Caregivers and Self Esteem

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Call 866-WIN-ASIA or to see chickens and other animals to donate, go to crittercampaign.org. Hey, this is Larry the Cable Guy. You are listening to Hope for the Caregiver with Peter Rosenberg. And if you're not listening to it, you're a communist, Peter. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. How are you doing? How are you holding up? How are you feeling? 877-655-6755.

877-655-6755. If you want to be a part of the show, as always, I am joined by himself, the Count of Mighty Disco, John Butler, everyone. John, how are you feeling? Oh, I am just fantastic.

Peter, how about yourself? I think I'm good. I think I'm good. I think I'm good for a man of my age and limited abilities. I think I'm good.

Okay. Speaking of which, I wanted to jump into something. We had a, I thought, a very powerful back and forth conversation going on last week that I hated to end. And you did too, because you were like, oh gosh, I got 30 minutes more worth of notes here.

So I didn't want to depart from that too much. And I want to jump right in that with the audience today. And by the way, if you're watching it on Facebook Live, we are glad to have you with us. And we filmed the, we film. We don't even use film. We do the show.

Well, that's true. You do. We stream the show on Facebook Live through our pages at Standing with Hope and Hope for the Caregiver and our group, Hope for the Caregiver group that we have. And then we podcast the show out, publish the podcast, maybe usually on Tuesdays. So this is, we do this on Sunday afternoon. We do it live and folks are welcome to call in that are watching the show live and streaming.

It's 877-655-6755. And then we broadcast the show live every Saturday morning on American Family Radio, The Truth Network, His Radio, and other stations as well, about 200 stations. So just for those who are just now joining this and seeing this for the first time, John and I have been together on this show for, since really its inception. We're now in our eighth year together and we have banged around a lot of ideas. We've done the show in traditional broadcasting, but we went to this podcast to be able to open up some ideas and expand it and so forth. And that's some of the things that we talk about. So that's just a little bit of housekeeping. I just want to get into that.

You could always see more at Hopeforthecaregiver.com. All right, John, self-esteem. How are you doing? Oh, self-esteem.

Well, I'm fine. Self-esteem. And this is an issue that many, many, many caregivers struggle. I think this is part of the human condition. Oh, of course. Yeah.

And we talk about this a lot, that caregivers just deal with the human condition writ large, like on a magnified level. Yeah. And often relentlessly.

Yeah. I mean, it just keeps, you know. It keeps coming, baby. But when I say self-esteem to you, what does that say to you, John? What drives it in your mind?

Well, the self is, well, to hold one in high esteem is that I really like the English language and the phrase self-esteem just makes sense to me to have a decent opinion of oneself. And not, you know, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, right? Show them mine. That's better than what I did, John, which is the 60s and 70s. There you go.

Well, no, no, no. It was a bit of an experimental time as far as, well, they all are, as far as child raising and, you know, what went on in schools and things like that. And we were, it was drilled into us that self-esteem was an important part of who we were. And sometimes people went overboard with it where, you know, oh, the child can do no wrong or, you know, you have to feel good about yourself even if you mess up. And you do, but like people didn't take that the right way. So I have a complicated relationship with the phrase self-esteem, but in the way that it's meant, I really like it.

That you have to value yourself. I think this is, this is where I want to land. You've taken this on this nice little meander through the park, and then you landed exactly where I wanted you to land, John. And by the way, we don't coordinate that. There's no coordination here at all. Even though we play piano. Well, that's true.

But we, John and I, we did show prep this week, all of two minutes. And the reason, and there is actually, there is a design to that and I will give, I will give some shade. Is that the right word now?

Is that the proper term? Are you throwing shade? Wait a minute. Is shade good or shade bad? Shade's bad. Okay.

I will give some light. So I never know. But no, I remember when I first started doing the show. And when WLAC back in Nashville hired me, well, they didn't hire me. I actually hired them because I bought the time on the show. But, but they, they vetted me. And part of that is when you go on a terrestrial radio station of that magnitude, of that size, you know, they're going to vet you.

They're not going to just put anybody on there. Their standards were low, but they weren't that low. Right, right. The check did clear.

That's a really important thing. That was the standard. But no, they said, all we ask is that you never script the show. And I, I never, I didn't, I defaulted to that because I've never script anything in that regard.

