Facing Giants

This is Peter Rosenberger and I'm really excited to tell you about my new book. It's called A Minute for Caregivers When Every Day Feels Like Monday.

I compiled a lifetime of experience to offer a lifeline to my fellow caregivers. Each chapter only takes one minute to read them. I know I timed them. You can read them in order. You can read them out of order. You can flip to any page and you're going to find something on that page that will help you at that moment.

It's called A Minute for Caregivers When Every Day Feels Like Monday. Go to Hopeforthecaregiver.com slash book. Hopeforthecaregiver.com slash book. And you can sign up. We'll let you know as soon as it's available for pre-order.

We'll send you a special bonus feature for it, sample chapter, all kinds of things. Go to Hopeforthecaregiver.com slash book. I can't wait for you to read this book.

You're going to love it. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger and I am so glad that you're with us. Hopeforthecaregiver.com, Hopeforthecaregiver.com. This is the program for those who are put in themselves between a chronically impaired loved one and even worse disaster. How do you help those people?

What does it look like? What do you say to them? That's what this program is all about and we're so glad that you're with us. Hopeforthecaregiver.com, Hopeforthecaregiver.com and while you're out there at the website, feel free to click on the button that allows you to join our Facebook group. It is a private group.

We have four caregivers. You have to answer a few questions to join and people post prayer requests, they get advice, whatever. There's all kinds of things, just inspirational stuff. I post bonus materials there. I moderate it so we don't have situations where this thing goes off the rails, but we'd love to have you as part of that as well.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com, you can find out more. I thought that I would take a little bit of time here to read an excerpt from my book. Now, that sounds terrible. You don't ever read on the radio. There are people that do that. I've seen that. People do their whole shows.

They read them. I don't know if y'all know this or not, but I don't use notes when I do this show. Everything I do is just off the cuff. The mic light comes on and off I go. I never quite know where the program is going to go.

It really is that way. The producers will back me up. American Family Radio Studios, they'll back me up because I come in hot sometimes and just do my thing and talk about what's on my mind. That to me makes more sense for doing radio. You don't want to read on the radio, but there are people that actually read their entire show, which is kind of weird, but I'm going to just read an excerpt from my book.

Now, each chapter is about 200 words and a quote, so I'm not going to read a lot, but I thought I'd go through some of these things because I want to share why I wrote this book, what this book is about, and why I feel that it's going to be very helpful for family caregivers and for people who want to care for caregivers. This is chapter six called Facing Our Giants. Facing Our Giants, do you feel like you face a giant as a caregiver?

Well, we do. Before the famous altercation with Goliath, when David expressed anger at the blasphemous giant, one of his embarrassed older brothers who camped at the battle scene furiously derided him. I don't know if you knew that or not, but David's brother was pretty torqued at him. I don't know what the Hebrew word for torque is, but he was. But the king heard about David, and astonishingly the king allowed the teenager to fight Goliath.

Did you ever think about that? That he pulled him out there and said, well, okay, you go fight Goliath. And he sent this kid out to do it. No wonder God took the kingdom away from Saul.

That was just a horrific decision. Saul even put his tunic and his armor on him. Now, remember Saul was tall. If you remember when they looked for Saul, they said he was head and shoulders above everyone else. He's a tall fellow.

Good looking guy. He was what they thought would be a good king. Turns out he wasn't. But David was not tall.

He was rather small, from what I understand. And the king's armor didn't fit him. Struggling to function in the ill-fitting garb, David removed it and faced Goliath his way, depending upon God's might. David recognized that he couldn't succeed while wearing something that didn't fit him. Well, how many tried to conquer a Goliath while wearing something that doesn't fit?

I've done that more times than I care to remember. The conditions of our loved ones serve as formidable giants. I mean, you all know Gracie's story. That's pretty formidable to deal with. How many of you all are dealing with formidable things? Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, addiction, autism, stroke.

There's so many different types of disabilities and impairments out there. Which of those giants are you facing? It's hard enough to face them, but when we try to face them acting like something we're not, putting on something that doesn't fit us, we're bound to fail.

It's going to happen. David faced Goliath with his familiar sling and his even more familiar trust in God's ability. While not a trained soldier, David's love and trust provided the courage to face a giant. By love, I mean, yes, he was outraged at Goliath for his blasphemy, but he loved the Lord more. That was what propelled him to go out there and have zeal to defend God's name.

