#411 Caregiver Principles For A Chronically Impaired Nation

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Call 866-WIN-ASIA or to see chickens and other animals to donate, go to CritterCampaign.org. You know, John, I've been thinking a lot about what's going on, and I think I have some correlation to some of the things that we deal with as caregivers that may apply to what's going on around the country. This is Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. If you want to be a part of the show, 877-655-6755. We'd love to have you be a part of the show. John, I've been thinking about this.

John, the Count of Mighty Disco himself is with us. I am, I am. You know, I was watching, like most people are, just the meltdown of the country kind of thing. You know, we're almost like having a national seizure. And, and it's just, it's heartbreaking to see on multiple levels.

And I don't think that it's, you know, that I can add anything to the equation of the political commentary and so forth. But when I said it, there are other more qualified people that, yeah. Thank you for affirming that, John. It's always great. It's, it's, you know, it's that, it's that right there to lift me up moment that, that makes you so special to me. I'm just here to, you know, I'm not, I'm not really here to take you by the hand. It's really more than grab you by the ankle.

By the hair. No, I, when I set out to write my book, Hope for the Caregiver. And I was, when the publisher asked me to get involved with this book, they wanted to do this. They said, look, we'd like for you to do this and yada, yada, yada. And it was one of those things. It was a book deal that happened in a space of hours. You know, I didn't have to pitch or anything else. They came to me.

That's always the best kind of book deal. Oh, I'm serious. I imagine it is.

So, and I started doing this. I, okay, what, what are the core issues that caregivers deal with? What are we faced with? I mean, because I think when you first think of caregiving, and this is where it's been ever since I've even talked about this show from pitching the show and before we even started was they thought about nursing homes. Right. And that's, that's just kind of general thought. And I thought, no, caregiving is so much more than just dealing with a nursing home and caregivers deal with very, very significant realities that are common to all mankind, but enhanced because of the pressure cooker. Exactly. Yeah.

Being a caregiver just makes all of the things that we all deal with way more intense. It's like a Marshall amp. If I may.

Yes, you may. So it's like a Marshall amp. It just, it just truly cranks up the noise.

Okay, so then I thought I started, you know, reverse engineering. All right, so what is the noise that's being cranked up so much? What is it about family caregivers that were struggling so much to deal with? And I came up with this thing called the fog of caregivers, fear, obligation, and guilt, because I feel like that is a common issue that human beings face, but it is uniquely difficult for caregivers because of the relentless onslaught. And it's so easy to get lost in that fear and that obligation and that guilt.

How many times have we heard callers into this show, John, who just were doing things, what are we going to do about this? How are we going to face this? You know, all that fear that just generates and it generates, it ramps them up. Well, and because that's a necessary mechanism that we have.

We should be afraid of certain things, but we don't need to exist in that all the time. It's just we're not built for it. But as caregivers, we often do that. And we get forced into it. Yeah.

Yes. And then you go to the obligation, you know, and that's when that resentment comes in. I'm obligated to this and I need to be doing this, but I don't want to be doing this and I'm obligated. And then we get into the guilt.

Oh man, I shouldn't have done that. Or I shouldn't feel obligated. Or I brought this child in the world with special needs or I messed up or I wasn't there for mama every single day and the people at the nursing home abused her and I wasn't there. And then we feel guilty.

All that kind of stuff. And then you get lost in this fog of caregivers. What happens when you get lost? Well, then that's when accidents happen. That's when danger happens. That's when you hit a tree, go off a cliff, hit somebody else. And you have to slow down and you have to dismantle this and go a different direction. This is what I did when I wrote the book.

And I came up with a thing called the GPS to help caregivers navigate through it. Something external of themselves to help them get through that. Well, how does that apply to the country? Excuse me, John. I'm sorry. There is no excuse. And I thought, are we as a country kind of lost in that fear, obligation, guilt fog? And I thought about that because there was such unbridled destruction going on and that often happens when people have lost their way and they don't know where they're going and they're just slamming into something. And they think they're in control of something, but they're really not. And the fog doesn't respect anybody's abilities. It doesn't respect anything. It just is. You either navigate it safely or you navigate it poorly.

Your choice. And as I watch these individuals across the country doing this, I think some of them are being driven, evidently the reports bear out that some of them are being driven by ideology. I think we know that. Most people agree on that, some of that. But some of it is just being driven by people who are just in despair and lost and feel so disenfranchised, so lost.

