to the dining room you know it's it's it's constantly and I just the phrase I kept saying with I was like, Mom, you got to meet us halfway. You have to meet us. This is part of your, your physical and your occupational therapy is just moving and interacting with people, but you can't do it for them. And it's hard.

 

Roy Barker  09:43

It's It's tough. One thing you brought up that I wanted to kind of talk about a little bit is you said that your dad was the stronger one and probably the the, the healthier well or one of the two. So that brings up an awesome point. It's not just when it's an elderly couple I mean we've seen this with parent a child relationship is that if you are caring for somebody that is that needs a lot of care the caregiver the percentages are really high.

 

That the caregiver will pass before the actual person they're caring for and I don't want to just lock that into you know, spouses that are older because definitely it happens a lot there because of the age and of course they may be in some compromised health but we also see it with you know, a child caring for a loved one that you know, they will make themselves sick because of lack of self care.

 

Elizabeth  10:44

Yeah, I mean, I don't know why we think that any any family caregiver thinks that we can just keep running and running and running like you might be able to do that for a short term caregiving sprint, you know, where it's just a quick hospitalization of a few weeks but if you're trying to make this a sustainable life, you've got to I think of energy as a synonym for self care. And we have luxury cars right that we pay a lot of money for and we think that we don't you know, they still need maintenance they need premium fuel they need a good wash you know, they and so why do we think we can treat this vessel any differently we are not super human beings we we need to keep energizing ourselves.

 

Roy Barker  11:32

Right right. And it's and I think we've talked a little bit in the past but we will will say that in what we when we talk about self care we're talking more than just we went to movies six weeks ago our you know, we went to it because somebody will tell you, oh, well we went to dinner. But what they don't tell you is we ran in we ate as fast as we could. And then we ran out and that you know.

 

All of a sudden that qualifies as a nice relaxing dinner. And so but there's more to it even than that is that it's those daily things it's eating correctly monitoring our diet, we're so worried about what this other person is eating and doing but we never think about ourself exercise getting the sleep and read it I'll let you expound on that. I think that's just a

 

Elizabeth  12:22

corner part like I think that self care for family caregivers looks different I had to you know, I had to go through this journey and I know for me even in the beginning, that was the physical self care it was the eating and the walking and the exercise and even sleep I didn't even really think of I just thought well I got to eat and I got to move more.

 

And then as I got more mature in my caregiving journey and started coaching and helping others I really feel like there's categories of self care you know, we've got physical which I mentioned but there's also spiritual, emotional professional, financial, practical social like there's so many different pieces of self care it's not just about a pedicure and a night out on the town it's it's more so about the little teeny tiny things we can infuse in our day so that we can show up for ourselves and be our best self and show up for others

 

Roy Barker  13:18

it's like the old adage in you know when you fly it's put your mask on first before you take care of others because if you're dying because of no oxygen you can't help others and it's the same way with caregiving I think in the beginning it's all good but as we start to wear down we're actually providing less than less care and help and sometimes even could be detrimental to the person that we're caring for and you know I used to work in do a lot of work with the long term care.

 

And that's the that's the time when we used to see a lot of abuse cases come out when staff was doubling over shifts when they were you know working days and days in a row no rest even personal stuff going on at home and it's not necessarily all physical but you know we snap at people we you know, say things we wish we wouldn't have and that can happen even with family caregivers as well when they get so tired and rundown put yourself in a bad position.

 

Terry  14:18

Yeah,

 

Elizabeth  14:19

I mean that's that's essentially why I started on this journey is I knew that if I didn't change what I was doing, I was at risk of repeating the same cycle that I was witnessing in front of me. So I had to figure out how to make self care priority in my own life. And I had just, you know, the first thing I started doing was on Instagram, I started putting 100 days of healthy and just looking for a little thing I could do you know, whether it was drinking water or parking further away, or, you know, journaling my thoughts down for the day, whatever it was, that I had just recognized like, Okay, I'm working on this. I'm making this a commitment.

 

To keep to keep moving forward because I didn't I don't know that I was completely burned out but I was definitely charred and I would say that I was not liking who I was seeing in the mirror I was the person you were describing you know impatient short fuse crying very easily you know at the drop of a pin just like everything was my emotions were just so heightened and I just felt like I was sinking frankly and I I didn't that's not who I am you know I'm just kind of I'm more of a positive see the glass half whole full kind of gal though.

