Where did my mother go?

It's a question that so many adult children ask when Alzheimer's slowly reshapes the person they've always known.

One day she's laughing at an old family story, and then, over time, she doesn't remember your name.

The relationship shifts in ways that feel impossible.

Grieving someone who's still right in front of you, Navigating the daily heartache of change.

In today's episode, we're diving into the emotional and practical challenges of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's.

How do you cope with this transformation?

How do you stay present when everything feels like it's slipping away?

And most importantly, how can you support both your parent and yourself in a way that honors the love you've always shared?

My guest today brings insight, experience and guidance for finding steadiness in the midst of the unknown.

So let's get into it.

Welcome to Boomer Banter, the podcast where we have real talk about aging well.

My name is Wendy Greene and I am your host and my guest today.

Jessica Smith is a care partner and advocate for her mother Patty, who has been living with Alzheimer's and Lewy body dementia since 2014.

Jessica is very passionate about dementia education and how mindfulness supports the caregiver.

The guiding principles Jessica employs in caring for her mother stem from her work as a meditation teacher and as a student of Eastern philosophies.

Compassion, presence, impermanence and going with the flow.

These tactics help her show up for her mom consistently while remaining tethered to peace.

While they do not live in the same state, Jessica lives in North Carolina.

Her mom is in Florida.

They see each other very frequently and for long stretches at a time.

They also speak daily and Jessica helps her stepdad make the difficult day to day decisions that he's faced with.

Together with Jessica's husband Ken, the three of them serve as her mom's constellation of support.

Jessica has studied mindfulness and meditation with many esteemed teachers including Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Michael Singer, Jack Cornfield, and Joseph Goldstein.

She also recently went through training to become a death doula, studying with Alua Arthur at Going With Grace.

And if you'd like to learn more about the topics that we talk about here on Boomer Banter, then sign up for the Boomer Banter newsletter.

Real Talk about Aging well.

We cover topics like finance, relationships, health and purpose and they're told in little bite sized stories.

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You can sign up right now by going to Bitbit Ly Navigate Aging.

So hope to see you there.

And now I would like to welcome Jessica to our program.

Hello, Jessica.

Hi, Wende.

How are you today?

I'm great.

And I so appreciate you joining us for this very important conversation.

It's my pleasure.

I'm.

I love talking about this topic.

Well, let's start at the beginning.

How you've been, like, traveling this journey since 2014.

Yeah.

So, you know, initially I started noticing some changes with my mom in 2012, 2013, and, you know, I kind of kept them close to my chest at first.

And then I started sharing my concerns with other family members and letting them know I thought something was up.

Took quite a bit of convincing, but we finally got some other family members on board and presented what we were thinking to my mom, who, of course, naturally, was very resistant at first, understandably.

You know, no one wants to be told that they think they're sick and, you know, so it took a lot of coaxing, Many, many family meetings.

We finally got my mom to a doctor, and in 2014, she was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease.

How old was she?

She was 60.

60 years old at that time.

So very young.

Yep.

It was later in our.

Much, much, much later in our journey, 2024, over the summer, when she was diagnosed with a secondary diagnosis, which is Lewy Body dementia, which has been present the whole time, now that I know the symptoms of that dementia.

But we just got that clarity last summer, so.

So, I mean, that had to be hard for you, too, to see your mom start down this journey.

So what's that emotional toll been like for you?

I would say the first emotions that I sensed about all this were confusion.

Confusion and uncertainty as to where to start, who to go to, what to do.

You know, it was funny, really interesting timing, but in 2013, my employer had someone from the Alzheimer's association come and speak to our office.

Yeah, it was just phenomenal timing.

I actually could not believe it.

I felt like it was kind of like looking back, I feel like it was a little gift from the universe, gift from God, to be like, okay, here's a path.

Check this out.

You know, I learned quite a bit from that person.

And that took my confusion and sort of morphed it into a sort of action.

Now, I'm the oldest of three.

I'm the oldest of three girls.

I am a woman that is very much like my mother.

Patti is a very determined person, and she does not back down.

So I wasn't scared of this person.

I have had scary times along the journey but at the beginning, that confusion just turned into action and I just wanted to get my mom some help and support and learn more about this.