Most of us aren't trained medical professionals and we don't have to be. When facing our giants, we can be ourselves and with love and trust remain confident that the battle is the Lord. That's why we do this is because we love somebody who is dealing with a horrific set of circumstances, a chronic impairment. And because we love them, we will hurl ourselves into battle. Others may think we need to wear something or be something or act like something, but usually it's just us as caregivers going boldly into the battlefield, trusting in the Lord. And I love in 1 Samuel 17 47, it says, all those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves for the battle is the Lord.

That is the core message that I want this audience. I want myself to know that, you know, Gracie has a savior. I'm not that savior. Your loved one has a savior. You're not that savior. You've heard me say this before, looked out at your hands.

Do you see nail prints? If you don't, then this is not yours to fix. Period. Now we have responsibilities. We have stewardship. We have all types of tasks that we have to do, but ultimately this belongs to God. The battle is the Lord's. Now, do we believe that or not? And I think that's the seminal question for us all.

Do we believe this or not? This is that point of conviction, that moment of faith, that critical place in our life where we are at a decision point. Remember that story about Joshua when he got up and said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

That critical decision point of saying, okay, this is where we're heading, setting your face forward. You know, this is what Jesus did. Just think about him going to the cross.

He set his face towards that cross that he's going to do this. And one of my favorite prayers in Scripture is the passage in Mark chapter 9. Remember when they brought this young boy to him that was demon possessed and was convulsing and Jesus asked the father, how long has this been happening to him? And the father said, he's from childhood. And the father went on to say, you know, the spirit, this demon has taken a hold of my child and thrown him into the water or into the fire to destroy him. And then the guy asked Jesus, but if you could do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And Jesus said, well, if you can believe all things are possible to him who believes.

And I love what this father cried out. He said, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. You know, that's about as honest a prayer as you would want to hear. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. I love that. And I have prayed that prayer.

How about you? Have you ever prayed that prayer? Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. When we face these giants that we face, and they are significant and they are intimidating, it is, it's overpowering at times. How many of you ever felt that way?

Just Lord, I believe and help my unbelief. And you take a big gulp and you just kind of jump into this thing. I mean, you're dealing with harsh things, but how are you dealing with them? Are you dealing with them in your own strength?

Are you dealing with them by trying to act like what somebody else says you should be acting like? Somebody else says you should be doing this and this and this. There are a lot of people come up with shoulds to us.

Don't you feel that way? That, well, have you, have you tried this? You should be doing this. You need to be doing this. You ought to do this.

And I'm like, no, just be you. Okay? And understand that the battle is the Lord's. You can go in there with the full confidence of scripture, even with tears filling your eyes, even when the giant towers over you, you could still have that calmness and conviction that God himself is with you in this. He's not going to leave you. He already, he's already there.

Okay. So remember that scripture? I think he was in Zechariah, not by might, not by power, but by my spirit says the Lord, the battle is the Lord. David knew this when he faced Goliath. Do we know this as we face our own Goliaths?

And if not, why not? And how, how do we know this? Well, that's what we're going to talk about some more when we come back. This is Peter Rosenberg. This is hope for the caregiver. We'll be right back. Welcome back to hope for the caregiver here on American family radio. This is Peter Rosenberg.

This is the program for you as a family caregiver. And I love that groove there. That is, uh, my friend Rob Galbraith and his group. And he's gracious to let me use that. And I, uh, I love listening to the Rob stuff. Rob is a wonderful producer, songwriter and player and singer, and just been around Nashville for a long time. And I always, he'd been on this show too.

And I've, I've, I love having him on. Listen, we're at a vacation time this time of year when people start planning a vacation. I know as caregivers, sometimes it's hard for us to do that, but we do take them periodically. Sometimes they're not very long, but I wanted to read one more excerpt, if you don't mind from my book. And then this book is called a minute for caregivers when every day feels like Monday. And it is going to hit the bookstores May 31.

And I am really proud of this book. They're just one minute chapters. You literally could read them in one minute. I timed them all.

Now the last block, I embellished a little bit. So you had more than a minute, but, but you can read these in one minute and they're not, and it's not linear. So you don't have to read the book from beginning to end or into, I mean, you just pick it up anywhere you want to go, pick out a number and hit the page and you'll find something right then. And they got this little feature the publisher did.

I was really quite taken with this. They put a little circle, kind of a balloon over the one sentence in that particular chapter. And again, it's only one minute to read it, but there's one sentence they felt like would be the takeaway for that particular chapter. And the balloon of course is a throwback to my book hope for the caregiver where there was a big balloon on the front there. So that was nice for them to tile that in. And I was quite, quite moved by that, that they put that kind of thought and care into it.

