Vivianne Winters Israel on How to Recharge and Show Up Stronger for Loved Ones | EP015

Welcome to the share giving secret this week, my guest is Vivian winters Israel, and I'm so excited to meet her because she has an awful lot of background as both a professional and a family caregiver. So I'm looking forward to the kinds of strategies that Vivianne is going to point to us to help us avoid burnout, because that's really the main goal, to be able to care for yourself while you're caring for another person so vivid says that she's helped overwork, teachers, entrepreneurs, caregivers and those who are struggling with day to day workload and responsibilities to give themselves permission to practice self care, to increase their energy, mental bandwidth and take the best care of their loved ones and charges by taking the true best care of themselves. So there's a wonderful focus here, and I'm sure you're going to enjoy the show so vivid and welcome. It's nice to have you here today.

Vivianne Winters Israel: Thank you, Deborah. I'm very happy to be here with you, so I

guess we should get right to it. What's a little bit about your background to describe how you came to focus on self care and caregiving?

Vivianne Winters Israel: Well, I'm 70, so I've been around for a while, and so and I have had several life crises in in my life, and I've had them without any self care tools or understanding how really to do that, and with, and believe me, with is much better. And I've been a registered nurse for 47 years. I've just recently retired from from being an employee, and 27 years of that was critical care, and the last 20 was doing emergency response stuff. Now I will also took care of my mom when she was having dementia. She had physical things happening, but it was the dementia that was more profound, and she lived 550 miles away, she would call me late at night and berate me for not being home, because I have a young child at home, and what was I doing out so late? Well, I hadn't lived with her, you know, in a few decades, and I'm completely grown, and so was my daughter. So I trying to manage her from 550, miles away was very difficult, and trying to get her back down to me was also difficult. And in that time, I didn't have particular self care tools. I mean, I was been a caregiver with people that weren't family every day that I worked, but across some time, I ended up with a metastatic breast cancer, and I handled that so much differently than a physical injury, a serious physical injury that I'd had 11 years prior, I didn't understand what the difference was. My mental, emotional response to the stresses of the back injury were more than unhealthy. They were actually personally destructive. Yet when I get this nasty call on the phone at work with no prerequisite comment, oh, you have metastatic breast cancer per your biopsy results, and we need you to schedule appointment with a doctor. So I managed to stay at work, and I was scared. Had a question. I was scared. However, it wasn't the paralyzing fear that I'd had in the early days of my back injury, which made me just focus in this little mental capsule of I have to get back to my physically managed job so I can take care of my daughter. This time, I was actually moving forward, doing some research, until I could get to talk with the doctor. Because, of course, the office was closed when I got home, but I had discovered. It took me a while to figure out what the difference was, but I had started listening to a very powerful audio technology called holo sync for improving information retention and memory recall, and then further looking into that, it also helped calm the regions of the mind that are responsible for stress, procrastination and impulsive behavior, woo hoo. So I'm calling that a self care tool, and it and my cancer journey was really hard, very difficult. I had lots of complications, requiring extra surgeries, but I rocked that crisis that was so entirely different to what happened with the physical injury. And one of the things I see as far as stresses on people that are caregiving for just another family. Member or an elder family member, is they aren't taking care of themselves, and often they end up with a one person. Often the eldest daughter gets put upon them, whether they really accept it or not that they are going to beat the hair caregiver, and yes, we'll do this and that, but you know this, and that's never seems to happen. It seems to be one person. So they don't give themselves the permission to take any time for themselves, because they don't see themselves as having any time. But the best, honestly, best way that they can take care of their loved one, that they're working so hard and everything is coming out of their body and their heart. To do this is they have to find a way to take care, true care of themselves first, because otherwise you are just burning from your core constantly, and that's not it's definitely not good for the caregiver, and it isn't good for the person they're caring for. They're going to be stressed. There's something's not going to grow, right? They're going to forget something that they normally wouldn't have forgotten, and then the other person is missing a medication, or you're not helping them fully to whatever they need to be doing from point A to point B, and they fall and they hurt. You're hurt. It just the true I see, the root cause of things being better for caregivers is to give themselves permission to explore some self some powerful self care tools, choose one that resonates with them and practice it regularly, because it's the practice, not just knowing about it and doing it once in a while, but the practice that makes it become second nature to you. And some of the tools, I've identified six favorites over the my years of exploring this. When you have done them regularly, you don't even have to call them up and say, Okay, I need to center myself, because I didn't have to do that with the cancer one that whole sync it was had baked into my operating system when the proverbial poo hit the fan with that biopsy result, it just showed up. I didn't have to pull it up. It was just there. That is beyond powerful.