I mean, there's no other word, just lost. Yeah, yeah. And it is our job to have empathy as humans. That's one of the things that we do. And being able to understand that from the perspective of a caregiver, that can give a little bit of insight. And so I thought about, will the same things that help caregivers get out of that fog or navigate it safely work in this situation with that GPS, that grace, purpose, and stewardship? And I think we all, with grace, and I'll get back to that, but that word stewardship, when you hear the word stewardship, John, what does that signify to you? Well, the joke I want to make is from The Shining.

The steward of the Overlook Hotel. No, but it is something that you, like a librarian, a librarian is a custodian of all of this. All of the books are in the custody of the librarian, but they are not owned by them. They didn't write the books.

They didn't do anything like that. They keep them and make sure that they are in good condition for people to enjoy, because they feel that there is something valuable to put into the world by doing that. So when you say stewardship, that's one of the first things that I think of. Well, that's a very interesting thing. That's very interesting.

Well, thank you. Stewardship is a word we don't use a lot. Our country's, what, $24 trillion in debt.

Clearly, we don't use it a lot. But are we being good stewards of good custodians, if you will, to stay with that theme. Are we being good custodians of freedom? Are we being good stewards and custodians of other people's issues, weaknesses, or things that they're facing? Yeah, whatever their concerns are. Yeah, are we being good stewards and custodians of our own concerns? Or are we just stuffing it down and then it comes out in a destructive manner? Well, when we talk about boundaries, because boundaries are not for other people.

They are for ourselves. And I think that when you don't deal with your own feelings of whatever they are in a healthy manner, they will come out in a destructive manner. I mean, it's just that's a given.

It will happen. You're either destructive towards someone else or destructive towards yourself. I mean, that's what happens. Yeah. And so I looked at… We've all been there.

Yes, multiple times. But for me, but I look at what's going on in the country and I'm thinking, okay, are we being, are individuals, are groups of individuals, law enforcement, whatever, being good custodians, good stewards? And clearly this all was triggered by this video of this law enforcement. I had that, you know, and he bought the ticket.

He's going to take the ride. But the mission of the police force is to serve and to protect, not to command and to, you know, to beat down. And if someone gets out of hand, there are ways to do that. But then we've lost that story.

We can't even have that conversation anymore because of the destructive swath that went through the entire country the last four days. Right. Well, in the same way that as a caregiver, unfortunately, meltdowns are a thing.

There is some disaster. Been there, did they? Yeah.

They've got a closet full of t-shirts. And in the middle of a meltdown, what is it that caregivers need? And then if this country is in the middle of a meltdown, what is it that the country needs? Exactly. So can we draw, can we use the same principles in dealing with a long-term issue that doesn't show any signs of necessarily going away or being fixed? Can we deal with that with the same principles that caregivers deal with these things? And that's that's the question. That's the thought I have. And so I thought, well, let's talk about that a little bit today about and you feel free to weigh in on that.

Eight, seven, seven, six, five, five, sixty seven, fifty five, eight, seven, seven, six, five, five, sixty seven, fifty five. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is hope for the caregiver.

Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. We'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger. And in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

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

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standingwithhope.com.

I'm Gracie and I am standing with hope. As a caregiver, think about all the legal documents you need. Power of attorney, a will, living wills and so many more. And then think about such things as disputes about medical bills. What if, instead of shelling out hefty fees for a few days of legal help, you paid a monthly membership and got a law firm for life? Well, we're taking legal representation and making some revisions in the form of accessible, affordable, full-service coverage.

Finally, you can live life knowing you have a lawyer in your back pocket who, at the same time, isn't emptying it. It's called Legal Shield and it's practical, affordable and a must for the family caregiver. Visit caregiverlegal.com. That's caregiverlegal.com.

Isn't it about time someone started advocating for you? www.caregiverlegal.com, an independent associate. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on Family Talk Channel.

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

877-655-6755, 877-655-6755, if you want to be a part of the show. That was my wife, Gracie, from her new record, Resilient. And she is indeed resilient. We're going to get back to our conversation. John and I are having a very philosophical discussion on this.

Calm down, Kierkegaard. Philosophical is such a strong word. But we're talking about some of the things that went on in our country. And can the principles of caregivers navigate to safer ground? Will that help others as well in the country?

And I think it will. And I was struggling with this as I was watching because I thought, what do you say to this? And I don't know that it requires me to say anything.