So, you know, at first it wasn't, it wasn't too overwhelming for me from an emotional standpoint.

But as this disease progresses and anyone who has someone that they know or love living with dementia will tell you, things definitely get more intense as this disease progresses naturally.

You know, it's a degenerative disease of the brain.

Parts of the brain just stop functioning the way they once did.

And there's a lot to face emotionally as a daughter, as a loved one.

So you start to get a sense that time is sort of slipping through your fingers.

So I would say that is something that came pretty early on that I quickly turned into again, sort of like a motivation.

And that motivation was to spend as much quality time with my mom as possible.

And that's the reason for my involvement.

Even though I'm states away, that's the reason why I show up for my mom and my stepdad in the way that I do.

Because as you mentioned, I went through my death doula training and one of my things about dying is I living.

I don't want to have any regrets.

So through that analysis, I was like, you know what, I'm just, I'm going to be here with her, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's hard, and I'm going to walk through this journey with her.

Yeah, and you have a full time job too.

So how are you, how are you balancing time with mom and time with your job and time with your husband and helping your stepdad?

And it's a lot.

I would say what keeps me going and keeps me centered through all of this are my mindfulness practices.

I do just a few minutes of meditation in the morning, a few at night.

Currently I have a yoga practice that I am strict about staying on top of.

I just try to remember that through all of this, even though I am walking this journey with my mom, what is of utmost importance is my own health and well being.

Even though a lot of people in my life demand things from me or I like to give parts of myself to other people, ultimately, if I'm not tending to my own needs and my own well being, I'm not going to have anything to give anyone else.

And it sounds kind of cliche, you know, the whole you put your mask on first and then put the mask on others on the airplane, you know, it is sort of cliche, but there is so much truth to that because Sincerely, if.

If we're depleting ourselves, there's nothing left to give anyone else.

So I really just focus on tending to my own needs, no matter how big or small those are.

If that's.

I need to not call my mom one day, you know, I won't call them one day.

If it means when I go to Florida, if I have to shorten my trip by two days because I have other commitments or just because I need to rest, that's what I need to do.

I try not to let the sneaky thoughts of, oh, you're not doing enough, or oh, you could do more, take over.

Because we all could be doing more.

We could all be giving more of ourselves to others.

But the relationship we have with ourselves is ultimately, in my view, the most important one and spills out into everything else we do in life.

Yeah.

So I want you to expand on that.

That's the self talk and the self awareness and.

And so expand on that a little bit.

Absolutely.

In ways that could help the audience.

Totally.

So, you know, we all have this chatter that's going on in our mind that is judging everything outside of us based on our senses.

So we see something, we judge it, we are experiencing something, we have a commentary about it that's going on in our mind.

We may have woken up on this Monday morning and thought, ugh, you know, the, the week is too short.

Right.

We all have this.

And the practice of awareness allows us to clearly see there are thoughts that are always telling us how we're experiencing this life.

Right.

We're always with this, this is always going on.

This voice, this chatter, this non stop talk is also to ourselves.

It's the voice that says, you know, you can't do that.

You know, it's the voice when you're working out and you're on your third set of crunches or something.

Nobody loves core exercises.

Okay, you're on your third rep.

It's that voice that says, I can't do this.

It's that voice where you're in traffic and you're like, ugh, all this traffic, this is so annoying.

Without considering that you too are the traffic.

It's that voice.

It's that voice, Wendy.

And you know, we, we have to bring awareness and begin to notice what that voice is doing, because that voice is our reactions and our responses to ourselves and to life.

So when we begin to notice what that voice is saying, we start to understand, wow, I'm pretty hard on myself.

Wow, I'm pretty hard on others.

Wow, maybe I would like to bring some more compassion to my own life, to myself, you know, or maybe I just want to believe in myself.

And instead of saying I can't do this or I can't deal with this feeling of discomfort that dementia is making me face, maybe instead we notice that habitual pattern pop up in our mind.

Maybe instead we say, you know what?

No, I can handle this.

And it's not a toxic positivity situation.

Don't get me wrong.

Noticing yourself talk and bringing awareness to this non stop chatter in our mind is not to forego any feelings that we have by any means, but it's to start to realize that there is the tiniest bit of control that we have over how we're perceiving this life and how we're speaking to ourselves.

