Caregivers and 1-2-30

This is Peter Rosenberger and one of the reasons I wrote my new book A Minute for Caregivers is because I remember the sinking, despairing feeling of struggling as a caregiver. No one knew what to say to me. I didn't understand and others didn't understand me.

For decades I foraged along and tried to find my path through this medical nightmare that Gracie and I have endured for nearly 40 years. And I've learned to speak the language of caregivers. I speak fluent caregiver. No pastor, no counselor, no medical provider, no friend should ever throw their hands up and say I don't know what to say to that caregiver.

Because I do. Give them a copy. This book is called A Minute for Caregivers when every day feels like Monday. They're easy to read, one minute chapters that speak directly to the heart of a caregiver and you can get them wherever books are sold. A Minute for Caregivers when every day feels like Monday. Friends don't let friends caregiver alone. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver, healthy caregivers, make better caregivers. How are you doing today?

What's going on with you? If you're not a caregiver you're going to get something out of the program but I'm not here for you. I'm here for those who are willingly without pay putting themselves between a chronically impaired loved one and even worse disaster. They're doing it without training.

A lot of times with very limited resources and a lot of times they're doing it while they're absolutely worn slam out. And this program is for that individual and if you are that individual, welcome. I am so glad that you are here. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Hope for the Caregiver is the conviction that we as caregivers can live a calmer, healthier and dare I say it, a more joyful life while serving as a family caregiver.

Welcome to the program. Health, your health. We're in the flu season right now and COVID notwithstanding and I want to put that in its own category.

We have normal just wear and tear on our body. Of course the whole point of this program is to help caregivers stay healthy. And a while back I came up with this little reminder thing I do for help me. Help me.

Health, emotions, lifestyle, profession, money and endurance. Help me. And I come up with little tricks that I use to remind me of stuff simply because I have so many things cluttering my brain that I need to have simple things to help me remember stuff. And often times I'm in the middle of something and Gracie asked me something and I said hang on baby I need my brain for just a moment.

I have to kind of refocus and think because we get pulled in all kinds of different directions. And so I come up with these simple things to help me remember where the main road is. And I call it a one two thirty program.

I wrote this over twelve years ago. One two thirty. Can you remember those numbers? One two thirty. Say it with me.

One two thirty. Y'all are so good. I knew you could do it. That's right little neighbors.

I'm sorry. Y'all know me by now. Alright so with our health. H E L P. Help me with our health. And we may not be able to get through all of these today but I thought it would be a good time to revisit it now that we're going into the stressful season of the holidays and the flu and cold season and everything else. And I came up with something we could do as caregivers to help us stay strong and healthy while taking care of someone who is not.

And I thought okay how about this. One annual flu shot. Now I know and I'm going to call her out Marianne I know you don't want to get a flu shot. I know that.

And that's okay. Some of you cannot handle the flu shot. I'm not talking about COVID shots. I'm just talking about the normal flu shot.

My friend Marianne she'll get a big charge out of that. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about those of you who can get a flu shot. If there's not a medical reason why you cannot. Why not get one.

When's a good time for you to have the flu. Alright. I get one every year. Now the COVID thing I'm going to put again in its own box because that is an issue I don't particularly want to get into today. Because that would take me down in some very. That's an issue I just don't want to get into today. I do have my picture of Dr. Fauci right here. I'm just kidding I don't.

But I just. Let's put COVID aside. Let's just talk about the normal flu. Let's get a flu shot. If you can't.

If you physically can get one. It's a good idea to get a flu shot. You're not going to not get the flu but you're going to probably reduce the challenges of it. And hopefully give yourself a little bit of an edge. Okay.

And that's that's just my thing. One flu shot. Two well visits per year with your doctor. Just check in with your doc. Say doc look I'm under an enormous amount of stress and I just want to check in with you. Get some lab work maybe.

Get some kind of you know just an assessment. If there's something going on just have that communication. Don't wait for a year to find that you have high blood pressure or high cholesterol or your sugars are too high or things such as that. Why wait?

Why wait for a year? Get two well visits per year with your doctor just to check in. Okay. It's just that's all it is.

