[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Yoga Therapy Hour.

[SPEAKER_01]: Today our guest is Lisa Madden.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I've known Lisa, potentially, through a couple of different organizations.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I've never really gotten the chance to sit down and talk to her and hear her story.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she was so generous with her story.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think as you listen to it, those of you who are caregivers or have been caregivers, just working with our aging parents as they go through health issues, both mental and physical, nobody warns us, nobody tells us how hard this is going to be.

[SPEAKER_01]: And how much energy it takes, how much focus, how much love, how much transformation is required to basically keep ourselves intact as we care for our aging parents.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I hope you enjoy this episode.

[SPEAKER_01]: I do want to give a little warning because there is some very difficult discussion around Lisa's mother and how she decided to [SPEAKER_01]: pass into you know the next realm for herself and look at you a little warning when she's about to talk about that but it is a little bit heavy it's you know something that I think we all will hear or see or be with at some point with a loved one a friend a colleague so I think it's better to talk about it and to work through it together and really [SPEAKER_01]: You know, not have it be a shock if it happens to us and know that it's happened to other people too and that we can get through this together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, let's go meet Lisa.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are nine of the Yoga Therapy Hour.

[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome.

[SPEAKER_01]: This year, many of you have volunteered to come forward and tell your stories.

[SPEAKER_01]: It has been one of the highlights of all the years we've been doing the Yoga Therapy Hour.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we've had several hundred episodes over the last three years.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've had almost two hundred thousand people listening to these episodes.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a big deal.

[SPEAKER_01]: So to come on and tell your story and be human and be imperfect.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's been wonderful to see so many people with humility and grace and generosity and kindness.

[SPEAKER_01]: So many people telling their stories because they don't want other people to suffer like they have.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a way forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: As we look through the lens of yoga, yoga therapy, Ayurveda, so many of us have found that healing, a different kind of healing than we found through other types of modalities.

[SPEAKER_01]: So as we move into season nine, I just want to thank everyone who's signed up this year and also let you know that I can't take any more stories.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's been such an overwhelming response.

[SPEAKER_01]: I am completely booked.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are completely booked through the end of the year, which is a really great problem to have.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then in twenty twenty six, we're moving on to a totally different topic.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had a year of stories and we'll go into something else in twenty twenty six.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you all so much for participating.

[SPEAKER_01]: There will be an opportunity for all of you to participate in twenty twenty six, but I'm going to do a big series on the eight limbs of yoga that's going to take us over a year.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you volunteer to be on the podcast in twenty twenty six, I have very specific topics listed out the pertain to the alums of yoga.

[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe I want to talk to one of those.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, everyone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Have a great day.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our speaker for today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tell their story.

[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome Lisa.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're so happy you're with us today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for being here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me.

[SPEAKER_00]: which in honor there have been so many days that I've been driving over to my dad's who lives about forty minutes away and you've been with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for the podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's such a pleasure to be a guest.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, I love that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have to tell you this is such a labor of love.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like it takes a lot of time and energy and finances and I keep thinking, okay, should I stop doing this?

[SPEAKER_01]: But then when I hear people like you say that, you're going to your dad's who we're going to, I think talk a little bit about today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think no, I can't stop this.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you do on those rides.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, good.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Lisa, where are you in the world?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, so I live in Lopere, Michigan, and you know how Michiganers are.

[SPEAKER_00]: We get our maps out.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I like to say that I live in the lifeline.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lopere County is kind of a farming community.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are just east of Flint, Michigan, which many people are familiar with.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I've lived out here about twenty-five years now, born and raised in Swords Creek, Michigan.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this whole season eight of people telling their stories.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting so many Midwesterners and I just love it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love knowing because I'm in Minnesota.

[SPEAKER_01]: So just knowing how many yoga therapists there are in the Midwest, I had no idea.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there's a lot of us and we're celebrating today because it's sunny and it's eighty degrees and you know, I'm sure you know, yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've been waiting for this day for about five months or more.

[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you're like, oh, I'm so hot.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't deal with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a switch, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: I just vowed to just not do that because, you know, one of the great lessons of yoga has been for me as this whole idea of things being temporary because we as Midwesterners know when you're in that midst of February and March, you feel like this is never going to end.

[SPEAKER_00]: It will never get warm again.

[SPEAKER_00]: The flowers will never bloom and here we are.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm glad to have this on in the heat.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's so much sweeter.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have to say when it does get warm in the flowers bloom after that period of, oh, my God, I can't take it any longer.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's so interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like everything is even a little sweeter.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, for a lot of our suffering is horrible as it is, it makes even the mundane small things in life so precious.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of been the theme of my life the last several years I think is that is indeed that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like you can have, you know, multiple narratives or multiple truths all at once.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's this and also this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So tell us a little bit about your first yoga class and discovering yoga.

[SPEAKER_01]: I always like to start with that because, you know, so many of us had this moment where we were like, what the heck is this so amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: So tell us about your start.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's funny because my first yoga class didn't really happen in a studio.