And there's a lot of power in that, Wende, you know, but most of us, just to no fault of ourselves, we were, most of us weren't taught this.

You know, most of us don't even know that voice is happening until we take a minute and we say, what is that?

She's right.

And you really start to notice this if you start to employ a meditation practice because you're sitting there in the silence with your thoughts and they're coming up and they're coming up and you're like, wow, I'm kind of rough on myself.

So that's a way that I have really been able to prioritize my well being is just by getting a handle on what's going on in here, in my inner environment.

The place that only I live, just like the place that only you live, Wende is completely different.

And you're the only one experiencing that and knowing what's going on in there.

So it's good to bring some curiosity to that.

Yeah.

And I like what you said, Jessica, about the voice doesn't go away necessarily, but we become aware of it.

And just to be able to say to ourselves, wow, I'm really hard on myself.

Like you go into this situation, situation, you're really going to try and be, you know, more compassionate or calmer or more peaceful or whatever it is that you feel like you need to do when you're caring for someone and you don't, it doesn't work, right?

Because I mean, we're human beings and we've been reacting mindlessly for, for however many decades, however many years.

You know, I'm in my mid-40s, you know, I didn't start paying attention to this voice for it's been maybe 10 years, but I Had been training myself to just react to that voice and react to my thoughts, you know, prior to that.

So, you know, it takes a long time.

And not only that, but one of my teachers, Ram Dass, says, you know, if you think you're enlightened in any sort of way, go spend a week with your family.

Because, I mean, but that is the reality of life, you know, is our family just knows these triggers intentionally.

I do it to my sisters, you know, and I always.

My husband, like, what?

Why do you think that of me?

Where I'm coming from a different place.

But anyway, it's true.

It's just.

It's more difficult when it comes to our family and those we're closest to.

You know, it's so true.

I love that I'm going to remember that one.

Thank you, Rob.

Yep.

Yep.

It's one of my favorite quotes in his.

So you said in your bio that you talk to your mom every day, whether you're there or not.

And I'm curious, 10 years into her Alzheimer's journey, does she still have language?

Can she still talk to you?

I love that question.

Thank you.

So she, at this point, you know, about ten and a half years, we're almost to the eleventh year.

Coming up in April will be eleven years.

Her vocabulary has dwindled quite substantially.

With Lewy Body Dementia and Alzheimer's comes something called aphasia.

Aphasia is a symptom of an inability to communicate, utilizing words in the way that they once did.

So my mom may be trying to communicate something to me at this stage, and she may say words like blue cookies, I'm going to get you a new shirt.

She has sort of a limited vocabulary of maybe like 20 words or like 10 phrases that she uses to convey many, many different things.

And so my conversations with her are very different than they were four to five years ago in terms of how she communicates back with me, the words that she's actually using.

But through this process of mindfulness and awareness and just investigating all of life, I am able to just hear what she's saying through those words that may not make sense to me.

You know, I am.

I'm able to tune in and knowing past conversations that we've had, using that as kind of like clues, I can sort of understand her general gist through that we have a conversation.

And I can tell you, Wendy, that is something that has helped me continue to enjoy my time with my mom, is not needing things to be a certain way.

I don't have these conditions on my relationship with my mom, whereas in order for me to enjoy the time with her, I need her to respond exactly the way she always has.

And when we set up those conditions for ourselves, we really set ourselves up for a lot more suffering on this dementia journey.

Because there has to be a sense of being malleable through all of this and really, moment by moment, and I get caught up all the time still, moment by moment, sort of be where they are, understanding where my mom is in, you know, it doesn't have to be in this, in this black and white sort of way, as it always has been.

She doesn't have to use this beautiful vocabulary she used to have.

We can just sit there and share space, you know?

Yeah.

And I remember when we spoke the first time, we were talking about, you know, trying to make her happy.

Right.

Like we, we have this desire to make sure that they're happy, that they feel good, that everything's okay, and, and we really have to recognize how much of that we can control, if any of it.

Yes, that was a very difficult part of this journey for me, Wendy.

It was that, you know, I would consider myself a recovering people pleaser now.

And the only reason I have started my recovery journey is because dementia has been like this mirror in front of me showing me exactly who I am and what my motivations are for being.