But I'm saying something to myself, I guess, at this point. To kind of wrap my mind around it because I think it's so big, it's so awful, it's so horrendous. And, okay, when things look big, awful, and horrendous, what's the first thing we need to do? And according to the things I've learned over the years of being a caregiver for now 34 years, the first thing you do is slow down. Just like when you come to a fog in the road, you slow down. You just simply slow down.

And do you feel like that as a country, as this thing was racing out of control, that anybody was saying, slow down, John? Yeah, and to kind of bring anybody up to speed who hasn't been around, we talk about the fog of caregivers and being lost in the fog because of the fear, obligation, and guilt. Because, you know, you're clever with words and acronyms and things like that. I'm real witty, or at least halfway there. Oh, I like that one. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Oh, no, you got all the little that you deserve. So, all right. But, you know, we talk about the fog here. The fog of caregivers is exactly, as I was watching all this, I'm thinking, okay, is there anything that caregivers experience and learn that may be applicable here?

Yeah, and, of course, vice versa, you know, we're interested in how... Yeah, we're always wanting... But here's the general problem for a caregiver. In just a broad brush, we're dealing with the relentless challenges of a chronic impairment. Okay? Now, some of those...

I like where you're going. Well, some of those may be really acute and be dealing with, when you're dealing with somebody who's an addict or an alcoholic, those are wildly out of control behaviors. Right, right. And then you're dealing with people who have dementia, and that is a declining, circling, out of control behavior.

Just relentless, yeah. But then you may be dealing with a special needs kid who deals with autism, where there are certain structures that can be learned and modified to help. And then you're dealing with a physical disability. Rough improvement. Yeah, yeah, it can happen.

Yeah, rough improvement. But then you're dealing with a physical disability, and that can be accommodated with adaptive equipment. So there are different kinds of things, but regardless of which, there are chronic impairments that create relentless challenges. And this could go on for years.

In my case, we're in our fourth decade, or it could go for the lifetime. And it doesn't end at a grave for the caregiver, because I think the caregiver deals with the residual impact and imprint of this. So let's take that thought and then put it on what the nation's going through. I think it's very clear that our nation is chronically ill. We have a chronic impairment that is relentless in our nation, and it is fostering the inflammation of rage and resentment and anger on multiple levels.

And it's not just the disparity of a treatment by police officers towards African Americans. Then you've got the people now who are seeing the impairment of unleashed rage tearing apart businesses that had nothing to do with this whatsoever. I mean, the cheesecake – I saw somebody – they were looting the Cheesecake Factory. To their credit, the Cheesecake Factory is amazing. Well, yes, but it had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.

It's just the Cheesecake Factory. If we want to get super philosophical about it – And we do. And we do.

It does have something to do with it. The people who would encourage that sort of action are saying that this is all part of the same deal. Burn it all down.

Yeah, burn it all down. And I might not agree, but I could have a conversation with them about that. Not while they're stealing your cheesecake. Not while they're stealing my cheesecake, but I could have a conversation about it. But that's not where we are right now.

Yeah, nobody's having a conversation. So what I was getting to is that if you said the nation has a chronic impairment, one of the first things you do is you diagnose that. And you figure out what that impairment is. And I don't know if we've done that yet.

No, I don't think we have. And I think it's too easy to say, well, it's this. Right. Because the symptoms are what they are.

They're a manifold. But let's go back to the caregiver, because that's what this show is about. All right, so those of us who love this country and want to care for this country and be good stewards of this country, what is our responsibility? What is our part in this? What can we do? I don't have an enormous amount of faith in the political establishment bringing any type of viable solution. I don't think that's going to happen.

I think that the American people will have to, as individuals and as a collective, decide that they want to move in a different direction. Now, there will be stragglers along the way that won't go there. Yeah, and there's going to be people who are out front. Well, one of our favorite philosophers, Fred Rogers, always looked for the helpers.

And there are people out there doing that. And so I go back to this fog of caregivers. This is where it really goes off the rails for us as caregivers. When we're trying to do something to the best of our ability, we're usually running short on time. We're very, very pressed for time. It's getting ugly for us, and the tension is building up, the tension is building up, and all of a sudden we have a fog, and we somehow mistakenly think we can punch this thing and we're just going to have to slow down.

So I think the country is going to have to slow down. Your instinct is to turn on the high beams. Don't turn on your high beams. No, slow down and follow outside help.