So it's a lovely book, but this is chapter 10. Don't take this on your next vacation. While a change of scenery can ease the heartache and struggle of our lives, it's pointless if we pack our resentments and bitterness for the trip. Despite Yellowstone National Park's pristine and soul-stirring beauty, visitors still bring their drama to the faraway fields of bison and old faithful.

Now Yellowstone is 90 miles south of us here where we live in Montana. We've been down there many times, beautiful place, but a sad set of statistics for the world's first national park is the number of drunk drivers and domestic abuse cases handled yearly. Park rangers will affirm that people pack their strife with them and that misery's jurisdiction doesn't end at any park's borders.

It's hard to imagine saving up all year long and going to the trouble of traveling so far only to end up standing in front of one of the federal judges in the park. While tempted to express disapproval of those arrested for such things in Yellowstone Park, how is that different for many caregivers who think a change of scenery or circumstances can serve as an antidote for discord? Yet if misery can be carried, it can also be put down. Now here's the balloon statement they got, the take home statement. There is no vacation destination that will cure bitterness.

The spectacular cannot accomplish what we refuse to implement. We can better appreciate beauty in different locations once we choose to experience them in our current situations. Doug Larson, the quote at the end of this from Doug Larson who said, the world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment. And I think that's been a message that I have preached over and over and over on this show is that we as caregivers often find ourselves daydreaming about what it could be like to be somewhere else. But in the off chance that we get to be somewhere else, how many times have we taken our misery with us?

I know I have. And I see people racing to have fun. We got to hurry up and have fun, you know, and they've spent a lot of money to come out. It's a lot of work to come all the way out here to Montana. And to go on down into the park, it's quite a bit of effort. And you think about how unfortunate it is to spend all that kind of time and energy and money and then just to show up and be miserable. And it happens.

And it happens everywhere. I mean, think about it. When's the last time you were at an amusement park or, you know, Six Flags or something or Disney World. Of course, I'm not going to Disney World ever again.

That's the Magic Kingdom Death March. And I have no desire to go down there for that. But you see people of all kinds of odds with each other and everything else.

And it's just, it's unfortunate. And I think the lesson learned is that can we be content where we are? Can we learn to be at peace where we are?

Can we see beauty where we are? And yeah, we all love to be able to have that dream vacation and do all those things. And some of those desires of our heart are going to have to wait until the next life.

They're just not going to happen in this life. We okay with that? Are you okay with that? Can you be at peace with that?

Do you have to have everything perfect around you before you feel good about life? I remember this preacher, and y'all don't tell anybody what I'm about to tell you, okay? Let's just keep this twixt us, alright?

Just don't say anything. But this preacher told the building committee of his church, and they were trying to build this big sanctuary, and he said, I will preach better when I'm framed properly. I'm sorry, that is just such a ludicrous statement. And it makes me laugh just to think about it. I will preach better when I'm framed properly. And I thought, wow, that's messed up on multiple levels.

He said it, and they didn't spend a lot of money to frame him properly, and I don't know that anything improved, but that's neither here nor there. But we don't have to have ideal circumstances for us to be in an ideal place spiritually. Now, everything in scripture almost screams that out to me, and yet I want to gloss over those parts and get to the part where I get to have an abundant life and I'm happy, happy, happy all the time, time, time. And, you know, who doesn't? We all do.

None of us like to be uncomfortable, and yet here we are as caregivers with the very thing that people wish to avoid in their life, which is to be infirmed and caring for someone who is infirmed. But this is where we are. Can we have a vacation? Can we go out to dinner?

Can we go to a park without taking our misery with us? Well, of course we can. Do we? Well, that's the question, isn't it?

That's the issue. Do we? And if so, how do we do that? Well, part of it is going back to the fundamentals of our faith.

My God shall supply all my needs according to His riches and glory through Christ Jesus. Again, I asked you that in the first block. I ask you this now. Do you believe that? Do you? Is that, you know, a conviction that you hang onto, that you stand on? And if not, why not?

And if so, how? How do you do that? Because other people need to know that too. They need to know from you how you're doing that. What is it about that that is so life-changing and transformative that it helps you better walk through the circumstances you're walking through as a caregiver? And this is part of the journey we have as believers. Number one, to understand these things ourselves and then number two, to share that with someone else.

Let them know. I've got a friend of mine out here who carves little wooden birds. He's a retired dentist and he finds little pieces of wood and he'll make a little tiny bird. I mean, it's smaller than your finger and it's something you just carry in your pocket to remind you to consider the birds of the air. That's the scripture he is wanting us to remember. The Lord takes care of them. Are you not worth more than a sparrow?

Are you not worth more than this? He's given me several of these, given to Gracie. She's got one right there on the nightstand and it just reminds her to consider the birds of the air.