[SPEAKER_00]: In nineteen ninety nine to two thousand was a lot of big changes for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I was in my mid thirties.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm now retired, but I was in K twelve education.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just moved from a teaching job into a more district level professional development.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that involved not only a new job, but involved a big move from northern Michigan back down in this area.

[SPEAKER_00]: That same year I started to go through a divorce.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I can't even remember what prompted this, but I found a Shiba Ray CD with a poster.

[SPEAKER_00]: So remember, this is ninety nine, two thousand.

[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't have all these other things.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had my CD.

[SPEAKER_00]: She had a morning practice and an evening practice.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then I had this poster with the poses.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm in this tiny apartment.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to do a triangle, you know, and I fall onto my coffee table and [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I haven't seen her name right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sheva Ray or Shiva Ray.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was my first teacher in my living room and that morning practice and evening practice was something that I could turn to.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, honestly, Amy probably at that point, like many others, I was doing it for the physicality.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just say one thing in the late teen nineties in my living room.

[SPEAKER_01]: In my small space was Jane Fonda in a full unitarred.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was like my start.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm right there with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there was a divorce and a custody battle.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I find it interesting that we use the word battle.

[SPEAKER_00]: So easily I'm not sort of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was in court.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was up on the stand.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I went like this, I went.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a deeper listening.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was a big deep breath where she her shoulders lifted and her chest expanded a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: It even looked like you held your breath at the top of for a second.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think I did.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it was that Amy, it was that first deep breath when the teacher appeared and I went, oh, this is what I've been learning.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that kind of prompted me to want to teach others.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was obviously very busy at that point.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was an educational professional.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would dabble in teaching.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would go to a studio every now and then, but there wasn't a local studio in the county that I live in.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I would say like for fifteen years, I was just I teach sometimes I practice sometimes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then in twenty fifteen, once there weren't children here anymore and [SPEAKER_00]: Life still was very busy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did take a two hundred-hour YTT program in Rochester, Michigan.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hit the ground running there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I went, well, Lupia needs a studio.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no yoga in Lupia.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in twenty sixteen, I found it into yoga in downtown Lupia.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we opened our studio space in February of twenty seventeen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, because I am a successful ambitious over a cheaper [SPEAKER_00]: I also enrolled in a yoga therapy program.

[SPEAKER_00]: You might know Veronica Zedor at the time it was at Beaumont Hospital.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: International Institute of Yoga Therapy.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was still working full-time running a studio.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also decided maybe a few years then we actually started our own ITT right at the beginning of COVID.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's this big blur of probably in twenty sixteen to twenty twenty one.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just so interesting because when did COVID hit spring of twenty twenty.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So back to your studio.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this is kind of interesting because I was at Genesee County and immediate school district and I was director of curriculum and special projects and that started in twenty thirteen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the projects that my assistant superintendent gave me was to offer online professional development to teachers.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I started exploring at that point.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was Twitter.

[SPEAKER_00]: How do you use web?

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even remember the name of the program.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was before Zoom.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I started offering online professional development around that time.

[SPEAKER_00]: So [SPEAKER_00]: We actually kicked off our yoga teacher training, and I want to say early February of twenty-twenty.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had two face-to-face meeting, Amy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe we had eleven students, which was, I thought was wonderful for Lopere County.

[SPEAKER_00]: We were so excited to offer this training in our studio, and all the sudden it was like, oh, we can't do this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I went, you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: I know how to use Zoom.

[SPEAKER_00]: We actually, I believe we had all but two stayed with us on Zoom.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it actually turned out to be a lovely thing because it was something we all looked forward to that we spent every Sunday together online learning.

[SPEAKER_00]: And like I said, I had enough background in it that I was confident enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I also immediately took our yoga classes for the studio.

[SPEAKER_00]: We went online.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have a wonderful following of retirees and I thought they're not going to want to mess with this technology.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is ridiculous.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: These ladies, if they didn't know how to use it, they called their adult children and said, come over here and set up my computer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we set it up so that they could get on like fifteen minutes before class and stay a little bit later.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they could see each other's living rooms, they got to talk, and then they practiced yoga together.

[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, that community kept us afloat during those very challenging times.

[SPEAKER_01]: and you who kept them afloat to have that lifeline when we were all stuck in our houses and be able to get online and have a community of like-minded people doing something meaningful like it was a big deal because similar to you I had been working at a university so I was ahead of the curve on online education and it was just a quick flip with our school and I think the people that joined at that time like that was their thing that kept them going absolutely [SPEAKER_00]: It was very powerful, I think, for all of us, very healing for all of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I think that translates into teaching today, yoga therapy.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of my clients wouldn't be well enough to drive, to a center, get out of their car, walk up some stairs, get in there, that would cause such a pain spiral.

[SPEAKER_01]: They couldn't do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And remembering that people who are not as well, [SPEAKER_01]: COVID forcing us to go online.

[SPEAKER_01]: Still continues in twenty twenty five to be a blessing because now they know how to do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: We know how to offer it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll talk a little bit about what happened to the studio, but we still offer hybrid classes through the studio because of that and some of our clients, especially some of the retirees, you know what they like practicing when they're living rooms now in that one group.