Because I don't, I don't like to do that. When I give a speech somewhere, I have prepared notes, you know, that I'll have like a, like an outline or I'll hit, and sometimes that outline is scribbled on a piece of paper. And you know who, by the way, you know where I first saw that? Richard Pryor. Richard Pryor. A set list that was scribbled on like a napkin. And it was like one of his more famous set list. Yeah, because he, his, his bits were rehearsed and he had lines that, you know, he had jokes that he would do. But, you know, just, okay, what's the order?

And I go, okay, I'm going to do this, this set of jokes, this set of jokes, this set of jokes, and here's the rough outline of everything. And that's a lot of, you know. I just thought that was kind of interesting the way his mind worked. And to me, I just kind of went that way. Now, there's some people that don't like that, Jon.

I mean, there's some people that truly want everything organized and rehearsed. Right. And that's okay, but you have to be really good at it for a radio style thing.

And especially for like a podcast, like what this has become, you can't really, you know, it's not Orson Welles' War of the Worlds. That's a different type of thing. Right.

This is not a serial broadcast. Yes. But we are, we try to, Jon and I, both of us like jazz and improvisational type music. And so what you do is you perfect your instrument to the best of your ability and really work on it.

But then part of perfecting it is sitting there with other people and continuing to do music together and see if it works and it blends. And from day one, Jon and I have blended and it's been a wonderful thing. And I've come to treasure his insights to things. So when we get into these issues of the human condition, it's like being with a, you know, a keyboard player being with a great bass player kind of thing.

And it just, yeah, okay. And then it gives us the idea to plumb this a little bit more. And that's what brings us to this topic today.

So we have kicked around some of these things over the eight years, but I find that we keep circling back to the same, some of the same issues, but going deeper. And so self-esteem, I have come to understand for many, many caregivers is a difficult place, is a difficult challenge. And some people immediately balk at it and go the direction you thought. Well, everybody gets a trophy kind of self-esteem. Exactly, yeah.

And it's not. It is recognizing the inherent and intrinsic value of something or someone and affirming that value. And whether or not they make a mistake or there are any kind of flaws in it, do not detract from the value of the individual, but at the same time don't need to be glossed over. Right. Well, they're separate things. The value that you hold for yourself is, that's independent of a lot of stuff.

It's not about just getting a trophy no matter what. It is, I've changed a lot of the way I talk about things because of the show, because we've been doing it for about eight years, but the idea of grace is very similar. Well, and I married a woman named Grace because I need to understand the concept of it and I'm still working on that. Right, right. So, here's the context of what we're dealing with as caregivers. I'm going to paint a scenario that John, and then I want you to riff on that. Okay, okay.

No, the scenario is… Here's your solo time and I'll get mine here in a little bit. Well, a caregiver is doing the best they can to care for someone, but that individual is belittling them or devaluing them verbally or abusing them verbally or doing things that are constantly assaults back on the identity or the self-worth of that individual, of the caregiver. So, how does the caregiver maintain a level of confidence in their own value when someone they hold dear or that looms large in their life is able to absolutely jab at that constantly? Yeah, and that's, I mean, that's the big question is how do you maintain that in the face of relentless assault?

And I'll give you an example. I've had many calls to the show about someone taking care of an abusive parent and they were struggling on two levels. One of them, the parent was abusive. One guy I think of in particular that called in and his father was an alcoholic. He was an alcoholic his entire life and then his father abandoned the family, left the family, whatever, but they tried to somehow have some kind of relationship and then the father had a life event, fall or something that required him to receive a lot of care. But the alcoholism was still continuing and so the abusive behavior, verbal abusive behavior and the shaming and all that kind of stuff from his father as an alcoholic and I'll never forget the guy and he said, I'm 52 years old.

I have a wife and three kids and every time I'm around this man, I feel like I'm a nine-year-old boy. Okay, that was the conversation I'm having with this guy and then into that he brings in the part of his faith that says, how do I honor my father as scripture asks me to do and commands me to do? It's one of the commandments, honor thy father and mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God gives.

That's in Exodus and he's like, how do I reconcile this? And this is the starting point where I had this conversation with this guy, but I've had this with many other people along the way, many other people. It's almost like, John, when you sign up to become a caregiver, they give you your t-shirt that says I'm a caregiver, your baseball cap says I'm a caregiver and oh, by the way, here's your self-esteem issues card that you're going to have to carry around with you. Right, right.

If you get a punch three times, you get a free sandwich, you know? And that's, it's like, that's almost, it's like part of the job. And what I was able to do, the first thing I told him was, here's the deal, honoring your father and mother, that scripture is important. I believe it is absolutely intrinsic to our life as human beings. It is, I believe it is a, it is not only important for us to do, it is a commandment from God himself to do it. And I do not see that that automatically means that we have to honor alcoholism. Doesn't mean we have to even like them. No, not alcoholics, alcoholism.

