Transcript
WEBVTT
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Everything in this world is about relieving stress, no matter if people admit it or not.
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Eating, sleeping, driving fast cars, what you're going to wear, what you're not going to wear Is it going to add stress or take away stress?
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Yeah, yoga People like to do that to get rid of stress.
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Therapy.
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People go to therapy to get rid of stress.
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Have you ever heard of a yoga therapist, though?
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Uh-huh, yep, that's what we got today A yoga therapist Smacked and smushed all up into one Yoga therapy.
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Come on, come on, Come on, lean in, listen, let's do this.
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Parenting Up, Caregiving adventures with comedian day smiles.
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It's the intense journey of unexpectedly being fully responsible for my mama.
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For over a decade, I've been chipping away at the unknown, advocating for her and pushing Alzheimer's awareness on anyone and anything with a heartbeat.
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Spoiler alert.
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I started comedy because this shit is so heavy, so be ready for the jokes.
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Caregiver newbies, ogs and village members just willing to prop up a caregiver.
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You are in the right place.
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Hi, this is Zeddy.
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I hope you enjoy my daughter's podcast, is that okay?
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Stress Relief for Caregivers Through Yoga Therapy.
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Our parenting up community is growing so fast I can't put out an episode as fast as we're growing.
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So text PODCAST to 404-737-1449 for updates, exclusives and suggestions on topics.
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While you're at it, share an episode with a caregiver you love.
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Review on Apple Podcasts and follow us on social media.
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Subscribe to our YouTube page, please.
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It really helps.
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Parenting Up family.
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I thought I knew a lot about a little, but I found out something brand new just the other day, and our guest, jenny Lee, is about to expand upon it.
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Welcome to the Parenting Up podcast, jenny.
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How are you?
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I'm great, jay Nice, to be here.
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Thanks for having me, yay.
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So you are a yoga therapist.
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Now I have done the yoga and I've done the therapy and I got to say I enjoy both and they both have helped me be a better person a lot less road rage, I sleep better.
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But you have smushed them together.
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Yes, I have.
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I'm not the first one, nor will I be the last, but yes, smushed them together.
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So that is why we are here to talk to you.
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But before we get into that, I've got you guys on this edge of your seats with your little earbuds all stuck in your little lobes.
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But also you're a caregiver.
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You have been a caregiver, and to me once a caregiver, always a caregiver.
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It's like, you know, riding a bike, or if you've ever been a human, you're always a human, even though people might not subscribe themselves as a human nowadays.
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Listen, if you ever knew how to be a human, I think you can remember.
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Okay, so you have been a caregiver.
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Here at the Parenting Up community, we appreciate people who have that journey, have experienced it and know what we've been through.
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So if you would be so kind as to share with us a little bit about who you cared for and what diagnosis they had, just so we could get a little bit more background on your story.
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Absolutely so.
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I was a caregiver to my mother at the last stages of her life.
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She had presented initially with some what we thought was early stage dementia, but she was not somebody who went to doctors and so we didn't have any kind of official diagnosis until she fell and broke her shoulder, which took her into emergency surgery, in which time we learned that she actually had stage four brain cancer, and at that point it had progressed to the degree that they were only giving her about a month to six weeks to live.
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So it was very quick and it explained a lot of the symptoms that we had been seeing up until that point in, you know, in the previous year.
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And yeah, and it was quite, quite a ride, quite a ride One second, jenny, because that's a bit mind boggling, because that's a bit mind-boggling.
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So for those of us in the dementia community or people wondering right what a family member or a friend may have, you're saying that it looked like dementia, kind of Kinda.
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But then it was when, when medical, when formal medical Western medicine, got involved, they found out it was a, was brain cancer.
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Can you share, are you willing to share what symptoms or presentation she had that you thought was dementia but ended up being brain cancer, just so we can learn where they may overlap.
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I mean, I certainly can't comment specifically about what the overlaps are From a medical standpoint, I can only share, you know, what we saw, which was a person who had been very meticulous with details, starting to forget things, you know, and at a certain age I guess to some degree we expect that from our elders.
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But she was extremely good at making lists of things and I think she relied upon that towards the end to kind of keep her on track.
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Maybe it was her coping mechanism to not forget things that she knew she needed to do.
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But um, but even there, like her list making started to become scrambled and um not really able to keep her on track, so she was forgetting basic to do's and um conversations that we had just had, or you know, she would track with me very closely.
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I was an only child, I am an only child, have been an only child and so, and we, she and I were very close.
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So, um, that's also me, I am an only child.
