Jayne: Hi, Heather!
Heather: Hi, Jayne!
Jayne: Hello, friends, and welcome to People in the Squeeze. So, Heather, it's a new day. Do you have a new story?
Heather: Oh, my goodness. There's just so many stories. So many places that people are coming up and saying, "Oh, my goodness, we're seeing your stuff on Instagram", "we're listening to your podcast", and this and this, right? And the connections are really very, very powerful, very affirming. And It's such a joy to be able to see the connections beginning to happen in our work, and we're just beginning.
Jayne: I feel like we have experienced a lot of wind in our sails recently, and it has been nice. I enjoy the wind in our sails. I will take it. [00:01:00] Well, and on that track I want to introduce this idea because we are going to get into a flow. We want to make sure that we do what we need to do to take care of ourselves and get in this moment.
Jayne: So today we are going to do a brief meditation on something called radical acceptance. Now, I know. I know radical acceptance are big words, but it really is just a way for people to liberate themselves from a reality that might feel very painful. And the goal of the meditation is actually to see the situation for what it is.
Jayne: More objectively, less reacting to it emotionally or feeling it in your heart. And all of that can help create a sense of peace and calm. It might even give you a bit of clarity. So you're ready for some radical acceptance? Ready!
Heather: I mean, when we talk about having [00:02:00] things in your pocket, Jayne, and this is one of those really powerful tools that you can have in your pocket. So when you're in that moment of, oh my goodness, to be able to have this muscle, to be able to have this tool in your pocket, ready to go for in those hard moments, is very powerful.
Heather: So I, I love that we're doing this. This is great. 
Jayne: We're ready to radically accept. All right. So In this instance, we're going to start by just sitting in a comfortable private space, but , you could be in a very busy place. You might be in a hospital, so you could find yourself in a chapel or in a quiet waiting room, or you might find yourself at your loved one's home or where they live and you might just excuse yourself and go sit in the bathroom.
Heather: Or the car. I think of the car. I am in my car. Yes. Yep.
Jayne: All of those things are valid and qualify as a comfortable private space. So wherever you are right now, where you [00:03:00] can be comfortable and it makes you feel relaxed and prepared for what is to come. 
 So, take in a deep breath, and then slowly release, and let your lungs completely empty. We're going to do that again, take in a deep breath, and slowly exhale. Now on the next breath, I want you to bring in your breath and imagine a bright light in front of you. So breathe in, and now imagine this bright light in front of you, and it is full of peace, it is full of love. Breathe out, and as you breathe out, Let that deep light in your lungs release it and breathe out all [00:04:00] the darkness, the pain, the frustration, all that is living inside you. I want you to take another deep breath and take in again that beautiful light of peace and love. Now breathe out all the dark, smoky emotions that you've been holding on to. 
Heather: Hmm.  
Jayne: It's okay to let them go. Take in that deep breath, imagine the light, and exhale whatever you're holding onto.
Jayne: Take your time and come back into your body and slowly come back into the space. Welcome back.[00:05:00] 
Heather: Beautiful.
Jayne: Well,
Heather: Mm
Jayne: after all that, we should be ready to take on all that tension and radically accept what's right in front of us. I have to tell you, as we have gone public with our message of people in the squeeze our friends and our families and former colleagues and perfect strangers who are coming up to us after they find out what we're doing and sharing with us that they are so grateful that somebody is talking about this, because they feel alone and that nobody is talking about it, but also they're just so grateful to be able to tell somebody what's going on with
Heather: Mm hmm.
Jayne: them. One of those stories came to me and it was somebody who was talking about how they had gone through this with their own parents and how a sibling had taken on the brunt of that and how grateful she was for that. Now she's seeing this in her in laws. Not only can they sense what's happening and they're [00:06:00] seeing this gradual decline, but they're also coming up against that resistance, that resistance to where that
Heather: Mm hmm.