And I realized over the past five years, the last five years, that, wow, I really want people to be a certain way via the service that I provide them.

I wanted my mom to be happy because I was giving her these things to be happy about.

And the reality is, is that you can't control everything.

As you just said, you can't control everything.

And not only that, I feel like maybe my motivations were sort of askew, you know, like, was I making my, Was I trying to get my mom to be happy for my mom or was part of that also?

I was trying to get my mom to be happy for myself because that's the outcome I desired.

And also I would just rather things be happy.

Right.

Happy is a comfortable feeling, you know, sadness, the Eeyore vibe.

I use that term sometimes with my mom.

If she just feel seems like ho hum, she's like eeyore.

You know, that's uncomfortable.

And so, you know, you realize in life we're always trying to get what we want and not get what we don't want.

And you see that really clearly in the dementia journey.

And when those don't align, it doesn't feel that great.

So, yeah, I was always trying to get her to feel comfortable and happy, I had to come to a place of realization that that's not always my job.

I know it's a hard one.

That's a hard one.

It's really hard.

Especially when it's a parent or maybe a spouse, and I can't speak to that.

But I have spoken with many, many other people whose spouse has a form of dementia.

And, you know, when it's just someone so close to you.

Right.

We want the best for everyone.

Oh, we do.

That's not always possible.

You know, it's not.

I promise.

We'll be right back with this conversation, but I do want to take a moment to share my appreciation for Greenwood Capital as a sponsor of Boomer Banter.

As you know, this month at Boomer Banter, we're talking about relationships.

And having a relationship with your trusted financial advisor will give you a comfort level that they understand your needs and your goals and will keep you on a path to achieving them.

And I have such a relationship with my financial planner at Greenwood Capital.

They are a fiduciary and a registered advisory firm, and they must place your interests above their own.

Greenwood Capital has compensated my business for this testimonial and we are grateful for their sponsorship.

For more information about how they can help you make a financial plan, go to greenwoodcapital.com now let's get back to my conversation with Jessica Smith about caring for mom and caring for herself.

So, Jessica, as a care partner, we want to feel like the person that we are taking care of is, is well cared for.

And you have had some challenges, I guess, on caring or helping other people who are kind of resistant to the help.

So can you talk to me a little bit about that?

Yes, I would love to.

Wende, this is a part of this that I really think we can all start to better ourselves about, and that is accepting help.

So I will first start to speak about this from my mom's perspective and working with her.

So one of the most difficult things from the onset of this entire journey was getting my mom to accept help.

My mom is the most independent woman that I know.

She did not let my stepdad or my father do anything around the house.

I mean, my mom was the one on the roof pressure washing.

She was the one that would change the light bulbs, change the doorknobs, change.

She fixed everything.

She cut the grass.

She had a full time job of 25 years plus.

She did everything.

She made all the food, all of the things, everything.

And so when it came to accepting help, from myself or anyone else.

She had trained herself up until 60 years old to never accept help.

You know, I remember being a kid and living in the house with her, and my mom would be in there vacuuming, complaining about vacuuming, and I would offer to help.

Hey, mom, can I do that for you?

No, I've got it.

And I'm sure many of us can relate to this.

You know, I myself, when I started to tune into this, I was like, wow, I never accept help either.

From the small things, like, you know, someone asking me if I needed help finding something in the grocery store, to my husband asking if he could do a simple task for me, to a friend asking if they could help, 99% of the time, I too, would turn it down.

And I realized that my mom's resistance to accepting help was, unknowing to her, a trained behavior.

She had trained herself all these years to never accept help, and I had conditioned myself in the same way.

And when it came to dementia, of course, my mom didn't want to accept help at the beginning when.

When she got the diagnosis, as the disease progressed, she refused help when it came to, like, helping her dress or pick out clothes or any of the personal care tasks.

She did not like to accept help with making food or literally anything that she did.

And I pretty quickly identified this is a problem.

But not only that, I also identified that it's a problem a lot of us have.

A lot of us who are healthy and are living with a healthy brain have.

And that is we are conditioning ourselves to never accept help.

That's because we think we got it all.

We think we have to handle it all.

And I'm here to tell you, we are all doing ourselves a disservice by acting that way.

Because one day we may be in a situation like my mom is in, where she doesn't have the mental faculties to decide that she wants help, and her brain is defaulting upon what it knows.