You're just going to say put some eyeballs on me. And when you're there by the way communicate with your doctor the level of stress that you live with. Okay. Because if you're a caregiver well how many of you all know that being a caregiver often involves a lot of stress.

Okay. And getting older with stress is not always a good thing. You know I mean we're all aging.

From what I understand the aging rate in this country is a hundred percent. So you want to communicate with your doctor honestly the level of stress that you're under. And there are things that you can do to help balance that out and mitigate it.

Certainly a lot of it is with proper diet and so forth. But let's just check your level. See where you are. Okay.

Let's find out before this turns into a problem. I just did this two weeks ago and I got some lab work done. I was very pleased by the way to find out and I haven't we got this digital scale here in our home. And I've been weighing myself and being dismayed by the weight because I thought for the longest time I kept a certain amount of weight. And yeah I've seen the fluctuation of five to seven pounds and I'd like to really drop quite a bit of weight. I mean I I mean well look if you're ironing your shirt in the driveway it's time to lose a few pounds you know.

And and that's what I want and I'm out here in the forest backed up to the forest and you know I went out there the bears were hiding their food. I mean that's when you know you got to lose a few pounds. Okay. So I'm working on that but I was pleased to know to discover that at the doctor's office when I weighed our scale here at the house is 10 pounds off. So that was like wow you know that was great. I was quite pleased with that. So I had no idea because I was getting a little bit dismayed and every time I got on the scale I would yell down at it you liar or as Joe Biden would say you lying dog face pony soldier. Which that's I do with that information what you will. But anyway so I was pleased to know that the scale at my doctor's office was the accurate scale.

It's one of those big ones you step on it's got handrails you know that kind of thing. And they are that I was I was pleased to learn that 10 pounds were being attributed to me that were not mine. And that was very comforting. But I still want to get a little further down this road here and lose some weight. I'm hoping to do that. Oftentimes I'll lose weight during the holidays because it's a little bit stressful during the holidays. This holiday season Gracie and I are going to be at the hospital. We're going to probably spend Christmas in the hospital. I'm planning on it probably New Year's probably her birthday which is in January. Maybe even Valentine's Day if it goes like it did last time. So I have no idea what we're dealing with here in the next couple of months. But I will try to do my best to eat well and and follow my own prescription here which is 30 minutes daily of some kind of physical activity.

One flu shot, two well visits with the doctor and 30 minutes daily with some kind of physical activity. Walking whatever. I got rid of a sitting desk many years ago. I have a standing desk and I even have a hospital bed tray that I bought for Gracie sometimes when she wasn't feeling very well. I would use this and sometimes I confiscate that and use that in my office as well so I can turn around and have my standing desk in front of me and then a hospital tray that I have for overflow. And I'm always standing and moving and things such as that.

That's just something I do. But I also hope that while I'm with her at the hospital I'll be staying across the street in a hotel. They have a workout room and maybe I'll get in some workout time 30 minutes daily of some kind of physical activity.

One, two, 30. A flu shot, two well visits and 30 minutes daily of some kind of physical activity. Do you think you could do that? You think you could do that with me? And again I don't want to get all the letters and calls about the flu shot.

I'm just throwing that out there because it helps me. But do you think we could do that together? One, two, 30. One, two, 30.

It's as easy as one, two, 30. I think we can. And that's a great place to launch our journey towards being a healthy caregiver and healthy caregivers make better caregivers. This is Peter Rosenberger. We've got more. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com.

This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad to have you with us. We're talking about things that we can do to stay healthy. It's from something I wrote a long time ago for caregivers called Help Me. H-E-L-P-M-E. And those things stand for your health, your emotions, your lifestyle, your profession, your money, and your endurance. And I came up with this thing that kind of, I don't know, it was for me.

It's just something easy for me. One, two, 30. One, two, 30 to remind ourselves.

And so in the last block we did for our health, a one, two, 30, a one flu shot, two well visits, 30 minutes of some kind of daily physical activity. For your emotions, and this is where it gets a little bit tricky. Again, these are just broad things. This is just something that kind of help you get started. All right?

