A Conversation With Leeza Gibbons

Peter Rosenberger.

He's not a preacher, but he's got great hair. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. How are you doing? How are you holding up? What's going on with you? This show is for caregivers, about caregivers, hosted by a caregiver. Now in my 35th year as a caregiver, bringing the benefit of a lot of failure to help those offer a lifeline to fellow caregivers, to point them to safety and say, hey, don't go down to that place.

That's a bad place down there. Been there, done that. 877-655-6755 if you want to be a part of the show. And let me introduce himself. You know him.

You love him. He's the Baron of the Board, Assault of the Sound, the Earl of Engineering, the man who auditioned to be Tom Cruise's stuntman. He is John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco.

What is this? Well, I always love having theme music. Thank you so much. Also, I got rejected for the part, by the way.

You're only about twice as tall as he is. Exactly. It was just not good. Also, I had a weird week. I had to sell my theremin.

I hadn't touched a thing in years, you know. Okay. Can we just go back and just do all the rest? Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Look, John, I've got a very special guest. I hear, I hear.

Yeah. She is just so gracious to do this. And one of the reasons I love having her on here because we're both fellow South Carolinians. And this is Emmy Award winning national treasure, Liza Gibbons. So Liza's with us. I love it. I'm the only one that has a live keyboard on a show like this.

That's the best I got. I wanted, I wanted my own theme music. John got his theme music. And so I'm so glad you had that on standby. Thank you.

We did. Well, that's not a standby. That was me playing it live. However poor. Come on. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, wow. He is a gift. You're something. We're doing it like Bill Murray.

Remember when he sang that on David Letterman's show? I do the, I keep a keyboard here, run through the board and we'd play some music sometimes and do some stuff, but we have a good time, but we are, we're thrilled to have you. How are you feeling? I'm really good. You know, I thought you were going to get into, uh, I heard, um, personally, I love your work. You guys are awesome. Thank you for what you do.

Really appreciate you. And, um, and, and I appreciate that you, first of all, that you incorporate music because we all know how important it is, but I do have a question for you guys that occurred to me when you were playing these various themes. Greatest, uh, TV theme song of all time. What would you say your vote? Ooh, I re okay.

I really like, I got to say the cheers theme, you know? Okay. Here's a good one.

I'm like, I like moonlighting, Al Jarreau. Oh, that's, you know, that was a little esoteric, I think. You know what? It depends on your TV, your TV viewing. Right. And, um, Oh, you don't run.

I just thought of two is WKRP in Cincinnati. Cause they all, they just tell these great stories, but do you want to hear what was the unofficial number one choice? Oh, go on. Yeah. Moving on up. That's a good one. Everybody loved this one. It's the age of 40.

I turned 40 in like five months. Okay. We do love, we do love music. And, uh, in fact, at the bottom of the hour when we're finished, uh, when, uh, do you, of course you can stay as long as you want.

John and I are going to be playing songs that caregivers should never sing and then caregivers should sing. And, uh, we, we have a list of things we're going to go through. Are you serious? Yeah. Oh, okay. So, so it's, uh, it's a, it's a, it's a surprising list that I've compiled with a team of experts.

Uh, Gracie and I just did it last night. I love that numerous individuals that live in his head. Are these songs, but wait, are the songs designed to help you get the care receiver to do something or to help you deal with some things that they do?

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's interesting to certain songs and also to, to listen to others that, you know, it's going to pump you up and, uh, um, and help you stay a little healthier, a little stronger, a little more. Well, it's like your book, you know, and just stay in a little bit more optimistic. Cause there's, there's some depressing songs out there. And, uh, it's a fun list.

We've, I had a team, like I said, a team of experts, me and Gracie last night. And, uh, I, I, I was just so happy and I just don't want to, I just don't want to, I just don't listen to them. I look at them and I look at the message and I just hear toxic enabling. And I'm thinking, come on people. Let's, let's pull up. Let's be adults here. But anyway, so we're gonna do that at the bottom of the hour, but we're glad to have you with us.

This is a subject of being a caregiver is near and dear to your heart. And for those who don't know your story, would you, can you bring us up to speed a little bit? Sure. I got recruited kicking and screaming like all of us. Um, nobody signs up. Nobody raises their hand.

Yeah, pick me, please. So, you know, when my mother got Alzheimer's disease, her mother, my granny, had the disease. And when my granny died, I was at the funeral watching my mother look into the face of her mother in the casket.