[SPEAKER_00]: They still practice in that way and then the other day I ran into them every Friday morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: They meet for breakfast at the local breakfast place, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it was really great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that big blur, I think COVID was a chunk of that also during that time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Probably in late, twenty nineteen, my mother called me and she said, your dad has a tumor near his bladder.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he had had prostate surgery in two thousand nine.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this was a reoccurrence, even though he had had the removal, this was like a reoccurrence of that answer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And probably in the early two thousand [SPEAKER_00]: We started to notice my mother having a lot of struggles with mental health and just a lot of highs and lows.

[SPEAKER_00]: And at this point, she said to me, I can't do this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot deal with your dad's.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to have to go to radiation.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be this in the days.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, honestly, as I was looking back, I was conveniently busy during that time because well, I had a full-time job.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had a business.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was going to be able to get therapy classes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe those listeners who have dealt with family members with mental health issues, it can be a challenge because there's only so much you can do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Can I just insert in here?

[SPEAKER_01]: We're about to talk about something quite difficult.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're listening with children in the car or you yourself have some sensitivity around loss of life, I think what Lisa is about to say is very sensitive in that area.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for adding that in there.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, [SPEAKER_00]: This is where the timeline kind of goes back and forth because in two thousand nine, my dad called me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I'm following an ambulance to the hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your mom is on her way to emergency and I said, what happened?

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, she overdosed on muscle relaxes.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that was two thousand nine.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this is the mother who has a very strong Christian faith and [SPEAKER_00]: I have three younger brothers.

[SPEAKER_00]: We were all just like, we went, mom, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: So at that point, we did convince you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Did you think it was in stake?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like she just taken too many or did you know that it was in the attempt to not be present here now?

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, at first we were in denial, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: She did confess in the emergency room that she had done it on purpose, that she was just very depressed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that was actually, I think it was about the time that my dad was diagnosed.

[SPEAKER_00]: with prostate cancer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so anything that was really stressful or, you know, looks she was doing a lot of awfulizing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that was her choice at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And thank goodness, my dad that morning though, he had a weird feeling who was leaving for work.

[SPEAKER_00]: At this point, they had separate bedroom.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he stopped in the hallway and he went, I feel like I should check on her.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he went into the room and she was lying there and just her whole body was shaking and her.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, we're still two thousand nine or this is two thousand nine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yes, this is kind of a way back and then getting to the story more present day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, they were successful in pumping her stomach and doing all of that and she just wanted to go home.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, this was stupid.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe I did this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so embarrassed and I convinced her to stay.

[SPEAKER_00]: for the week on the psychiatric ward at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this is two thousand nine in Flint.

[SPEAKER_00]: She stayed for that, but once she got home, we just spent time with her.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was very, very, very useful.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll never do this again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, she was embarrassed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, she had a really strong faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: So she felt God had saved her, kept her on the source for a reason.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we were like, okay, good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's stay on whatever medications they had given her as what often happens with bipolar diagnosis.

[SPEAKER_00]: She did not stay on her medications.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I kind of like, I was of course really frustrated because I'm like, you've got to take care of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this is not you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I was like, even grieving this what was happening, you know, this was not my mother.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we know those medications they have their side effects.

[SPEAKER_00]: She wouldn't like them.

[SPEAKER_00]: She would, you know, be those sorts of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: So moving forward, then we would have these highs where she would be out till one in the morning, just shopping or, you know, would show up on a relative store staff or my dad would call me and go, is your mom out there?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I don't know where she is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Which she didn't more in a manic state at that point.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So lots of shopping and things like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we actually looking at some of my journey.

[SPEAKER_00]: My brothers and I would say crash mode.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, moms and crash mode.

[SPEAKER_00]: So then she'd been bad for two weeks.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, nothing much was happening.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then there'd be these little roles of what I'd call maybe normalcy, you know, where we've like, there she is, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we had a lot of those years.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think I felt my default became, I'm going to focus on my husband and my kids and my family because this is a lot.

[SPEAKER_00]: So my dad was kind of stuck with whatever.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was the caretaking.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was stressful.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they got married really young.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were sixteen and eighteen when they got married.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that they just continued to communicate through their whole life.

[SPEAKER_00]: They never were [SPEAKER_00]: You know, really good at that communication and kind of caring for each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we would get together in holidays, but I didn't have a regular visitation at that point, even though they were, you know, not too far away.

[SPEAKER_00]: So flashing forward then to death.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's go to, twenty nineteen when dad is re diagnosed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was starting to get over there more, you know, and I said, Mom, I will take him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was working as a learning coach at that time.

[SPEAKER_00]: on my way out to retire and I decided those last couple of years I working elementary school close to home.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it was teaching teachers at a local elementary.

[SPEAKER_00]: I said, I'll just work it out.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will take him to his appointments.

[SPEAKER_00]: No problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had like forty something days of radiation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that all happened with shutdown.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I was driving him to his appointments and then I would have to stay in the car.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then he would go in.