Absolutely, I've wrestled with that question of how to de stress yourself, and I notice a lot of the help, and I'm going to put that in quotes airports, for people who are not able to see that the help that is suggested is take a five minute break or take a bubble bath. And I never found any of those things to be helpful. And yeah, I'm sure you did not that's

Vivianne Winters Israel: me time, and there's nothing wrong with me time. Me Time doesn't elevate your daily life experience, and it's not something that's going to help move you through crisis,

right? It doesn't really alleviate things. It gives you a clearing space, but then you still are not getting enough me rest or respite, and if you don't choose to take those things, you may not be there to take care of your loved one. So then all of this extra work is really for naught. But at the other end, which I really want to get to, is that people feel guilt if they take the time. So I don't think it's as much that they don't know what to do to get respite, as if I stop watching for a minute, something terrible will happen or I'm going to feel really bad. So I just I can't do that. So Did did you find yourself addressing guilt for take taking time out? Or how would you recommend addressing that, if not? Well, I

Vivianne Winters Israel: didn't have all the self care tools when I was needing to do this with my mom, so it was coming from me, and until I could get things situated differently, it was a lot of work to try to get her down to where I was, finding a place that really looked like where she was. I mean, it was amazing how it it looked like looking into her backyard with the trees and the fountain and everything. But the important thing, the most important thing that anybody could take with them, from what I'm saying, is taking true best care of yourself is honestly the genesis of being able to take care of your loved one, if you won't take care of yourself. You can do this for a while, but you're going to run out you're going to run out of gas, you're going to go out of soul, you're going to become resentful, you're lots of things are going to happen that's not worth it for anybody just to take and there are a couple of my favorite for self care tools that literally only take two minutes to do once you've learned them. And one just can, on demand, bring joy into your life at a moment in the day when you need it, when everything's yuck. But some of the ones that do take longer. Uh, do them get up 30 minutes more early in the morning and listen to it, or 30 minutes listen to it as you're going to bed. Fine. You've got to work to craft the time for yourself, because that is truly the way that you will be better serving who it is you're caring for. Yeah?

Because there there's an awful lot of stress, not just with the mental stress of trying to juggle all the the tasks and so on, but also there's a physical stress sometimes, of having to lift and carry people who are heavier than you are. And whether you should do that or not is a whole separate question, but if you are doing it, you've gotta rest. Um. There's also the emotional well being, if you are not well rested, the emotions certainly come up whether you loved your parents or did not love your parents. They're going to be some feelings in there, if you are the caregiver or not. And also the financial stress. Many people tell me that they are dipping into their life savings in order to take care of things for their parents, because their parents are not equipped to pay for these things anymore, and that causes a lot of mental stress, if not fear of what what the future is going to look like. So any suggestions around some of the other stressors that that we happen to encounter. Well,

Vivianne Winters Israel: as far as you know, what are the the resources, you know, the physical, the financial, I can't speak to that. Everybody's in a different place, you know, geographically, financially. But again, you need to be able to reach out to that. And it's hard to reach out to that if you are in the guilt. But let let, if you really must have guilt, let me say, if you don't do this for yourself, you should feel guilty. Do this for yourself so that you can go out, so that you can reach out, and it can be too that it's family you need to reach out to, and other family, not your person you're caring for, but siblings, aunts, uncles, whatever that. Everybody's well, you're taking care of that. Now we'll help with this and that, but you're taking care of that. And whenever you ask for this and that, it's, well, I can't do that right now. You need to, again, care for yourself. Press it out to there. We are, family. This is a shared thing that we need to do for whoever that is. Yeah, I need your help to help her or him.

Right off, family members don't realize that it is a family project to care for someone, and if you've never done the 24/7 365, routine for someone, you have no idea how many tasks come up during the day, and I may look competent, but I'm not an endless source of energy around the clock. If I did not sleep last night, I can't work all day today, you know, like, right? 73 I'm not doing it anymore.

Vivianne Winters Israel: No, we are we are humans. We are not robots. I would say a test drive strategy. If you can't get somebody coming in this way, a test drive strategy, as you say, I have to have a weekend. That's gonna be a three day weekend, if at all possible. I have to have a weekend. I need you here. We can go over stuff, or we can zoom in. We can go through things. It gets an idea of stuff. And then we come here, and I'll show you where this and that and the other thing is, and then I'm going to be away for the weekend. Now, if you're already always on call on the weekend they gone, then guess what? That doesn't count. But if they truly have an immersive experience of two days, they will have an entirely different appreciation. And you'll probably have to do that a couple of three times, and it's got Okay, well now you're getting good at this, then have a different conversation. My dear friend of mine, who has been the go to for multiple family members who need this that has her flying all over the place. She's always the one. Yeah, she's always the one. And it isn't until you are somewhere else and someone else is the one, do they honestly get it? Because you tell them, they will say, Oh, yeah, I understand. No, respectfully, you don't, and I need you to.