I was over my mother's shoulder, and then behind me were my kids. And it was that awful moment where, dagnabbit, I'm not, I can't escape that this is in my past. And, um, so it was, it was really that when, my life didn't make sense anymore. You know, like, I can keep going through the motions, and I, you know, I loved my work. I was hosting a talk show. You know, I loved everything about my life.

But it, all of the energy, as everybody who's ever been there knows, when there's a health crisis, none of that other stuff, it just falls to the wayside. And so I thought, okay, how do I fix my own problem? How do I cope with this?

How do I survive? And am I going to learn anything, you know, that I can pass on? And so that's what, that's really ultimately what caused me to create what we call Lisa's Care Connection, hands-on communities where we support caregivers. And, you know, we help you call on your courage and summon your strength. And we do things that you love to do.

We do drum circles and a lot of line dancing and laughter yoga and fun, empowering, positive things. You know, we appreciate a good cry. We appreciate a good scream.

We appreciate a good primal exhale. We're not going to just ignore that rage that's going on. But we're going to get on with believing that you shouldn't have to give up your life because you're caring for someone you love.

Well, and that's beautifully said. I mean, that's the message here on this show is that so many people just suspend their life. And I'll never forget, one lady told me, she said, you know, when her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, that she put everything on hold, quit her job and started taking care of her dad. Well, seven years later, he's still alive and she's bankrupt. Right, and not only bankrupt financially, but probably spiritually and emotionally, physically, probably very depleted, all that.

All of the above. And I thought, you know, this is, you don't have to, now you may have to be flexible. You may have to, you know, be creative. That's what the laughter yoga's for, Peter. That's what the laughter yoga is. Oh yeah, I see what you did there, John. I see what you did there. But, you know, and I'm all for that. Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.

But for us to not be financially healthy, physically healthy, spiritually healthy, emotionally healthy. These are, this is dangerous ground and we've got way too many caregivers. When they come into your care connection, and I want you to really spend some time talking about this care connect, you got one in Columbia, South Carolina, and you got one in Los Angeles, correct? Yeah, my hometown where I grew up, as you said, South Carolina, and then my kid's hometown, where I am now based for decades on the West Coast.

So those are our two bricks and mortar locations. Although right now, especially at that hospital location, you know, look, these are dark times for everyone. They are brutal times for caregivers who've lost that respite. They've lost their sense of physical identity. Their sense of loneliness is now just exonerated.

Their sense of isolation is for real. And so we've spent a lot of time, as have many others, looking at how can we keep that lifeline going? How can we stay connected?

What does it mean now to provide support? So it's more crucial than ever and easier than ever too, Peter and John, for people just to say, or to feel, you know, it seems so hard to make that phone call. Like it seems so hard to go to, even to attend that Zoom meeting. Sometimes there's just not enough energy or not enough willpower, not enough hope to get on with it. And those are the times when I think we really need to talk out loud to ourselves. It's funny, there was a study just this past week in one of the medical journals about the benefit of talking to yourself and that it really does help give you resolution. It does help give you answers. It helps make you feel more powerful in your own life.

And I feel good about that as much as I did feel good about the coffee studies that came out giving me permission for my caffeine addiction. So I thought, good, I'm talking to myself. That's really my own mental health. I'm my own therapist.

I'm not nuts. Yeah, and I saw that come around too. Yeah, yeah. No, but yeah, absolutely, things like that where we can get, you know, it feels like, oh, it's just, it's not outside advice or something like that, but, you know, our brains are strange and wonderful things. And there are some real benefits to these habits that we thought maybe weren't so great. We indulge in. I'm all for talking to myself.

I'm all for it too. That's, you know, I'm my best company and as long as we're aware of that track for the negative thoughts, you know, when you ask yourself, is that really true? And how would I feel about myself if I didn't have this thought? You can usually talk yourself off the ledge. When somebody shared that quote with me, and I don't remember who said it, but that strength isn't about, it's not as much about how much you can handle before you break. It's about how much you can endure after you've been broken. And I think that's so empowering to keep that in mind. It kind of gives you that permission to say, okay, this thing may break me to a certain extent, but, you know, the real strength is can I continue to endure?

Can I find a way around it, over it, through it? Can I face it? And when we ask ourselves at those dark moments where, you know, we've all been there, you know, how the hell am I gonna get through this? And then the next day you wake up, giving yourself credit, saying if this is where you're talking to yourself out loud, good job, you showed up again, great work, you kind of messed up there, you got a little depressed, you got a little overwhelmed, but look, you're awake today and you get to start all over, especially when you're caring for someone with Alzheimer's because they really don't remember that you messed up yesterday.