[SPEAKER_00]: I might be on Zoom with some teachers or whatever in the car, but it actually allowed me to be more present for my parents at that time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's about the time I would say maybe several months into that mom was saying Lisa, your dad has dementia.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's forgetting to take showers and he's doing this and he's doing that.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's waking me up in the middle of the night to give him a pill.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he, by the way, that's a whole other story, but he is dependent on Norco.

[SPEAKER_00]: which he was given that years ago when doctors were, I don't think they were aware of opiates and that you don't give them long term.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he was waking her up for pills.

[SPEAKER_00]: At that point, we're like, oh, mom, he's fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're just exaggerating.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he wasn't.

[SPEAKER_01]: you're being so gracious and generous with these details of your family's life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there are so many families as we know.

[SPEAKER_01]: You and I work with people as yoga therapists, like this is not that uncommon.

[SPEAKER_01]: What we're talking about today, people just don't talk about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, I have three younger brothers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we have said for the last few years that we were going to be very transparent with our parent's stories, [SPEAKER_00]: because we want to be able to help others and say, you know, you don't have to be quiet or embarrassed about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is like, this is life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is also, there are a lot of systematic issues, you know, with healthcare and things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And just our way of life in general, that have created this perfect storm over where we are, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say, when we were young, he was not available.

[SPEAKER_00]: He worked in the shop as many people in my area do at General Motors.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he was working twelve hour shifts, seven days a week.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was not available.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was also a functional alcoholic.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then thinking a lot about this like the narratives we create.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I had this backstory of, you know, well, I did not have that hallmark childhood, you know, with a relationship with my dad.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think my brothers would probably say the same thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was not physically abusive or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: He just mostly wasn't there.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just wasn't available.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like an emotional neglect.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think there was a part of me that just thought that's the way our story would continue.

[SPEAKER_00]: We would have this kind of mutual disinterest in each other's lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: Go to the holiday things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's your father's day card.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks dad.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the kind of relationship we had at that point.

[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, driving with him every day, I got to kind of know him as a person.

[SPEAKER_00]: I started to shift to going, you know what, my parents really need me.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're both not well.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was seeing the neglect of the home of the house, just simple things.

[SPEAKER_00]: The end of twenty one probably right at the beginning of twenty twenty two.

[SPEAKER_00]: I talked to my husband when he said, I think I need to sell the yoga studio.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think my parents, I need to be there more.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was [SPEAKER_00]: a hundred percent on board.

[SPEAKER_00]: I massaged Lauren, who was my amazing manager at the time, really kept things going.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, I'd like to talk to you about buying the studio if you're interested.

[SPEAKER_00]: And was Lauren interested?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I said, OK.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this was the first winter.

[SPEAKER_00]: We were going to be in Florida for a month.

[SPEAKER_00]: So one of my brothers, my youngest brother, was actually living with my parents while he was working.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he was there at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we went to Florida.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the last week we were there, I had left my phone in our bedroom and I saw I had three missed phone calls from dad.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, by the way, he had indeed been diagnosed with moderate dementia at that point.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what year are we in right now?

[SPEAKER_00]: This is early.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this is not that long ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know, I'm jumping everywhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're doing a really good job of keeping up with me.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm a curious person and I love storytelling.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like it needs to be chronological.

[SPEAKER_01]: My mind not coming out of your mouth chronological, but like, okay, now we're at twenty twenty two.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we fast forward past that blur of, you know, the studio and COVID and now dad post treatment and is doing well and [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so I had these missed calls from him and there were three voice mails.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your mom is, I think she's, what's that word?

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think she's coherent.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the third message he's saying, I'm not sure if I called you yet, but something's wrong with your mom.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I get on the phone.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she, he wasn't even able to tell you what was going on because he couldn't remember.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: So one of my brothers runs over there and at that point, we thought that she had a UTI.

[SPEAKER_00]: because of the symptom she was displaying.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was, which is very common, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yup.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was in crash mode, so she was in bed, wouldn't get out of bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I had made her an appointment with a neurologist.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, Mom, you know, you've got to drink water.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to get up and move.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not good for your system.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that was our automatic assumption.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so she went to ER and my brother just a couple of brothers were there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this was a really challenging time still for emergency rooms.

[SPEAKER_00]: early to even twenty twenty two.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could wait thirteen hours in an emergency room.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of my brothers is a nurse in Assa.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he was there like, I need an idea.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and of course, he was just trying to care for her in the emergency or the waiting room.

[SPEAKER_00]: They weren't even taking people into the emergency into a room.

[SPEAKER_00]: So so many things happen, but it took three days for them to recognize and attack psychology report that she had high levels of acetaminophanine or system.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we did a little research and realized that she had once again deliberately overdose on a medication, which was simply, you know, I remember before I left, we had gone to lunch and she's like, we used to have to get me a big bottle of acetaminophanine at the store.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure, you know, so I get that three weeks later, my brother get her another one.