The lilies of the field, Solomon dressed in royal robes had not the wealth of them and our Heavenly Father cares for us far more. You know, we think that if we have these dream vacations that we'll feel better. By the way, while I'm on that subject of dream vacations, somebody said, do you ever want to take a cruise? Don't you want to take a cruise? I'm like, are you out of your mind? I've been on two cruises too many and I'm done with cruises.

I know a lot of people like them, but I get claustrophobic there. I don't want to be on. If I ever feel like going on a cruise, I think I've told you this, I'm going to get a Hawaiian shirt and then go to the Golden Corral.

It's pretty much the same thing. I'm not doing it. For those of you who love cruises, God bless you. That is not something I want to do.

Well, I take it back. The only thing I would want to do is to get on one of those very large sailboats, you know, like wind jammers, the real thing. I would like to do that. People say they get seasick on those kinds of things. I've never been seasick, but I think I would enjoy that immensely. But regardless of which, if I never get to, it's okay. I can be content where I am. Scripture says I can, and I would much rather be where I am than to go and spend a lot of money and a lot of time and just be miserable and take my misery with me. I want to deal with this misery right now and bring this to the cross and deal with it now. I just, I don't want to carry it.

I don't want to stay churned up. And I can find beauty wherever I am. Scripture tells me that too.

I can be content in any situation. And so again, we come to these decision points, these critical faith moments. Do we believe this or not?

I mean, it's just that simple. And we can be like that father of that kid, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. I've prayed that prayer more times than I can count.

Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. So as Doug Larson said in the quote at the end of that chapter of my book, we don't want to be so busy looking for excitement and beauty and happiness and this and this that we snub contentment. Contentment is the key. Can we be content?

Scripture says we can. This is Peter Rosenberg. This is Hope of the Caregiver. Don't go away. We've got more to go. Welcome back to Hope of the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg. Glad that you are with us. I've been doing a series on helping caregivers stay safe from all types of different things, things that you might not expect, like what we talked about before you sign a prenup, make sure there's a caregiver clause. We talked about that. We've talked about all kinds of things.

People who will come and put all kinds of pressure on you to do things and make you feel guilty of the way you're caring for someone. And so we want to be very wise as we deal with the ins and outs and the challenges of being a caregiver. Part of that is your wallet. How is your wallet? How is your plan? What do you do?

What is going on with you? And I am very pleased to introduce to you someone that I think is going to provide some amazing insights for us today, Emily Boothroyd. And she is from Connecticut with Merit Financial Advisors.

She is a wealth manager and partner and they're nationwide. And I told you when we talked yesterday, I said, I want you to say exactly what you said yesterday, what you say that on the air today, because it was so powerful and profound. So welcome to the program. Glad you were with us. How are you doing? Thank you so much, Peter. I'm really happy to be with you. I'm doing really well and I love your podcast. I'm really excited to talk a little bit about this topic as it's a matter near and dear to my heart.

Let's jump into the deep end of the pool. What is something that you have seen in a trend that you're a little bit alarmed by, and you would like to help folks tap on the brakes? By that, I mean, make better decisions. We tend to make knee-jerk decisions out of guilt, out of obligation, out of disorientation, all kinds of things as caregivers. What is something that you've been seeing that's causing you some alarm? Yeah, so I'm seeing a bit of an alarming trend when it comes to a lot of my caregivers and frankly widows and widowers who have survived a spouse after a period of caregiving, where they're very focused on charity and on giving back to organizations. Now, sometimes those organizations may have been part of their lives through the caregiving process, or they may be a way of a caregiver finding a sense of self and identity outside of the caregiving relationship. Often they find themselves getting wrapped into being on boards and finding meaning in their life through participating in these charities. Now, in general, I think this is an absolutely wonderful idea to be participating in a charitable organization, to be supporting causes you feel passionately about. However, so often, there are some mistakes that we all make, but caregivers in particular can be susceptible to, that lead them to end up spending way more than they have in the name of charity, in the name of help.

And I've seen several women get involved in charities, get promoted onto different boards. With every board, there's a charitable ask, can you donate this much? Can you participate in this fundraising event? Can you contribute meaningfully to our charity? Now, very rarely does a charity or frankly anyone ask, hey, can you afford this?

Is this something that you can feasibly do? And so once a lot of these people are already wrapped up in this organization or wrapped up in this identity of being charitable, sometimes they will be depleting their savings at a rate that's just not sustainable. So that's something that I think is part and parcel of emotional investing, emotional spending, and not being able to separate the emotional self from the financial self.