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Oh yeah, okay, yeah, so very close, so um, I am an only child.
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Oh yeah, okay yeah.
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So very differently.
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Yeah, as an only child, we move very differently in this world.
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And our mamas, I think, track us.
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Uh, if we, you know, if there's a good relationship there.
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So she was always tracking me and she had kind of lost track in a way, not not because she wanted to, but because she really just couldn't, I think, keep track anymore.
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So that was really hard.
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And then, you know, as it went along, um, she, there was actually two falls.
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The first fall took her into a facility for a while for rehab and while she was in there she started to have some disorientation.
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She didn't really remember where she was or why she was there, and so I started to really question, you know, what was going on.
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But it wasn't until the second fall that we actually got the brain cancer diagnosis and I couldn't really intervene because, as I said well, actually I'm not sure I said this she was a Christian scientist, so her faith was such that she relied upon prayer rather than traditional medical intervention, so she was not somebody to go to doctors.
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Understood Once the brain cancer was diagnosed.
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What, if anything, did she want to do about it?
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Nothing.
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I mean, it was really beyond, I think, any sort of treatment at that point because it had progressed so far, and but I know that she wouldn't have done anything anyway, again, because of her faith, she was not someone to to elect medical intervention, so she would not have gone through traditional treatment, but with the diagnosis of just between a month to six months, a month to six weeks that the doctors were giving her, she really just wanted to come and be with me here.
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I live in Hawaii and she was living on the East coast at the time, so it was her last wish to come and and be here in Hawaii and so we made that happen in a very quick timeframe.
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Um, but it was a huge blessing and I'm so glad that we did that.
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And even though the caregiving was intense at the end it was I wouldn't trade it because those were really precious, precious days.
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What was some?
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Well, okay, caregiving is heavy, but I keep it lighthearted over here.
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If you have to um, get moved somewhere, hawaii has to be at the top of the list.
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I mean, you know there are a lot of people who live in Minnesota, you know.
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You know I don't want to get moved to Minnesota, like, if you know, I'm just saying if I got to get picked to one of the 50 States, even if I'm not in America States, even if I'm not in America, if I have to get picked, I mean Hawaii is a pretty high up there.
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Very nice, very nice weather, very nice people.
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What were some of the quirkier or maybe more fun moments that you can recall as a caregiver?
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Well, one really sweet moment was sitting out on our lanai, which is like a porch or deck, and it was there's.
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There's this sort of soft, misty rain that happens here in Hawaii and my mom was old school.
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She had her hair curled and she had her.
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She would wear a rain bonnet if she was out in the rain typically, and I was always embarrassed about that when I was a child being seen with her in her purple rain bonnet.
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But we were sitting out on the lanai in this soft, beautiful Hawaiian rain and I remember her just turning her face up to the sky and saying, let it rain, let it rain, let it rain, and she was enjoying that moment.
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Probably she was probably enjoying that little bit of rain more than she enjoyed any other rain in her life, because she was no longer worried about her hair and it was so sweet.
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And it was one of those moments that I think about a lot because I want to enjoy those simple moments in life and it was just such a great reminder of how important it is for us to capture those simple moments.
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Right and definitely moments with and in nature, which is what I just picked up on what you said.
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I, you know, I'm from the deep south and, as a woman, what your hair looks like in the southeastern part of the United States largely can define you, no matter what age, what ethnicity, what religion.
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What is your hair doing?
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And therefore the weather, the humidity, is it raining, could make a huge impact on your emotional state before you left for work or for school.
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And so I get that that turn in the corner to say you know what, forget my hair Right now.
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This is just a beautiful moment, and to have this warm, probably almost butter-like, misting water touching my face, then things change right.
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I can, anyway, I never met your mom, but I can sense and feel a moment like that having another level of intensity.
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So she got very funny near the end of her life and I don't know, uh, I don't know what turn opened that for her.
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She wasn't, um, somebody typically to crack jokes, but she had gone into the bathroom and I was helping her at that time in the bathroom.
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So I was there with her and she looked in the mirror and kind of took a double take at herself and thought and she said, I look like death warmed over.
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I just absolutely started cracking up and we had a great laugh together because you know we're not looking great near the end with stage four brain cancer.
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But the fact that she could find humor in it I thought was really fantastic.
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What can you share with the Parenting Up community about your caregiving experience with your mom that can give them hope to say, hey, hang in there, you can get through this.
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Well.
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I guess the we do what we have to do.
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Um, human beings are incredibly resilient, incredibly strong.