 

Terry  15:39

Yeah, that's I mean that's just such a hard place to be it the stress of everything that but you've you found I mean, you found some some way to I guess journaling was a was a good source for you. Because that that's kind of what you do.

 

Elizabeth  15:59

Yeah. Yeah in journaling In fact I even I one of the first products I created was this book then just for you daily self care journal because I wanted people to experience some piece of that and so on each day there's like a little prompts to just I think a lot of times caregivers lose themselves in this process.

 

And so if this is a teeny tiny way that they can say there is a person still in here I still have dreams and memories and desires and things that I want to do and and feel good about so and sometimes it's just even like this one says Count your blessings list out a few of the blessings in your life you know, just being altering and reframing this whole journey and have this mindset was a big part of me and I think a lot of caregiving for me was just learning how to let go because I wanted to control it I was a control freak and just accept that there are certain things that are in my control and there's mostly a lot of things that can't

 

Terry  17:03

and that's so hard that's just so hard to come to terms with but if you can become aware of it or you know just acknowledge that you are not you're not in control really you're not in control of anything much

 

Roy Barker  17:18

yeah, I went to some training years ago and it's an interesting concept about about our cups being full and you know, because people could say something to you you know, if you're well rested, you've been eating good if you're in a great place somebody could say or do something to you and it's like they keep on moving never give it a second thought.

 

But a lot of times because your cup is full all it takes is one drop for it to overflow I mean this was such an awesome concept I wish I could remember who did it and the whole you know more details but i think it's it's not it's interesting because like if your cup is half full, you know another drop in not a big deal we move on but you know when we get to this certain level of just full emotionally physically everywhere then all it takes is that one drop to just make it overflow and in the other part you know, we've talked a lot about this relationship or the caregiver and the person that they're caring for but the other part of this equation.

 

I think you have to take into account is that you know somebody in your position more the sandwich generation you've got a husband a kids a job I mean, that is such a small I mean it takes a lot of your time and emotion I get that but when you look at it relatively I mean that's like a smaller portion of your life of things that are going on outside of that whole situation.

 

Elizabeth  18:53

Yeah, there wasn't you know, you had to be intentional, I was not going to find the time right to create it and I had to you know, and I coach people on how to do this. I mean, we look at everything that's going on and we figure out systems of how we can make this more sustainable and, and. Where there are some opportunities that we can get creative with some things you know.

 

Maybe there's a twofer I call it where you can you know get a walk in and catch up with a girlfriend or you know commute somewhere and listen to an audio book like there's so I had to you know, I'm I'm pretty lucky in that like my innate skill set is I'm a pretty organized person. I thought if I can't figure this out, there's no you know, that it's hard because at most people I look around I'm like I'm pretty organized. I pretty much can handle a lot but this is too much. This is way too much.

 

Roy Barker  19:47

Well, sometimes we grow into it. You know, it's one thing if it's a if there's a incident and you kind of jump in, but sometimes we start out slow and as the person we're Caring for deteriorates you know we start providing more and more attention and then you know you don't really realize it until you know you're kind of at that breaking point but it's been a gradual process yeah

 

Elizabeth  20:13

boiling the frog they call it right boiling the water when he or she doesn't know is getting boiled but that it's it is caregiving is a lot like that and you and you mentioned my kids and my husband and you know team Miller we had to figure it out. We had to you know my kids First of all, we're like mom and dad don't do the same things that your parents are doing to you. That's that's not okay. So they were on board with us, prioritizing our own health and happiness.

 

And you know, they were my kids were, someone gave me some great advice that I worked with. They said you want to be dispensable. And I was like, what I want to be dispensable. And they said, Yeah, most the time you want to be indispensable right at work. like nobody can do what you do. But in life things like wanting to be dispensable because I wanted my kids to be able to be okay without our hands and everything. And so we had some sit downs with them. They were in middle school, one was getting ready to start high school when my dad passed.

 

And in fact, I missed the first day of high school, you know, you miss a lot when you're caregiving and Miss holidays and birthdays and some things like that. But we sat them down and we said, Look, school is your job, like, you've got to check your teacher blogs, you've got to get your homework in on time. This is what we expect from you. We cannot babysit you we do not have time. You know, dad's daddy's helping his mom, I'm helping my mom at the time. Like, you've got to have this and it could be embarrassing. Sometimes I'd get around with my fellow mom friends and they would say Oh, just just Jacob or Natalie have so and so for a teacher or what did they get on this task?