Nothing too complicated and it's not the gospel. So don't feel that you have to rush out and start doing these things right now or otherwise you're not going to be a very good caregiver. I just someplace for us to get started because it's hard to know how to start sometimes. So how about this? For your emotions, one counseling visit with a trained mental health professional, one counseling visit per month, may not be able to make it, may not be able to afford it. But why don't you set that as a goal that you want to do that for a season until you feel like you kind of get solid ground under you. Now you're not going to have to do this in perpetuity.

I don't think, I mean, that's just my general assessment. You may, you may want to and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with it, but until you kind of get yourself settled into this groove, particularly if you're just now entering into this caregiving world, a trained mental health professional could really be a lot of help to you.

And you don't have to break the bank to do this. Psychiatrists are pretty expensive and you need a probably referral from your doctor for that. They're an MD. They're going to deal with multiple things going on with you physically and psychologically. Psychologists are PhDs and one of the things that they can do besides offer therapy and counseling and so forth is administer a variety of tests, behavioral tests, intellectual tests, you know, for your IQ, for personality issues, all those kinds of things.

They can do that. And I would, at some point I would recommend doing it. I think it'd be a healthy exercise for you to have. I mean, it may cost you a little bit of money so you don't have to, but sometimes it's good to know a little bit more about you and what makes you tick. There's an article at Psychology Today about knowing oneself, five reasons why it's important to know who you are and the more you know about yourself, the better you're going to be able to respond to things when they come. You're going to know what kind of triggers you. And I hate that that word's been so overused in our culture, but I was at a loss to come up with a new word on that. But what sparks you, what inflames you, what inspires you, all those kinds of things. The opposite of self knowledge is ignorance, this article said.

And one of the things that I do not want to do as a caregiver is if we're going to go through all this trouble to be who we are in this and to take care of somebody and to go through all these crises, I don't want to do it stupidly. I mean, I don't want to be ignorant in this thing. I want to see purpose and meaning and I want to see value. And more importantly, I want to see the hand of God in this.

And I want to understand more of who he is in the midst of this. And so it's important to understand my mind and how I think. Freud argued that self knowledge emancipates us from being a slave to our unconscious, according to this article. And so many irrational whims. Well, why do we get this way?

Why do we get irritated when this happens? And these are things that we can explore in counseling. And particularly if you have somebody who has given you an assessment of your psychological makeup, of what you aspire to, what you cling to, what you run to, what you run away from, all those kinds of things. And you're not going to be able to be measured in your responses if you don't know who you are. To thine own self be true, Shakespeare said. Of course, that was probably not in the right context, but also I think, I don't know if it was Aristotle or Socrates or somebody came up with, know thyself. And if you don't know who you are, then you're going to kind of flail around. So these things are important to work out in a counseling situation.

Again, you don't have to spend enormous amount of time and money doing this. And you can get into what I call navel gazing. My father gave me that term, navel gazing, where we just become so preoccupied with the minutia of our life.

We're looking at our belly button, navel gazing. And you don't want to do that. The purpose is to learn so that you can better serve. To learn about you so that you could better care for someone else and be more measured in how you live your life in this high stress environment. If you are flailing around, there's a reason for it. Well, what is that reason?

Well, I don't know. And you may not know either, but in a counseling situation with a trained professional, you may be able to explore that more in depth and safely in a controlled environment with a counselor who can guide you through these things and then give you the tools and the vocabulary to better respond to the things that are weighing heavy on your heart, stressing you out, hooking you, all those kinds of things to help you have the tools for this. But it starts with knowing who you are. And you may have to sit down with a professional for that.

And I recommend that. Done that, been there, done that. You know, I've been raised by a pack of therapists. You think I could do this for nearly 40 years without having some professional help in my life. Are you kidding me? Anybody that says they could will lie about other things too. All right. So spend some time with a therapist, maybe once a month.

You don't have to do it again in perpetuity. Just sit down with a trained mental health counselor and get some help. And it could be a licensed clinical social worker. My brother's one and I call him up periodically. You know how I pay him? In beef jerky. We have the best beef jerky out here.

So I call him up and say, look, Jimmy, I need to run this by you. And I'll sit in beef jerky. And so it's a, which by the way is pretty expensive.