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I know I found inner strength that I didn't know that I had during that time and I think we all reach really deep when we are caring for someone that we love.
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Um, we are caring for someone that we love.
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Obviously, it's so important to give ourselves breaks, to be able to step away and recover some capacity to come back in and be present with that loved one.
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But I know that the moments when I let everything else go and just practiced being present with her not trying to fix anything, not trying to make it better which I couldn't Um but just to bring my full presence and attention to her those were the sweetest moments, um, and that I and I know she felt them and all the maybe things that had stood between us from years past just melted away when I could hold her hand or just sit next to her and breathe with her and um let her feel my love, even silently.
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Oh, my goodness.
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Were you already a yogi?
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Yes, I've been practicing um yogi and teacher of yoga for 25 years, and so my practices definitely helped me.
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In fact, um, I wrote about the experience of caring for her and her last days of life in my first book, which is called True Yoga, and how I utilized all 10 of the main practices, which are called the yamas and the niyamas.
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They're practices that help us stay aligned and centered and harmonious even in difficult situations, but I write about how I utilized each one of those and I it took all of my practices for sure to to stay present and stay okay during a really difficult time.
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I bet I I'm, I bet it did I.
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I practice yoga I, but I'm not a practitioner.
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I, to me, a practitioner is like has a daily practice and they have a mat everywhere, like in the car, on the bicycle, you know, at work or what have you, and I'm not that disciplined with it.
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But I know when I'm out of balance too much in life, the first thing I do, no matter where I am, if I'm on vacation, if I'm visiting family members, is I find a yoga studio and hurry up and get into someone's class.
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Same with my therapist.
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I have a therapist, a psychologist, and I don't go weekly or even monthly.
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But when I find myself off the rails I get back in and get to my maintenance.
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But you, as I stated earlier in our conversation, you are a yoga therapist.
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Please tell us about that, because what I believe is you're probably not having people sit on a mat and actually give a psychologist treatment on a yoga mat, on a couch, which could get complicated.
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But also I would be willing to try, jenny Lee, if you gave me that, but let me know what it is.
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Yeah, it's a great combination.
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I had started out in my studies studying traditional psychotherapy and at some point decided that I was simultaneously studying yoga philosophy and at some point in my studies decided I did not want to go the traditional western psychotherapy route, and I found from my own personal experience that the teachings of yoga philosophy give us all the tools that we need to find inner harmony.
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It really really is the point of it all.
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I mean the postural practice that most people think about or exercise yoga, if you will, is just one tiny aspect of really what the long and ancient tradition of yoga holds.
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So much of it has to do with how we manage our mental approach to life experiences, caregiving being a really great example of that.
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Because we we don't have control and so I think, feel the feelings of overwhelm and being out of control are difficult for many people to handle.
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But having practices like um, like the, the breath work, that's a part of yoga, or the practice of even simplicity.
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So I'll just take one of the qualities that I referred to earlier the practice of simplicity.
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You know we can run around trying to come up with all different kinds of solutions, but really sometimes the simplest thing is like I was saying earlier just sit down and breathe with that person.
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I've worked in hospice as well, offering yoga therapy in hospice situations, and obviously many people are not capable of doing any kind of physical movement, much less crazy yoga postures.
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So it really, um asked me to draw upon the much deeper teachings, um, which have to do with the management of energy internally.
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Um, now, that can be both mental breath all different ways, mental breath, all different ways but, um, and it also has to do with how we perceive ourselves as as beings, right, so we know we are human beings and we have these human bodies, uh, which are failing, in the case of those that we're caring for, um, but we're also, at least in my worldview, we're spiritual beings, and so to remember that when we're caring for someone, to see them as more than that failing body, remember their inner spirit that also changes the game a bit and helps.
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It helps Both of us, each other, because that feels like a little bit of a niche to say, yep, I'm a yoga therapist and amongst my clients I have caregivers and it's really helping out.
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Absolutely.
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You know, the thing about caregiving is that I think, as women, we're caregivers throughout our lives.
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Well, maybe we're caring.
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I'm sorry, jenny, can you say that 18 times?
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I try to get women to realize I'm like you're a caregiver too, punching Nellie in the zoo.
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Yeah, we're caregivers all our lives, whether we're caring for our I mean, I felt like I was caring for my parents when I was a kid and I didn't have siblings, but many people care for their siblings.
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Then we're caring for spouses and children and then we're caring for our aging parents, and so it's.
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You know, it's pretty much continual.