 

Or was I didn't know the answers to those questions because I had set a boundary and just said, Look, y'all got to own this stuff. And they started doing laundry we did you know talk about that. I said, Look, you can watch me do laundry all weekend, or you can help with do your own laundry. And this is what we expect that to look like. And then we can go out and do something fun as a family on the weekend. Yeah, well, we had a lot of those conversations

 

Terry  22:16

and they and but they learned so many more practical skills from that process. So they're productive citizens and they know how to you they've been watching you. So you've been a good role model for them as far as the caregiving thing and that's just an indispensable tool right there is

 

Elizabeth  22:38

paying off now I mean we're all empty nesters we've got two kids in college now and people will say to me like wow your kids like and I'm like they had to they had to get their shit together like it just it wasn't an option we we you know we just we just had to survive that way so now you know they make comments or like my roommate doesn't know how to do their laundry or you know, they can't even enroll in their own classes and I'm like, yeah, you know that but they'll also say we had to do laundry at such a young age I'm like yeah don't.

 

Aren't you glad you have these life skills and teaching them how to make eggs like I was up and gone to work in the morning before they got themselves on the bus and I think you know in all those years my kids maybe missed the bus a couple times and we had a backup plan look if something should happen we don't want you to miss the bus but if it does call so and so you know their stay at home person they know that you know, they'll I'm sure they'll be happy to help because they know how crazy our situation is. So yeah, yeah, it's it's paying off so I'm really proud of the young adults that they both are.

 

Terry  23:47

Yeah, I would say I would have said yeah, I had to do laundry. Well yeah, I was gonna teach it when you were three for picking it up.

 

Elizabeth  23:56

funny cuz like I'm like you Terry, like my mom had six kids like we we had major jobs. But when I look around at my kids and their friends like we we expected a lot other kids but not even the equivalent of what I was expected to do as a kid. It's just funny how every generation is different.

 

Terry  24:15

Yeah, we had we had our things that we had to do and I tried to I tried to instill that with my kids you know, they didn't like the cleaning part of it, but I didn't care I mean, I'm like, I don't care Do it. Do it and I'm not there like you're just being me. You just want to clean out for free. Okay.

 

Roy Barker  24:34

Yeah, one thing that's interesting in this whole caregiver concept is the the duties typically fall to of all people the daughter in law, or at least the daughter, but I think it's interesting that and you know, Terry steps up and fills a role you know, with my parents not it's not really heavy duty caregiving, but she's in contact with them and you know, setting up stuff Rusty go see them. So it's just I assume that it's still pretty much that way. As long as

 

Elizabeth  25:07

it was like that, and my family were the sisters, we there's three of us, and we call ourselves sister power. And we would put our fist together, like, figure this out, you know, and my brothers, you know, I had one brother, that was really good. You had to tell him exactly what you needed him to do. Like he wasn't going to, he wasn't going to say, hey, maybe I'll take that on. It was like, Tim, we needed to do XYZ and he'd do it, he would always do it. I've got a brother that's development disabled. So he needed more work.

 

And then of course, I have that brother that it just every time we inserted him in anything, it just frankly, been harder. Yeah. And, you know, with Jason, my husband, he had to do it because his brother lived out in Arizona, we were in Georgia. So he, he assumed it and maybe I would have had more of a role in it had I not had my own thing going on. So we just were like, ships in the night at that point, like dividing and conquering and, and luckily, our marriage had, you know, had good foundation, and we had already kind of overcome a few hurdles. earlier on.

 

We're married 25 years now. So yeah, we we, we just rolled with it. I must think that we do better in the big crisis moments than in the little things like, wait, you didn't you're not helping to cook tonight, like, well, we can have a big fight about that. Yeah, like big stuff is, is where we shine, I think as a couple.