So what does outside help say? That GPS, that grace, purpose, and stewardship. And you go back to stewardship. Are we being the best stewards, custodians, your word, of the freedom that we have? If you're a law enforcement officer, are you being a good steward of the authority you've been given? If you are a citizen, are you being a good steward of the responsibilities you have as a citizen of this country? And when you start changing the conversation a little bit by just adding those words in, as a political leader, are you being a good steward of the office that you hold? And that's because they really should be.

When we talk about, you said, what does a steward look like to you? Well, I didn't say politician because although that's the ideal, I don't have a lot of faith that they've gotten close to that ideal. It was designed to be that way. Yeah.

But they were citizen legislators. Exactly. And it was designed for that, but it's become so much more. And then I go back to the first part of the GPS, grace, purpose, and stewardship. And this is something I live by myself as a caregiver of these things because I get lost in the fog on any given day at any given point.

It's not fair. The fog is not fair. Oh, yeah.

It's just the fog. And so I get lost, and so I go back to this grace, purpose, and stewardship. Okay, so what does grace look like in this? And see, I married a woman named Grace.

I think she has the most beautiful name in the entire English language. I just love her name, Grace, and what it means, unmerited favor. You don't have to earn it.

It's given. And I thought, can we demonstrate and give grace to one another in this, to ourselves? Exactly. Can we give grace? Do you struggle with that? I really like where you're going with this.

I'll put you on the spot. Do you struggle with giving grace to yourself? I do. All the time. There are times when I'm really good at it. And then there's, you know, even something as simple as, this is the joke way of looking at it, but like lying awake at night thinking about that, you know. Wait a minute.

That sounds like an air supply song. Yeah. Way to pull that one out of the archive. Careful with that joke.

It's an antique. But that, you know, something is, and this is a silly thing, but like, ah, I said that, I said that really embarrassing thing in seventh grade and it still stuck with me or something like that. But that, and then you could, it just gets magnified.

Or the, you know, the argument you have yourself with yourself in the shower that you lose. Yes. I get that. Listen, can we continue this, John? I am happy to do so.

This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. Why am I asking you? It's my show. 877. Hey, look, if you're enjoying the dialogue, even on Facebook Live, whatever, feel free to call in. Tell us your thoughts on it.

877-655-6755, 877-655-6755. We're not the arbiters of this. We just want to have the dialogue.

Is there a better way to do this? Can we show better stewardship? I think we can. We'll be right back.

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

What can God do with that? And then she had this vision for using prosthetic limbs as a means of sharing the gospel, to put legs on her fellow amputees. And that's what we've been doing now since 2005 with Standing with Hope.

We work in the West African country of Ghana. And you can be a part of that through supplies, through supporting team members, through supporting the work that we're doing over there. You can designate a limb. There's all kinds of ways that you can be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking at standingwithhope.com. Would you take a moment and go out to standingwithhope.com and see how you can give?

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

Finally, you can live life knowing you have a lawyer in your back pocket who, at the same time, isn't emptying it. It's called Legal Shield, and it's practical, affordable, and a must for the family caregiver. Visit caregiverlegal.com. That's caregiverlegal.com. Isn't it about time someone started advocating for you?

Well, www.caregiverlegal.com, an independent associate. 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. Remember, he knows, he knows the plans he has for you. Oh, yes he does.

He knows. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on Family Talk Channel, Series XM 131. We're live.

My name is Peter Rosenberger. I am the host of this show, and we are glad to have you here. That is my wife, Gracie, singing from her new record, Resilient.

You can get a copy of that, hopeforthecaregiver.com, and just click on her CD cover. And you can help be a part of what we're doing at this show. Whatever amount you want to give, we'll send you a CD of it. And it's a tax-deductible gift to our organization, our ministry that we do.

We started this a long time ago. We have two program areas. One is a prosthetic limb outreach, standing with hope that Gracie envisioned after she gave up both of her legs.

And she wanted to be able to offer quality prosthetic help to her fellow amputees. We've been working in the country of Ghana, and over in West Africa, the Republic of Ghana, for 15 years. And we send over supplies, we purchase supplies, and then we also go over there with teams. We were going to go there in August, but I don't know that traveling overseas right now, John, is probably the best call.

We're going to hold off on that for just a little bit longer, but we just bought some resin. And anything that you want to do to help us continue that work, we also are sending over some funds to help with a little extra cost of some food for some of the patients and technicians we work with and so forth. You know, this thing is hitting everywhere, so we're able to do that. And if you want to help us do more of it, go to standing with hope and take a look at it.

