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Happy Healthy Caregiver Podcast, Episode 163: Addressing the Taboo Family Topics with Isabel Melgarjo

At 20 years old, Isabel Melgarejo became a family caregiver when her dad passed and her mom fell into depression. For years Isabel has helped her mom with what she needed. As a project manager, Isabel learned the power of proactive planning. She now applies this practice to all life events.

In this episode, Isabel and I discuss why she became curious about her feelings and what action she took to address her needs. We also talk about the awkward long-term care conversations with her mom and how she helped organize her immediate family to align the responsibilities to match mom’s needs. And learn what daily self-care habits Isabel practices to increase her frequency of good days.

Scroll to the bottom of this page to see the full-show transcription.

 

Episode Sponsor – Rare Patient Voice

Do you want to earn cash in exchange for your opinion? Researchers recognize that the true disease experts are those living with a condition and their family caregivers. Rare Patient Voice (or RPV) helps connect researchers with patients and family caregivers for over 700 diseases and conditions. For patients and caregivers, RPV provides the opportunity to voice their opinions to improve medical products and services while earning cash rewards. Rare Patient Voice – helping patients and caregivers share their voices! If you are interested, join the RPV panel at: https://rarepatientvoice.com/happyhealthycaregiver

 

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Words of Encouragement

Each episode starts off with a few words of inspiration or motivation that is pulled from the Happy Healthy Caregiver Jar. Create your own jar by downloading the Caregiver  Jar inserts.  Enhance your jar with the Caregiver Jar refill pack.Caregiver Jar Inserts PDF

‘Repeat: I am stronger than this challenge. This challenge is making me even stronger.’ #CaregiverJar

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Links & Resources Mentioned

 

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

The Ordinary - Rosehip Seed Oil

 

The High Five Habit by Mel Robbins

Five Wishes Document

 

Just for you a daily self care journal book cover

Some of the links on this page are affiliate links. When you click on a product and choose to purchase it, I receive a small thank you from the associated company which helps reimburse me for my blogging, podcast, & site expenses. There is no additional cost to you.

Favorite moments & quotes from the episode

‘There’s a lot of taboo around mental health and around asking for help in regards to mental health…That’s probably the two big steps: first, recognizing that you need help, and then looking for the right help for you.’ – Isabel…

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‘One of the things that has helped me throughout the years is understanding where everybody is, and understanding the personal journey for each one of my siblings…when we understand other perspectives, it’s easier for us to act…

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‘It’s easier to divide responsibilities among all of us, and each one of us knows what we’re supposed to be doing and when we’re supposed to be doing it. So it’s easier for everybody, and if someone else needs to jump in because…

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Full Transcription

 

This is the whole care network helping you tell your story. One podcast at a time content presented in the following podcast is for information purposes, only views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those in the post and guests and may not represent the views and opinions of the whole care network. Always consult with your physician for any medical advice and always consult with your attorney for any legal advice. And thank you for listening to the health care network. One of the things that have helped me throughout the years is understanding where everybody is and understanding the journey, the personal journey for each one of my siblings.

When we understand other perspectives, it’s easier for us to act accordingly and to ask for the adequate help, caring for aging parents or other loved ones while working, raising Children and trying to live your own life, wondering how to find the time for your personal health and happiness. Well, you’re in the right place. Welcome to the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast to show where real family caregivers share how to be happy and healthy while caring for others. Now, here’s your host, Family caregiver and certified caregiving consultant, Elizabeth Miller.

Hello, everyone. Thanks for tuning in to the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast, which is part of the whole care network. If this is your first time listening, welcome. This is a show produced biweekly to help family caregivers integrate self care and caregiving into their lives. Each episode has an accompanied show notes page. So if you’d like more details about the topics, products and resources we speak about or you want to see the other related photos, you’ll find the show notes by going onto the website happy healthy caregiver dot com.

And underneath the podcast menu, click the image or episode number for today’s show. The link is also in your podcast platform episodes. Description. Are you a person who has fomo fear of missing out? Well, you are missing out. If you aren’t on the happy healthy caregiver email list, life gets busy and there’s much happening in the caregiving space. I can help fast track you to the events, articles, resources and products that can help you on this caregiving journey every Tuesday. You’ll get the weekly round up which includes tips under the pillars of happy healthy and caregiving.

Plus upcoming events, special offers and a lot more. Don’t wait another week. Subscribe at bit dot forward slash hh ce news and you’ll immediately start receiving the welcome series which introduces what I have to offer and shares a few valuable downloads in today’s segment of what I’m reading or in this case, listening to I finished a good Girl’s Guide To Murder by Holly Jackson. This book put its hooks into me believable. Not so much but great story. Yes, Pip is a high school senior with a Capstone project where she’s looking into a case that was closed in her small town a few years before her, a high school young woman went missing. Her boyfriend was accused and later died by suicide, but it just never sat well for Pip. Pip knew the accused as a child. Her assignment is her excuse to start to talk to people about the past investigation and her list of people of interest gets large. Pip is starting to receive threats of her own as people want her to stop digging up the past. I didn’t realize when I started this, that this book is part of a series, I guess I’m hooked in to all of that too. I’ll link to the book in the show notes again. It’s the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson.