Jayne: tension is of accepting that they're lacking some of their faculties to be as fully independent. You know, that is just such a challenging space full of tension. Because as people move from independence to interdependence to dependency, this is a very emotional transitional space for everybody involved. And you get a lot of different behaviors that pop up and a lot of fears that pop up and all of that manifests into sometimes bad behavior, right? 
Heather: things can go sideways.
Jayne: things can go sideways and it is a perfect example for how sometimes it gets really intense in crisis moments. I am reminded of my own story of my father in law. It was a [00:07:00] sudden illness. We live many miles away from him. So my husband made that trip and was there and then had come home. And had a whole care plan from the hospital. And we were clear on what was happening.
Jayne: But then the hospital released him. Late in the day. And didn't let any of us know. On a Friday. Because that's when you do it,
Heather: always on a Friday. Always on a Friday. Yep.
Jayne: So he arrives at a rehab center. He's very particular, has strong opinions. We know this. High standards. And he arrives at the rehab center and says, I am not staying at this dump.
Jayne: It is friday afternoon. So he calls an ambulance and he takes himself back to the hospital. And the hospital is like, hello, we don't have room for you. You have been released. You need to go back to the rehab center. So now, now my husband is managing this from 500 miles away. There's no room for him in the ER [00:08:00] and the hospital will not admit him.
Jayne: Will not admit him. So he is sitting there overnight on a gurney in the hallway of an ER on a Friday night while that chaos of the weekend swirls, right? You know, my husband's taking the very first flight out.
Heather: Right.
Jayne: He cannot get there soon enough. He arrives early in the morning, gets there, and is now trying to find a new rehab center.
Jayne: And he does. 
Heather: Wow.
Jayne: In all of this, there had been also an agreement about what rehab center they would go to, but then when they discharged him unexpectedly, they sent him somewhere else. So that really is probably the crux of the problem in this situation.
Jayne: Nonetheless, here we are. So he finds a new rehab center for his father, but he's told no one is available to transport him. So [00:09:00] literally for a hot minute, we contemplated taking him in a car. Here's a man with tubes sticking out of his back on a gurney
Heather: I can see it.
Jayne: and, and the hospital frankly didn't have an opinion about it.
Jayne: They're like, whatever, you know,
Heather: We did our job.
Heather: Like, we checked our box. Yeah. Oh my
Jayne: All done. We're done here. So for a hot minute, we consider taking him in the car and realize that probably wasn't going to 
Heather: Best idea. Right, right.
Jayne: So while my husband is negotiating with the rehab about timing of his entry, I'm over here again, 500 miles away searching for private ambulances to transport my father-in-law.
Heather: Yes.
Jayne: And this is, I kid you not, all in 12 hours. That was 12 hours and it was just like, what just happened here? So we just went through this whole [00:10:00] meditation around radical acceptance.
Heather: Right. 
Jayne: And I don't, there was not a moment to sit quietly and radically accept the situation for it was, but there also wasn't a moment to really process what was going on.
Jayne: So it, it garners the question, what is your response of these moments? 
Jayne: Right? From those small annoyances that happen every day to those big crisis moments? How do we keep ourselves together?
Heather: Well, and as you're telling this story, I think I shared that I had a very similar experience with my aging parent, and I needed to send my big, very strong brother and broke her out of the place. And he's so wonderfully strong and tall and, and so he has that presence of I am grabbing her and taking her to the new spot. Tried the rules, right? The one place was supposed to release to the other place. And they're suppose to provide transportation, all these things supposed to, and [00:11:00] didn't. And I'm almost a thousand miles away.
Heather: It's weekend and this was during COVID. It is just like, what are you supposed to do? And so we just do our best, right? And I think that is so challenging. All of this out of our control, all of this, like in very high pressured situations of it, something's got to happen. I don't know what I don't know.
Heather: And how do we make it happen? 
Jayne: My mantra has always been the only way out is through. But it really doesn't address the moment and how you respond in that moment.