It's extraordinary work, and I think you'd be very, very pleased with it. And then the other, of course, is this radio show and our outreach to the family caregivers. It's for the wounded and those who care for them.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Oh, by the way, we recycle prosthetic legs. If you know somebody who has an amputee in their family, please communicate this to them because amputees go through a lot of legs.

Gracie's gone through, I don't know how many of them, in her 29 years as an amputee. Is there a centipede joke in here? No, there's no centipede joke. But it's a, don't bug me. Oh.

Buzz off. But it's, no, you can recycle a prosthetic leg, or at least components of it, not the whole thing. The socket is uniquely made to that person.

That's why we purchased resin, because that's used in the lamination process of making a brand new socket. But you can recycle the knees, the feet, the pylons, the connectors, the adapters, the screws, the prosthetic socks, the belts, the liners, the sleeves, if they're in good shape, and the shoes. But I'm just constantly amazed at how many people will sit one leg with one shoe on it. I'm thinking, we don't carry the other shoe here with a, please sit both shoes, because we would be glad to give shoes to somebody, because there are a lot of people that don't have it. A lot of the amputees we treat wear sandals. Right. That are not necessarily good, or flip-flops, basically. Right, right. And that's not good for a prosthetic foot.

I can't imagine why it wouldn't be. I've had more patients come in that, with their children, we treat a lot of children, and we bought them the first pair of shoes. There's a market across the street from the clinic. We would go over there. I would take a little foot, one of the prosthetic feet we get, because we get them all sizes, and I'd go over there and try to match it up with the right shoe. And usually we'd get lace-up type sneakers or dress shoes and things that have a solid construction to it.

Soul. And that's the first pair of shoes that some of these children have ever owned. You know, we've been doing this show for seven years. You didn't know that? And I didn't know that.

I didn't know that. That's a beautiful little story. That's wonderful. There's nothing like going to an open-air market in Ghana with a prosthetic leg, when you're a white guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Looking like you, with the preacher here, you know? Well, they think of Bill Clinton over there, with my white hair.

Y'all just bring the car around. But I get a lot of stares, and they call me O'Bronie. And they say, O'Bronie! And they're yelling out. And I have a good time. They're just delightful people. Okay, so this is something that's been, this is completely off-topic, but you know us.

So, I don't think you can know. I think you'll allow this for a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But recently, even our president has tweeted something about this. Have you ever seen the pallbearers over there? The Canadian pallbearers? Oh, yeah.

The funerals over there are something to behold. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we even talked about this, like, I'm just curious, you know?

Yes, it is. That's something that we could certainly talk about this at another time, Jeff. Yeah, right, right. But, back to the legs. Yeah, back to the legs. But anyway, so that... You're doing this in a wonderful, beautiful country with lots of interesting things going on.

There are interesting things that go on, and they're delightful people who we are pleased to serve in this capacity. And so, if you know of somebody that has a prosthetic leg, tell them, don't throw away the things they outgrow or they discard. We'll take them and we'll recycle them.

If you know of somebody at a funeral home or something, just pass the word on that family members can do this and help somebody else walk. And they go to a prison in Tennessee. CoreCivic runs this prison. It's one of their many faith-based programs. And inmates volunteer to disassemble, which is a really wonderful program in itself too. It's the only one in the country like this where inmates volunteer to participate in this one-of-a-kind program. So, put the word out there.

Helping them as well. Yes, because... Were you in prison?

Did you visit me? Jesus said five things. Sick, naked, hungry, prison, thirsty. And he's pretty serious about all five of those. Seems like it, yeah.

He seems to think so. But the inmates love the work. It's interesting work and they get to see that it's making a real difference for people. And a lot of times the patients will send in a note with the family member of that loved one that passed away.

They'll send in a note telling their story. And we keep those notes. Those are very meaningful to us.

So, we take it very seriously. And faith-based programs in prison work. If you want to learn more about that, go out to CoreCivic.com because they'll show you all the different things they work.

They work. It helps reduce the recidivism. They don't want people coming back.

It's not a hotel. We don't want you to come back. We want you to go out and live a productive life. And that's a part of it. So, StandingWithHope.com if you want to see more about that.