My favorite thing this week is something that I’ve been using for several years. It’s called Rose Hip Seed Oil from the ordinary company. My sister, Susie turned me onto this product and I used to use it when I would go visit her. It’s not expensive. It’s like $230 which is saying a lot when you walk into Alta or Sephora and it’s organic and cold pressed after I wash my face at night. I take a few drops of this rose hip seed oil and rub it all over my neck and my face. It’s not greasy. It has a gentle smell and it’s very hydrating for my skin. So I thought I would share that and I’ll share the link in the, in the show notes for it. Before we get into today’s caregiver spotlight episode. I want to first shine the light on our episode.

Sponsor Rare Patient Voice. Do you want to earn cash in exchange for your opinion? Researchers recognize that the true disease experts are those living with the condition and their family caregivers. Rare patient voice helps connect researchers with patients and family caregivers for over 700 diseases and conditions for patients and caregivers. R PV provides the opportunity to voice their opinions to improve medical products and services while earning cash rewards, rare patient voice, helping patients and caregivers share their voices if you’re interested, join the R PV panel at rare patient voice dot com forward slash happy healthy caregiver.

Let’s meet today’s caregiver in the spotlight. Isabelle Mega at 20 years old, Isabelle Melgar became a family caregiver when her dad passed and her mom fell into depression for years. Isabelle has helped her mom in what she needed as a project manager in her profession, Isabel learned the power of proactive planning. She now applies this practice to all life’s events. In this episode, Isabella and chat about why she became curious about her feelings and what action she took to address her needs. We also talked about the awkward long term care conversations with her mom and how she helped organize her immediate family to align the responsibilities to match mom’s needs and learn what daily self care habit is about practices to increase her frequency of good days. Enjoy the show.