Heather: In the news lately, there's been some major flooding in our country. And as I was watching that, I was like, oh, wow, like this reminds me so much of when these situations arrive and they're just so sudden and so overwhelming and and part of it is what it so it's out of our control.
Heather: Part of it is what it brings right like the [00:12:00] force and the unexpected nature of it. The other part we don't really think about is what it leaves behind, like it brings debris and I was like, Oh wow, so you're right. So there's this suddenness of something coming into our space, into our world. There's the, how do you respond? How do you keep your head above the water? How do you not drown? How do you make sure that your aging parent doesn't drown, your family, your extended family, your siblings, and then there's this whole concept of oh, wow like it leaves things behind, Jayne. So I don't know, like it brings some stuff, which connects me to another piece that I heard a woman was saying that with her counselor, and this was the story that she said that she said, imagine we all have garden plots.
Heather: I just love this. We all have garden plots and I'm keeping my garden plot nice and clean. I'm going to grow things. I'm going to share things because it's my garden [00:13:00] plot. It's what I want to do with my space. The person next to me is not so caring with their garden plot. And in fact, they are throwing some stuff, some not so great stuff from their garden into my garden plot. And it's like, and she this, I'm gonna say it, she said, "Don't shit in my garden." 
Jayne: Spicy. 
Heather: This is so fantastic! Like what are you putting in my garden? For me there's two levels. There's the level of the overwhelm, the moment that it comes in. And there's also, and I'm on the other side, I mean I'm still in the squeeze, and I'm still in this place, but I'm further down this road, and I think I've gotten to the place, I don't know if it's radical acceptance, but more accepting, more being aware of, oh wow, these are areas I need to watch for as this comes, oh wow, these are things that I have [00:14:00] found helpful, but there's still this concept of. There's debris, Jayne. Like, in my world, in my space, I've got some things in my garden plot not so happy about.
Jayne: And that's exactly right. It's the collateral damage. 
Heather: Correct. Correct. And that is one of the big pieces that we talk about in the book. And so , this is the deal. This is the deal. Right now. You may not be ready for what we're going to share next. Like, this might make you mad. This idea, cause the concept of radical acceptance, it took years, like it literally took years for me to be able to get to the place of this is the reality, and I have a choice about how I go forward. 
 It's okay if what you hear is kind of pinchy, like I'm not liking that, to hit [00:15:00] pause. And when you are ready to be able to come back to us and to come back and to be open to this. So what I'd like to do is dive in to the book, into Chapter 9, where we talk about regardless of how you got here, regardless of the current state of being in chaos, to get through the storm and over to the other shore in one piece or in relatively good standing, we're going to ask you to do something that you may want to resist. And that's totally okay. So I'm going to dive in to Chapter 9. The hardest part of creating positive change in this is accepting that we, the adult children of aging parents, are the ones who need to change. You didn't choose this. This is happening to you. Why should I have to [00:16:00] change? Well, it is because you have the capacity and the ability to consider and own your reaction and response to what is happening.
Heather: You have a choice. You can choose to stay mad. You can choose to be defiant and oppositional, maybe even choosing to mirror the behavior of your aging parents. I've totally done that. This is an option and it's okay to say again, Nope, this is too soon.
Heather: I'm not ready for this. And if so, you can put this guide down and come back to it in six months if your current approach is not working for you. But if you're curious, this might save you the time and the heartache that so many have endured before. We believe that navigating this stage of life can be better.
Heather: It can be better. Mmm,
Jayne: It can be so better. Yes. It's [00:17:00] so true. That is a radical acceptance. It is. It is not only choosing to own your response, but it's also choosing and accepting the reality of what your experience is.
Heather: Correct. In my experience, it was swirl and whirl. And that's why I love that flood analogy. For me, I just see everything moving around me. And it's like, I can't control any of these pieces. Like, where do I even start? And, and, and it's isolating. It was very isolating.