Well, one of the things I tell fellow caregivers is, you know, if we're going to judge ourselves by our job performance, which we do, we judge ourselves without mercy on our performance, I said then let's be fair, and let's judge ourselves also on our attendance record, which is enormous because we keep showing up and we don't have to show up perfect, we just keep showing up. When you, and we may have to cut to a break, but that's okay, you're familiar with all that kind of stuff, but when you, you're so successful, you're so optimistic, you are Lisa Gibbons, was it hard for people to wrap their mind around that you needed help? And was it hard for you to wrap your mind around that too and then ask for help? Was that a difficult thing for you?

Almost impossible in the beginning. It's one of the things of which I'm most proud that I have developed a skill set that allows me, most of the time, to admit my vulnerabilities, to ask for help and to help and to find the strength in that action. But yes, in the beginning, I just did what always worked for me all my life.

I got over busy and I got in that tailspin because that works. I'm going to find a solution. I'm going to have more work ethic. I'm going to have more, I'm going to apply more intelligence, more resourcefulness. I'm going to put more energy at this. And yeah, that's great.

But before any of that works, you kind of have to admit that you can't do those things by yourself. And it was really hard, really hard. And beyond water wings, that was a huge lifeline. We're talking with Lisa Gibbons. And she, Emmy Award, I mean, she's, everybody knows, she's a household name. She's also a caregiver. She's been there. She's done that. And we're going to talk a little bit more when we come back. This is Peter Rosenberger.

This is hope for the caregiver, healthy caregivers make better caregivers. So we'll wait. We'll be right back. 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. com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standingwithhope.com.

I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. 24-7 emergency support, increasing safety, reducing isolation. These things are more important than ever as we deal with the challenges of COVID-19. How about your vulnerable loved ones?

We can't always check on them or be there in ways we'd like. That's why there's constant companion, seamlessly weaving into the world. Constant companion, seamlessly weaving technology and personal attention to help push back against the isolation while addressing the critical safety issues of our vulnerable loved ones and their caregivers. Constant companion is the solution for families today, staying connected, staying safe.

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Mycompanion247.com. I'm alive, lift up my voice Above the chaos and the noise A song of hope amidst the pain I shout this song against the rain With joy Evermore Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. That is my wife, Gracie, singing from her CD, Resilient, and she is indeed resilient, and you can get a copy of that at hopeforthecaregiver.com.

Just go out there and take a look and show you how to do that. We're talking with Lisa Gibbons, and we're talking about the journey for us as family caregivers. You know, we find ourselves in a position where we're putting ourselves between a vulnerable loved one and even worse, disaster.

How do we stay strong and healthy in this while taking care of somebody who is not? And this is what she's all about. She started some wonderful outreaches and programs and near and dear to me because it's one of them is in my home state, South Carolina. We're both South Carolinians, but she's also got a thing on her website. I want you to go take a look at these things. She's got a whole series of videos. I'd love for you to see these things.

They're called caregiver confessions, and she's got all these different topics that if you've been a caregiver for any length of time, you're going to know these. I'll give you a couple of them. I feel guilty. I'm sleeping poorly. I'm tired. I'm not eating right.

I feel socially isolated. I feel resentful. And she's hitting the mark. I mean, clearly, this is the life of a caregiver. And so I want you to go out to her website, learn more about this, LisaGibbons.com, and then you can get to all of the things she's doing through that. But Lisa, thank you very much again for being a part of this. I'd like to talk about those things. You know, when you started doing the caregiver confessions, that takes a significant amount of vulnerability to do that.

How was that for you? Empowering. It was very freeing because we don't want to put on that label that says caregiver because we think that means we, you know, our life is not... We're going to either have to be Mother Teresa or we're going to have to be Florence Nightingale, and you're not any of those things. But you do have to learn new skills. You have to learn a new way of relating to your world and to yourself. But, you know, we tend to kind of take that... We don't want to put that sweater on, so we put it on the very top shelf of our kind of emotional closet because we look at the collateral that comes with that.

And the collateral is weird, isn't it? Like, people don't get it. They don't, really. And until you're kind of in the club, which is why I say it was so freeing to do the confessions and to be vulnerable and to reach out for help because then you realize, wow, there's community out there. And, you know, people who don't get you, well, those aren't your people, and that's okay. They're just not your people. So what I really found about kind of exhaling and releasing and admitting was that you do find your people, and there is this great, powerful tribe that's not afraid when you say you messed up.