And that is independence.

That's not needing help.

Even still.

Even still.

Absolutely still.

So I am at the point.

I am at the point in life where I am a huge proponent of people starting to accept help.

And I'm not saying in the big waves.

I'm not saying, you know, take.

You know, it doesn't have to be a big thing.

I'm talking small.

Like, for instance, when I go into a store now, if somebody asks me if I need help finding something, I make myself say yes.

I say yes every time.

When it's a small thing, like a coworker Says, hey, do you want me to just handle that for you?

You know, nine times out of 10, I would say no.

Now, I always say yes.

Same with my husband.

Because I am on.

I am trying to discipline myself, recondition myself to accepting help.

So one day, if I do really need it, that will be my default.

My default will be to accept help.

Because it's not just my mom, Wende.

This is most people on the dementia journey.

Most people living with dementia have this same issue.

And it's just simply because none of us are good at accepting help.

You know, it is hard.

I mean, are you, like, I'm curious, are you.

Do you.

Do you accept help?

You know, if I, I, I'm okay about asking for help.

Right, Right.

But if somebody just says, oh, I'll help you with that, it's.

It's much more likely that I'll be like, no, it's okay.

I got it.

Right.

Right.

And I feel like that's where the sweet spot is.

Just realizing in those moments, you know, maybe I'll say yes this time, and you don't have to be extreme like me and try to, like, you know, take it, help all the time.

But I would say the first place to start is to just notice and see what you do.

You know, see what your natural habit is to say yes or to say no.

And just know down the line, it may be impactful to you.

Yeah, it seems like noticing is a lot of what we're talking about today.

Yes, yes.

Awareness is the key to life.

I am very convinced of that.

You know, we go through life very blindly most of the time.

We go through life, as I mentioned earlier, reacting.

And that's because, you know, one of my other teachers, Joseph Goldstein, says, unchecked, our thoughts are like little dictators of the mind.

Our thoughts are telling us what to do.

Our thoughts are.

We are reacting to those thoughts.

And when you start to bring awareness to those thoughts, to your actions, to your habitual ways of being from that place, you can just start to see, like, you know, maybe I want to make some adjustments.

Maybe you don't.

Maybe you're like, wow, I just noticed.

I'm incredible just how I am.

And if that's you, I want to meet you.

That's right.

Good for you.

I'm sure you're incredible in many ways, but we all have those things that.

We all have our things.

Yep.

Yeah.

That we react to.

And like you said, a lot of them come with the family because they know how to trigger us.

Yeah.

So as the Eldest daughter, how has being the prime or one of the primary care partners for your mom from a distance impacted your relationship with your siblings and your stepfather?

So with my sisters, we definitely have gone through some rocky periods.

And I in the thick of those rocky periods, I thought it was about them changing.

I thought it was about them showing up more for mom or more in the ways that I thought they should show up for mom.

But with some investigation, I figured out, wait a minute, this is about me changing my expectations of others in terms of realizing that everyone is reacting to dementia in their own way.

Everyone, whether I think so or not, is doing, literally doing the best that they can at any given moment.

So, you know, we, we went through Apache period for sure, where it was like a tug of war emotionally, I would say, and we loved each other through all of it.

There was never that, you know, there was never a period where I felt like worried about my relationship long term with them, but there was a period of time where I certainly thought, I don't know if I'll be able to see them in the same way.

But I realized that all of that was for me because, like, we're never going to be able to control all of life to a.

In a way that suits us, whether that's the traffic or the way my sisters show up or the way sue at work emails me, like, we're never going to be able to control everything, to be this perfect little way that makes us feel good.

So what can we control ourselves, you know?

So I applied that to my sisters and I was like, you know what?

I gotta change myself.

And I am consistently going through the same challenge with my stepdad.

It's a little bit more difficult for me with my stepdad because we are going in this together.

And I fundamentally don't agree with a lot of his choices and have had to learn to, to remember that my mom picked this person and, and, and see things from that place and, you know, realize that not everything is mind to control.

So it's been, it's been challenging for sure.

But changing my own perception is what has been getting me through this.

Changing the way that I approach my stepdad is, is what's getting me through this.