 

Roy Barker  26:30

Yeah. And planning is important. We'll talk about this because unfortunately, you know, we either as kids or as adults, we don't want to consider things that could happen. And so we tend not to talk about it. But actually, the opposite should be true is that we really need to talk about the what ifs, the sooner we can start that conversation, the better because we want to know, you know, what does our loved one want? What do they need? And

 

Terry  27:00

when are their wishes? Yeah, yeah,

 

Roy Barker  27:02

yeah. What are their wishes? Even though we have to talk about death? Sometimes, you know, what are your wishes at that time, you know, the Do Not Resuscitate agreements? Where's all this paperwork? You know, cuz it's like, you know, my parents have been awesome, they've created all the paperwork needed. case they pass Now, the question always is, where is that bundle of paperwork, you know, because it's, it's at the lawyer's office getting redone or it's at the house they're looking over could be you know, somewhere else. So always, you know, it's good to find out Where's where is this stuff just in case we need it.

 

Elizabeth  27:38

It's so important. And, um, you know, I, I call that practical self care, frankly, because it's, it's peace of mind, it allows you in the end, like none of us are getting out of Earth alive, like we are all going to die at some point. And so we, I want not only to have a good life, but I want to have a good death. And I want that for my family members. And I think the more what I've learned, you know. Through my dad's situation.

 

My dad passed first and then my mother in law and then last year my mom and we were much more together for Mom, you know, by them because we had lived through it. And, you know, dad, we he was super organized. He had given us our lawyers numbers, so we knew who to call when stuff happened. But we also didn't know everything like we'd thought they were much more financially sound than they were we got in we realized he had cancelled their life insurance. And he kept everything which is good and bad, because then you're like, well, which of this is the right?

 

Terry  28:38

So much to look through?

 

Elizabeth  28:40

So much to look through, but but we he was very organized, and we figured it out. And when we when dad was in hospice, we came across this pamphlet called Five Wishes. Five wishes.org is it helps you have that conversation. And it was too late for dad by that point. But we did do that with my mom. And we had conversations with her about it. We knew you know what him she liked and her Memorial. We knew that she wanted a Catholic mass, we knew that she wanted to be cremated and my dad was cremated, and we were lugging all these boxes around in our house at that point.

 

 

So we're in her house. So my mom and my dad were cremated. But buried in the same plot, I learned that you can get two boxes in the same plot and, and it was, you know, I think it's important to know what you want it to look like. And then it allowed us when my mom was and my mom had bonus years I call it because of not necessarily my caregiving because she was my sister. She lived with my sister and hands on the last four years. She lived many more years than we thought she would and because of that those we were able to video video different conversations.

 

Ask her different questions and we knew the end was coming. But we could just be in the moment rather than worrying about All the decision making I mean there's still a lot of work there's always going to be a lot of work and grief. It's exhausting. But it made it better that we could just be there. Yeah,

 

Roy Barker  30:12

you brought up the point that things weren't the exactly the way that y'all thought they were financially but let's talk about that as far as the condition of of a loved one when it it seems like when there's two elderly spouses living together and one of them is a little worse off than the other the other one seems to overcompensate and unless we really pay attention know what to look for maybe ask some probing questions maybe surprise visits, things like that. It's important we do that because again, we can be surprised when the healthier one passes and then all of a sudden it's like the other one is in so much worse shape than what we actually thought and I think it can go to getting the the healthier one the support and help that they need you know, earlier as well.

 

Elizabeth  31:12

Yeah, I mean looking back on it, there were some My dad was burned out, for sure there were some big signs. One of them was like this, I think was American Idol and they did this like big donation on the TV screen and he sent this scathing email to my myself and my siblings afterwards of like, how can all these random strangers provide so much help to this cause and yet my own family is was just really like passive aggressive and made us feel terrible but he'd never really asked for things but it was things like that that he started doing that we knew he needed more help.

 

And he expected it frankly like he was like you know, we'd had difficult conversations about well if you really want us to be more involved in your life you need to move back like they had lived in Atlanta at one point and they retired at the outside of Amelia Island Florida. And we were six hours away from family and that conversation never went well my dad was very firm he said we are saying here you are children we expect you to help with us and so we you know then did this tag team thing.

 

But to your point like we would go down there and visit beautiful place to visit although my parents had set a toe in the sand and probably you know the last 10 years with my mom and dad's life down there and we would notice that they were having like popcorn for dinner or there was like moldy food like one of my big jobs every time I go down there was cleaning out the refrigerator and oh my gosh is like things were just growing and rotting in there.

 

And like what are you surviving on Oh, we have popcorn we're having yogurt you know your dad will pick something up like that was his sanity as he would go out and they were both morbidly obese and food was their comfort and it just was like spiraling and making it even worse. But we did get some help we you know, found somebody on Craigslist that would come in and help you know make a ham and and I think a soup and and do some of my mom's personal care. And so and then her hours started to get more and more.