It's not that they understand when you say you failed because we do, and that gives us the path to having a better success next time. So I really have found that people who come into Leaves of Care Connection, for example, or even that join us online for our webinars or our Facebook Live, you know, our live drum circles, whatever they're finding, there are a certain number of people who, at least in the beginning, will say, gosh, you know, I think that's great that you guys do those support groups and stuff and that you're trying to, like, empower caregivers, but that's not me. Like, I'm not a joiner. I totally get that. And maybe in overall life, that person will never be what's called a joiner, but really what that is is I'm not there yet. I'm not ready to be a part of this community because of what it means to me, because of my own fears, because of my own labels of what I put around that term caregiver, and it's not like, I mean, you didn't get a greeting card.

You and Gracie didn't get parties thrown for you. Congratulations, man. You're doing great as a caregiver. This is wonderful.

First day of the rest of your life as a caregiver. Enjoy it. It's just not what we do. No. I did send him a fruit basket once, but, you know. This is a true story, by the way. One time she was in the hospital. I shouldn't tell this. Y'all don't tell this to anybody else, all right? Just between us. Just between us.

We were in the hospital, and it was a pretty rough surgery. She'd been there for a while, and we got a basket of fruit from Benny Hinn, the TV evangelist, the faith healer. We got a basket of fruit from him. And you know you're having a bad day with the faith healer, Sid, you fruit. Wow.

Wow. You're having a bad day that day. No, I was very grateful. I mean, I appreciate it. I really did. It was a very nice gesture, but I was thinking, you know, this is, no, we don't.

What does that mean? But you know what you always, I love what you say about, you know, especially the South, we know what we think we're supposed to do to help people. We're going to make some mac and cheese. Wherever two or three are gathered, there's mac and cheese. Yeah. Sorry you lost your leg. We'll just drop off a casserole. Doesn't always help.

Yeah, yeah. But it's, and I, people do want to reach out. They want to help. And one of the things that we try to do on this show is help give a vocabulary of what help looks like to a caregiver, because people don't know.

I mean, I speak fluent caregiver. I've been doing this a long time. But people don't know. And so, and I love what you've done on your site, where you've gone through, and you've just given a voice to this. And you know, because of who you are, I mean, you've celebrity apprentice winner, all these kinds of things you've done. And I mean, you're a household name. And you come out and you say, here's who I am. I mean, I'm more than just somebody who's on TV. You know, I've got, I'm with this. I'm in the tribe, you know. And that is very deeply meaningful to folks to see, to me to see.

And so I thank you for that. I got to ask you, when you opened up the Care Connection in Columbia, did you have little refreshments of boiled peanuts as they came in? And okra. Okra, yeah, yeah.

Okra's okay. Lisa, do you like boiled peanuts? Oh my goodness. I think it would be against my religion to not like them. Yes, I do.

There you go. See, I've got people out here where I live in Montana, there are people out here that just turn their nose up at that sort of thing. And I'm looking at them like, what's the matter with you people? This is good stuff. And it's so satisfying.

I think the reason why, I like putting the shell between my teeth, cracking it, sucking out the saltiness, and then getting to the meat. She's from Carolina. I mean, she's my people. I just love that. And how much family do you still have back there?

Everybody. You know, it's funny because I talk about, I always think of my three kids as having my values. And of course they do have my values.

They have their own, whatever they've chosen to take with me. They're adults now. But I always think of them growing up the way I grew up. Well, I grew up in South Carolina. They grew up in L.A. They've got entirely different frames, and their optics on life is different. They're compassionate and hardworking and loving.

They're wonderful qualities, but it's different. So my dad, my brother, my sister, my extended family, everyone is still in South Carolina. And so it was really important to me when we opened our flagship Care Connection there. And we have an outdoor pavilion where we do meetings and yoga, different things. And we named it after my dad, the Carlos Gibbons Family Pavilion. And my dad does poetry, and he's 92, and he's on the advisory board. Gosh, he's that caregiver connection that he gives back and he receives.

That is just awesome. Lisa Gibbons. Lisa, you're welcome to stay through the rest of the break and talk about the best and worst songs for caregivers. Do you want to do it, or do you need to go? I'll do your songs.

Okay, stick around with us. John and I are going to talk about best and worst songs for caregivers. Some are Lisa Gibbons. She is at lisagibbons.com. Go out and see more about her books, her Care Connection. Be a part of what she's doing there.

It is so fabulous. And help her do more. This is Peter Rosenberger, Hope for the Caregiver. We'll be right back.