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But in terms of my clientele, you know people find yoga therapy for a variety of reasons.
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Usually they are in some sort of challenging time times of transition, times of grief, times of loss, times of stress, and so caregiving in any format is stressful.
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So coming to yoga therapy gives people the tools to manage that stress, to meet themselves and the individual that they're caring for in a way that encompasses both the human and the spirit.
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At least that's the basis of my practice.
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I have a very spiritually focused practice of yoga therapy.
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There are other yoga therapists that focus more on almost like a physical therapy kind of approach to the practice, but mine has a very spiritual basis.
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And is it virtual?
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It is virtual.
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I work via Zoom.
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I have clients all over the world, which is beautiful, wonderful to connect with people from all over, and so, yeah, people can do it on their own time schedule and from the comfort of their own homes and no special requirements.
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You know, sometimes I might set up a mat or a cushion if we're doing a physical practice, but most of the time it's a dialogue like this where we this, where we're just in conversation with one another and I'm teaching people things that they can do easily in the day-to-day scope of their lives or even by the bed of their loved one.
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Are the?
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What is some of the?
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I guess?
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I would like a couple of examples, maybe something where a client has given you pushback initially, but then there was a breakthrough Right.
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They were like this is not working, jenny.
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You said do it.
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And I tried to do it.
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This is screwy, you know you can keep the money, but it's just.
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Well, I think I think one of the hardest things for people to do is prioritize any time for themselves, even if it's only five minutes.
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I mean, I certainly don't prescribe anyone to sit down and meditate for an hour.
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If they're a caregiver, that's probably not going to happen.
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But five minutes, yeah, you can find five minutes and it.
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I get pushback sometimes when people just say I just can't find any time.
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I'm totally overwhelmed.
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You know there's no space for this.
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Like you, go to the bathroom, meditate on the potty.
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Seriously, I mean, I there have been times in my life, both as a young single mother and as a caregiver to my aging mother, where my only meditation time was in the bathroom for five minutes.
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But it still counts.
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It counts and you got to take it where you can get it.
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You got it.
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Look, you got to meditate on the crapper.
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When that's what it is, I love it.
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What led you to yoga in the first place?
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A whole lot of crap.
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I'm sure it's what leads most people to yoga.
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It's what leads most people to therapy.
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Right, it's just life.
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Life happens, um, I uh actually, I mean, the very initial, uh entry point to yoga was I was looking at some books in a bookstore and the guy next to me, probably trying to hit on me, said, oh, you like those books, you probably like this class I go to, and took me off to a yoga class, which was great and, um, I love the physical practice.
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I've taught it for two decades or more and, um, it has, it has its place in my world.
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But the the deeper teachings and what took me into yoga therapy really came as I went through some really challenging times um, a divorce, losing a child, um, and all the grief that comes with those two pretty major life experiences.
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So, uh, I know that these, these inner practices of yoga, um, are what took me through hell and back, so it's what I love to share with others.
00:27:03.484 --> 00:27:20.794
Thank you for sharing space frequented all too often for many family caregivers feeling alone, lost, moments of hopelessness.
00:27:20.794 --> 00:27:23.969
And what do I do next?
00:27:23.969 --> 00:27:25.224
How did this happen?
00:27:25.224 --> 00:27:28.969
Is somebody going to come fix this?
00:27:28.969 --> 00:27:32.448
Where's the Calvary kind of thing?
00:27:32.448 --> 00:27:41.673
And to offer an option like yoga therapy, meditating on the toilet?
00:27:41.673 --> 00:27:47.932
You're right, everybody has to release the excrement.
00:27:47.932 --> 00:27:51.949
It's going to come out, even if you're at an outhouse.
00:27:51.949 --> 00:27:56.140
Whatever it is, excuse me, you are going to relieve yourself.
00:27:56.140 --> 00:28:06.887
So, in those two, three, five minutes to take time for yourself, to try to balance your central nervous system, which is what it all comes down to.
00:28:06.887 --> 00:28:38.099
Because, as I recall and remember, everything from yoga and meditation is if the more balanced our central nervous system, the better we can absorb what's happening in life, the better decisions we can make for ourselves, for our LOs, and it just means that the next thing doesn't feel as intense because we can respond better.
00:28:41.127 --> 00:28:41.650
That's right.
00:28:42.685 --> 00:28:51.788
Try to mellow out, just try to mellow out, just try to mellow out it doesn't take long to take a few conscious breaths.
00:28:52.368 --> 00:29:03.178
and really it's about the consciousness in focusing on the breath, because the breath is always with us, it's ever present it.