[SPEAKER_00]: And from that one, we counted, and within a couple of days, she had taken, I think, fifty six was the girl that she had taken, which is similar days.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we got back from Florida.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and they decided she was showing that she had COVID, so they isolated her.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it was just a terrible experience of her being in the hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then they finally let us go into safer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by then, she was very jaundiced.

[SPEAKER_00]: And next day, I believe they just put her on comfort measures.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we had her sister come up and some people visit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when I got up there and pulled in her hands, and she was going, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what we call my dad, Papa.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, I got him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I ended up spending the night and then that morning probably between six and seven in the morning should took her last breath and I was there with her.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was early March.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was March fifth of twenty twenty two.

[SPEAKER_00]: So she was in the hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think of weep.

[SPEAKER_00]: I should ask you this, but you can ask whatever you want.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when our mothers pass, even if we had struggles with them, like, was there a part of you that, like, I literally felt like, oh, I was built from her cells.

[SPEAKER_01]: I came from her and now she's gone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, to me, it's just a really profound thing that you have to digest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I wasn't really prepared for the way grief work.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a roller coaster.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is the craziest roller coaster ever.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were some really achy hard parts and I would say those first two years, especially even the other day there's this place in my cart space and you just feel it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a deep pit of grief and I tell myself like, you know, it's almost like a gratitude thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm sad of course, but I'm like, [SPEAKER_00]: how lovely to love someone that much, you know, to feel that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the thing that keeps going it for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's been five years and I'm like, wow, it is still there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think too, it was like a challenge, but it was also like a distraction because that's when we realized my brothers and I realized how profound my dad's dimension was.

[SPEAKER_00]: His short term memory is just in a really bad place.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we don't have problems.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like he can fix himself a meal and, you know, some simple things.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can use the bathroom on his own.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not having any issues like that, but we needed a lot of support.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're simultaneously grieving for her.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then Tuna, we had this man who is also grieving and almost, I think he ever took almost sixty years because they got married so young and almost sixty-year marriage.

[SPEAKER_00]: who is at the same time struggling for his individuality still.

[SPEAKER_01]: The way dementia works was he's still remembering her, but maybe forgetting if he took his medicine, could he still really remember her?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like he knows in terms of his wife and his family, his children, and he does have a sibling.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows all of us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the grandkids are occasionally fall off or he'll say like, now who's so and so?

[SPEAKER_00]: When mom first died, we had to put obituaries all around the house and, you know, on her door and things like that to remind him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And even now, so this has been a little over three years, he'll say something like, oh, I wonder if Paul's her granny, I don't know if granny, if that was something she bought, you know, in the refrigerator or whatever, like as if we were present days.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, Amy, it's the most fascinating, terrible disease [SPEAKER_00]: ever.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it continues on and I also find it strange that sometimes the people who were really grouchy and growling in life in their whole life, suddenly they get dementia and they're so sweet and then other times it's reversed.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were so sweet in their whole life and probably repressed a whole lot of stuff and then they get dementia and it all comes out and it's not very sweet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my goodness.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we locked out in that because my dad wasn't the nicest person growing up.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's like the sweetest little man now, very compliant.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's almost like sometimes like an eighty one year old toddler.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I've had to get kind of creative and navigating how I interact with him because he's still an eighty one year old human being.

[SPEAKER_01]: And a grown man's body with some ideas about his own autonomy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the research I did, they said that people who have, you know, a high intellect, that they almost struggle with it more because they're fighting it so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I always considered my dad a very intelligent man, you know, especially at the beginning.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think my brother, who's the nurse and nurses, and I, having been an educator, were both fixers and helpers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we, you know, you know, let's the job, okay, we're gonna do this.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna do this.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna do this.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna do this.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we hit the ground running taking care of that and he was resistant with some things at first.

[SPEAKER_00]: Very resistant and rightfully so because just the way we approached it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's so interesting, you know, dementia or not, as our parents age, this idea of you, we need to give them dignity, even though they may be acting a little bit like a toddler, we can't just take over their life as if they're a child.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know about you, maybe [SPEAKER_01]: Your dad having dementia didn't open this up, but sometimes like you just even have to like back off and say, okay, they're gonna do some things I don't agree with.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just gonna be what it's gonna be.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where there's so much yoga that happens in my relationship with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned the grief of mom and like going through that and then spending a day with him and part of that grieving for her was being angry at her.

[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, there were some ugly SNAT nose angry cries on the way home, you know, why did you leave me with this, this son of a gun, you know, and but at the same time feeling compassion for her, because who knows what she was dealing with when she'd say, Lisa, I'm not getting any sleep because he's waking me up in the middle of a night for her way of handling the narco at the time was to hide them and then she would give them to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you take a pill in twenty minutes later, where's my pill?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, she was having to be a serious caretaker, also, which again, we underestimate the sleep loss, the agitation, the exhaustion, you know, that can actually really mess with your mental health, totally.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I have to say, I would say, our family and my dad were really lucky and blessed because I have three.

[SPEAKER_00]: My son, my three younger brothers, I love them dearly.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is actually this whole, a key thing that happened has drawn us closer together.

[SPEAKER_00]: We communicate daily, but they have been so on board with the way things go, you know, we stand communication.