Oh, no, no, I know, I'm just saying a side thing, sorry. But it's, or do we have to honor Alzheimer's or any other type of impairment because oftentimes we as caregivers are caring for a loved one, but in reality, we're not embracing the loved one, we're embracing their impairment. And it's their impairment that is speaking those things out to us, that is affecting that self-esteem. A healthy, normal human being, healthy, normal human being, not healthy necessarily physically, but a healthy, emotionally and spiritually human being that is receiving care would not be abusive. There would be a graciousness back and forth, like you said, grace, there would be that extension of gratitude and grace and back and forth and back and forth that would be mutually affirming to each other and edifying to each other.

But when you're dealing with somebody who's impaired, that's not the case. And you're getting, you're extending grace and getting back, you're getting toxicity and abuse, which goes to the core of who you are as an individual and you do it long enough and you'll start to believe it. And this is what we're going to talk about today and John and I are going to tackle this a little bit more and I want you to just hang tough with us in this, okay? This is the show for caregivers. It's for you. Hopeforthecaregiver.com, 877-655-6755.

We'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger and in 1983 I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated.

I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me, but over time my questions changed and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs led me to establish Standing With Hope. For more than a dozen years we've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people.

On a regular basis we purchase and ship equipment and supplies and with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up.

That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie and I am standing with hope. I'm alive, lift up my voice above the chaos and the noise. Cause I'm a hope amidst the pain. I shout this song against the rain. Rejoice, evermore, evermore. Welcome back to Hope For The Caregiver.

I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. That is Gracie singing Rejoice.

I'm alive, lift up my voice. I love that when she sings that. There's such a resolute determination. I asked Gracie the other day, I said, how would you describe yourself? And she said, I'm determined. And I said, yes you are baby.

Yes you are. And the name of that CD is Resilient and you can get a copy of that at hopeforthecaregiver.com. Do yourself a favor, get that. We'll send it to you. You can support what we're doing here at hopeforthecaregiver.com.

501C3, you can go out there, just click on the donate button, whatever is on your mind. We'll send you a copy of that CD and I think you'll like it. I love listening to it for me and I get to hear her sing it live with me. So that's always fun too. So 877-655-6755, we're talking about self-esteem and the family caregiver.

So as we left you on a cliffhanger here. So what happens is so many caregivers are dealing with people who are suffering from some level of impairment, okay, some level of impairment. If that impairment affects who they are emotionally and spiritually, you know, in their core, who they are as a person to the point where they can't function appropriately in that regards. Caregiver is in real danger of believing the distortion that comes out of their mouth. And you see this a lot with family members of sundowning patients.

All throughout the day they seem to be okay. Oh, but then when sundowning hits, at the end of the day, they turn into a different person. And they will say, and I went through this with a friend of mine taking care of her husband. They've been married, you know, almost 60 years.

And he just became a different person in the evening. And she was crushed. Her spirit, you could just see she was just crushed by this. And I pulled her aside and I said, look, these particular people happen to be very well off financially. And this again proves my point that you can give a bag of cash to caregivers and they're not going to know what to do with it sometimes.

Because our brains become squirrel cages. And here's a lady who knew all these things, but she became so disoriented by all that was going on and she felt guilty. She felt like she was obligated to do this, to take care of her. And I said, you've got the money.

Spend the money and get 24-7 care and do not get around him at this part of the evening. Just back away. And to her credit, she did. Well, that's excellent. Excellent.

And that's one of those easy things to do, you know, if you've got the money. Or other resources, but if you don't have the money, then that's why we're doing this show. Because if you don't have it, then we're going to give you some tools here to be able to deal with that and hopefully some perspective.

Exactly. And we're trying to figure out how to maintain that self-esteem. And that's a practical piece of advice.

Just don't be around them during that time, whatever your particular situation happens to be. Because really the larger issue is you valuing yourself and not falling victim to the lies that somebody else's brain is telling them. Or somebody else's diseases tell them.

Or somebody else's alcohol or drugs are telling them. In vino veritas, you know what that means? Yeah, in wine there is truth. Right. But in booze, not so much.

That will go to a point where maybe a glass of wine or something like that may loosen the tongue and say what the person really feels. Correct. But in alcoholism, no. It's a real impairment.