And so that's part of some of the mistakes that I see caregivers make that I think that we should pay a lot of attention to. Dr. Justin Marchegiani When you encounter these individuals, what was motivating them? Were they doing this out of a sense of being lost and now trying to find themselves? Were they having a sense of guilt or obligation? What's going on with that?

Dr. Katie I think it's a combination. I think we all search for meaning. And so often when we are in a caregiving relationship, even a spousal relationship, even a parent relationship, right? We tend to lose ourselves in the act of caregiving and the act of looking after others. And so there will often be a sense of, you know, needing to belong, wanting to give back, and wanting to be a part of something that's bigger than you.

And I think that's a wonderful feeling, a root feeling, right? However, when we begin to conflate our identity, who we are with organizations that we support, who we are with how we spend money, I think it makes it harder to say no. And I think that we have some people who can be very vulnerable, who are in a place where they are just trying to kind of find an outlet, just trying to belong, where they're getting pulled in and asked to spend more and more.

And there is an issue with boundaries and being able to say no. And often many people don't know if they have enough to give, right? They'll say, oh, I think I have enough, but they haven't done the planning work that's necessary to actually know how much they can give without hurting themselves. And I'm sure that's something you talk about is so often when we're in a caretaking and caregiving relationship, we don't put our true self first, right? We might say this feels good to do this, but really putting yourself first sometimes means checking in, finding a budget and figuring out, do I have enough to be able to participate in this way?

Imagine living on a budget, given our country's 30 plus trillion dollars in debt, that's an alien concept. Stewardship is actually a word we use a lot on this program. Stewardship, not only of our wallets, but of our bodies, of everything about us. And the caregiving world can be so depleting, I think is probably the best word.

It is important to pace ourselves. That's one of the things that you're seeing that's alarming. Is there something else that you're seeing that's the common trap for people to fall into? Maybe not even after the caregiver, but during the whole process or prior to, what are some common missteps that people that you're seeing people make?

Yeah. So I see really five common mistakes. So the first is staying silent too long, right? We have so many people who involve themselves in a caretaking relationship. I see this particularly where we have spouses, where you are watching a decline of a spouse and the caretaking spouse is someone who really isn't used to handling the finances. Now this doesn't have to be just a woman. This could be a man as well, but saying, Hey, I really haven't done this before. But when, when a diagnosis is early on, or when the issue is early on, not speaking up immediately and saying, I think in, you know, maybe it's a year, maybe it's 10 years, I'm going to be the sole person in charge of this.

I should start learning now. It's waiting, not wanting to say anything, not wanting to ask too many questions, not wanting to look as though you're trying to take something over. Staying silent too long can really be a problem because then you're having to climb up a big learning curve in a very short period of time. The second is trying to do it all. And I'm sure you've talked about caretaker burnout more times than, than you can count, but it tends to be that when we're in this caretaking mode, it's this idea. I I'll do it all. I'll, I'll handle everything.

I'll take this over. Um, because sometimes I think we, we fall into that trap of if I want it done right, I've got to do it myself. That can actually add to a significant amount of stress and lead to a lot of balls being dropped. So it's really important to assemble a good support team around you who can help you to manage your finances and help you get a plan together so that you really know what's going on in your financial life without you having to spend all those hours.

Let me interrupt just for a second before we get to three, four, and five. People tend to mistakenly think they've got to have a bunch of money to start talking to a financial team. That is not the case. Not the case. No. Yeah. So I think, listen, there are all different types of financial, um, financial resources, right? There are plenty of people who, if you've got gobs of money and millions and millions of dollars, it will help you invest it.

Right. Um, but I do think that there are a lot of really great resources out there, whether they are financial advisors, um, books programs, there are so many resources for people to begin to get control over their finances. And so for people who don't all, you know, have, um, millions of dollars that they're focusing on investing, you can get a certified financial planner to help you build a financial plan. There are fee only planners who can just focus on putting together a feasible financial plan for you. And that could involve debt management that can involve, you know, how much are you going to be paying for medical bills over time that can involve, do we need to relocate? Do we need to remodel, um, things that may not necessarily fall under what people commonly define as a financial advisor relationship.

Thank you for that. You know, a lot of people think, okay, I do have to have millions of dollars, but in my case, you could have millions of pesos. And, uh, no, because I I'm thinking about the cost of remodeling for handicap accessibility features, the cost of care to come 90.

There was a, there was a, uh, a survey the other day about the other day, the other year, uh, of how many people want to age and die in their own home. And it's like over 90%. Right. Well, that's not going to happen.