Like, there's always going to be someone or something that we don't agree with in life.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, yeah, you're speaking my language, you know, because I'm the eldest and I do feel a lot of need to control things and manage and organize and all of that.

And not everybody sees it my way.

Right.

What?

Right.

I mean, it's like the best.

I'm kidding.

But, I mean, that is.

That's a struggle.

That's a struggle when you're that personality.

Yeah.

And.

And I think you're brilliant to say, you know.

Well, it.

Like we would say in coaching, it's a learning opportunity for you to look at yourself and realize all you can control is yourself.

So thank you for that.

That's brilliant.

Yeah.

I wanted to ask you about one moment with your mom that, despite all these challenges, still brings joy or reminds you of the love that you share with her.

Probably listening to music together.

I have had times where.

Well, first of all, my mother is a huge music lover.

Both my mom and my dad, music is just like, in their soul, in their blood.

My dad was a musician from a very young age.

He played drums.

He no longer plays, but my mom was a singer.

She was an actress all of her life, up until her.

Her adulthood.

I got that from them.

And so from the very beginning stages of this music was a way of connection with my mom.

And my.

My husband collects records, so we would.

And he loves psychedelic rock, just like my mom.

So we have had periods of time when, you know, she was more cognizant where we would put on records, and he would think it was very obscure, and my mom would immediately know who it was.

And through the years, you know, as her memories have faded, she may not be able to say the name.

She no longer maybe sings the song or sings the melody any longer, but she still is very in tune with the way that it sounds.

And she and I can connect over these songs, and it's just.

It's just beautiful.

I.

It's funny.

I've had moments in the middle of singing a song with my mom.

Her favorite.

Some of her favorite musicians are the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, the Moody Blues.

You know, these are some of her favorite artists.

So she started saying, this is my favorite song all the time.

She would say, we would put a song on.

My mom would say, this is my favorite song.

So I started a playlist.

It's called this is My Favorite Song by Patti.

So I have this playlist that I have spent years compiling, and, you know, I'll play that for her.

And she doesn't sing the words anymore, but we sway and, you know, it's funny, because I don't know the words to a lot of these songs.

I know the melody.

That's my generation, right?

Well, I mean, yeah, but, I mean, I grew up with this music, so I know it, but I'm just.

I'm pretty bad with lyrics overall.

I'm more of just a music type person.

But anyway, so.

So it's funny because I often think to myself, you know what?

I don't know the words either.

So what.

What are words anymore?

You know?

So it doesn't even bother me that she doesn't remember certain things.

But I've had times when I'm playing this playlist for her, Wendy, and I'm like, wow, this is.

This is going to help me when things are really quiet, like when my mom is no longer speaking, which will happen most likely, you know, most likely we'll still have the music.

And there may be a time where she can no longer even sway, but maybe it's a grabbing of my hand, maybe it's a.

Just sensing her energy in that moment, you know, So I know that music is going to be.

Continue to be the connection point until.

Until her last breaths.

I.

I'm just confident about that.

Yeah, I.

I think, you know, music is one of the last things to go.

It just touches a nerve in us.

It touches a brain spark in us.

And, you know, I know my mother used to volunteer at the Alzheimer's support rehab center where she lives, and music would just light people up, even if they couldn't get out of their chair or their bed or they just could feel the music.

So, yeah, that's.

I often think of that old movie with Robin Williams called Awakenings.

I don't know if you remember that.

And I loved that movie when I was a kid.

And it's interesting that I loved that movie so much as a kid and now experiencing a similar experience because it truly does, you know, light my mom up and wake her up and in a.

In a sense, and it's so beautiful.

So music is our thing.

I.

I just.

I'm so grateful for.

For all of the times we've connected over that.

Yeah, I'm grateful that you've discovered that.

That's cool.

Yeah.

So if you could go back 10, 11 years to your talk to yourself at that beginning part of the journey, what kind of advice would you give yourself?

I would tell myself two things.

I would tell myself to go easier on myself.

During the first seven years of this journey, when my mom was staying with me or when I was in Florida, I would rush through every shower.

I would hurry to get ready.

I would put my own needs dead last.

And just to make sure that she was okay, to make sure she was happy to go back to what we were Saying so I would just tell myself, take it easy.

Take it easy on yourself.