It's a disease. And this kind of goes back to the individual you were talking about earlier, the gentleman and his father who he ended up caring for after a period of estrangement even. How do you honor your father and your mother in the middle of that and fulfill your obligation?

Well, it's not going to be fun, I'll tell you that. But it's also, if you're honoring them, then getting them help and getting them out of this alcoholism is probably close to the top of your list. And if that's not possible, because you can't make somebody… That's correct. Yeah, you can't do it. It may not be possible, but you've still got to survive in this. And here's a phrase you may want to hang on to. They may not make it, but you have to. They may not make it, but you have to. Because if you go down, then what happens? And if you go down emotionally, if it takes you down in a dark place… When I set out to do this show, I purposed in my heart that I was going to do everything that I could to build up a family caregiver.

You know, whatever timeframe I had in the show, at the end of that show, I wanted to make sure that my fellow caregivers were in a better place than they were when I found them. And that is not a one and done type of journey. Okay, that is a constant repetition of this is what we got to do. And this is the way we push back against this so that we're not taken down into the depths of this thing because it will take you down and you start believing it.

And these are horrific things to believe. So you don't have to go out there and listen to a bunch of cheesy self-help stuff like, you know, remember Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live? Good enough. I'm smart enough.

Doggone it. People like me. No, no, that's not how this works. But you do have to listen to clear thinking from someplace.

That's not your own squirrel cage of a head, you know. Don't believe everything you think, you know, because that will take you into some bad places because I can't do that with myself. I cannot believe everything I think. I am too cognizant of too many of my faults.

I'm not cognizant enough of all of them. Well, that's a thing that can damage your self-esteem. And I like where you're going with this because if you, as caregivers, it's very easy to notice the times that we fail and notice our faults and really put primacy on them in a way that we're trying to fix it.

We're trying to fix this about ourselves. So we think about these flaws an awful lot and that can be damaging to how you value yourself. And listening to a voice outside of that can be incredibly valuable. It is. In fact, I would say even more than incredibly valuable, I'm going to go ahead and say that is an imperative. That we cannot simply rely on our best thinking.

My best thinking got me into a lot of messes. And so, you know, same. So we can't rely on that. So we have to rely on credible sources to speak into that.

And I've got one particular starting off point that we want to do on that topic when we come back from the break. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. 877-655-6755. If you want to be a part of the show, we'll be right back.

Hey, this is Peter Rosenberger. Have you ever helped somebody walk for the first time? I've had that privilege many times through our organization Standing with Hope. When my wife Gracie gave up both of her legs following this horrible wreck that she had as a teenager and she tried to save them for years and it just wouldn't work out. And finally she relinquished them and thought, wow, this is it. I mean, I don't have any legs anymore.

What can God do with that? And then she had this vision for using prosthetic limbs as a means of sharing the gospel, to put legs on her fellow amputees. And that's what we've been doing now since 2005 with Standing with Hope. We work in the West African country of Ghana and you can be a part of that through supplies, through supporting team members, through supporting the work that we're doing over there.

You can designate a limb. There's all kinds of ways that you can be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking at standingwithhope.com. Would you take a moment to go out to standingwithhope.com and see how you can give?

They go walking and leaping and praising God. You can be a part of that at standingwithhope.com. As a caregiver, think about all the legal documents you need. Power of attorney, a will, living wills, and so many more. Then think about such things as disputes about medical bills. What if instead of shelling out hefty fees for a few days of legal help, you paid a monthly membership and got a law firm for life? Well, we're taking legal representation and making some revisions in the form of accessible, affordable, full-service coverage.

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The girl can sing. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver, 877-655-6755. This is Peter Rosenberger and this is the show for you as a family caregiver. It's for caregivers. It's about caregivers. It's hosted by a caregiver and we speak fluent caregiver here.

This is John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco. We're talking about self-esteem. As we launch into this part of the show here, I wanted to tease you with a particular concept that came to me some years ago. This is actually before I even wrote the book, Hope for the Caregiver, which is available, by the way, wherever books are sold, John.

Absolutely. I was going to say, you got to get the plug in, man. Wherever books are sold, you too can have a copy of that book. How do we do it? Volume. That's the key. How do we do it?

Drop shipping with Amazon. When somebody approached me about writing a book for the family caregiver, the publisher was talking about all these little, and they were nice quotes, John. I mean, they weren't in the concept of what they had. It was like, we want to do this.

Would you work with this on this project? And they had already had some things in play and I looked at them and I said, not like this. No. And I threw out pretty much everything they had except, you know, the cover art. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And even that was changed.