It's just simply not going to happen. Most people cannot sustain that. And if you bring in people to the home or the long, the more adaptable your home is, the longer you could stay in it, the more accessible your home is, the longer you could stay. That's just a general rule, but those things don't have to just be money thrown down some type of dark hole. You can structure your tax liabilities and all kinds of things with that, with proper financial advisement. Now that's not necessarily in your, is that in your wheelhouse?

No, no, that's not something that I necessarily do. Um, you know, when it comes to retrofitting homes and kind of, and, and, and looking at, um, however, um, no, I, I typically work on the investment management side. Um, but I do, I am a certified financial planner. And if you are looking for an advisor who can assist with that, I think the first step really is certified financial planner designation.

And that's a really great start. And I have been known to do flat, you know, financial plans for people, um, without managing money. So just helping them do exactly as you were saying, understanding how does this work with my tax situation? Um, over what period of time should I think about doing this?

Um, those are all really important questions that you can get a fee-based professional to help you with. Well, part of building wealth is also managing debt. I mean, it's very hard to get wealthy. If you're in debt, I've been sending letters to the white house about that recently.

It's very hard to get wealthy if we're in debt. Uh, but as caregivers, I can't fix Congress in the white house, but I can certainly talk to myself and fellow caregivers about the importance of managing this. And there are things that there are structures we can do in special needs, trust, all kinds of things that can be done, but it's very important to talk to somebody who is in this world to give you some good counsel. That's we got staying silent, trying to do it all.

What's the third one. Yes. Avoiding necessary information.

And this really kind of, you had a great segue there, right? I think, yes, so many of us want to age in place in our home and you said, Hey, that may not happen. So I think a lot of us don't want to face certain facts.

I mean, I know I've been there, right? You don't always want the information that you think you might get, but I will tell you that knowing and knowing early allows you to establish a plan B right. And, and many people in the caretaking relationship, this wasn't plan a right.

You, you weren't going, Hey, can't wait to be here. Right. So I think you really want to try to embrace plan B plan C plan D work with professionals to say, okay, I want it to age in place. However, if I have this home, that's worth, you know, X dollars, and I don't have enough in outside assets to be able to support myself while I'm living in my home, what are my options with regard to this? And how early can I find this out so that I can get my plan together? It's also a lot easier to move out of a home when you're a little bit younger than it is when, when you're, you know, further along and you're more reluctant to leave. So getting the information early, facing facts with someone who's not just going to say, Oh, doesn't look good, too bad, but it's going to say, yes, it doesn't look good as it is, but here are several different avenues that we can walk down to help you get a solid plan in place. We're talking with Emily Boothroyd of Merritt Financial Advisors.

We got to take a quick break. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver.

That is my wife, Gracie, from her CD Resilient. You can see more about that at hopeforthecaregiver.com. We've been talking to Emily Boothroyd of Merritt Financial Advisors. She's calling from the great state of Connecticut.

And in the last block, she was going through a lot of the common missteps. And while we're on that subject, Emily, I wanted to touch base with one of the things you mentioned about building homes and so forth. Don't build your master bedroom on the second floor. If you're building a house and you're in your 30s and 40s, or more certainly if you're in your 50s and 60s, as we get older, just write this down, stairs aren't our friend.

And if you're building one, go ahead and make handicap accessible features on the front end, wider doorways, all that kind of stuff. Don't just stick your head in the sand. I think one of the things I see, Emily, is that people will think, okay, I'll just take care of this for five or six, seven years.

They're either going to get better or they're going to go on to be with Jesus and then I'll worry about this stuff. And I'm like, no, no, we need to have that conversation today. So thank you for number three. All right, number four. So number four is making emotional decisions about money. We talked about the charitable example of really conflating emotions, trying to find offensive self. I see people who either dive into charities or they might kind of start to spend, even though they know they don't have the money to be spending what they're doing, but it feels good, right?

They're getting their outlet, they've got their retail therapy, they're blowing off steam and doing it to their own financial detriment. I also see self-care being a bit of an issue where we keep saying, oh, self-care, self-care. Putting yourself into a debt spiral because you're treating yourself because of your stress doesn't equal self-care. So sometimes self-care is a little bit of kind of facing the facts and really focusing on the data. And then also feeling like you have to stay in a certain home or your children will be so upset if you move, or you'll upset a family member if you relocate to a place that's actually better for you, better for your spouse, better for the person that you're doing the caretaking for.

Spending on certain items or supporting family members that you really can't afford to support, right? But you feel bad, you feel guilty, you feel pressured from other sources. Those are emotional decisions that can really adversely impact your bottom line long-term. And so that can be really problematic. And I always like to get down to the hard data and then we can merge it with some of the emotion.