Because the next thing I would say is, you don't have to fix everything.

And with that one, though, Wendy, I'm gonna take it a step further.

Okay.

Not everything is ours to fix.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

Because you know what part of living this life is.

Everyone needs to go through their own stuff, whatever that stuff is, you know, not everything is ours to fix.

We as the eldest, we as the type A personality, myself as a Virgo, you know, we just want to fix everything.

We want to control and fix, but every single person has to go through their own life experiences.

And dementia is part of my mom's.

It's not to shame her or anything.

Just like part of my life experience to go through is stress.

You know, that's just something that I have always learned to work with, you know, so we, we go through these things in life as individuals.

And I can't imagine if someone was looking into my life and trying to fix all of these things for me.

It's not.

Does not need.

All need to be fixed.

What my mom needs is a safe environment, a loving environment.

She needs to be well taken care of.

But outside of that, you know, I don't have to fix everything.

And I put so much pressure on myself at the beginning.

I put so much pressure on myself.

I thought I started to allow it to turn into my whole personality that I was going to just fix everything and be the one to everyone.

And it's not sustainable and it's not healthy for myself.

And I think that we owe it to ourselves to.

To show up better for ourselves.

So, yeah, I would give my.

I would give myself 11 years ago a big hug.

You know, I just.

A big hug.

Like, you don't have to do it all.

Thank you for that.

Yes, a big hug.

Give yourself some grace.

Give yourself the ability to take a moment and, and take a breath and take care of yourself.

Yeah, this has been wonderful.

I.

Jessica, you are a very smart individual and, and very caring and compassionate and I appreciate all that you've said.

I want to share with, with the listeners on how they can find you and get in touch with you.

Jessica is on Instagram at Alzheimer's Underscore Awakening so you can connect with her there.

She said that you can email her@alzheimer's awakeningmail.com and she has started a sub stack which is paused for a little while, but I'm hoping she'll get back to it, which was.

It's really well written.

It's called An Alzheimer's Awakening as well.

So reach out to Jessica on one of those platforms and let her know how impactful this discussion has been for you.

But I know it has been for me, so thank you, Jessica.

Thank you, Wendy.

I am also in the process of formalizing my meditation offering.

So that is an Aware Life is my company for meditation.

I've started to teach live meditation classes here in my part of North Carolina and offer some things online.

So as soon as that comes to fruition fully, Wendy, I'll pass that along to you.

Oh, that would be wonderful.

Thank you.

I also want to remind you all to sign up for the newsletter the Real Talk About Aging.

Well, go to Bitbit ly Navigate Aging and we will have links to Jessica's recording there as well.

And oh yes, the podcast that I'm recommending this month, you know, as we're in our collaboration group, is tied in beautifully with Alzheimer's and caregiving.

It's called Fading Memories.

And the host of Fading Memories is Jennifer Fink and she discusses brain health recommendations, effective caregiving techniques and self care strategies, all crucial for aging well and navigating the challenges of caregiving.

And Jennifer was a caregiver to her mother with Alzheimer's.

So tune into Fading Memories for practical advice and compassionate support through your caregiving journey wherever you listen to podcasts.

I'm also excited to tell you about our episode for next week because I'm giving it.

Yay.

This episode is near and dear to my heart and has heightened my awareness on some of the challenges of long distance grandparenting.

I was and have been a long distance grandparent while my grandchildren were young.

And now that they're teens and a couple of them are away at school, maintaining close ties has become a challenge again.

So having the connections with our grandchildren that we dreamed about is not necessarily our reality.

Some of like what Jessica said, you know, it's about moderating our thoughts and what we can control.

So we're going to explore this and I will share some ideas with you that I believe will help.

That's really cool, Wendy.

I love that topic.

Awesome.

Yeah, I'm going to listen to that one.

Oh good.

Thank you.

I.

I really learned a lot putting it together, so I.

That's wonderful.

Yeah, I love when that happens.

Yeah.

I also want to remind you all to tune in to our spot sponsor, Greenwood Capital and thank them for sponsoring this podcast.

It's an independent registered advisory firm providing wealth management, investment solutions and financial planning to clients in 23 states.

So thank you all for being part of the boomer banter community, for listening, for commenting, and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Thanks, Jessica.

Thanks, Wendy.