Yeah, a lot of us go into it thinking, Well, I can handle this, or I'm gonna try to do my best, but you get quickly acquainted with what I think are really non negotiable things. Yes, you need to be able to delegate. You need to be able to share this labor and have some time off, and we don't say that up front, so people get angry later because we didn't tell them it was going to be like that, and that's unfortunate, because you can't always predict it. But one thing I suggest to people is try to think in advance. What do you want your day to look like? How do you answer. In it, and where are the gaps where you can't possibly be there for your loved one or you you might need to go to the doctor yourself,

Vivianne Winters Israel: absolutely and well, that is going to come definitely. Well,

having brought, brought someone to a doctor, I had to go to an emergency room one day, and I had to bring the person I was caring for with me, and the person kept wandering around the hospital. So it was a very awkward I wasn't that badly injured, but I really needed medical attention, so I couldn't watch the person. And meanwhile, you know, I'm up on the on the emergency room table and, and that's not right, I should have been able. There should have been someone that I could call to take care of that situation. And I didn't know those things would happen. I just that. I didn't foresee it. You know, you do for love what you're going to do, and then all of a sudden you have everyday reality to contend with as well

Vivianne Winters Israel: true. And if you're saying, if it's family or even others, but particularly if it's family, saying, Well, you didn't say that this was going to happen, that you couldn't handle it again. They don't understand what it is you'd be doing. And when you started it, because you had not done this, 24/7, 365, prior, you didn't either you felt, this is my mom or this is my dad, and I'm going to do this, and that is your heart, and you are going to go do that, but you are not a robot. You are a human being, and you've only got so much that you can pour out without putting something else in you. Well, one of the things that people can test drive, you know, talk about meditation. I think it was you that had one on meditation, about meditation, recently, an episode when I was checking through things, and meditation is something that's so hard for many people. That's why I'm happy about these other things that I found that are meditative, but it's you're not having to try to do certain things. But I think what a lot of people have difficulty with in and giving themself a piece of space is that they think meditating is clearing their mind. We honestly aren't capable of clearing our mind. But if you can get your thoughts, your being, out of your mind and into your body, if you can get it into your mind, out of your head and into your body, you can't freak out up here if you are down here. And one of my favorite adult teaching people is Dr Paul Sheely, and he has a process called the laser focus process, and he has some great motions that are actually trigger neurochemical changes. And if you drop your shoulders, and many people will have to try to take themselves through this a couple of three times to actually get their shoulders down from here, but when you actually drop, relax your shoulders, it there's a neurochemical change that your body tells you you're safe if you can relax your forehead, and you might need to be looking at something to realize whether you're doing that if you've been wound up, that neurochemically tells your body you're relaxed if you bring up the corners of your mouth, not like This, just a wee bit and just the touch of your eyes. I forget what it exactly triggers, but that is the third step to neuro chemical, resetting yourself, like your little reset button. And then work look and pay attention to your breathing so that you're hearing it, you know, very quietly in there, feeling it and hearing it, then work to feel it coming up over your lip, coolness coming over your lip, and then the warmness as the breath goes out over your lip. It's hard to get to that point that would take practicing it a while, but you get to that point of just watching your breath. You can't focus on that because it's hard doing that little thing and freak out in your head. So you will calm.

That's wonderful. So you can counteract all that stress that's built up by learning to relax these parts, or

Vivianne Winters Israel: yes, because it will trigger stuff you don't have to know what all is doing. These are neurochemical triggers that switch. Wow, yeah. And then you get to that little piece that you're doing, and then you are, you are in the driver's seat of when you're in your head and when you're in your body. That's

wonderful thing to carry away from today. I think that it's so important to find those comforts, find those ways of running a counter wave against that wave of tension that that is so often part of the day of a caregiver. So I'd like to ask you now if there's something you'd like people to leave with, or if you have a way that we can reach out to you. For further information, if you have that,

Vivianne Winters Israel: oh, sure, well, my name is My name is long, so I'll defer to your show notes, but I do have a gift for your audience. It's a free downloadable list of my most powerful favorite self care tools, and two of those take less than two minutes. The laser focus method once learned, and then the awe method, that is the one. It's most recent one I've learned about, and it is phenomenally powerful and glorious, and it will actually take you. There's a book The Power of all there's the link to all these different these aren't my processes. These are brilliant people that have done these things, but I find most people haven't heard about them. The power of all is name of the book, and there's a picture of the book in the download, and reads chapters four to six to that and a preface, and it will take you to an experience of awe within two minutes, and you will have literal joy come into your being on demand, and that will help you get to the point where you will give yourself permission to ask for help. That sounds extraordinary, vivid. Is that going to be evergreen? Available for, oh, absolutely, absolutely, okay, so that we don't have an expiration date yet? No, no, no, no, no, no, there's no cost. There are like the Powerball has a cost to the book. The Dr Paul Sheely has a free video training for the laser focus process. The other some things, they do have costs. Those aren't mine. They're someone else's. But these are, I've been through many musty life crises. These things have made such a, such a, such a, such a difference. The back injury and the wagyu cancer. You know, I do have done many, many marathons. Do all different kinds of things, adventurous thing. Work on castles, things that if these things were not here, I probably wouldn't have the capability of doing.

So it's great to have a tool kit. And this sounds like a wonderful Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So I'm certainly going to look into it. And I have really enjoyed talking with you today, and I know people will be thrilled to listen to this podcast and take away the ideas and the toolkits that you just supplied. So we've had a very fast tour of wonderful things that you can do, and I hope you'll reach out to Vivian, if you're listening, if you need some help, certainly get the toolkit and see if you can connect so that you can have a better experience in caregiving and not try to do it alone. Yes,

Vivianne Winters Israel: Vivianne, Thank you, Deborah. Lovely. Speaking with you. My pleasure.