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Isn't it about time someone started advocating for you? www.caregiverlegal.com, an independent associate. He'll give you hope for tomorrow, joy for your sorrow, strength for everything you go through. Remember, he knows, he knows the plans he has for you. Oh, yes, he does. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. He does know the plans he has for you. That's Gracie from her CD, Resilient.

And just, again, hopeforthecaregiver.com if you want a copy of that. I love listening to her sing. I get to hear her voice all the time. We're talking with Liza Gibbons. You know her. Look, some of us have grown up with her, and she is just a national treasure. LizaGibbons.com, L-E-E-Z-A-G-I-B-B-O-N-S.com.

I didn't know there was going to be a test on that. Sorry, John. LizaGibbons.com. And she has so many wonderful resources. I love what she's done out there when she was talking about her own journey.

I mean, she just gets out and sits there on a couch or chair and just has what she calls caregiver confessions. Take a look at these things, because it's so important for you. If you're feeling so isolated, when you hear someone else who is sharing the very things that you're feeling, it really does help. It does.

This is 35 years of experience telling you this. It helps. It strengthens you. It encourages you. It is a tremendous gift that she's done for fellow caregivers. So I'm very grateful for her. One of the things that John and I like to do is help point caregivers to things that are going to strengthen us and not tear us down and things that make us feel a little bit more empowered, a little stronger, a little healthier. And a lot of songs out there, what you listen to kind of gets into your soul. Well, music is incredibly powerful.

It is. I've had several jobs throughout my life, but one of them was I would do video editing for weddings or for memorial services or for visitations or things like that. You have the slideshow of this person's life, the pictures that they took over the years or whatever. It was necessary to craft this with one of the loved ones usually, but as soon as the music got laid over, that is when the waterworks usually started.

I had lots of tissues in my office and things like that. I've done one of those slideshows. I don't play weddings. I refuse to do weddings. Right, but you play memorial services a lot. I will play funerals and memorial services. My dad's a minister, so I grew up doing this, Lisa, and so I was cheap labor for this.

I was going to say, yeah, you grew up doing this, and by this you grew up getting conscripted. Well, but I did my – the only funeral I've done out here since I've been in Montana, and it was for a local rancher, and they did the slideshow, but they did not have pre-recorded music with it. They asked if I would play along live with it, and I said, well, how long is it? The guy told me, and this guy had been a rancher for 80-something years out here in this valley. He was the real deal, the real cowboy, and they have his saddle, his boots, the lariat, the whole hat, the belt buckle all there at the front of the church, and I'm playing while they're doing this slideshow, and the son-in-law said, well, the son said it's only going to be about five to six minutes, so I'm playing five to six minutes. Well, this thing just kept going on, and I'm having to stretch and stretch and stretch, but at the very end, I did this at the very end of it.

I just rolled up. Lisa, do you know what that is? I'm thinking, no.

That would be Trails to You. Oh, my gosh. And I just played that, and it was – I mean, the only time I've ever played for a real no kidding cowboy rancher, and I thought, well, I'm going to do it.

I'm going for it. That brings us to songs, so here's a song that – Powerful, powerful music, yes. It's a wonderful song for what it is, but for caregivers, it's not a healthy place, and one of the things we do on the show, Lisa, we've also included those who are family members of alcoholics or addicts because that's a chronic impairment.

Wherever there's a chronic impairment, there's a caregiver, mental illness, whatever. Absolutely. So this is a song that when I grew up listening to it, then I went back and listened to it as a caregiver, and I'm thinking, is this really the message we want?

So hit it, Ed. You only knew what I'm going through. I just can't smile without you. And I'm thinking, yes, I can. Yes, I can smile. I am not bound to darkness and depression if this person is not in my life or this person is not well, and I want caregivers to understand that, that you can have a healthy, exuberant life no matter what's going on with them. Right, and it's not to say that there's not going to be times without a smile, but when you're saying, I just can't smile without you forever and ever, that is a type of death. All right, Lisa, did we go too far with that?

No, I don't think we did. First of all, I love Barry Matalow, who's one of my favorites of all time. We can't blame him for the message in the song.

I think what you're saying is writing. I know you guys talk a lot about guilt that kind of goes along with caring often, and that's part of the feeling that I feel guilty if I'm happy when my loved one is having this sucky experience or I can't make my loved one better. And so we feel like somehow we don't deserve or we should be ashamed. I can't smile without you smiling, and I like your message there. Well, I learned from a very, very, very good friend who's also a very, very accomplished psychiatrist that my job was not to try to somehow smile separately from Gracie, but when she was stuck in the hospitals and so forth and all the things she's going through, my job was to make sure that I went out and brought the smile back to her. And sorry, that's my hairy alarm system going off with the snow plow guy.