Heather: How can I operate in this space? Who are my people? And who would want to hear about this awfulness? Like, our world is hard, and it's dynamic, and people are having a hard time these days, and so I'm not going to go in and drop my stuff from my garden into their garden. Like, here's [00:18:00] my junk. 
Jayne: We sometimes set ourselves up for failure too because our expectations are different than what is actually real, what is actually happening. And, if we're resisting, if we're feeling that tension we can choose to see what is real and let go of those expectations. Cause I can tell you, I would have loved to not be searching for a private ambulance at 630 in the morning on a Saturday. That was not what I had in mind for my morning. My expectation was like, well, why am I doing this? Like, why is this my job? But at the same time, it got on the other side and said, okay, well, this is what we are going to do because this is what's real and being grateful that we found something. 
Heather: There is grief on this journey. And more because this is like ongoing but definitely having that ability to not be in that strong sense of denial, [00:19:00] having that ability to go in and do the work around grief is part of it.
Heather: Being able to be aware of, "Oh, wow, like I had this expectation. This is how I thought It would be." We were talking with one of our wonderful folks who do home health care and she said, "Wouldn't it be great, Heather, if you could get back to being a daughter?"
Heather: Oh! Blew me away. And I thought that is one of the pieces of grief that's been so, so heavy on my heart and my being is being ripped out of the ability to be a daughter, ripped out of the ability to be with siblings and be in, you know, quote, unquote, normal family, which is probably no such thing as a normal family, but ripped out of it.
Heather: So grief is part of it. And that's where I got a counselor to help me kind of navigate that path, which I still am [00:20:00] very much on because now it's anticipatory grief. So aging parent is declining and I know what's down the road. So how do we negotiate all of that? So I don't want to take us too far off the path, but I want us to be able to begin to say, what are all these complexities that we're navigating and what is real and how do we embrace what is in front of us? That's a mountain, like that is a tall cliff. I remember being out west and went in the midst of this and I think we were outside of Cody, Wyoming, and I was able to stand at this ledge and it was literally like hundreds of feet straight up and I looked at it, Jayne. I put my toes right to the edge and my neck went straight up.
Heather: And I thought, there's a mountain in front of me, like there is this mountain, and it was sheer, no place to grab onto, nothing to hold, nothing to climb. And I thought, [00:21:00] how, how the heck am I going to get up this mountain? Because I don't see tools, I don't see language. 
Heather: It was a shift in me, Jayne, of being willing to be more vulnerable, being willing to reach out and say, this really is hard.
Jayne: Well, I can tell you, if I face that mountain in real life I would look at it, I'd take a picture and say, "that's a pretty mountain", and I'd go back to the car. No, thank you. Not for me. That's what a lot of people do too. Like figuratively in this situation, they look at the mountains and said, "no, thank you." I'm gonna go the other direction. And then there's those brave souls that choose to climb it. God bless you. 
Jayne: You know, so much of this experience is different for everyone. What would change if we chose to shift from chaos and calm? How that might disrupt what's in front of you. So [00:22:00] to actively choose that calm.
Heather: And, and we've gotten to see some glimmers of that. So in our conversations, as we've been writing the book and getting ready to dive into this work, we've been able to sneak the veggies to some of our friends. And say, 'Hey, you know, when you're encountering this, try this', or 'this would be really helpful to be able to have this radical acceptance' or 'to be able to have the power of breath' or 'try this' and to hear their stories back of how incredibly different their experience is. Even just beginning to have a conversation with, Hmm, I'm beginning to see some cues and clues, Mom, Dad, that I'm wondering if you might need some more supports. Or, gosh, you're having a hard time getting up and down the stairs to do laundry. Or, goodness, I'm concerned you can't get down to the basement or to a safe [00:23:00] place when there's a tornado, like these little glimmers, Jayne, give me great hope that what we're bringing forth in our work and in our book " Thriving in Chaos" will make it better, will give people the opportunity to pivot from chaos to calm. And that's what is so inspiring to me this morning as I'm thinking about our work.