Hi, Isabel. Welcome to the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast. Thank you so much for having me here. I’m super excited to be here with you today. Me too. I wanna dive into what you’re all about and where this caregiving journey has led you and some of the self-care things that you have started to practice and put in place. But first we pick uh some work terms of inspiration from the Happy Healthy caregiver jar. So this is something that I’ve collected over the years of things that have spoken to me. I’ve compiled them together in a PDF for caregivers to create their own jar, their own container, either for themselves or for someone that they care about. So yours says repeat, I am stronger than this challenge. This challenge is making me even stronger. I I Yeah, I think about the challenge, I think about when I read it, I was like this challenge of caregiving can be very challenging. It’s not all bad, right? But I felt like it made has made me who I am today and made me a stronger, more resilient person. What kind of adjectives would you say that caregiving has, is doing for you or has done for you? I think it has given me a lot of resilience and I think I have also learned how to be more patient. That’s so true. Yeah, it’s, I realized I didn’t have a whole lot of control when I was caregiving and I wanted the control and I would hold onto the reins really tight and try to kind of orchestrate everything. But life is life and people are people and you know, there’s, there’s a lot of moving parts and pieces and I had to really learn how to let go. Yeah. Yeah. You, you need to learn how to learn things and just stop worrying about everything. Yeah, it’s so true. Well, but tell us is about like, tell us a little bit how you found yourself in a caregiving role. It probably was not something that you were like, intentionally looking to do. I was not because I was actually 20 and I was still living with my parents when my dad passed away and I’m sorry, my mom, uh thank you so much. My mom felt in like this really bad depression and that’s when I started caring for her because she was, she was functional, but she was not fully functional. So she would, she would go to work, but then she would, she wouldn’t do anything else. And she had like her black uniform, but she would wear Monday through Sunday. So that’s how I started. I was 20 that’s where my journey began, began making sure that she would come out of that depression. And that mental like her mental health was back to normal or not back to normal because losing someone always leaves a hole in your heart. But at least I wanted her to be able to enjoy life again and to be able to go out with friends and enjoy activities that she had always enjoyed before. And that’s how we started my, my journey. Yeah. Well, you were so young as a 20 year old. I mean, it’s not the normal things that a 20 year old has going on. And I’m grateful that you brought up kind of these invisible disabilities as far far as like mental health like to the outside world. Maybe your mom looks, you know, like she maybe had it put together a little bit. But at the inside there’s a lot of things that are happening inside of our bodies such as mental health and depression that, um, you recognize some of the signs that it, because you are the expert in your mom, you saw that it wasn’t normal behavior for her. And, but while that’s happening, you are also processing the grief and the loss of your dad who’s a very important person in your life. So that had to have been difficult. It was difficult. But I also think it gave me purpose and one of the things that happened during that time, well, many things happen. But I notice that people, like, are not willing to talk about the process of like going through grief. Yeah. And I started internalizing everything and I, like, I think I really connected with my mom in that regard because she has always internalized absolutely everything. Like whatever sicknesses, whatever had happened to us good or bad and especially the bad moments and, and knowing that she had a lot of like really hard moments in her life and she had cancer. She, she didn’t tell she had a cancer to anybody. Like nowadays, 13 years later, she talks with friends and oh, I had a cancer. Like they, they have no clue. So internalizing everything for myself, it gave me a very good perspective of how she was feeling. And I think that’s something that a lot of caregivers forget, like, forget because they started taking care of their parents and then their, their parents take over their lives and we forget first, we forget about ourselves and we forget about how our parents are feeling and it’s just everything is uncomfortable and I really want to change that even if it’s with this podcast and just telling my story, I just want to change someone’s life in regard that, that they should know that their lives are important as well. And they should also understand what their parents are going through. So I think that really changed my perspective with my mom understanding what she was going through and then, ok, we’re here, both of us are here for each other and then let’s figure out life one day at a time. Mm. I mean, you’ve, you’ve gotten there kind of maybe a little more quickly than some people have, I think because I don’t know how old you are now. Not, you know, I know you’re not 20 anymore, but it’s, you’ve been going through this for a while and you know, that you got a taste of what it was like, what mom was you or maybe internalizing your grief and internalizing your situation. Do you still internalize things or have you found a different way to um feel the feels and kind of cope with the emotional and mental health of things? So, a couple of years after my dad passed away, I moved to Canada and uh and then I moved back with her for a couple of years and when I moved back, I, like I made myself conscious that I needed to work on myself. So I found a therapist and she’s been my therapist for, I don’t know how many years, but I found her and I’ve been working with her for all these years and every time that I notice that something is really bugging me and, and I think this is something we need to, to work because it’s paying attention to ourselves every single day and noticing if something is off. So I started working with her and every time that I feel that something is off, I will call her and go through a couple of sessions and then go back to like the way I like feeling every single morning. And I also have hired coaches throughout my life to help me focus on achieving the lifestyle that I want if that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, we, we listen, we don’t all have the answers, right? Like we’re not born with like this full set of things that we’re, uh, tools that we’re gonna need for the rest of our life. And there are people out there that have been where we want to be or are currently working toward that and we can take advice and counsel from those folks. So I love, you know, the, the idea of a coach in all areas of your life is very powerful because it can help fast track you to where you wanna be and it, it will also validate, you know what you’re feeling, um, and give you hope, I think for what you want to be true in the future. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, like who you want and, and it’s mostly how you want to feel and talking about mental health. We go through like live and I, and I think I find this really funny because when we’re young we’re always asked like, what do you wanna do when you’re older? And we, and close ourselves in being a doctor and being a lawyer. But we never focus on how we want to feel. We want to feel resourceful, we want to feel that we’re helping the world, we want to feel. Nobody asks us off that. And I think that is another like breakthrough for me that has helped me cope with being a caregiver and even at work because I have changed my professional alive several times. And it’s all about how you want to feel. And it, and that brings a lot of like, at least for me that brings a lot of joy knowing that I’m feeling resourceful, that I’m feeling that I can help someone and that I can bring joy to someone else that I can share my life and my happiness with other people and that I don’t depend on anybody else to make me happy. I, I mean, I really appreciate your vulnerability about therapy and about really fine tuning and focusing in on your feelings. If someone is listening to this is about who is not very in tune with how they’re feeling and but wants to be, how did you get there? What were the steps that you took the first? I think the first step is the hardest one and it’s recognizing that you’re not feeling the best. And I think this is the hardest one because yeah, nobody appreciates weak people. And there’s a lot of taboo around mental health and there’s a lot of taboo around asking for help in regard in regards to mental health. So making that first acknowledgement of yes, I need help, but that’s the first step of the process. And then another big step is finding someone that you trust and that you want to work with because not everybody is your cup of tea. Um And it’s also recognizing within the process that it, that some people are really good for other people, but they’re not really bringing you the help that you need in the moment that you need it. And I think that’s probably probably the two big steps like first recognizing that you need help and then looking for the right help for you. Yeah, I mean, as you’re talking, I’m like thinking back, you know, to when I was deep in the throes of caregiving. And my phrase that I say often is like, I didn’t recognize who I was in the, looking at myself in the mirror. And that’s kind of a loaded phrase, but that’s really what it says is like I was, you know, I didn’t smile, I didn’t like bright, I didn’t look bright eyed and happier. I was um I had a lot of physical things. I had acne, I was gaining weight. I mean, there was, but all, all of that was because I was internalizing and manifesting some of my feelings that were going on with caregiving and that’s really where I had to, you know, there’s got to be a moment kind of that happens where you’re like, I, I don’t want to do this live like this anymore. So what are the tools and what are the steps I can take and seeking that coaching I think can be really powerful. Have you, is looking for a care coach? Is that a caregiving coach? Is that something that you’ve been able to kind of combine in with your therapy or have you found that through peers or have, have you found that at all? Like as far as somebody who really understands the caregiving journey, what’s been helpful for you there? I think there are, there are two types of people in terms of caregiving, the people that have done it that have experienced it and the people who haven’t, and once you find it, the people who have, and, and I’m talking this because, excuse me, when, when I first started being a caregiver, I was 20 all my friends were more interested in partying and clubbing than taking care of their parents. And that was a huge disconnect for me because the people I was surrounded was, was living a very different life and they wouldn’t understand what it was like to have to care for somebody else. A lot of responsibility. Yeah. And they, and they were not even parents like there was absolutely no connection. And so yeah, like that part of like finding people in the right moment, like you, you just need to find and connect with other people and just try to connect with people that are going through the same kind of process that you are. And I think nowadays with Facebook, like and so many other com communities, it’s easier to find that support because you can actually go and find it. And there are lots of groups and lots of resources out there for you to look and search and connect with people that are going through, through the same process that you are. And obviously you, you always find people that are going through worse and people that have it easier. But it’s also like, it’s nice having that combination of like different mindsets and different problems because you start learning from these kind of communities. Hm. Yeah, it’s so true. There is much more in, in the social world and the podcasting world and so forth than there was, you know, back in the beginning when I was caregiving or at least I know what to search for it now. Maybe is, is more like it. But I do think that there’s different types of groups too and to try to, um, you know, instead of kind of splattering everything everywhere, maybe hone in on a, on ac find your people that you can really relate to and invest in, you know, maybe one or, or two groups um instead of kind of trying to be everywhere to, to nurture some relationships and some connections within that community. Because I think that can be hard in some, some of the social groups, um particularly some of the ones that are really, really, you know, big. Um There’s a ton of people but you’ve got to kind of, you get what you put into it, right? Like you can just be a taker. But if you’re a giver and a taker in those groups, I think it can be really, really powerful. Um Thank you for sharing that. There’s a lot of accessibility uh to tapping into that kind of support from your own home. Like you don’t have to necessarily go out and seek it physically um in, in different ways. But um Isabelle, you have siblings for that. Um is that help you in some way, shape or form, hopefully taking care of your mom? But I know that it was a bit of a struggle, I think initially um you had to really kind of pull the group together and get them to maybe help and step up and really realize what was going on. Talk a little bit about the the family dynamics and what you did, what it looked like when it wasn’t maybe working very well. And then what you did to try to get it on a on a good track. Thanks for asking. So it is four of us and I was born after 11 years. So there’s quite a difference in age from my siblings and myself. And one of the things that I remember