Right on cue, too. But I bring the smile back with me to her and offer that to her to help her because she couldn't get out of the hospital. She couldn't get out of pain and all those things, so I can bring it to her if I'm not so torrid. All right, the next one is one that I did just on principle, just on principle for the song.

Hit it, Ed. I just, just on principle, just don't sing this song. Just throw it away. Just get rid of it. Just be done with it. All right, that's moving on. And the number one song that I think as a caregiver you should avoid, if at all possible, is this one. You know, I just I think that just sends the wrong message to caregivers. I just do. That's just my opinion.

In the same way of I can't smile without you and all that, you know. Well, that's all right. That's my top list of things not to listen to.

But here are some things that caregivers could listen to and that I think will be very healthy for you to listen to. So, Ed, hit this one. See, now look, there you go.

How's that one, Lisa? That is the anthem for all caregivers. Sing it together. Sing it loud.

Sing it in your car, in the shower. Yes. All right. Here's another one.

Here's another one that I love. Hit it. Let it be.

Lisa, what does that would say to you? We always want to fix it. We always want to get to the finish line and get that gold star and make it better. And that's not always realistic. I love that you chose that one, because having faith that there will be an answer and let it be and let it go and give it over is really very, very powerful. No, I like the way you put that, that we're always looking for that finish line.

And oftentimes there's not one. I mean, even after we say, oh, the finish line is, well, I'm going to care for them until they pass on. Well, that's not really the end for the caregiver either. There's a lot that goes on after that. Yeah.

Yeah. Lisa, you could testify to this more than I can, because I'm still a caregiver. But I've maintained on this show for years, caregiving doesn't stop at a grave for the journey for a caregiver. The angst and the turmoil and the challenges for a caregiver does not stop at a grave. Is that a fair statement?

That is an accurate statement. And a lot of the community that we supply provide at least a care connection. People will say, well, you know, I can't come anymore because my loved one passed.

So like that, that means you need a different kind of support. And it also means you can offer a different kind of perspective and support and that struggle with identity and all of those feelings. You know, all of that anger, all that unresolved rage, all of the disappointment and all of the good things, too. Just like when, you know, when someone dies at 100 years old, they had a happy, pain free passover transition to the next life. You know, we don't forget those people. We don't forget the feelings and we don't. The relationship doesn't go away. And it's the same with the with the caregiving. That's a part of your identity that you don't put in a little box and put it in the closet when it's over.

Exactly. And I think that let it be. It's us. And one of one of my goals is to help myself and my fellow caregivers pry our hands off of the wheelchair, you know, and stop trying to be in charge of this thing. You we get so wrapped up in this is this is what we've got to do.

We've got to fix it. We talked about this. We did a episode the other day when I talk about some music and things don't resolve the way we hope they will want them to or try to make them resolve. And sometimes it was. But that's what makes beautiful music.

When you go to something like. We know that that that chord progression. But sometimes it goes. And it just resolves differently. It's not better. It's not worse. It's different. It's beautiful. It's music. There's something there. But if we're so busy trying to dictate it and I love what you know, that song, let it be, just let it be.

It's going to be OK. Just let it be. And quit trying to orchestrate and script this thing. And that's been something that I've struggled with for lo these many decades. And Gracie, you're probably hearing Amen in the other room there.

Gracie yells out. Now, this next one is is I think is very important because if self-esteem for caregivers is a hard thing. There's so many of us who just feel so beat down by this, not necessarily from other people, sometimes from ourselves. I would say especially so from ourselves.

Yeah. That's that's where that originates. And, you know, like we have such we're high functioning multitaskers, like you say often. But so that provides a certain amount of self-esteem that we we have achieved so much. And we do have this idea that we can do it all. And then as soon as something, you know, the tiniest little pebble in our path and starts or we allow other people's assessment of of who we are, what we're doing, the job we're doing, whatever, to just crush our spirits.

And so I felt like this song would be the great one here. See, Lisa, your thoughts. I think Arisa said it perfectly. And you hit it when you said you've got to give that to yourself. Yes, we're looking for respect from people that recognize the job we're doing. We're looking for respect from the diagnosticians and the doctors who understand that we are the fulcrum for making this thing really happen at times.