Jayne: This is why diets don't work. That's a different podcast for a different group of people. But this is why, this, this, this is why diets don't work because your body doesn't like to lose things.
Jayne: It physically doesn't like to lose things. And so we have our beloved aging parents moving through this very emotional transitory phase from independence, interdependence to dependence [00:24:00] and they are losing something and their body is resistant to it and that manifests that way out.
Jayne: We then carry on and how we approach that conversation of not focusing on what they're losing, but how we can help them live more abundantly, more independently inside the scope of their current situation is radical acceptance. It is not reminding them of what they're resisting and losing because they will naturally be oppositional about it.
Jayne: That is human nature
Heather: Hmm.
Jayne: to want to resist those things that you are losing. Is about I want you to be able to live longer so how can we create supports that make it possible. 
Heather: And being able to, find joy. How can our aging parents and us find joy [00:25:00] rather than trauma and chaos and loss. And that was, it's beautiful, Jayne, because it's so different from my experience, we've gotten there, like we have gotten there, but it is nine, now nine years, Jayne, of on this journey, and so how do we make that in between part of change and transition smaller so that people can get to joy sooner.
Jayne: That's what you then invite into your life through this radical acceptance by choosing to own your own response of calm. You're also in choosing to invite more calm into the lives of your aging parent because you're making a choice not to see this situation as something that is just zingy and emotionally charged and fierce and something to fight against. You are embracing it and [00:26:00] bringing it in and it brings a load of clarity and calm and joy, a different kind of joy, but joy, nonetheless, that you hope will make that a smoother transition for everybody involved.
Heather: Yeah. And what our listeners can't see is Jayne just had her fists clenched and she was banging them together. And that is a very real picture for me. And then versus the opening, the accepting and being open to the beauty. It's not what you may have expected. Mine certainly is nowhere near what I expected or hoped for, but there is such power in the beauty that is.  
Heather: And that's our, that's our hope. Mm hmm.
Jayne: That is our hope. And everybody's journey is different. We are not coming from a place where we are telling people that this is the only way, but we do hope you take something from this conversation where you might be able to apply [00:27:00] one small thing that can not only impact your sanity and your sense of calm, but also bring something to the very tumultuous time period and turbulence that your aging loved one is feeling as they are going through this very scary phase , of independence through to dependence. 
Heather: And it's a game changer, Jayne, because not only does it impact you, it's like a pebble in a pond. It impacts aging parent. It impacts siblings. It impacts doctor's office visits. It impacts when you go to grocery store. This is like locking arms and together we're on this journey. This is that pebble in a pond effect of how can we influence from a hard place? That's my hope, Jayne, is that it's not only for us and our aging parent, but it's for these systems, it's for these [00:28:00] places that we're in, that others can be like, wow! Something's different. I'm curious. Like, what's going on? How does she have that calm in the midst of chaos? That's my hope is that people can be open if you're ready, if you're early in the journey, like get it, or if you're not even on the journey, maybe you have a friend who is in this space that might make this pivot from being like literally physically in chaos to being able to have calm and in the midst of the chaos.
Jayne: I have loved this conversation. We would love for you to join this conversation with us. We would love for you to share your story. You can do that at peopleinthesqueeze. com or you can drop us a line in our DMs on at peopleinthesqueeze on Instagram and in the Tik Toks. We are also very excited to share that we have our [00:29:00] first book, which you heard from , " "Thriving in Chaos, Navigating the Challenges of Aging Parents". It is available now in the great flowing Amazon. And wherever you get books, if they do not have it on their shelves, you can ask them to order it and they should be able to do that for you.
Heather: Nice. 
Jayne: So Heather, until we meet again, we want you to know when the days are really big and really hard that we see you. You are not alone. You are doing the impossible and it is going to be okay.
Heather: It is going to be okay.  
Jayne: It's great chatting with you today, Heather.
Heather: Always good, Jayne.