 

And that worked for a while. It's like things worked for a while and then something happens and we have to pivot and had to figure out something else. But we knew that they were never going to move closer. And that was hard until my dad passed and I was like mom, you cannot stay here by yourself. You are not capable. You know in her head. She thought she was right. And I remember getting so mad at her and giving her a piece of paper I'm like you write down how this is supposed to look in your head like I don't understand like, I'm the tough love daughter, first of all, yeah.

 

I don't know if you've picked up on that. But I'm the one that's like, That's crazy. And you know, but it did take me getting really emotional and vulnerable and letting her know how her her choices and what she and dad were doing and how they were affecting all of our health and happiness. And that was really I think what kind of and then her financial state too is like look you can't rent your place for more than a you know, it has to be rented for a year like you have no you can't stay here. We can't afford to keep you here. It was it sucked it frankly, it sucked and I don't know how we did it. Frankly, looking back on it.

 

Terry  34:23

Oh my god and that's when that's when everybody knows I'm serious is when I get into that emotional state.

 

Elizabeth  34:29

Yeah, I get Yeah, it's been years I can still get the little cracky boys and then Glock

 

Terry  34:36

IUD. I wouldn't like you just talking about it. I'm like, Oh gosh, and I felt it too as we did that same thing.

 

Roy Barker  34:44

Yeah, the really good thought there and just like I am evaporated, but we'll just say you know gay getting those observations and oh, I was gonna say A lot of times what I've observed with my parents will say is that you know like mom will she'll base decisions or actions on things like maybe 20 years ago and you know it's she's in good health and good state of mind it's not that it's a bad thing but she doesn't realize that she's aged. I mean, she actually thinks that she's younger than me somehow I don't know how she gets that math done. She's like, I think when I when I turned 40 she's like well you're finally older than me now. like

 

Elizabeth  35:33

crazy thought like I'm 50 this year and I think about like I do think about like when my parents were 50 and I'm like I'm 28 in my head for sure like I froze myself there but I get what you're like the doctor one of mom's doctors said a great she's he's like she's detached and like that's it she's detached from reality like she would frequently you know.

 

I had to set boundaries when she lived nearby because of work and kids responsibilities and everything in my own. I needed time for to recharge. And so Wednesday night was kind of ended up being our night. Where I would go after work I would bring a picnic. We would you know do some of the things on her list and you know.

 

But this was like boundary setting every time I was like mom I can't you know every time you call me drop everything and fix stuff and you know I would get there and she'd be like, well you can watch movie right you can do this or and I'm like mom I gotta get up and work I get up at 5am I gotta go work I gotta go to bed so I can go to work tomorrow and she would yell at me about coming to take her to doctor's appointments and she was in a wheelchair and I would make the earliest appointment that I could in the morning because one chances of it getting delayed were last you know either do that one or the one right after lunch right like those are your best chances of getting in at a time.

 

She would be like you move too fast we're Why do we have to do this so early as like mom it's like a half day for me every time I take you to a doctor's appointment because you know you move slow we got to drive there and then you miss a meal I got it I got to cover a meal and I want to I want to spend time with you while we're out we might as well like it's a it's an event yeah and she just was you know like you said just detached and we would have a lot of arguments usually what I would do is get her in the car and I would turn the 50s music on and that would recover recover us

 

Roy Barker  37:25

yeah cuz we just you know my my mom and stepdad just downsized and you know before that event I was like you know you need to give yourself some time this is going to be not only emotionally hard trying to sort through what you want to keep but it's going to be physically demanding because they had a two storey home so up and down the stairs you know who you're going to get to carry this stuff outside or to the storage or deal with it some you know it's like there's a lot Oh no, it's a I've got our plan I'm gonna you know I'm going to take care of it this weekend

 

Terry  38:00

and then like and they had been there 2025 years yeah, about 3535

 

Roy Barker  38:03

I'm like, I'm sorry. And she's like oh yeah, I've got it planned out where it's just I'm gonna get it done this weekend and so like Monday morning she calls and she's like so tired she's like she's I think you might be right this might be a really big job yeah.