It turns out to be about 30 bucks a pound. So that's one, two, three. That's just wrong. But anyway, no, I don't have to make a big production about it, but I, I am convinced that every one of us as caregivers would benefit from a trained mental health provider and vet them first. You know, make sure you don't get somebody right out of the counselor factory that doesn't have any kind of experience. That's not where you want to start. Get somebody who's been around a bit and can speak with clarity into your situation. They may not have enough experience as a caregiver to be able to speak to this issue. Let my book and this program help with that issue. I'll help you with that part, but they can help with other things for you to know who you are.

Okay. So then that's one counseling visit a month, two support groups a month, two support groups a month. Now you may not be able to find a caregiver support group per se in your area. Here in Montana where I live, I've started one and I've prototyped this and I'm hoping to take this nationally.

And I feel that I will, but until then you may have to make do with some things. This program, Facebook group, that's okay, but it's not, it's not people. And so there are, if you've dealt with somebody with Parkinson's, there are Parkinson's support groups.

Alzheimer's, the same thing. If you've got somebody in your family that's an addict or an alcoholic, there are Al-Anon programs that you can go to pretty much everywhere. It may not be the exact language that speaks directly to your situation, but you're still wrestling with something you can't control. And now you're sitting in a room full of other people who are wrestling with something they can't control and you're learning coping skills on how to do that. And that's very healthy for you.

So I'd recommend that. So one counseling, two support groups, they're not going to fix your problem by the way. And your loved one is not necessarily your problem.

Okay? Your problem is your problem. You are your own problem. We're all going to have things in our lives that are going to stress us out are going to cause us discomfort. How we respond to those things is on us. And the more we learn about ourselves and the more we learn how to better cope with these issues and get the vocabulary and the tools, the more calmer and healthier our life will become. And that's the goal. Is it not? So it's about strengthening you, strengthening me so that we can better navigate through these challenges because these challenges aren't going to necessarily go away anytime soon, but our abilities to handle them can improve with proper help.

So you got one counseling per month, two support groups per month. If you can make it, just set us a goal. Again, this is, I'm not putting religion on you about this. I'm, this is not law.

I'm not codifying this. I just want you to be able to have some kind of plan to aim for. And then I'd like for you to look at 30 days in church per year. You think, well, Peter, I go to church every week. What's some of us do? Some of us can't. And so we, we shoot for that. Let's shoot for that.

That averages out to just over two Sundays a month. Why is that important? Well, first off, we need to be in part of a community. Scripture also commands us to do, do not forsake the assembling thereof of the brethren.

Don't do, don't forsake this. We need to be in community to meet. And we also need to hear the gospel preached to us. Now make sure you pick a church that preaches the gospel. You know, if they're concerned about pronouns and gender issues, how about giving them a wide berth and going to a more biblically based church where you can hear the gospel preached with clarity so that you can draw strength from scriptures and the hearing of the word and apply it to your life. But you're also in a community of believers who may not be able to speak to you on your level. They may not be able to understand what you're going through and that's okay, but you're still involved with people of faith who are trusting God with their challenges, their journey collectively and coming together to worship God collectively. And it's really important that you worship God collectively.

Sing the hymns, participate in Sunday school, listen to the word preached, get involved in a small group if they have it. If you can go, you don't have to put these huge legalistic demands on yourself, just participate. It's good for your emotional health. It's good for my emotional health to not forsake this sibling of the brethren, to not remove ourselves from corporate worship. It's good for our health, emotional health. It's good for our psyche and our hearts to be involved in support groups. It's good for us to get counseling.

Scripture says there's wisdom in a multitude of counselors. These are helpful things to provide us with the vocabulary and the tools that are so needed for us to be able to traverse through this caregiving journey that we're on with less drama, more peace, more stability, more calmness, more confidence. We can do this. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is Hope for the Caregiver. We'll talk more when we come back.

Don't go away. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is the program for you as a family caregiver. More than 65 million Americans right now are putting themselves between a chronically impaired loved one and even worse disaster. Are you that person? If so, glad you're here.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Okay, we've been plowing through this 1-2-30 thing I did for help me. Health, emotions, lifestyle, profession, money and endurance.