[SPEAKER_00]: My youngest brother stays there at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's someone always there and then we hired an amazing caregiver.

[SPEAKER_00]: Her name is Laura and we've had her with us almost two years.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't have to be there every single day.

[SPEAKER_00]: My brother Jason wasn't there.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we had this wonderful team and I'm really lucky for that because one of the things I did was join a couple of support groups online.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean the horror stories of people who are doing this twenty four seven and they're not getting [SPEAKER_00]: any aspect here, and it's so demanding, Amy.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just unbelievable.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's so lovely to hear the team all of you that have come together to keep him in his home, because as we know, Karen, a facility, a dementia facility is just outrageous, like it can possibly afford that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we've looked at that and we've decided that for as long as we have the energy and the resources, [SPEAKER_00]: to keep them home.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to take him to Florida for a week this past winter.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought this will be great for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I got some information on how to do that so that he felt like he was at home and comfortable.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was going to actually have him there longer, but it only lasted a week.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was so homesick and so out of his element actually kind of declined cognitively because of it for a little bit and [SPEAKER_00]: We got him back home and he was going to be as could be back and his nest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to know about your yoga and how you've used your yoga to handle this.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this has been ongoing since two thousand nine really by the time at the first troubles with your mom and his first diagnosis all the way through twenty twenty five.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, how has yoga supported you during these decades?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I almost do like working backwards from it because I know that where dad and I are at now that my ability to co-regulate with him and my calming presence has a tremendous factor on his state of being at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't necessarily have him doing anything any structures or things like that, but I haven't moving.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was talking about your yoga for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So of course, the physical part has always been a practice for me, but I don't always have an opportunity.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of like you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I always have the opportunity to go to a studio or do I want to go.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if I can get some movement and whether it's on the mat, I've also learned now over these years and understanding appreciated that my yoga might be that fifteen mile bike ride that I take out in the countryside, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: or the walk around my yard.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like you can monitor your breath.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can work towards a place of self-regulation and peace and even maybe on this.

[SPEAKER_01]: I could imagine writing a bike on a country road in the Midwest.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it's so expansive with the fields of vegetables and the big loose guy in the white puppy clouds.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can imagine that feeling of oneness out there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and down Dana has a practice, she called Saber.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I do.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I do that saber practice of just exactly what you said, getting out there and just being like, this is amazing, you know, and taking that breath.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I do build some things in like in the morning, I have a routine of a gratitude practice and just looking at the sunrise and having a few things to be grateful for.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I make time for my own well being.

[SPEAKER_00]: And like I said, that's another blessing that I have is that I can make that space and I have to.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the biggest part for me has been the yoga philosophy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this has been huge the last couple of years.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mentioned, this is in a hallmark story.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought that I knew how this story ended.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what I've learned in this is that there can be multiple perspectives, multiple narratives.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had resistance initially, like this was not part of my plan.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was [SPEAKER_00]: going to sell my yoga studio.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was going to dive into this yoga therapy and I have this plan.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now this is happening and this is putting my life on hold.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that was my angry story.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then I realized that if I applied a hymn saw and say to my daily life and that I approached my relationship with my dad that way, [SPEAKER_00]: that I was living yoga, I was living my life where I should be.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it gave me more compassion towards him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure some listeners are nodding their heads, but it's very easy to continue to be resentful towards a parent who did not raise you the way you think they should, or to look at their faults and go, he was a bad parent.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a boom moment, like Kaboom.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think we don't want [SPEAKER_01]: We hurt.

[SPEAKER_01]: We weren't hurt.

[SPEAKER_01]: We weren't seen.

[SPEAKER_01]: We weren't understood.

[SPEAKER_01]: And now we have to be the ones to not be resentful and move on when they need our help.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's a really hard thing to swallow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's not the shift.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so grateful for philosophy studies with Veronica and with you and Marlene, so even that I realize I get to rewrite the end of the story.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm living this new relationship with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I took a class it was called a contemplative caregiver retreat.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's called the Darmash Fellowship.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was an online course I was able to take.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so when I realized in that when I learned was like, you're not in the role as a daughter and more.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're in the role as a caregiver and make that shift with huge learning.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was so helpful.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are times I sometimes still feel like a daughter, but most of the time in a good way, one thing my dad hasn't lost is his sons a humor.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he'll say, I'd like to introduce you to my youngest daughter.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll say, and I'm a favorite daughter.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm the only daughter.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you know, you talk about sometimes dementia brings the sweetness out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this man loves me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, man loves me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm his person.

[SPEAKER_00]: He trusts me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the little things are tender.

[SPEAKER_00]: and so important.

[SPEAKER_01]: There can be a double narrative that he's sweet, your his person, he loves you and you can grieve that younger version of yourself that didn't get the dad she needed.