 

Elizabeth  38:22

Office in a weekend right so you know you get interrupted all the time with with life and dogs and bathroom breaks and more. Yeah, when mom was she was a mogul and when we moved her out of her condo down there and because she wasn't mobile, we have basically like take things to her and like what about this?

 

What about this and ah, it's Yeah, so many books she collected first edition books and I they have a place in Michigan that now as my sister's home and going through all of those books, it's like, I love books. And that you know the writing and the reading that came Those are things I inherited from my mom for sure. But it was a lot of stuff. I think that generation two just likes a lot of stuff. I found as a caregiver, maybe it was that maybe it was just like oh my gosh looking around.

 

But I wanted less to take care of I wanted I was simplifying things I would even like go in my wardrobe and I would hear about something called a project 333 it was like 33 items in three months seasonal capsule and you know just less decisions to make it was like Okay, these are my things I were like this is it I don't have to go crazy and almost like what was it Steve Jobs wearing the black turtleneck and the you know, it was like, it was one less thing he had to think about and that kind of stuff. I was so attracted to figuring out you know how to make the meal plan is like anything that I could create a system around because I just didn't want to take care of more stuff.

 

Roy Barker  40:00

Well let's call it this decision fatigue and it's a real thing I mean if you think about the decisions that you make in the day some consciously some you just do subconsciously but and then the amount of information that comes at us each day I mean it's it can be overwhelming I think those systems are and I'm actually I've actually talked about subscribing to that is you know dislike having nothing but blue pants and a blue stripes you know having the same one and I guess I'll have to wear a tag on my car that says yes this has been washed it's not the same

 

Terry  40:34

deal like you know pre k kids were were you know younger elementary school kids where you put the danger yeah like gray animals

 

Roy Barker  40:43

yeah cuz I'm like and somebody like me I mean I'm jeans and T shirt that's me so when I have to put big boy clothes on and go out to the world I have like these match you know it's it's a thing and it shouldn't be so anyway i think that's that's funny but anytime we can create those systems to take those decisions it's it's a big win

 

Elizabeth  41:05

Yeah, I think that's kind of back to the self care part. You know, I had found that stacking on habits you know, was a successful move for me again like a system where you know, morning my husband I would talk and it was when the kids were in school I was like, okay if something derails us from the work day, you're the morning guy, you know you're you're the morning guy I'm going to be the afternoon person and that gave me my morning because I found like nobody really wanted my time at five 6am in the morning.

 

So I was kind of really where I started carving out the self care for me and stacking things you know like taking my supplements getting my water packing my lunch you know we're listening to the podcast on the way to work and just feeling like then better that I had paid my health first in the morning you know was important to me so that then I felt like I could show up as the person that I want it to be if throughout the day and I get you know you know yourself fast like I'm a morning person I get weary as the day goes on but I found that habit stacking was a real successful way for me to infuse more self care

 

Roy Barker  42:13

Yeah, yeah, I was gonna talk a little bit about the downsizing because you know we've done that the one one thing I will say is I do have I don't know eight or 10 cards, you know, big tubs of books that's one thing I could not turn loose of them so my kids won't be hating on me for that when they have to go through all the orders

 

Terry  42:32

more I mean a couple of weeks

 

Elizabeth  42:35

I'm right in there with you. They're they're a beautiful thing but some there's probably there's a there's a guy or gal that'll come and look at all the books and make sense of it all where you can do what we did and they can have a little free library in your name we did this for my mom and my mom was an author and so we have one up at the lake and we have a flagpole for dad at the at the local park and a little free library for mom and it's a great way to honor their memory so I think I like finding things like that like what you're into Oh yeah,

 

Roy Barker  43:09

are you taking notes

 

Terry  43:10

Oh yeah. That is that that is a given right there set me up for lumbering Yeah.

 

Elizabeth  43:16

How does that feel Roy knowing that you're gonna be maybe look at it he's

 

Roy Barker  43:20

like that's great. It makes it all worthwhile because I I worry about my books I want them taken care of you know,

 

Elizabeth  43:26

I was the same way she looked she looked at me and she said you're gonna take care of my first editions and I said yes, but I didn't realize how many there are. So then some of them I was like I'm not interested in these Hillary Clinton first edition I think these ones can go

 

Roy Barker  43:40

on bigger my kids will have a burn barrel they'll be just like throwing them in there. Like we're gonna get rid of

 

Terry  43:45

my

 

Elizabeth  43:47

money they can they even if they sold them, and they went on an amazing trip. You know, in courtesy of Roy Barker have a big family legacy trip like, Oh my gosh, you know, it just thinks something, do something something worthwhile, meaningful?