But that's the respect that we do have to give ourselves. I love that one for you. You're hitting it. You are killing. Well, we have we have truly demoralized ourselves. And I asked this to my fellow carriers, asked myself, what would you say to someone that was doing exactly what you're doing?

You'd probably put your arm around him and say, man, I'm proud of you. You're doing a great job. And yet to ourselves, we will just absolutely eviscerate our own hearts and then allow other people to do the same thing. So let's gain some respect, give some respect to the trauma that we're dealing with, give some respect to the sadness, the grief, the sorrow.

Give some respect to the burden of it and to the fact that we're showing up trying to meet that burden. And that's such an important part for building up the heart of a caregiver. You know, if our hearts a train wreck, guess what's going to happen to our wallets, our bodies, our jobs, our relationships.

And so it all starts in the heart. And the last one is from my my wife's favorite singer. My wife loves this gal. We all know her. And this is what doesn't kill you makes us. Isn't that great?

That's Kelly Clarkson. That's just isn't that great, Lisa? That's what we were saying. Talking to yourself. That's the conversation to have with yourself.

Have that monologue and sing it. You know, we talk we know the power of music, but when we say something out loud and when we're moving, if you're walking and you're singing that to yourself, that's going to get embedded in your kind of emotional DNA more than if you're just kind of, you know, sitting on your couch. So I say move, say that and make that your mantra every day. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I mean, we've all heard that.

But then Kelly Clarkson comes and she's just like plants a flag in that hill and allows us to rally around it. And well said, Lisa, because we do we do tend to dismiss ourselves. And I want my fellow caregivers to square their shoulders a little bit more, lift their heads up a little bit more.

Take a deeper breath and realize, you know what? You're doing something extraordinary. And I that's why I love doing the show and being a part of other people's stories who have done this. And Lisa, you have just truly blessed us today. So thank you for taking that. You took extra time with us and thank you for this. And it's with my gift and my pleasure and my joy. Thank you all for what you do. And I always enjoy spending time with you. So stay on it. We need you.

Appreciate that very much. Lisa Gibbons, L-E-E-Z-A-G-I-B-B-O-N-S dot com, who eats boiled peanuts and is not afraid to admit it. We love having her here. And thank you very much for that, Lisa. This is hope for the caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg. Don't go away. We'll be right back for John's final wrap up thoughts. Twenty four seven emergency support, increasing safety, reducing isolation. These things are more important than ever as we deal with the challenges of covid-19. How about your vulnerable loved ones? We can't always check on them or be there in ways we'd like. That's why there's constant companion, seamlessly weaving technology and personal attention to help push back against the isolation while addressing the critical safety issues of our vulnerable loved ones and their caregivers. Constant companion is the solution for families today. Staying connected, staying safe.

It's smart, easy and incredibly affordable. Go to www.mycompanion247.com today. That's mycompanion247.com. Connection and independence for you and those you care about.

Mycompanion247.com. 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. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the final wrap up where John and I want to spend some time just kind of decompressing. What a great show. And I appreciate her sticking around for that.

Yeah, yeah. Well, she was so gracious. And again, LisaGivens.com. Check her out. She's got, I mean, you already know who she is, but there are a lot of resources there.

And it's actually pretty easy to navigate to a lot of those websites that we've come through. Well, we do know who she is, but I think a lot of people don't know what she's done. Right.

And we know the public persona. And it was just such a treat to hear her heart. And as she shared, because, you know, she went through it. I mean, this was a... And not only just went through it, but then she said, OK, what am I going to do with this now?

Right. And so I'm very, very grateful she took the time and then just be able to go through the songs. And again, these are only a small list of songs. I mean, we could come up with all kinds of songs. I thought about, you know, I'll Never Be Your Beast of Burden. You know, there's a lot of songs out there. But when I heard Let It Be, you know, and I'll go back to that one.

That's a really good one. Yeah. And I look at my fellow caregivers who are so angst driven. Talk about angst a little bit, John. A subject you've embraced and you've shared with me some thoughts on this. Talk about angst a little bit.

Well, angst and when we have these, because I kind of, you know, equivocate it to just anxiety a little bit and thinking about, you know, what's... Like you say a lot, living in the wreckage of our future. That is a... And I might be hearing this wrong, you know, but like this... You caught me off guard. I was going somewhere else. I'm tired. See, I like to catch John off guard.

It's fun to trip John. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I mean, because I'm so tall, it just kind of pulls over.

It's very comfortable. This is a strange way of putting it, but a lot of times I rely on apathy. And that's not... No, I totally get that.