StandingWithHope.com. John, we're talking about the fog of caregivers. We are. And as we continue on this conversation, because I've been thinking as I watch the nation struggle with this, it's very easy to be on the sidelines. We caregivers understand that because there are a lot of people on the sidelines always telling us how to do it better. Exactly. And I don't want to be that person in this situation. I can't tell the Minneapolis police and the state trooper and the governor and all that how to do it better.

I can't tell the mayor of Nashville how to do it better when he did his thing yesterday and it went a little wonky there in Nashville. I can't tell the president how to do it better. I mean, I can, but what point does it have? Exactly. It's like you're taking care of a loved one with Alzheimer's and your family members or friends, whatever, want to sit there on the sidelines and judge you and tell you how well you're doing or not doing.

Get some skin in the game, okay? But the question I have is, are some of the principles that we as caregivers deal with on a regular basis, are they helpful in a situation like this? And so I'm just, you and I did not rehearse this. There was no play.

We are not coordinated in any way, fashion or form. We don't have rehearsals, but I wanted to have this conversation. I have looked to John over the seven years that he has helped guide this show and produce it.

I've looked to him as a tremendous sounding board to be able to just bounce things off of and throw it out there, and then he filters it through his butlerometer and whatever it is, he filters it through and spins it around. We don't need to talk about how the sausage is made, all right? Probably best not to.

But I just thought about that. I thought, okay, what can we learn from this? Is there something we can learn?

Because clearly we're not learning the lesson very well as a country. Well, the more we talk about this during the course of this hour, I think that one of the things that we can learn is just having some empathy for... I see so much about everyone has someone to blame in this, and we leap to that very, very often. We like to put blame on something or someone or some other thing, and blame is kind of a form of... Well, I mean, it's taking your hands off somebody else's throat, being forgiveness. But you're talking about blame, but that goes back to our GPS model to get through the fog. Exactly, yeah. Ship captains and airplane pilots, they use a GPS, an external orientation in time and space.

So what's our GPS in dealing with this? That G stands for grace. Instead of blame, can we give grace?

There you go. And grace is unmerited favor. As a believer, I can tell you that I'm often asking for mercy for myself and justice for everyone else. That is a bad place to be.

Let me just say, that is not a healthy place. But when you ask for mercy for yourself and justice for others, can we flip that a little bit or at least shift the thinking and start saying, okay, what does mercy look like? What does grace look like in this situation? What does grace look like to the perpetrator of this thing that started this whole thing with George Floyd, the police officer?

That's a separate transaction. That's going to have to be dealt with in the course of law enforcement. But my thing is, what about grace for the Minneapolis Police Department? What about grace for those people that have to show up the next day and go to work in an environment where they know that the entire world now is looking at them and thinking, oh my gosh, what kind of, you know, what about grace there? Well, and if we are talking about the country in the context of having a chronic impairment, that's grace for everyone.

That's an extensive grace, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And we can emphasize one group, three groups, five groups, whatever. Yeah.

We get out of the thing of saying this is bad, these are good. Right. Right. That's not our job. That's not our job.

Somebody else's job. Yeah. We have an impairment. You know, somebody with dementia, you don't come after them and say you're a bad person. Exactly.

You have an impairment. Yeah. And you can do that to people who are engaging in property destruction or just peacefully protesting or are the police officers or whatever. But you give, like there's, it's going to be very difficult because giving grace often isn't nearly as loud as the opposite.

No, it's not, is it? Yeah. And grace doesn't mean that they're absolved of consequences of behavior. Oh, of course. And consequences themselves can be an act of grace because it allows people to learn.

It allows people to have to deal with their own stuff, you know. Right. And if you want to talk about like reforming or like adjusting the way that we protest or adjusting the way that the police interact with certain aspects of the community or adjusting that, that's part of the deal. We're still trying to figure out how that is supposed to work out.

Well, and then you get, there's a lot of opportunity for grace and stewardship all the way up the food chain here. Yeah. Were officers put in situations where they were not confronted over their issues and they were not having to answer for behaviors long before it becomes this level of destruction.

Right. And if so, what can we do to back that up and start putting in those kinds of places so there are warning flags. With caregivers, I can tell you there are always warning flags with caregivers. I call them the seven caregiver landmines. And one of those is we start gaining weight.

I mean, we just do. So many caregivers start gaining weight. That is a warning sign that that caregiver is seeking to comfort something. Something is not balanced. Another one is the loss of identity.