You're never going to have zero emotion in spending, but trying to really identify where the emotions are is a very important part of financial planning. Well, and as someone who has messed up in that area, you know, when you've done this, as long as I have you, you, you have ample time to make a lot of mistakes and I have, and it is so important. I think one of the things, and I'm pretty sure number five will have the same denominator. All of these things that Emily's telling us involve talking to someone else, not listening to your own thoughts by themselves.

You know, let's, let's get some fresh air in this place and have some other voices. All right. Number five. So the last one is stop looking in the rear view, right? So it's so easy to go back over your life and go shoulda, coulda, woulda. You know, I wish that I bought, you know, a lot of Apple back in the day, you know, that's not a stock tip, but you know, you're, I'm always looking back going, oh, should have done this, should have done that. But I think it's really important to say, start where you are.

Start exactly where you are. Don't get caught up looking in the rear view mirror. Don't beat yourself up for past mistakes. Try to look forward and say, how do I begin again?

Intelligently with a good sale for me. We're looking at that several exits back from me, but that I get it. No, I mean, yeah, I've, I've had to learn to make peace with the fact that I should have done such and such. Right. You know, but it, this is where caregivers are. And thank you for that because I think, I think that we treat ourselves.

I wouldn't hang around somebody who treats me the way I treat myself. Yes. And, and I think this is a great piece of advice for caregivers. Okay. Here's where we are. Let's don't romanticize or regret the fact, the past let's don't fear or fantasize about the future. Let's just deal with where we are and start today.

Today's a great day to start being healthy. And that's what you're saying. And I thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think self-care to me, when we keep talking about our, our, our whole, the whole country is talking about self-care so much to me, self-care stop beating yourself up, be nice to yourself, give yourself the gift of focusing on the future in a really intelligent way to put yourself in the best possible position to reduce your overall stress and have a good plan moving forward. It's not as nice as a bubble bath sometimes, but man, does it feel good when you have your ducks in a row?

Well, unless the ducks are in the bubble bath. If you have found what Emily is saying to be piercing right through to your situation, you can reach out to her, her email eboothroid, eboothroid, E-B-O-O-T-H-R-O-Y-D at M-E-R-I-T-F-A.com. Merit financial advisors, meritfa.com. And I'm going to put this in the podcast as well. So you'll have that information. If you want to go out to our podcast and hope for the caregiver.com. Emily, I want you to know how much I appreciate you raising the flag and saying, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey people, this is the path to safety is that's what we're all about. And, and we get, we get hurt.

I mean, these are very serious situations that so many are dealing with now and they're overwhelming. And it's really great to have a calm, reassuring voice of reason in this. So thank you so much. Thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Yes, ma'am. This has been another foray, if you will, for us here on this program to look at ways that we could stay safe as caregivers. A lot of things can trip us up.

A lot of things could snag us, snare us. And these are a few of the things that I wanted to bring to your attention. If you are finding this program helpful, would you consider helping us do it better and more by going out to standingwithhope.com slash giving standingwithhope.com slash giving standing with hope is the ministry that Gracie and I founded many, many years ago. And the flagship program was a prosthetic limb outreach that Gracie wanted to do for her fellow amputees. We've been doing that since 2005 in the country of Ghana. Now, recently we just provided a leg for a young man in Cameroon.

And if you want to help offset some of those costs, again, standingwithhope.com slash giving, you can do that. Another request has come in from Pakistan and they need liners and sleeves. Well, I had a prosthetist office call me.

They have some, we got to ship it over there. If you want to help with that, standingwithhope.com slash giving liners and sleeves, the liner goes on the amputated limb, and then the sleeve goes over that and helps secure it to the amputee's body. This is primarily what we deal with with below the knee amputees, like Gracie, and they're called suspension sleeves and liners, and it allows them to wear these devices with a great deal of comfort, security, and mobility.

Gracie has been using these for years and they're wonderful devices. So we're going to try to get these to Pakistan. If you go out to our website at standing with hope, you'll see at the top, there's a prosthetic tab and you can donate a used limb, a used prosthetic limb. What we do is we take those used limbs from families who had an amputee pass away, or sometimes the amputee just outgrows it, kids and so forth, they don't need it.

And we'll take it. The socket is custom made for the patient. So we don't reuse that, but all the hardware attached to that limb, the adapters, the tube clamps, the pylons, the feet, the knees, all of those things can be recycled. And if you follow the instructions there on the site, you could just print off a label, put it in a box, put that label on there and send it to a prison in Arizona where inmates volunteer to disassemble them for us all the way down to the screw level. And then we ship those items to where they're most needed.