Help me. Speaking of health, by the way, sorry, I'm having a difficult time breathing and so forth because I've just got a little bit of a cold. So if I sound too overbearing or too deep or whatever, sound different, it's just that time of year. So I am taking something for it. A lot of herbal teas and vitamins and yada, yada, yada. So anyway, that's just part of it. But we plowed through health, which was a flu shot a year, two well visits a year with your doctor, 30 minutes of some kind of daily physical activity. We can all do that.

And again, I'm not going to hold you to it if you have medical reasons or spiritual reasons or psychological reasons why you don't want a flu shot. This is not law. This is just suggestions. And then counseling, one visit a month, two support groups and 30 days in church. Again, being a part of community. Now we come to the L in help me L for lifestyle, not the song L is for the way you do.

No, I'm not. It's not that it's lifestyle. So what about lifestyle? Well, you know, we've talked about this on the program.

We lose our independence and we become isolated as caregivers. So we've got to push back on that. And I thought, okay, how does the one to 30 approach go for that? Well, do one thing for yourself every week. One thing, one thing you say, well, Peter, I can't do that. You don't understand my circumstances. Oh, really? You're telling me this really? Yeah, I do.

And yes you can. And yes I do. Whether in my case is if some of you see on my Facebook post and in our group and so forth, I'll get out on a horse.

That's something I do for me. Winter's here. We just had eight inches of snow and it got down to minus four. Now we're having second fall. Then second winter will be coming shortly. Then we'll have third fall.

Then third winter at Montana weather is pretty weird. However, I get out on a horse. Something I do for me. That's my time. I kill actually two birds with one stone on that or X as Chuck Norris does it kills two stones with one bird, but we, we do something for ourselves once a week.

And what is that for you? Maybe it's just taking time to read a book. Maybe it's fixing a dessert that you like a meal that you like sitting down at the piano, picking up a guitar. I got a friend of mine who locks himself in his office and plays his guitar. And he's been caregiving for his wife as long as I have for 37 plus years. And that's how he does it for himself.

He just, he loves to play his guitar and he has that quiet time where he does something for himself at least once a week. Well, you could do that. We can all do that. Something.

It doesn't have to be major. It's not like you're going to go to Vegas or anything. I mean, unless that's something you really want to do.

I can't think of a worse punishment than to go to Vegas, but different strokes. So, I mean, some people have asked me over the years, I've had several people. I said, wouldn't you love to go on a cruise?

And I'm like, are you kidding me? No, I don't want to go on a cruise. I've been on a cruise and I'm not doing it again. I do not wish to do that. I don't want to be trapped on a boat with, you know, that many people being demanding and needy. That's just not, that does not sound like fun to me. And I told you all, I think I told you all this.

If I ever feel like going on a cruise again, I'm going to go buy a Hawaiian shirt and then go to the Golden Corral because it's pretty much the same experience and same people and I'm not doing it anymore. So it's that, but different strokes, whatever you want, do something for you. Okay. If you don't have a lot of money, well, you know what?

The library is filled with books. Do something for you. One thing every week, something for you.

You can do that. Number two, if you do one thing for you, two weeks of annual vacation from being a caregiver. Now this is going to require some creativity because most of us can't take two weeks straight off. I can't, but I could take a day and a half a month.

Maybe not all at one time. Again, maybe I have to take a half a day, three times, maybe have a quarter of a day, you know, six times, but that's two weeks. But you can carve out some time and you know, we'll just have to be creative. But that's the goal is to give yourself that break from it. Okay.

That's important. And you don't have to do anything exciting on that vacation. You can have a, you know, go to McDonald's and sit there and read the paper vacation. If people do indeed still read the paper, but there are a lot of creative ways we could do it, but shoot to have that. Make that a goal to have that time off where you disconnected.

If you have to get somebody to sit with them for four hours and you do that several times a month. Okay. Make it happen. All right. But, but that's the goal. And then this is the fun one. 30 minutes daily with something humorous. 30 minutes daily with something humorous.

Okay. Watch something that's funny. Watch something that makes you laugh. Read something that's funny, that makes you laugh. There's plenty of stuff out there. You can, you can pull up everything from Andy Griffith to, you know, Seinfeld to whatever.