[SPEAKER_01]: They can both be true.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, here was another, you know, kind of a rewrite of the past because I think one of the resentments was like I said, he was gone all the time because he was working.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, [SPEAKER_00]: He got an understand the auto industry made it hard for those guys to say no to overtime.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, I had to tinker in the barn and he'll show me his tools and I'll ask him what that was and this and that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he had his work toolbox and he had his planners in there and he's like, he kept record of his weeks and I would see these months of twelve, twelve, twelve, twelve, twelve, twelve, like the hours he would work.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what, Amy, he did that out of love.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's my new story.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, let's face it.

[SPEAKER_01]: He did that to provide for you all.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're children.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a lot.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I married provider probably.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he no doubt had his flaws, but when I look at some of those things and decide, I'm going to put my own take on this and see it in a different way.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's been the biggest part of my healing naming is looking to the sutras in realizing [SPEAKER_00]: that I can shift the narrative and that lots of things can be true all at once.

[SPEAKER_01]: And do you also think my husband and I talk about this a lot that when we look at our grandparents and our parents and us like we I don't know to judge both of them by how we grew up and what we had [SPEAKER_01]: which is hopefully a little bit better than what they had.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's, it's a harsh judgment to say you should have done it this way.

[SPEAKER_01]: I did better with my family or like it wasn't make that back then.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were suffering in very different ways than we're suffering.

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: In his childhood was not sunshine and rainbows and compared to how he grew up, he did the best he could at that time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that has been a beautiful part of this because I've been able to move away from that narrative.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's that person that you give him something, first sees what's wrong with it, or he's just a very negative mindset.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not very great phone things like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: One day, I was driving home and it's been a time day.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have our challenging days, you know, doubt.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my phone's ringing on the, you know, I see it on the screen.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's Papa and my first thought is, oh, what now?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going out what now.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was so Papa and he's like, I hear him get a little choked up, which is a new thing for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He cries.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, I just wanted to say thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm driving.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my hand immediately went to my heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, oh, for what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Papa.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, for anything, for everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, I'm going to talk to him now.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, today, it's been three years, three weeks and three days since Granny left me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know what I'm going to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knew that three kids counted it out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, apparently.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we ended up having a nice little chat.

[SPEAKER_00]: And within three minutes, he's talking about the birds and the trees outside because he's living yoga.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is in the moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: He may not remember that he called me and said, thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I know that his bodies making memories of the relationship that we have now, the relationship he has not just with me, but with my brothers as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe even his subtle body, his mind, [SPEAKER_01]: that that love that he knows he's loved.

[SPEAKER_01]: I really believe it matters and it's in there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do too and that co-regulation has been so important because it's easy to be in that situation like I mentioned early on when we're trying to fix everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to get in that place of kind of high anxiety and frustration and anger and all of that and I thought, I can't do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not me.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I am going to [SPEAKER_00]: practice my yoga with my dad as his guardian and I'm now his legal guardian.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is my season of life right now and this is my season of yoga.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's working.

[SPEAKER_01]: The story you told today was so hard.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was even hard to hear.

[SPEAKER_01]: I only heard it, forty-five minutes of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was exhausted for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh my goodness, that is basically a couple of decades of challenge.

[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, here you are towards the end of his life in the prime of your life really practicing your yoga and really taking in the yoga philosophy that we've learned and living it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's really beautiful.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I'd like to leave listeners with that if they're working with caregivers or if they are caregivers to make that space to find the places [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's not an hour class, but maybe it's ten minutes in the morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have some gratitude work of some journaling.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've agreed to discover my writing practice, which is a very healing part of my yoga, you know, and do whatever it takes to find that space for you, because our loved one need us to be able to be present and healthy for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are some statistics about caregivers of loved ones dying before [SPEAKER_00]: being a lot point does because it's so easy to get in that mindset of stress and frustration and not taking care of your own needs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: You think, oh, I'll live after this.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll put my life on hold and I'll live later.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, your life is right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no guarantees.

[SPEAKER_01]: The stress levels are so high.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well Lisa, thank you for sharing yourself so deeply with us.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think your parents both living and passed on for allowing us to hear about your family and the intimate details.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I know there's people out there that are [SPEAKER_01]: have gone through this, are going through it, or will be going through it in a year or two.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I just want you and your brothers to know that it really matters.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know there's people listening to this with tears right now, thinking of somebody else that I went through.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, very importantly, I just tell people if you have a loved one, don't give up on them, try and get them help.

[SPEAKER_00]: Suicide is not the answer.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think [SPEAKER_00]: You know, my mother missed one of her grand babies that was born after she passed.

[SPEAKER_00]: We miss her greatly, but we have to keep moving forward.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if I may, I do a few shout outs.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, go for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, so much gratitude to my family right now on this journey, especially my three brothers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my husband as well, who is blessed with having so a ninety six year old mother that we see on a regular basis and for navigating the joys and challenges of this journey and then like I said dad's caregiver Laura she's just been a God sent to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's wonderful so much gratitude to soul neck for yoga where.

[SPEAKER_00]: I teach and where I had mentioned that Lauren ended up in my manager bought the studio and is just doing an amazing job of keeping a yoga community and look here counting.

[SPEAKER_00]: You teach on Wednesday mornings.