00:29:03.178 --> 00:29:11.336
You know, we don't have to do anything special other than be conscious as we're breathing to get a full, deep breath.
00:29:11.336 --> 00:29:21.407
Because one of the things that happens when we're stressed is that we shut the breathing apparatus down to a great degree and we get very little oxygen into our bodies.
00:29:21.407 --> 00:29:25.012
So it's very hard to make good decisions when the brain is deprived of oxygen.
00:29:25.012 --> 00:29:29.838
It's also hard to sleep well when we're not breathing deeply.
00:29:29.838 --> 00:29:39.625
So you know, on a physiological level, taking deeper breaths helps us on many levels, and then psychologically as well.
00:29:39.625 --> 00:29:45.778
It just helps us clear for a moment all those stressors and we'll come right back to them.
00:29:45.778 --> 00:29:50.609
Of course We've got to pick it up back up, but we pick it back up with more awareness, hopefully.
00:29:53.114 --> 00:29:53.513
I love it.
00:29:53.513 --> 00:29:54.977
I love it.
00:29:54.977 --> 00:29:56.980
I love it.
00:29:56.980 --> 00:30:10.153
Your perspective and the angle with which you approach inner work sounds effortless, which is inviting.
00:30:10.153 --> 00:30:17.887
Everything that sounds effortless at least means oh okay, I'll try that.
00:30:17.887 --> 00:30:19.291
I'll try that.
00:30:19.291 --> 00:30:28.717
It might not be, I know, sometimes it can be daunting, but the reward is pretty fantastic.
00:30:28.717 --> 00:30:32.971
You've written so, jenny.
00:30:32.971 --> 00:30:37.239
There are a number of books that you have penned.
00:30:37.239 --> 00:30:39.570
Tell us about those.
00:30:41.905 --> 00:30:45.673
Well, on the topic of yoga, wrote the book true yoga.
00:30:45.673 --> 00:30:51.294
Um, it has a long subtitle practicing with the yoga sutras for happiness and spiritual fulfillment.
00:30:51.294 --> 00:30:58.873
Um, I think my publisher wanted to get every possible keyword in there, but true yoga, yeah.
00:30:58.873 --> 00:31:25.378
So it's really was my attempt to bring the the, these inner practices of yoga that we've been talking about, into a very pragmatic kind of day to day presentation for students, teachers, anyone who's interested in this topic, and so it's a book that has not only philosophy, but it has exercises and daily reflections and journal prompts, and, and it's been really well received over the last 10 years.
00:31:26.166 --> 00:31:28.310
Uh, the next book was breathing love.
00:31:28.771 --> 00:31:54.275
Uh, meditation in action, which again you hear the pragmatism in that it's not just about sitting on the cushion or the potty, as we've talked about, um, but it's really about bringing that meditative state to everything that we're doing, and and and caregiving again is a great example of that, because if we cannot bring that calm that we're attempting to cultivate, or while we're sitting on the cushion, into our day-to-day, then it's what are we doing?
00:31:54.315 --> 00:31:55.705
It's not doing us any good at all.
00:31:55.705 --> 00:32:01.762
Um, so I believe in meditation in action or in motion in our day-to-day.
00:32:01.762 --> 00:32:20.567
And then my last book is called spark change 108 provocative questions for spiritual evolution, and it's a book of questions which help us navigate change, and so people who are going through times of transition find it helpful because it gives them things to reflect on.
00:32:20.567 --> 00:32:24.305
And it's it's a fun book because it's not one you have to read cover to cover.
00:32:24.305 --> 00:32:35.387
You can have it by your bed, pick it up, read one question, fall asleep thinking about that and hopefully your intuitive mind will deliver the perfect answer as you sleep and you'll wake up ready to go into a new chapter.
00:32:35.548 --> 00:32:40.335
Oh, yeah, hey, I'm for it, we can.
00:32:40.335 --> 00:32:42.798
Why not lay that as the groundwork?
00:32:42.798 --> 00:32:43.920
Why?
00:32:44.059 --> 00:32:45.962
not absolutely that as the groundwork.
00:32:46.784 --> 00:33:02.115
You have given us such fertile ground, such a fantastic foundation of a calmer approach to daily life and caregiving.
00:33:02.115 --> 00:33:07.986
We we are, you know, a community of family caregivers across the globe.
00:33:07.986 --> 00:33:20.652
We're just day in, day in, day out, just trying to do a little bit better today than we did yesterday, having a bunch of bad days, bad moments.