I don't care. I love standup comedians. I love them. And my, probably my favorite is Rodney Taitcherfield. I'll tell you, I'm doing okay this week, but last week was rough, you know, and I just love it. I got a buddy of mine who, who loves Rodney as well. And I'll call up and give him the newest Rodney that I've heard because he's got so many one liners and I'll do that and I'll get on a tear and I'll have him laugh and then I'll start laughing and we'll do that for, you know, 30 minute phone call and, and I'll just start firing them off. You know, Rodney would say, I know I was an ugly child when I was born and the doctors told my parents, I'm sorry, we did all we could, but he pulled through, you know, every Halloween I was dressed as is, you know, I go to, I go to McDonald's.

They told me I didn't deserve a break. You know, I met the surgeon general. He offered me a cigarette, you know, and he just had so many of these one liners and there's somebody put a clip of like 100 one liners of Rodney to get, and I just watched that until I was just belly laughing. That's very healthy for us as caregivers. I don't know what makes you laugh.

I mean, there's so much comedy out there. Please take advantage of it. Read it, watch it, immerse yourself in it for 30 minutes. Okay.

30 minutes a day. Make yourself laugh. Watch something that will make you laugh.

Okay. You can still watch Andy Griffith these days and it's still funny. It still holds up and people say, well, everything's so raunchy. No, there's plenty of stuff out there that's not, I'll prove it to you.

You ready? I'll prove this to you. Picture in your mind, the Carol Burnett show, what they did went with the wind and she comes down the stairs with that dress with the curtain rod. You know, you're laughing because that was, I mean, and everybody just went wild over that and says, oh, it was a little something I saw with the window. That was 50 years ago, close to it. And it's still funny and it still gets a chuckle every time.

And you, some of you can remember the first time you saw it and you just fell on the floor. You were laughing so hard. We need that. You got to laugh. You have got to laugh. Okay.

It's so important for us to do that. So that's it. One thing for yourself each week and some of you can combine some of these.

Maybe your thing is to watch a funny show. Okay. Well, you've done it. Two weeks annual vacation from being a caregiver. You may have to split it up into hours, but that's okay. 30 minutes a day, something funny.

Okay. Something funny. Just make yourself laugh.

I mean, think about it. How many of you all think that Gracie needs to laugh? She has a hard life.

I'm not kidding you all. She has a very difficult life and she needs to laugh. Now I've made her cry plenty of times.

I know that, but I make her laugh. And I remember it was actually Kathie Lee Gifford told her that. She looked at Gracie and she said, you married him because he makes you laugh.

Didn't you? And she said, well, what he's not making me cry. She left about that. Gracie needs to laugh. She was a very serious young woman.

When I met her, she was recovering from this horrific wreck and you know, she was dealing with serious hard things. And here I come along and I'm just this goofy kid from South Carolina. And I grew up in a large family.

We spoke fluent sarcasm there. When you have four brothers, it's going to get loud. It's going to get ridiculous. There's going to be a lot of laughing.

And, uh, dad would make sure it didn't descend into madness. But my sister, she's the baby. She's the worst.

I mean, she speaks better sarcasm than the rest of us. And we laugh and cut up. There was a period of time during my journey as a caregiver where I lost that because I was so beaten down.

I was so heavy with this stuff. And I remember the first joke I told after a pretty dark stretch and my mother congratulated me on clawing my way back to humor. I get my sense of humor from my mother, who is very funny. She comes from Irish stock and she's very funny.

And, um, not from my father. He appreciates humor, but it's, it's an alien thing to him. He's, that's just, he, he looks at us, it kind of scratches his head sometimes, but mom will jump right into the arena.

I mean, she'll, she'll go a couple of rounds with you. And that's the whole point of it is just to have that fun and laugh. And I learned that it was okay to laugh in this. And I learned that it was okay to have a sense of humor, not only okay, it's imperative. We've got to learn to laugh as caregivers.

Why, why is that important? Well, first off laughter pushes back against the overwhelming pressures that we deal with. And we realized that our hearts can be lighter primarily, not as a defense method, but primarily because of the gospel that this is not the end of the story and that life is worth living. Life is worth enjoying and bracing. So we laugh. So do something for you.