[SPEAKER_00]: I teach at Cheer Yoga class on Wednesday mornings and that's also offered on Zoom.

[SPEAKER_00]: We continued like I said to have these hybrid classes [SPEAKER_00]: that people can join and occasionally I'll do workshops I've done workshops on depression anxiety the vagus nerve.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really want to do something for caregivers.

[SPEAKER_00]: As I'm navigating the season right now most of my energy is going into taking care of dad and other family applications and so.

[SPEAKER_00]: grateful to have that yoga community right in my hometown.

[SPEAKER_00]: That you created for yourself when you needed it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's just such a wonderful group.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm also an adjunct staff member of faculty at International Institute of Yoga Therapy.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I mentor yoga therapy students.

[SPEAKER_00]: I occasionally run their literature review online for our level of free externs.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really excited.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be planning our second symposium of clinical advancements in yoga therapy.

[SPEAKER_00]: It'll be held in Ann Arbor, Michigan and January of twenty twenty six.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think you have a date yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: January sixteen through the eighteen.

[SPEAKER_00]: It'll be an Ann Arbor and of course there will be CDs for yoga lions and I AYT and right now we're working on getting those CDs for [SPEAKER_00]: nurses, social workers, candy health, and also CMEs for physicians.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that'll be a really exciting honor to be a part of that program.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll put that in the show notes too.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, Veronica has it up on the website yet, but I'll try to find it and put it in the show notes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm so grateful for her because I would say she initially introduced me to yoga, yoga sutras and [SPEAKER_00]: It was such a beautiful journey with her in my, you know, the therapy program and learning those, you know, we were in a hospital setting and here we were studying the sutras.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought I was just in heaven, you know, learning a stuff and now I'm applying and living.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing the best I can.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amy, like, whether it's all we can do, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: All we can do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you, Lisa, for being a leader in the field, even with all that you're going through, you're still supporting the field and contributing to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really grateful to have heard your story today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, again, thank you for having me and thank you for having the podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: I listened to every single one of the twenty twenty five [SPEAKER_00]: interviews and I'm like, I go, I did that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had this vision of one of you beautiful retreat to get all these people together in one place in person.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we just kind of hang out for a weekend together.

[SPEAKER_00]: And share stories.

[SPEAKER_00]: That would be amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I can't say I'm waiting.

[SPEAKER_01]: So much, there's a little part of me that's like, we might continue this in twenty twenty six.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just think less didactic information, less sales, less marketing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just talk to people and get down to the heart of a fjoga.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so really grateful.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you for the opportunity to share that story, appreciate it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have some ways the people can reach out to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd be pleased to talk to someone if they have questions or if they're dealing with something similar.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you drive it?

[SPEAKER_00]: So could you do a zoom?

[SPEAKER_00]: Private yoga therapies for people?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, people can contact me either through SoulMectorYoga.com or through my Facebook page.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was yoga therapy.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I do meet with clients via zoom.

[SPEAKER_00]: So perfect.

[SPEAKER_00]: They don't want to come to beautiful appear.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm happy to meet online.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you Lisa.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think I need to go for a walk.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was really delicate and vulnerable and sweet and challenging and all of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think that was Lisa's message for us today that all of it can be true simultaneously.

[SPEAKER_01]: It can be painful and [SPEAKER_01]: beautiful all at the same time and I think that's such a mature view of life and as we age we can decide to have that viewpoint of I'm going to embrace the ups and the downs the left and the rights or we can get a little bit bitter and resentful and hold grudges and [SPEAKER_01]: Stop growing, stop learning, stop transforming.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I think each of us has to make that decision for ourselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: There will come these forks in the road where we either say we're going to dig our heels in and be right and, you know, punish ourselves or others for all the hard stuff that's happened or we're going to soften and spread and open and [SPEAKER_01]: at least work towards digesting and processing these really hard things and seeing that there are gray areas.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not so simple that life is messy.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm really grateful to Lisa for sharing this story with us today because it's just reminding me to soften and not be so righteous and not be so [SPEAKER_01]: black and white in my thinking to let the edges or the grainists of life be there too and to maybe, you know, I think I know it all.

[SPEAKER_01]: I laugh because, you know, it's so much easier to think you know it all and you got the right answer and everybody else has and figured it out.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm laughing at myself as we talk about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you all of you for listening and have a wonderful day and we'll see you next week.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you to our listeners at the Yoga Therapy Hour for listening each week and also sending emails of thanks and gratitude and letting us know how the Yoga Therapy Hour has changed your life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Every time we receive one of those, we think, okay, we're gonna keep going.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is hard work, but we got this.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're making a difference in the world in our own unique way.

[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you again for listening.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are so grateful for all of you, our listeners.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the yoga therapy hour.

[SPEAKER_01]: We wish you a wonderful week.

[SPEAKER_01]: We hope that somehow in a small way we've contributed to your well-being so that you can go out and share that well-being with others.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what life is all about, bringing in the goodness through you and then shining it out to the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: We need you more than ever.

[SPEAKER_01]: So let's all get out there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do good, be good, and have a great week.