So then I said, no, because they were writing these little trite sayings that you can get off of any t-shirt or meme on the internet. I was going to say fortune cookie. Yeah, it really was. It was a Hallmark card with a caregiver twist, you know, kind of thing. And I thought, no, I'm not doing this. But not really, you know.

It's generic. And with caregivers, I think we need to be very, very specific. And I landed on several particular axioms that were just unrefutable truths of caregiving, of caregivers. And I really try to stay away from caregiving because I can't tell you how to take care of your loved one anymore. You tell me take care of mine. I mean, we have some basic tools that we can use in that and dealing with doctors and so forth, insurance companies and all that.

Hey, get some tech for your house or whatever, you know. Yeah. But all of this is going to be done on a heart level with the caregiver and help them be able to breathe a little easier. And one of those irrefutable truths of caregivers is that caregivers are brutal upon themselves when it comes to their job performance.

We see every flaw, we push ourselves to inhuman lengths to do amazing tasks, and yet we are constantly self-borating. And this is not even up for discussion about it because it's just too widespread, what goes on in caregivers. And I thought, I'm going to launch into that particular issue with my books, with my message, with everything. And I spoke to that issue very clearly and I said, if you're going to judge yourself by your performance record, then be fair and equally judge yourself by your attendance record. And the reason I did that was two reasons.

One of them is I wanted to give perspective to caregivers to realize what you are doing in this job is extraordinary. You are facing an unconquerable foe and an impossible task. The best scenario is that it ends at a grave. But not yours. Exactly. And so you keep showing up for that. And I was speaking at a conference, I did a Zoom conference. Every day you show up, there's three more heads. Now I got to deal with that. Well, I was speaking at a conference out of Northeast Florida on Friday and they asked me to be the closer for this thing. This was my first...

Headline. No, I've done lots of these things, but I'm doing it online. So I'm speaking and they mute the entire audience so that you don't have the back and forth with the people observing. And so I'm just speaking to a camera and trying to think, is this even registering? Is this on?

Is this on? But then they asked me to pull up the comment sections, the host and the facilitator, and I just saw line after line after line where people were weeping. And they were, and they realized, oh, wait a minute, we never thought of it that way. We never thought of it that way. That maybe we are valuable. You know, we are presumed upon so much that we start to believe that we're not as valuable as we really are.

Because what is it? And I looked at the camera trying to hopefully just reach to the camera to say this because when I speak to audiences, I see it. But this was one of those things where I had no idea if it was even resonating, but clearly it was that, oh my goodness, what I'm doing as an individual is extraordinary and I keep showing up to do it.

However bloody, bludgeoned, how much I'm swearing under my breath, you know, whatever else, I keep showing up. What does that say about me? And I'll never forget the piece of advice that a friend of mine gave me. He said, if you met somebody who does what you do, how would you treat them? And he said, I would be friends with somebody who treated me the way that I treat myself. And I thought that's a place for caregivers to hang out for a little bit and understand that concept that it is okay for us to put the whip down and stop self-flagellating.

That just, we are just without mercy to ourselves. And so I wanted to have that conversation about self-esteem for my fellow caregivers so that they could see that maybe, maybe, just maybe it's okay to stop for a moment and look at this from a little bit different perspective. And you don't get that perspective unless you've kind of been doing this for a while. You know, it takes a long time to gain some perspective because when you get to the beginning of the journey with caregivers, you're throwing yourself into this recklessly. I mean, you are hurling yourself into the reckless, into this caregiving scenario you found yourself in. And maybe it only lasts for a couple of months, maybe it lasts for a couple of years, but when it goes on for decades and now I'm in my 35th year of this, you have to change the way you think at some point.

Yeah. It doesn't really fit in line exactly, but you know, if you're doing this for long enough, you end up with, oh, this is a problem I haven't run into before, you know, an issue of the heart that kind of has a different way of going about it. Let me appreciate this like a fine wine. Well, you do.

But the problem is, as caregivers, we live such a frenetic pace. Right. So how do you sip something slowly when all you have time to do is guzzle it through the big straw? It's just a McDonald's straw.

I mean, and you know, two slurps and it's gone. But this requires a little bit of processing and it requires not only a little bit, it's like a soaker hose with your garden. And you cannot put the fire hose on this thing. And, you know, don't water daisies with a fire hose. I've been saying that for years, John.

Don't water daisies with a fire hose. I like that. I don't know if that's ever come up in our conversations.