Take some vacation and learn to laugh. This is Peter Rosenberg. This is hope for the caregiver. We'll be right back. Welcome back to hope for the caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. Glad to have you with us. We're going through this whole concept of learning to find a plan to be healthy. Health doesn't come accidentally.

You have to be intentional about it. So I'm giving you a couple of guidelines of something I came up with a long time ago, and I thought it may be helpful to you today as we go into this kind of high stress, high sickness time of year with flus and everything else. So we're plowing through the word help me, H-E-L-P-M-E, help me. And that's health, emotions, lifestyle, profession, money, and endurance. And I want to spend a little bit of time on profession. We covered emotions and lifestyle and profession.

You can go back and listen to that. We put out the podcast if you want, but I want to spend a little time in the profession because many of us have to work as caregivers. I'm not retired and I've worked for myself now, but for many years I had to go to a job that was a bit challenging, particularly when the schedule requires your presence there. It's not like we worked from home for those years.

That didn't come about too many years later. And so I thought about these things that as professionals, because many of you are working and what can we do to be healthier as we work and sometimes in demanding jobs while serving as caregivers. And I thought, okay, let's go through the one to 30 program with that. You know, we did one to 30 for everything.

Everybody can remember one to 30. So I thought, how about one training class per year to learn new skills, to improve yourself, to improve your marketability as an employee, as somebody in the marketplace. Now you may be self-employed, you may be doing your own thing, but again, these are just guidelines. This is just something to suggest, but I think that we benefit greatly from learning a new skill every year, taking an online course in something. Maybe it's just learning how to do better stuff with your computer. Maybe it's learning how to do more stuff with web design, or maybe it's learning how to improve yourself and go from, if you're a welder, maybe you need to learn how to be an aluminum welder, you know, maybe because those are, aluminum welding is quite an art. Maybe you can improve something about yourself in your field or in a field that you wish you could be in. You're not going to get it all in one day.

It's not, it's not required, but you're pushing yourself a little bit to learn. You're pushing yourself to grow and make yourself more marketable, more valuable in the workplace. Zig Ziglar once said a long time ago, this is back when Troy Aikman was quarterbacking the Dallas Cowboys and Zig Ziglar was a huge fan of the Dallas Cowboys. And he said to the audience there, he said, imagine if you will, the horrific event that the Dallas Cowboys folded. He said, I know it's staggering to even think such a thing, but he said, imagine if you, if you will, that the Dallas Cowboys folded and all those football players were looking for a job. He said, how long do you think Troy Aikman would be out of a job?

And this is, this was 30 something years ago when he said this or close to it. And that always stuck with me because the more valuable you are, the faster you can advance your own career and be able to deal with the setbacks. If a company has layoffs or things such as that, because you are a marketable person, even as a caregiver. And I think it's really important for us to remember that we as caregivers are for many employers, we're their dream employee. We're high functioning multitaskers. We're resourceful. We can do a lot on a little. We have become incredibly adaptive to our sort of, we've had to, we've had to learn things that are way outside of our comfort zone and do things way outside of our comfort zone. So these are things that are worthy of noticing. And the more skills that you have, the more marketable skills you have, the less chance your world will be rocked by instability in the marketplace.

Okay. This is the problem we have in our culture right now. We've got a lot of kids who've gone to college and they've got majors in lesbian Chinese art history, you know, that they've paid just insane amount of money for that are worthless. They can't do anything. And so they want their student loans forgiven and they want to have this and this. There's this real entitlement, whatever. You see it all in the news. It's just a mess. These students were sold a bill of goods and they were taken to the cleaners.

Well, we as a country are taken to the cleaners. If you notice the schools are not taking a hit, they just pass it on to the taxpayer, but that's a different conversation. But the point is these kids have no marketable skills.

They don't have anything that they can use to get out there and provide for themselves. This is why I love what Mike Rowe does with all of the trade schools and the things that he's pushing with that, because that's where you can start making some really good money. We're always going to need people who can do stuff. What about us as caregivers? Are we, is our entire financial ecosystem, our entire profession contingent on the goodwill or the stability of one company?