 

Roy Barker  44:02

I don't know. If mine are that valuable. They may not be able to go across town with

 

Terry  44:07

my mom. I mean, she has a lot of books, but it's like, a lot of tell all I know she has a lot of everything. But she kept headlines, just newspapers from headlight, like, from the 60s, like when Kennedy was assassinated. She's got all those a bunch of national inquires and they might be valuable. That's what I think my sisters were trying to get rid of them and I was digging them out of the trash pile. My mom's like, would you say we're going

 

Elizabeth  44:39

against them? It's funny when you're going through their stuff. It's like when my dad passed, he didn't have a whole lot that was like super meaningful for him. I don't have it in front of me. But the one thing I wanted it was like, you know, we were kind of like this or anything that you guys want the minute of dad and I was like, I want his bookmark.

 

He had this. He had this Budapest embroidered bookmark that just was like that's how I remember you know him reading it and so I use that in whatever I like I still like to read an old school book at night because I'm not supposed to have the screens and so I use my dad's bookmark but in case of a fire I'd be grabbing that you know, for Mom It's like you I have some of her jewelry you know I have her Smoky Quartz ring that I like the one I'm wearing now is my mother in law's so there's certain things that don't necessarily have to be like really expensive valuable, but they're just meaningful.

 

I even took one of mom's perfume she had her fancy perfume of Chanel number five and then she had her like everyday perfume of emeraude and so I have her everyday perfume of emeraude on my dresser and every now and then I just need a little sniff a mom and I'll just just it just makes me happy

 

Terry  45:51

that's awesome and you can take pictures i mean you know if the things are bulky or if it's just something that you you know yeah, you want to be your attempt kind of attached to it emotionally and it would be a great memory to bring up just take picture it's

 

Elizabeth  46:07

got to mean something to you I guess is my point like guidelines aren't important to you. Then they gotta go because we can't keep lugging around every dead person that we love stuff into our life like it's just someone else can't go through it at some point. Yeah,

 

Roy Barker  46:22

right. Or kids stuff either

 

Terry  46:25

oh my gosh, yes, I have tubs of my kids stuff and they got

 

Elizabeth  46:29

to take your tubs it's time Terry 23 and

 

Terry  46:33

29 and my nine year old lives in California and we're in Texas now

 

Elizabeth  46:38

um get your tabs kids I know

 

Terry  46:42

next time she can't because I have a storage unit we have downsize and I yeah, I have a storage and a half unit and that I just need to get rid of some stuff but

 

Roy Barker  46:52

that's another episode

 

Terry  46:53

yeah that another episode.

 

Roy Barker  46:54

Elizabeth thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be with us it's been a very interesting and enlightening conversation. Before we get away a couple things first off what is a tool or a habit that you use every day? Personal professional that you feel adds a lot of value?

 

Terry  47:13

Hmm

 

Elizabeth  47:14

Well a couple things come to mind one I'm in a smoothie kick right now so it's a good way for me to get all my fruits and you know some spinach and some good stuff in in the morning and then lately I've been walking like just old school walking these dogs you know, in between zoom sessions and I'm on a 30 day 10,000 steps a day street like I'm running I'm doing what I've called micro walks where it's just like 1520 minutes three or four times a day and I need to get up anyway i get i can't sit here all day long.

 

Roy Barker  47:50

Yeah you know I changed I've talked a little bit about change watches from the bigger brand name activity watch to I went back to the Fitbit I just Yeah, I just seem to like it better I've got the I think the charge for but it's got a new thing that cues you to get up every hour and get 250 steps in which is good number one because I could sit at this desk for you know 10 or 12 hours without ever getting up.

 

And so it makes it break up the day to get up walk around kind of clear my head for you know it takes what less than five minutes even just walking around the house but the nice thing is if I have time to go out and take the bigger walk at the end of the day I've already got like you know 2020 500 steps towards my goal just from those little inner minute walks through the day Yeah,

 

Elizabeth  48:43

I love that little reminder session it's are 250 step and I'm a carrot person like just give me a little carrots and right we can be in a competition there Roy oh my gosh, yes,

 

Terry  48:58

that would help with the with the 10,000 steps or two days right?