So please tell somebody about that. Standingwithhope.com and you just click right at the top, you'll see prosthetic limbs and it'll say donate a used prosthetic limb, the tab, you just hold your mouse over it and the tab will show you exactly what to do. You just fill out a little form that tells us what you're sending. It'll print out a label.

You got to put some postage on it, but it'll print out a label and you can send it in. That's part of what we do with the prosthetic limb outreach. And it's a great way to share the gospel. We had never worked in Cameroon before, but I had some friends of mine who were missionaries and they kind of helped us get better acquainted with this prosthetic center. And the prosthetist that we used over there that we contracted with, wonderful fellow named Jude. And I read to him from the scripture of the book of Jude. And he says, now unto him who is able to keep you from falling. Isn't that a great name for a prosthetist to have, Jude, with that particular scripture in mind.

He's a wonderful Christian. Praise with the patients. We're looking forward to the next patient that he brings to our attention. Most of our work is centered in Ghana. We do have patients that will travel to Ghana from as far away as Nigeria to receive services.

In fact, I just got a text this morning from one of our patients. We've been treating her for some years. She lives in Nigeria. She's an above knee amputee. Her name is Adaranki.

She's just a delightful lady. And she periodically has to go back for refitting, maybe some more liners and sleeves, maybe an adjustment, maybe a new foot, maybe a new knee. All these parts that we recycle, that's where that inventory comes from. And if she needs a new socket, then we help with that as well.

Those sockets usually last about seven years, depending on the patient, you know, if they're growing, if it's a child, that kind of thing. And we also purchase materials to make those sockets, carbon fiber, resin, PVA bags, all kinds of things that are involved. So you can be a part of that. You can help sponsor this program. Please, we're asking for your help today. If you're finding this program to be meaningful to you today, help us do more and help us do it better. Standingwithhope.com slash giving go out today. Tell you what, I have not cleared this with anybody, but I'm just going to do it anyway. If you do $100 or more, I'll send you a free signed copy of my book, A Minute for Caregivers.

It's brand new. It's not even in the bookstores just yet, but I'll send that to you just as a way of saying thank you, $100 or more. This is Peter Rosenberg. This is Hope for the Caregiver. We'll see you next time.

Healthy caregivers, by the way, make better caregivers. See you next time. You've heard me talk about Standing with Hope over the years. This is the prosthetic limb ministry that Gracie envisioned after losing both of her legs. Part of that outreach is our prosthetic limb recycling program. Did you know that prosthetic limbs can be recycled?

No kidding. There is a correctional facility in Arizona that helps us recycle prosthetic limbs. And this facility is run by a group out of Nashville called CoreCivic. We met them over 11 years ago and they stepped in to help us with this recycling program of taking prostheses and you disassemble them. You take the knee, the foot, the pylon, the tube clamps, the adapters, the screws, the liners, the prosthetic socks, all these things we can reuse and inmates help us do it. Before CoreCivic came along, I was sitting on the floor at our house or out in the garage when we lived in Nashville and I had tools everywhere, limbs everywhere, and feet, boxes of them and so forth. And I was doing all this myself and I'd make the kids help me.

And it got to be too much for me. And so I was very grateful that CoreCivic stepped up and said, look, we are always looking for faith-based programs that are interesting and that give inmates a sense of satisfaction. And we'd love to be a part of this.

And that's what they're doing. And you can see more about that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. So please help us get the word out that we do recycle prosthetic limbs. We do arms as well, but the majority of amputations are lower limb.

And that's where the focus of standing with hope is. And that's where Gracie's life is with her lower limb prostheses. And she's used some of her own limbs in this outreach that she's recycled. I mean, she's been an amputee for over 30 years.

So you go through a lot of legs and parts and other types of materials, and you can reuse prosthetic socks and liners if they're in good shape. All of this helps give the gift that keeps on walking. And it goes to this prison in Arizona, where it's such an extraordinary ministry.

Think with that. Inmates volunteering for this. They want to do it.

And they've had amazing times with it. And I've had very moving conversation with the inmates that work in this program. And you can see again, all of that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. They're putting together a big shipment right now for us to ship over. We do this pretty regularly throughout the year as inventory rises and they need it badly in Ghana. So please go out to standingwithhope.com slash recycle and get the word out and help us do more. If you want to offset some of the shipping, you can always go to the giving page and be a part of what we're doing there.

We're purchasing material in Ghana that they have to use that can't be recycled. We're shipping over stuff that can be. And we're doing all of this to lift others up and to point them to Christ. And that's the whole purpose of everything that we do. And that is why Gracie and I continue to be standing with hope. Standingwithhope.com.