So yeah, I'm just stealing that. But this is one of those things you've got to not only, you've got to do it gently, but then you have to do it repetitively. It needs to be repeated often, over and over and over. And I would reiterate, we've said this on the show before, Healthiness, emotional healthiness and physical healthiness and spiritual healthiness, financial healthiness, any form of healthiness is intentional. It's never accidental. You just never accidentally find yourself on the treadmill.

You know, healthiness is intentional and it is repetitive. And we're going to mess up. We're going to have days where we gobbled down a carton of ice cream. Or that hot and ready Krispy Kreme sign is open. I mean, it is blaring at us and it's calling us.

It's like it's got its own gravitational pull. You know, we're going to have that. I feel seen. I'm in this picture and I don't like it. That is diabolical.

It's got a tractor beam on it like the Death Star. But we're going to have those moments. And we're going to have those moments when we believe what somebody with an impairment is saying to us. And I'm asking you in those moments, in those moments, would you consider the source?

Would you just consider the source? And are you sure that you want to turn over the assessment of your self-worth to this individual in their impairment? OK, that's the key for us as caregivers.

Can we be a little bit more judicious at this? And in a practical way, sometimes that might mean hitting the golf course. Sometimes that might mean doing things that you feel are failures. But keeping yourself healthy or going to see your doctor, all these things that we talk about on a regular basis. They can be really, really reaching out to an old friend. And surrounding yourself with people is to the best of your abilities, even in the COVID-19 world.

Pick up the phone and call somebody who you know that values you. And values you in the midst of all this stuff. I got a friend of mine whose son was taking care of her ex-husband. It was kind of a rocky situation. But the son ended up staying at home taking care of his dad. And he's in his mid-twenties. And he had a group of guys his age. And every week they got together at a local pub. And he's the only one that didn't drink in this group. But they all got together at this pub. But they all loved this guy. And they just hung out.

And they just affirmed him in this. And he was able to kind of, it was like going to an oxygen bar instead of a hookah bar. I don't know why that just flew into my head.

There was one in the news here in Nashville recently. A hookah bar or oxygen? No, a hookah bar.

Is that what they call it by the way? A hookah bar? A hookatarium or what? What do they call it?

What is the word there? I think it is a bar. But sometimes a lounge or whatever. A hookah den.

There you go. I think they were called opium dens back at a different time. But in this particular case, this was a place of, it was a self-esteem bar for him. It was a place where he could go and his buddies affirmed him in the very difficult journey that he was on.

And he was able to just kind of be who he was. And if we don't have those kind of people in our lives, and caregiving by definition is isolating. It's one of the three I's we deal with. And so you cannot have community accidentally. Community and those relationships, those healthy relationships are intentional.

And so I started off with this show many, many years ago as a way to penetrate into that isolation and then hopefully build up the desire and the courage and help caregivers see the value of cultivating those kinds of individuals in their lives. Where you've got to have somebody who can help you orient your mind and your heart in space. I remember this as just a side note, but I was talking to one of Gracie's doctors and she was having benign positional vertigo. BPV. That's what they call it.

I had no idea of such a thing. I said, why is she struggling? She's never had this before. He said, well, you need to understand the way we orient ourselves in space is eyes, legs, your vision, legs, there's certain senses that work. And once her legs were gone, it became very difficult for her to orient herself in time and space, in 3D orientation.

Isn't that kind of weird? And so when she had an ear, well, she had some kind of inner ear thing that went on and it was causing some problems, but it really affected her because she couldn't put her feet on the floor per se. I mean, their prosthetic, if she wasn't wearing her prosthetic feet, she didn't have that anchoring that you and I would have. And so it caused her some real problems with vertigo for a season until we kind of figured that out with some right medications and changing some things up.

And I thought that was really fascinating that she was missing a key component to being able to be oriented and stable. Caregivers are in the same way. Relationships orient us. Healthy relationships. The thing you were talking about with just being isolated and that being, you know, it's not a necessary part of it, it's just an inevitable consequence of the caregiving journey. And, you know, trying to get around that is very difficult sometimes.

And it's not going to happen overnight. Well, sometimes it is. You can just call up your friend that you've known forever that you still have and be like, okay, hey, I'm dealing with this or just want to chitchat or whatever. But if you somehow have isolated yourself to the point where you have to rebuild those relationships that have happened. It can never be a one and done.

It can never be a one and done. It's a constant reinforcement of where I am in time and space, emotionally, like Gracie. I mean, she has to make sure she is oriented.