Yeah, yeah. I totally get that. And to not be so wrapped up in especially something that really, if you think about it afterward, ends up being very, very minor. Or not very minor, but even, you know, the response was disproportionate. Let me put it that way. Is it apathy or is it detachment?

Yeah, and I think that there are lots of... I haven't found the exact right word for this and maybe we can figure it out today. It's detachment is a good one. And the difference between it being like, this is my job and I am a steward of this.

It's that sort of shift. The difference between, oh, I have to do this and I'm just a steward of it. And I'm ushering this situation through to its fruition or something like that. Stewardship is a word that you and I talk about a lot on the show. Because I think that we help... We have seen the value of people grasping that and letting go of the concept of ownership. If I own it, then it's all on me. Right, if I own it, then I am the one who can and should be criticized for the outcome.

And if you're not the owner of it, if you are simply, I don't mean simply, but if you are rather the steward of it, then you're... People say, I see this a lot like, now what is he doing? His best, leave him alone. That's going to be my epitaph. He tried, he tried.

Bless his heart, he tried. That's all I'm saying. You know, but I think that for me, that was such an important shift. And when I feel the angst coming over me, which it still does, I feel this intense grasping of me trying to wrestle this thing to the ground and beat it into submission. Of, okay, this doctor's not doing what I'm doing, or this particular pharmacist, or this particular situation, or I've got to do this, I've got to do this, I've got to do this. And that just amps up the angst in me so much. And in order to bring that down, I have to back off. How much of angst do you think is, originates within ourselves, or rather, how much of it is directed at the actions of others, and how much of it is maybe wrapped up in embarrassment?

Actually, I want to go even one step further. I think that a lot of it is, at its core, driven, at least in my case, in the 90 percentile plus, of fear. Of fear. Of this thing just going off the rails, of this thing coming back on me, I'll have to fix it, I'll have to clean it up, or somebody's going to, like, you may get embarrassed, or somebody's going to think poorly of me, or whatever. But it's all that fear of, I have got to present a place of being large and in charge, or I have to have this thing wrestled to the ground, I have to be in control. I go back and I cringe over times when I've done that, and when I said, I have to be in control of something. And no, I don't. The only thing I can control are my thoughts, words, and deeds.

And the outcomes are way beyond my skill set. That is a hard place to get to, and it's a hard place to stay in. So there's a constant recurring of having to get to that place, and then you don't get to plant your flag there, because you get kicked out of it by your own funkiness on any given day, and you've got to claw your way back. It is work, it is, you don't accidentally get to a place where you say, I'm going to be at peace with this. Peace is intentional.

Oh, there you go. That's, hmm, I like how we, that was a long plane landing, you know, long circle before we landed, but that was a good, that was a nice solid landing. I wasn't sure if the wheels were down or not, you know.

The landing gear was a little bit off. No, but I mean, I have found for me, now this is just me, others can do it however they want to, but I have found for me that I don't get the luxury of achieving this type of nirvana. You know, of saying, okay, I've made it here, I don't have to relearn this lesson. I have to learn it every time, every day, I have to go back.

It is not like riding a bicycle. And it's choosing to do this. That is something that, this is, I don't know if this is going to, we don't have time to wrap this entire thought up, but choosing to, choosing to try to learn. Being teachable, being very teachable, and being willing to listen, to let the circumstances, let it be. Being willing to let it be. To answer the original question, say something about angst, John.

There is a, we don't like to hear this because it means that we are at fault, or it sometimes can mean that a little bit we are at fault for this, for our own state of mind. But there is a, you're never, you're not going to get out of angst accidentally. You are going to have to choose to work against it. It is a willful path that we must take, the road less traveled, but my life has been all but.

You may still not get out of it with that, but you're definitely not going to get out of it unless you choose to. Well said. Good final thoughts from John Butler, this is Hope for the Caregiver, this is Peter Rosenberger, there's a lot more at hopeforthecaregiver.com, please check it out, be a part of what we're doing, and thank you, we'll see you next time. This is John Butler, and I produce Hope for the Caregiver with Peter Rosenberger. Some of you know the remarkable story of Peter's wife Gracie, and recently Peter talked to Gracie about all the wonderful things that have emerged from her difficult journey. Take a listen. Gracie, when you envisioned 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, 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, 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 the 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 limb, whether from a loved one who passed away or somebody who outgrew them, you've donated some of your own for them to do. How do they do that? Oh, please go to standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Thanks, Gracie. One of our generous sponsors here at the Truth Network has come under fire.

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