 

Roy Barker  49:04

The bad thing about me is like you know working at home there's been days when I've just out of bed to the desk set here. At the end of the day I look at my watch and says you know 530 I'm like oh how pathetic is that that I can go a whole day and take five

 

Elizabeth  49:21

favorite days or when it's like one o'clock and the 10,000 step and I was like I could go to bed if I wanted to roll my gosh he's for babies though. We've got a one year old golden doodle puppy. She's keeping me healthier because I got to get her out and move in. She's having a little nap right now but we're going to

 

Terry  49:38

ours or you can probably hear him in the background slurping up the water No, but they really are and they take us for a drag so it's kind of more activity more more exercise because it's

 

Roy Barker  49:51

resistance based. I'm trying to hold up not get not

 

Elizabeth  49:54

Oh, I got an old one. I just leave him at home.

 

Roy Barker  49:58

Alright, well tell everybody Who do you like to work with? How can you help them? And of course, how can they reach out and get a hold of you? Show us the and when you get through, just show us the journal journal one more time, okay,

 

Elizabeth  50:10

well, so you can reach out to me at Happy Healthy Caregiver .com happyhealthycaregiver.com, and that'll connect you to whatever your social platform choices and that type of thing. So basically, I've got a kind of a twofold business, I help family caregivers, I offer coaching, I do a complimentary coaching session the first time so people can see what it's like to work for me.

 

I have the product that just for you daily self care journal that people can buy on my website, it'll be signed, free shipping. And then I do I facilitate a Daughter Hood circle here once a month in the Atlanta area, if people want to get daughterhood.org, you can find a circle near you. So that's how I help caregivers and then how I help other businesses and how I really monetize My business is by working with companies and employers who are want to hire me as a speaker to come in and talk about self care and talk about caregiving.

 

And also help amplify their brand. I do different content, partnership packages on my website with my podcasts and different things like that. So it's a win win situation, you pay me so that I can help more caregivers. That's basically what my model is, that's an

 

Roy Barker  51:25

important, um, hate to just drag this out, we'll end up we'll have some time, I'm sure the tape will run out. But that's an important benefit, I think for businesses to look at as people like yourself, because what happens is in the business, we have become detached. We don't know our employees, we don't know what they're going through.

 

All we know is that one day they come in and they quit. And so you know, they may quit because they're taking care of a parent and they don't have time. And we lose awesome employees knowledge base and all that. And so I think there's it should be, there should be a growing need for companies to have experts like yourself at their call to help employees deal with these situations and have a conversation because that's usually the breakdown is there's no conversation about what's going on in your life.

 

How can we help do we you know, if we really want to retain this person, but getting some tips, tricks of how they can re reorganize their life, maybe altering work schedules, maybe more flexibility, where it's like, Hey, we got in, like you said, you go to the doctor's appointment, you think you're nine, I'm gonna get this done, we'll get a bike at home, I can be there by noon, and then the doctor doesn't show up or something else goes bad and it's like two o'clock. But, you know, we need to have understanding that. Maybe there's something they can do at home, maybe they can work a little later in the evening. You know, there's all kinds of ways that we can make adjustments, we just have to think about it.

 

Elizabeth  53:00

We have to make a caregiver friendly culture for sure. And a lot of times, you know, what I do in some of my speaking events for employers is I'll dust off their own employee assistance program benefits, because I know for years, I didn't know what mine were. And so I'll insert them into my presentation to say, hey, did y'all know you have this stuff accessible to you? But when it's when it's structured around that context, people will use it and get it.

 

Roy Barker  53:26

Yeah. All right. Well, thanks a lot. I promise we're quitting This time for sure. Elizabeth we thank you so much for your time. It's been pleasant speaking with you.

 

Elizabeth  53:36

Yes. Thank you so much. I enjoyed getting to know y'all better.

 

Roy Barker  53:40

Alright, that's gonna do it for another episode of AGEUcational. Of course, I'm Roy. You can find us at www.AGEUcational.com. We're on all the major podcast platforms iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify, we're not a one that you listen to reach out. Be glad to get yours added make it easier for you to listen, we're on all the major social media platforms, probably hang out on Instagram reach out we'd love to interact with you over there. Also, you can see a video of this interview when the episode goes live. Check us out on our YouTube channel and some of our past guest as well. Until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your health.

www.happyhealthycaregiver.com

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