Otherwise, she will not be able to be balanced. How is that any different for us as caregivers? And this is the journey we're on here with this show is to help caregivers find that path so that they can be oriented. Hope for the caregiver dot com.

Hope for the caregiver dot com. This is Peter Rosenberger. We'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger. And in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

But over time, my questions changed and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding, along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs, led me to establish standing with hope for more than a dozen years. We've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standing with hope dot com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standing with hope dot com. I'm Gracie and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver, and we are glad to have you with us.

Eight seven seven six five five sixty seven fifty five. If you want to be a part of the show, you follow along on our social media sites and hope for the caregiver, our Facebook page. We also have a Facebook group to hope for the caregiver group that you can join. A couple of questions you have to ask to be a part of it. We try to filter out and we try to make it just to save places to kind of hang out as a caregiver.

We post stuff there and but on our Facebook page and hope for the caregiver. I put a lot of, you know, comments, cartoons. I like a lot of cartoons. You know, John, I have found that cartoons can carry such great truths.

And I'm a I'm a huge fan of the far side. And Gary Larson's come back and and it's and so I find those things. But I try to find things that are applicable to just drive home a little point. And it's all about perspective changing, all about perspective changing. And this is the way we're going to make it as caregivers is we have to see things from a different perspective.

We are so blinded by the trauma of what we're going through as caregivers that it's very difficult for us to even see the path. And I remember I remember one time we did a project. Gracie did a music project some years ago.

And she wrote in the credits to it. One of the most beautiful phrases I've ever I've ever seen. And she said to my husband, Peter, who has spent so long carrying me to heaven, but couldn't see the road himself. And and I was trying so hard to make sure Gracie got all the things she needed from from getting her to Jesus. So, you know, whatever I got to do. But I couldn't see the road very well myself.

And I think about those guys. Remember the story in the Gospel of John? I think it was. Maybe it was in Luke. Maybe it was in Mark. Could have been in Matthew.

But it was it was there. I know I've read it. But the guys that tore up the roof to lower the paralytic friend down to the roof. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You remember that story?

I do. You know, I've always thought about those guys that. First off, I wonder whose roof did they tear up? Right, right. I thought about that, too.

I'm like, wait, this is probably I mean, I get it, but it's some dude's house, man. And but did they ever consider how much they needed to be lowered down to Jesus as well? Did they ever consider how much their need of a savior was? And I've always thought about that.

Maybe that's something I'll be able to ask one day when I meet these fellows in glory. But it's those things kind of as a caregiver, I got to tell you, those things just kind of hit me. I always thought I always felt like Martha got a little bit of the sword into the stick from Jesus. When she was complaining about, you know, Lord, ask Mary to help me. You know, I'm over here slaving over a hot stove, you know, kind of thing. And she's like, now she's doing what she's supposed to do. And I'm like, wow, man, that felt cold. I was like, Jesus, what?

What are you saying to her? And I understand I've heard this spoken in the sermon and I get it. Right. So we don't need any letters.

We got it. I'm not questioning the Lord on this other than what am I missing here? Because obviously I'm missing something here because I have felt like that where I'm like, man, I'm doing everything. And Jesus over here spending time with Mary and affirming her that she's not even lifting a finger to help me kind of thing. I really, I really understood that.

And I think if my fellow caregivers are honest, I think this is there's no theological judgment here. And we're not this is not we're. John, I'm in the weeds here. You are. It's very easy to identify with Martha and to have someone, this being Jesus, that you that you admire, that you, you know, like this this person is so important and, you know, and to see that you are.

Hey, I'm over here doing something that I know is work that I don't really want to be doing if I had my druthers. But then having to resolve those emotional issues is something with which you identify. And I think we all can. I, I, I got to tell you, that's something that is I've never shifted on the air. And now we know why, John.

And now we know why. But I've never shared that on the air. But I, I have struggled with that.

And, and, and I, I'd be curious to find out if other caregivers do as well. But I don't know. But it's one of those things that I as I've wrestled with. The reason those stories end up in the book is because they're identifiable flaws.

I mean, they're things with their flaws, which we can all identify. Yeah, that's me. That's me. And so I, I just, I want to know, this will not be the last time we do this talk about this. But the next time we talk about it, we're going to go even deeper and deeper and deeper because I think this is the issue for us as caregivers. That it doesn't matter how good we can train change addressing.