I would rather have it be contingent on my ability to hustle and get out there and be valuable in order to earn a paycheck. And that's what I did for years. And I made myself valuable and I kept learning and I still do. I still take online courses. I am pushing myself always to learn and to develop a new skill. And I'm not going out looking for a job at this point in my life.

I have a path that I'm on, but that desire to never stop learning and learning new skills is deep within me. And I want to push myself to do that. So that's something we can do every year as a caregiver. And you say, well, Peter, I can't do that. You don't know how difficult my life is as a caregiver. Oh, I bet I could imagine, you know, come on, this is me you're talking to.

Yes, I do. But we can learn something. Even if it's a cooking class, you learn something and push yourself to learn something.

Again, this is not legalism. This is just suggestions pointing you in the right direction. So one, two, 30. So one training class per year. Now, if you're working for someone, they're always going to give you an annual evaluation. That's just part of the corporate world.

Why not ask for a second one? So what? It's informal. It doesn't have to be part of your formal one, but it could just be a conversation with your supervisor, with your boss, with your employer to just say, look, how am I doing? How are things going? What are you pleased with that I'm doing? What are some things that you'd like to see me do differently? Can you imagine what that would do to an employer to have an employee like that, that's that proactive about their own status in the company?

And then use that as an opportunity to share with your employer. Look, you know, I'm struggling as a caregiver. I have a lot of challenges on me, but I want to give a fair day's work to you.

I want to make sure that you're happy with my performance. Don't wait for a year. A lot can happen in a year. It's like waiting for a year to find out if you've got high blood pressure.

A lot can happen in that year. I came up with the three F's on that F as in be forthright with your employer. Let them know what's going on.

You don't have to give them all the gruesome details, but just let them know, hey, I've got this going on, but I want you to know and just have a forthright conversation. Give a fair day's work for pay. Make sure that they feel like they're getting their money's worth out of you and more. You know, really give the best you have on the job. And then ask for flexibility.

Don't ask for that first until you're forthright and give a fair day's work, but a lot of companies will be flexible with you. They'll be understanding if they don't feel like you're taking advantage of them. People need good workers right now.

They really do. So be that good worker and then work around with flexibility because you're going to have, if you're covering a shift for somebody or you're covering the sales floor or whatever it is you're doing, nursing, whatever, you can't just keep depending on your coworkers to bail you out when you have an emergency. You're going to have to show that you can put your shoulder to the wheel as well. And that's important for us as caregivers to know that, to do that. And so be forthright and give a fair day's work and then ask for flexibility.

You never know what may happen. They may say, you know, if the workday starts at eight to four or eight to five, they may say, you know what, if you want to come in at seven to three, if that helps you, that, you know, you never know. The answer is always no to ask, but build up that reputation of being a valuable employee that they know they've got a real horse with you, that you, you are something special and they'll work with you, that you care about your job. You care about the company, you care about your coworkers and you want to, you want to not only pull your weight, but you want to do more, always give more.

You know, scripture teaches this and this is the way we should be as Christians. And then the third thing, the 30, one training class that can, one new skill, two performance meetings with your supervisor. One can just be informal. Just have a cup of coffee and have a conversation. And then 30 minutes daily away from your desk or phone during office hours. Okay. Get away from the place.

30 minutes. You're entitled to at least a 30 minute lunch. Get away from your phone. Get away from the desk. Just go clear your head, go for a walk, go sit on an apartment, whatever.

Just get away from the apartment. That's something you can do in your profession. That's all I was able to get to today was the help part. Health, emotions, lifestyle, profession. How about we talk about money and endurance next time?

That's helped me. But one, two, 30. You can break down a lot of the stress points for us as caregivers with just those three things.

One, two and 30. And it'll just help us carve out a little bit of a path towards us becoming healthier caregivers. Okay. And that is the goal. You know, healthy caregivers really do make better caregivers. And these are just a couple of things that help us carve out a path in the midst of all the craziness so that we can be calmer, healthier, stronger, and dare I say it, a bit more joyful. This is Peter Rosenberger. There's more at Hope for the caregiver.com.

We'll 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. 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. I 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.