We start speaking in first person plural, third person singular. That's a warning sign. There's an interesting thing there because I think one of the things I look at with the sickness of the country that we're talking about is I feel like that a lot of this is people searching for identity. And that's one of the, that's in all kinds of stuff. You know, whether like if you are a, it doesn't matter, as soon as you make something political, you are kind of forcing people into, you're locking somebody into one side or the other. You know, like if it's, we're talking about one thing or, you know, it removes the choice for that person. You're polarizing.

Yeah, yeah. It ends up being polarizing. And that's, we're running out of time, but that's where my brain was going on that one. No, that's a good place to go because I think that this is what happens to us. We said it has to be this way.

Does it? You know, sometimes you can build a better mousetrap. And as a caregiver, I can tell you that sometimes as caregivers, we have to learn to build better mousetraps.

We can't just keep doing it the same way. We're going to talk some more about this. This is Hope for the caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. 877-655-6755. 877-655-6755.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the caregiver here on Family Talk Channel. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver.

877-655-6755. I thank you, Jon, for taking the time to indulge me with this because I do think that the principles that we face when dealing with a chronic impairment as caregivers can be applied. And it takes a little bit of thinking and a little bit of elbow grease and a lot of heart.

A lot of heart. You got to want to. Yeah. I mean, part of this has kind of fit into the theme for what I try to do all the time, which is I'm probably not going to be right at the very beginning of the conversation. And we're often really married to the idea that I come into a thing and, oh, no, no, I've got the answer.

I know that Kevin Bacon was in Footloose. And maybe you're wrong. So you look it up on Google or whatever because you're more interested in being right at the end of the conversation. And here's the thing I've learned. You don't have to prove someone wrong in order for you to be right.

Yeah. And hopefully you have a lot of being proven wrong ahead of you because that means you've got a lot of growth ahead of you. But if your goal is to establish your rightness by proving that they're wrong as opposed to collaborating and moving the conversation forward, you're in for some disappointment.

It's not going to have a happy ending for you. And I think the goal- At least it's counterproductive. It's not productive.

It is counterproductive, I think. And sometimes it can be destructive because then we become, like you said before we went to the break, being polarized. And I look at the country and the country is clearly very polarized. And so what do we do about it? And you can't look to Washington or any other political entity on down to fix this because Washington is polarized.

It's the condition of the human heart. And so maybe it just starts with one weary heart connecting to another weary heart and say, you know, enough's enough. And to bring this back to the fog thing, the way we get through this is because I feel like one of the causes of the polarization is the fact that we are increasingly isolated and we don't have a lot of other voices from different walks or different political persuasions or different whatever, different experiences. And if we can combat the isolation, we can do a lot of work on the other thing because you can make it personal. And if we want to do better, go out and make friends, that's a good way to start.

What do you care about? When I was in Ghana, there's a castle on the coast of Ghana at Cape Coast, about three hours east of Accra at the coast, beautiful castle. And it's a museum down and you can go and see and they'll tour and you go down below and there's all the dungeons where they had the slaves that waited to be hauled out to take to the ships to come to America and other places. And there were thousands and thousands and thousands that went through there and at time they would hold them in there just slammed in there, you know, hundreds at a time crammed into there with just filth and almost, you know, just hardly any sustenance and no light.

It gets worse. Above that, in the castle, there's a chapel and they would conduct worship services in that chapel, but they would have the slaves be quiet down below so that people could worship undisturbed. And nobody saw that as a problem. And that is not the church. The church leaves the chapel and goes to the dungeon and then the dungeon becomes the church because that's what our mission is, is to stop insulating ourselves in our own comfort and our own systems of whatever makes us feel better, better Christians, we feel better as better believers or whatever. Whatever it is that we're trying to do to make ourselves feel better, that's not the right goal. That's not helping you be better.

No, it's not. And we go into places and that's where the third part of this GPS comes in, the grace purpose and stewardship purpose. There's purpose. Now we have purpose to go into those painful places, to be elbows deep into painful places. If we're not willing to do that, this will never end. This will never end. Somebody has to leave the comfort and go into the discomfort and equip each other to be stronger through it. That's the only way this ends. And as caregivers, I can say that the goal is never to feel better.

It cannot be. The goal is to be better, like you said, John, is to be better people. And that comes from learning to be healthier, not trying to be happy, trying to be healthy. Happiness will come. Healthiness is the goal. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Check out our free podcast. It's all out there. Thank you for letting us be a part of here, the serious family. We're going to switch everything out to the podcast from here on out. So I hope you'll check it out. Hopeforthecaregiver.com.