the first Christmas, everybody was very into like, yes, we’re gonna spend Christmas together with mom and everybody forgot that there is another holiday very close to Christmas called New Year’s Eve. But it’s also celebrated. Mhm. And my mom and I spent that first New Year’s Eve by ourselves because everybody else was doing something, something else. And one of the things that have helped me throughout the years is understanding where everybody is and understanding the journey, the personal journey for each one of my siblings. So putting and I go back to putting ourselves in somebody else’s shoes and understanding what they’re going through when we understand other perspectives, it’s easier for us to act according accordingly and to ask for the adequate help. One of my siblings, he’s always been like in denial of mom getting older. And for example, with him, one of the things that happened, uh I had been telling my mom whenever she traveled to get the wheelchair. So she wouldn’t have to lift her luggage just for that reason. And he was like, no, you’re a strong woman, you can walk. And I was like, no, she’s not as strong. And if someone else can help her with her lock luggage, that’s gonna be great. So that that kind of struggles and those kind of conversations happen. And one of the things that I’ve always done is just to understand where they’re coming from and negotiate with them. And another thing that has also helped me a lot is building very strong boundaries, which I know is very hard for many of us. But building boundaries is the foundation of success. Could give us some examples of, of a boundary that you have had to put into place and hold true. So when I moved to Texas, um now I was in charge of mom and when I moved here, I moved with my husband and like I was not gonna be able to take care of her as much and I was not there. So one of the things, the first I talked with her and talked about her expectations in life. And that’s like another big takeaway for me understanding what mom wants and not just making decisions for her. And I know that’s not the case for everybody that there’s a point in life in which we need to take decisions for our parents. But well, like those decisions, they should be able to make those decisions before it gets to a point in which they can’t make those decisions. So I first talked with my mom, understood what were her needs and her expectations. And then I created like a special chat with like a group chat with my siblings specifically for taking care of mom. And I established like my rules and like, you’re, you all have to jump in and make sure that she is. Well, someone needs to go and visit her and make sure that she hasn’t left the keys on the door again and someone has to make sure that, like, someone needs to call her every day and see that she’s doing all right. She’s still, like, she is still independent, but she’s getting into that point in which she forgets things and like a couple of months ago, she fell and broke her nose and had black eyes and all the things. So, what are you doing? And who’s gonna be responsible of, of making sure that she’s all right. And I think it has been easy for me just like, hey, you’re gonna do this, this and that and, and I understand that’s not the case for everybody. But I do do try to understand of where each of my siblings are and what they’re able to do and what they’re not able to do. And yeah, it’s realistic and it, from where you’re sitting and what they’ve got going on the plane, it’s realistic for them. Or do they live? Where does mom live? You live in Texas? Mom lives in, she lives in Mexico City. Ok. My sister lives in Merida and my two brothers live 11 of my brothers lives very close to her. The other one. Not so much, but realistically, I can’t go to her home every day to check that she closed the door. Right. Right. There’s, um, geography in place. So of all the siblings, you’re the furthest from your mom at now when you, where you are now. Yeah. Yeah. And so it does take somebody and we just talked about this in the, in a prior episode about like somebody’s got to kind of take on this project management role, this facilitation role that is not necessarily us as the care primary caregiver to do all the work. But we’re helping to get the team in place and figure out the roles and responsibilities when you were sharing that someone needs to, you know, check on mom and call mom and, and do these things. Were you getting to the point of specific names so that you know, that someone had accountability? Yeah, like in project management, you need to like there’s someone responsible for a certain activity. So that’s the way we do things and, and if that’s your responsibility, then we, it’s easier to divide responsibilities among all of us and each one of us know what we’re supposed to be doing and when we’re supposed to be doing it. So it’s easier for everybody. And if someone else needs to jump in because life happens, then it’s the communication is easier. Hm Are there? So you mentioned you have like a group chat, are there other tools that you have used within your family and your care team that help you coordinate the care and the companionship and other responsibilities that need to be shared among the group. And you’ve used the apps or spreadsheets or, um, written documents. My brother runs a spreadsheet with things like costs and whatnot, but mostly is like, I don’t know if I would call it like other, it’s just having order in life and knowing what, what you need. Probably you’re doing that for yourself. Yeah, like a like to do list and is there um in the chat kind of ca I imagine kind of keeps you guys like day to day understanding, you know, what’s, what’s coming and who has, who has it. There are apps too. I mentioned that because there are apps that also can help caregivers with their care teams, help organize and you know, have the calendar and request help. And um, you know, I can link to some of those in the show notes app of some apps that and some of them are partners of, of happy healthy caregiver, like circle love and connected caregiver. And um but there are also just like, you know, old fashioned things that we’ve been doing for a long time, like just communication, constant communication. But it’s, I think it um you’ve had these conversations with your siblings and they seem like they’re receptive to you kind of taking the reins. You’re the youngest though, right? Yes. Yes. So, but you’ve had there is, you’re the one that’s, that’s, you know, kind of seen firsthand what was going on. Well, I’m imagining other people are established in their careers. Maybe they have families of their own and things going on. Um, do you have a regular, um, boundary or expectation of, like, how often you will visit and, and help with mom hands on? I usually fly her here because it’s just easier for me to, I don’t need to leave my life if she’s flying. Yeah. And she’s still capable of doing all of that. And to your point, she, there’s help for, to get people from point A to point B so she