It doesn't matter how good we can multitask or cook and clean and, and, and deal with doctors and all that kind of stuff. If our hearts are broken, if our, if our souls and spirits are crushed under the weight of somebody else just constantly flinging stuff at us and we're believing lies. And this is what happens when you deal with somebody who's impaired emotionally or sub with substance abuse or under the influence of some type of alcohol or addict, addictive medicine.

Even if it's prescription related, if they're impaired, mental health issues, please, please, please, as a caregiver, I'm asking you, please, please protect your heart from this. Please do this and go to the source. Go back to scripture and anchor yourself in how much God loves you.

Start there. Go through the Psalms and look at, go through Psalm 13. It's a very short Psalm. I've read that one many, many times and, and you hear David start off with these things, crying out just, I mean, he said, you know, my bed is just covered with tears, but then he keeps re-anchoring himself in the provision, the faithfulness of God. And you see this theme repeated out because you're not alone in struggling of why is this going on?

Why is this so messed up? And yet these, these wonderful saints that came before us who are just like us, just as messed up as we are, just as flawed as we are, and they keep finding these, these nuggets to hang on to in the midst of very difficult circumstances. And then I ask you to please cultivate people around you. And if all you have is this show, then listen to this show. You can download the podcast for free. We have almost 500 episodes and we have, this thing has exploded. It's wherever podcasts are. John, our podcast is, is from all the data I have, we are the number one podcast for caregivers in the world. I mean, there's nothing, I don't even think anybody's even close. And there are a lot of podcasts for caregivers, but, but what we've done here is something just, it's exploded.

So, exploded. So high out there in podcast land, everybody. So if you are, if it's free, take advantage of it.

Wherever you get a podcast, you can just, and share this with people if they, if they're on Apple or whatever. But the point is, is that if this is your starting point of just this show, then we are privileged to do so. To be that voice that speaks into you with clarity and speaks fluent caregiver and says, you know what, you are doing something extraordinary. You truly are. And you are an extraordinary individual. And what you're dealing with is brutal. And we ask you give the respect to the trauma that you're taking on in your own heart. And this is a place where you can hopefully catch your breath.

Take a knee, and then let's start developing healthier strategies for you to live a calmer, healthier, and dare I say it, a more joyful life. This is Hope for the Caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. John, as always, thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. Great insights.

We'll see you next week. Hey, this is John Butler, producer of Hope for the Caregiver, and I have learned something that you probably all know. That Gracie, his wife, lost her legs many, many years ago and started a prosthetic limb outreach ministry called Standing with Hope.

And recently they ended up with a rather unique and unexpected partner. Peter had a conversation with Gracie and take a listen. Gracie, when you envision doing a prosthetic limb outreach, did you ever think that inmates would help you do that?

Not in a million years. When you go to the facility run by CoreCivic over in Nashville, and you see the faces of these inmates that are working on prosthetic limbs that you have helped collect from all over the country, that you put out the plea for, and they're disassembling, you see all these legs, like what you have, your own prosthetic legs. And arms.

And arms. When you see all this, what does that do to you? Makes me cry. Because I see the smiles on their faces, and I know what it is to be locked someplace where you can't get out without somebody else allowing you to get out.

Of course, being in the hospital so much and so long. And so these men are so glad that they get to be doing, as one band said, something good finally with my hands. Did you know before you became an amputee that parts of prosthetic limbs could be recycled? No, I had no idea.

You know, I thought of peg leg, I thought of wooden legs, I never thought of titanium and carbon legs and flex feet and sea legs and all that. I never thought about that. As you watch these inmates participate in something like this, knowing that they're helping other people now walk, they're providing the means for these supplies to get over there.

What does that do to you, just on a heart level? I wish I could explain to the world what I see in there. And I wish that I could be able to go and say, this guy right here, he needs to go to Africa with us. I never not feel that way.

Every time, you know, you always make me have to leave, I don't want to leave them. I feel like I'm at home with them. And I feel like that we have a common bond that I would have never expected that only God could put together. Now that you've had an experience with it, what do you think of the faith-based programs that CoreCivic offers? I think they're just absolutely awesome. And I think every prison out there should have faith-based programs like this, because the return rate of the men that are involved in this particular faith-based program and the other ones like it, but I know about this one, is just an amazingly low rate compared to those who don't have them. And I think that that says so much.

That doesn't have anything to do with me. It just has something to do with God using somebody broken to help other broken people. If people want to donate a used prosthetic limbs, whether from a loved one who passed away or, you know, somebody who outgrew them, you've donated some of your own for them to do. How do they do that? Where do they find it? Oh, please go to standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Thanks, Gracie.