doesn’t have to hurt herself. And, yeah, like, right. But, and I’m really fortunate that she’s still, like, being able to walk and she’s independent. So, for me it’s easier just like, come on, come over for a couple of months and I’ll take care of you and I’ll make sure that everything is, is taken care of for you. And, uh, another thing that I, like, I’ve, last time that she came, she came over in from November to January, I think. Oh, quite a visit. Not like a, a week. It’s like a, you got a, yeah, month she comes for, yeah, she comes for a couple of months and during that visit, what I did was talk with her about what she’s expecting in the next 5 to 10 years and what, like, things that could happen. Not necessarily that I am expecting them to happen. But knowing what to expect, we talked about finances, we talked about having like for her, having a po a about having like review her will review like all the, all her legal documents, talk with their doctors about what to expect when, when she grows older. And, and we, we talked about that and, and we designed a plan of what to do if and when things happen and these decisions, I have the converse, I had the difficult and awkward conversation with her and then I just communicated with my siblings. So she doesn’t wanna be intubated for a long period of time. So that is like she took that decision and I just communicated it with to my siblings and she did as well. Like I, I don’t want to be living under these circumstances and that helps a lot because the decisions ha have already been made. And I think that’s a huge mistake for many caregivers that they just wait for things to happen and then they make the decisions and that rests a lot of power because you’re limited into resources that you can find in that moment. You don’t have time to research and probably it’s gonna be more expensive. And if there’s a fight between siblings, then, then you have that as well to consider. And instead if you start talking with like what decisions should be made made before, what if this happened what would you like to us to do for you and we know very clearly what to do, like, and I think that’s been like a really big blessing for us understanding what to do even when things happen. Yeah. Some people I think are afraid to have them because it’s almost like they’re speaking it into the universe of this is gonna happen tomorrow necessarily. But I’m with you 100% on being proactive and having those. I call them courageous conversations, those awkward and difficult conversations. If somebody’s listening and they’re like, oh, I have not had any of these conversations with my care partner person. How, how do you start? That’s a tough question. I mean, you could use this podcast, right? Like you could use it and say I was listening to this podcast and I just realized like, what it could look like if we don’t, if we don’t have these conversations and I don’t understand, I’ve had to do this with my brother recently. So I have a brother that’s six years older than me. He’s not married. He has no kids. So I’m the, the closest to him and I am like, I have no idea where any of his stuff is, what any of his passwords are, what he wants to be true in his future life. And so I have had these conversations with him, like over uh like a holiday dinner. I was like, this is really weighing on me, I’ve seen this go really badly for people and I’m worried about, you know, I want to do what you want to have done for you. You know, when you are at your most vulnerable time of your life and what I did is I gave him the number for an elder law care attorney and I said this is just call them, you don’t have to have all the answers and figure it all out right now, but just call them and they’re gonna help you, like, walk you through these documents and get these decisions on paper. And now he has a, you know, a trust for his house that I’m his trustee. And I have the, you know, I know that I have access to the things that I’ll need access to, to help and the way that he wants stuff to, to lay out and there’s peace of mind in that for me, you know, I still have other sibling. I gotta work on to get that to happen. Um, and I’ve had to do it for me and my husband too. Like we, we just recently have gone through this too with an elder law care. I’m only 51 like people think, oh, elder law care attorney. But I just find that they are well equipped to kind of do it all, you know, all the pieces you pay money for that, you know, a flat rate was what we, I like that. This one that we chose as a flat rate and we can ask as many questions as we want forever. It’s not like a lawyer fee every time we want to change something or, or do something. Um, but there’s a lot of peace of mind and whether you go through the attorney part or there’s, there’s a like the five wishes document and we’ve had, you know, one of the executives of five wishes, um, who’s a caregiver on the show before I can, I’ll link to his show. Um, and I’ll link to the document, the five wishes document, but that in many that, that serves as an advanced directive and can help you kind of have some of these conversations. But it sounds like you are, you know, aren’t afraid to ask the questions, but some people are a little more hesitant and scared or fearful or feel like it’s gonna make it come true if they ask. Yeah. A lot of people think that a lot of people don’t like talking about death. A lot of people like, I don’t know, it’s a huge taboo and I found, I don’t think elder people care. They actually are waiting for people to ask them the right questions. So they’re thinking about it. They’ve got it. It’s on their mind. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like they know that if we all know that our lives are gonna, going to end at some point, we just like pretending that they’re not so, but usually elder people are ready to talk about it and they’re just waiting for someone to bring the conversation and I don’t know if you like the five, the five wishes. The no, the five step rule from Mel Robbins, like counting 5 to 1. Um, like, I think that’s a great point of start. Like, just get the courage and go for it. I’m not familiar with that, but I’ll find it and link to it. The five step. I know Mel Robin. So she tells it like it is. Yeah, exactly. And she’s like, count from 5 to 1 and then just go. That’s perfect. Yeah, I think she had this rule for something else in her life, but it applies perfectly. I wanna, I wanna switch gears and talk about your self care too is about like, you know, you, you’re, you’ve gotten comfortable with putting yourself first all the time and maybe you weren’t always necessarily there. But what has, what, what did it look like in your caregiving days with your mom even early on, you know, after your dad passed away where you were trying to kind of come to come back and feel your feels and all of that. Like, what did putting yourself first? What did that look like in those caregiving days? And what does that look like for you now? So when I, uh I was a fencer for many years and during that time, one of my coaches taught me to put myself first and it took me when he told me that I, I felt it was very jealous. And with time I’ve, I’ve come to understand that it’s not jealous, putting yourself first. Actually, it’s the best you can do for the world. And if you’ve, if you’ve ever taken an airplane right at the beginning before the flight kicks off, they go through all the safety guidelines. And if there is a lot of loss of pressure in the cabin first, you put your, the mask on yourself and then you tend to others because if you’re not safe, then you can’t help anybody else. You, you’re passed out, you’re, you know, then you’re at your risk risk for. But it is counterintuitive, right? Which is why they have to tell us because our natural instinct is to help other people who are vulnerable. And this is something that like police academy and the firefighters and like all the first responders know first, you put your, your safety first. So this is, this has been like my motto and learning it from a young age. I think it helped me a lot putting myself first. I won’t be able to help anybody in any regards. If I’m not in my optimal stage, if I, if I’m feeling down, if I’m sick, if I’m tired, if I’m and how many caregivers have come through this podcast and they’re burned out and they’re tired and because they’re tired, they can’t take care of anybody. So, yeah, prioritizing your needs and I’m not saying prioritizing your wants, but prioritizing your needs should come first and then you’re going back to the beginning, like looking inward to figure out what your needs are, you know, am I tired? You know, am I lonely? Am I, you know, struggling with my energy level? Am I you know, asking those questions of ourselves? I think sometimes we can get guilty of just do, do, do, do and checking things off that it does take a moment to kind of look inward and see, you know, what’s, what’s going on in there. So I think I just feel like you have gotten there, like it’s been remarkable how, you know, you, you, you’ve got adapted to this mindset, which is gonna help you help other people um get to that mindset a as well. And you know, maybe in a similar way, like I know I’ve learned a lot of what I’ve learned because I’ve watched my parents live a certain lifestyle and a mother-in-law live a certain lifestyle and like literally made a decision like this is not what I want to be true for me. So how do I, how do I back away from that and figure out not that everything that they did was bad in their life. That’s what I’m not saying, but they did not prioritize their health and happiness and that really cost us as a family and robbed us of years with them. So it’s um, it, it, it has a ripple effect. So I, I really just appreciate that you’ve, that you’re practicing what you preach and putting yourself first. Like, what, like what did you do today, for example, to, to prioritize your health and happiness? I went for a walk in the morning. So, like things that I like, usually the mornings have to be like the most important thing in your day because if you start your day correctly, then yeah, maybe things will happen. But they, they won’t have as big as an effect as if you didn’t prioritize yourself in the morning. So I usually, every morning, I go for a walk, I meditate while I’m walking. When I put, well before that, when I put my feet on the ground, I I claim that it’s going to be a great day. So for example, today I said today is gonna be a great day. I’m gonna have this amazing interview. I’m gonna be working on a couple of projects from work and I just claim that it’s going to be every day. I can’t say that every day is a great day because things happen. But at least I started my day thinking that it’s gonna be great. And I prioritize having a healthy breakfast. I can skip the rest of the meals throughout the day, but breakfast is important. So I prioritize having breakfast every morning and having at least two minutes to just enjoy the moment and then I’m good. Yeah. What it, what I heard you say is like, it wasn’t like I need a full day to myself or I need, you know, this, you have found habits that energize you and you have found that the morning works best for you. Stacking some of these healthy and happy habits to put you on the right course for your day. I too am a morning person and I’m not, I know that not everybody is a morning person. Maybe if you’re an evening person, you, your day starts when you kind of go to bed and if you sleep really well, you can kind of back it up that way. Um, but I find what you’re saying to be true for me is that paying my health first really reaps dividends for everybody in my day. Um, but everybody’s different in that, in that respect. But I, I imagine while not every day goes good for you, I have a hunch that because you practice these things, you have more days that go well than if you didn’t do these things, but we’ll never know right. There’s no controlled group of that, but I have a hunch actually, like I started doing that, like waking up and claiming that it’s gonna be a great day. Not long ago, I started doing that probably two years ago and since I started doing it. I’ve had terrible days throughout this couple of years and even with those terrible days I was able to find something that I enjoyed. Yes, I would, I mean, I would call that a little bit of a, uh, like a, a little bit of a gratitude practice in some ways because, or you just, yeah, you, you anticipating um what you want to be true. It’s a law of attraction in some ways. like going back to that old book, you know, the secret that, you know, you act as what you want to be true. You know, I’m envisioning checks in the mail right now for my business, you know, or, or things like that. Uh Maybe I’ll have a check in the mail today just by law of attracting it or, you know, I wanna um I wanna have an amazing conversation and having that, that mindset that this is gonna be, this conversation is gonna hopefully land on someone, right when they need to hear it and it’s going to prompt them to do the, the five step rule and just take action and something that they’re really struggling with and that hopefully that’s gonna lead them to more peace of mind and health and happiness in their life. So we hope that that’s, you know, the true for this. You do, you have a Instagram post and I’m gonna link to your, your social stuff in the, in this. But you have said when life gets heavy. That means you need to plan some fun time. Yeah. Um I can share with your audience. I have like um a guide on how to have difficult conversations. So, yeah, send that to me. Yeah, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll send an email to you so you can um add it into the comments if anybody’s interested. Like they’re welcome to, to have that free resource and how to start a difficult conversation. And I just remember that I have that. That’s ok. There’s a lot going on. So, and um, and life does get heavy and you’ve learned a lot through the different experiences that you’ve had. Let’s let’s do a little fun thing ourselves with um the Lightning Round of the Just for you daily self-care journal. So it’s a journal I wrote that journaling and writing had been very healthy for me while caregiving. And so I wanted other people to have a taste of that, but it’s a prompted journal. So whether you write a word or a sentence or a whole paragraph, it’s completely up to you. But I’d love to get you some of your thoughts on this. Um Isabelle, let’s, let’s see. What’s OK. This is very timely today. You are grateful for what I am grateful for you. What? Yeah, like I’ve heard your podcast many times and you’re such a charm. It’s been very different chatting with you and just listening to you. Thank you. I’m glad that you have discovered, um, that we, we connected that way. So, um, I’ll pay you for that later. I’m just kidding. Thank you for that sweet compliment. I’d love, I would love to be a charm. I want to be charming. Um, ok, we’re getting, we’re hitting into summer. What’s your favorite thing about summer or one of your favorite things? Yeah. Growing up it was the rain but usually Texas has no rain over summer. Um, I think it’s a time of like a lot of going on and a time of rest as well. So it’s like getting into the middle of the year and taking some time to breathe so you can finish the year. That’s what I like about summer. Yeah. It’s like your midway point of like, how, how did it go turn backwards as it going take a breath? I like that. I feel like the year is flying by. But I also feel like my mom when I said I used to make fun of her about saying how, how fast time goes, but that’s how I literally feel right now. What, um, self care wisdom would you share with a friend who was on a road to burnout? Take five minutes every day for yourself, for whatever, start by thinking what you need in that precise moment and then give yourself that thing. Mm. Maybe it is a cup of tea. Maybe it is an app. Well, that wouldn’t be five minutes but maybe it is and maybe you need that nap at that moment. Maybe to connect with a friend you haven’t talked with for 30 years, call her. So I feel and whatever the feeling is and then what’s an action you can take to address that feeling? I like that. Speaking to feelings is about last question. Do you feel like you are enough? Why or why not? I think I am enough and I think I am enough because everybody else in my life compliments me and, and I’m happy to say this because for many years, I never felt that way. And I know that during the caregiving journey, you don’t feel that way. So if you’re going through that situation and just for everybody listening to us today or whenever, know that you’re enough because you’re complete, you’re an individual. So, yeah, we’re human. I think we feel sometimes like we’re not doing, we’re not enough because we didn’t get the whole to do list done. I don’t know, I’m, I the to do list is like it can really get to you. Right? I like, I, I can, I, I like to make it manageable. So one of the tips to make it manageable is that I’ve gotten, um, this is from Shale Johnson. I’ll, I’ll, she’s one of the podcasters I like to listen to, but like putting three things on a post it note, like if you get to these three things through the post. Yeah. Like you, that’s it. Like it’s a do something that’s realistic and doable in a day. I am totally guilty of putting way too much on my, to do list. But I have learned how to not define myself as enough because of what I produce and what I get done in my day. But I had to really work on that and I’ve had to kind of say, well, it’s a list, not a to do list like we got these things done. Um, and that’s, but, but I think because we have these overwhelming responsibilities that are never all going to get addressed and this, you know, nest of hungry birds, that’s all demanding our attention from one person or one human. That if you, you know, to me, like where I finally got in my caregiving journey is like I could look myself in the mirror at night and the person who did not like what she saw eventually became the person that respected. You know, you respect what you see and say, gosh, darn it, girlfriend. You’ve done, you’ve done, you, you kick butt today and you, you know, you really gave it your all and you’re taking care of yourself at the same time, like, you know, high five. And I think if we can kind of get to that transition, then I, I hope that we feel like we’re enough. Yeah, I agree with you completely. Yeah. There’s a lot of power in the mirror. Maybe, maybe we need to like talk to the mirror more. Um Well, I’ve enjoyed this time with you Isabel today. What is there anything else that you were hoping we would chat, chat about or um and how can people learn more about you and stay connected? Um You can reach out at my social media on Instagram uh Tom core TU MC O EU R and um I’ll be there. I’m very active on Instagram, so I hope you can join me there. Awesome. OK. We’ll put, we’ll link to that in the show notes page and um and people can learn and connect with the mess you there. Any partying words of wisdom, anything else, Isabelle? Yeah, of course. Like if, if um your listeners want to join my um my mailing list that’s also available, um I can send you the, the link to my website as well. Yes. Send me the link to the website. I’ll put that in the show notes and I’ll be happy to share tips and advice and activities all over for everybody to join and enjoy their lives. I love it more joy. We need more of that. Thank you so much Isabel for having this conversation with me today and being vulnerable, sharing your caregiving story and your tips of what’s worked for you and what you’ve learned. I’m thankful for you. I’m, I’m so grateful to being here. Um You’ve been such a joy. Uh Thank you. I’ll take it. I’m a charmful joy. I love it. Thank you so much, Isabel. Thank you. Have a great day. Thanks for joining us today on the Happy Healthy caregiver podcast on the whole care network. As always show notes that a company today’s episode can be found on my website happy healthy caregiver dot com. Just look under the podcast menu for today’s episode image and that will take you to the page with the links and information we spoke about today. You’ll also find other resources on the website along with links to purchase the just for you daily self care journal. When you purchase from my website, you’ll get a signed copy and for a limited time free shipping. If you’ve enjoyed what you heard today, consider subscribing to the show on your podcast platform. It really helps other family caregivers find the podcast and you’ll automatically receive our biweekly shows in your podcast listening queue. Maybe while you’re subscribing, consider leaving a five star rating and review or just simply talk it up on your social channels. Let’s stay connected. I’m on Instagram and Facebook as Happy healthy caregiver. And until we meet again, please take care of you. This is the whole care network helping you tell your story, one podcast at a time.

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