Resilience and Relationships: Navigating Life's Challenges with Nancy Alterman

In today's episode my guest is Nancy Alterman, a therapist with a focus on helping adults navigate relationship challenges. Nancy believes that nothing matters more in life than our relationships. She brings a wealth of experience, with over 35 years dedicated to families facing medical crisis.

Nancy emphasizes the immediate impact of clear objectives in the improvement process. Her expertise lies in strengthening communication and coping skills, guiding clients to address unresolved relationship struggles amid life's overwhelming difficulties.

One key aspect of Nancy's journey stems from a profound loss at the age of 12 when her mother passed away. This experience set her on a path to explore grief-related careers. Despite the challenges of early isolation, she found purpose in supporting others through geriatric care management and addressing various life changes beyond death.

A recurring theme in Nancy's work revolves around helping individuals live life to the fullest without regrets. Drawing from her own experiences, she encourages families to establish a support system to avoid isolation and remorse. Her unique perspective, shaped by personal loss and resilience, provides invaluable insights into aging, caregiving, and end-of-life issues, particularly in the context of Alzheimer's and dementia care.

Incorporating a spiritual practice into her life has been transformative for Nancy. She believes in the energy of creation, finding comfort and guidance in accepting outcomes beyond her control. This perspective allows her to be present for those who are suffering, a significant contribution rooted in her memories of isolation during grief.

As a therapist, Nancy's skills in suspending personal agendas, cultivating curiosity, and asking insightful questions shine through. She highlights the importance of not being overly eager or invested in a specific agenda during the therapeutic process, allowing individuals to discover their own wisdom.

Join us as Nancy shares her wisdom on topics such as aging, emotional health, well-being, and self-care. Learn how her unique journey has shaped a compassionate approach to helping others navigate the challenges of aging, death, and caregiving, ensuring they can face these realities with greater understanding and without regrets.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/nancy-m-alterman-lcsw-cherry-hill-nj/220502

Transcript

[00:00:00] Nancy: The evidence is also very clear that stress and tension and holding all of that in and insisting that we can handle it and do more does have a negative impact on the body in general. It is never too late to incorporate a lifestyle change. That serves you. 

[00:00:22] Jill: Welcome back to seeing death clearly. I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and end of life coach.

[00:00:28] Here on my show, I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself. My goal is to create a space where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects. I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true.

[00:00:47] In this episode, my guest is Nancy Alterman. Nancy has been a therapist for over 35 years and her compassionate approach helps people navigate life's challenges with understanding and resilience. In this episode, we discuss how losing her mother at 12 years old inspired her to pursue a career in grief related fields.

[00:01:07] Her unique perspective helps her guide her clients around the topics of aging, caregiving, and end of life issues, particularly in Alzheimer's and dementia care. Nancy shares her life journey and offers invaluable advice on living life without regrets. Thank you for joining us for this conversation.

[00:01:25] Welcome to the podcast, Nancy. Thank you so much for coming on. I know we know each other in real life through different networking events, but we don't really know each other too much. So I'm excited to get to know you, learn a little bit more about the work that you do. So thank you. I appreciate you taking the time out of your day.

[00:01:43] Nancy: I'm really glad to be here. I'm talking about aging and emotional health and well being and self care. Preparing for death is all of my favorite topics. It's really about living life well.

[00:01:58] Jill: I agree. And people don't understand that, that if we can really talk about these things and work through all of our emotions and our fears and our anxieties, all of that, it allows us to live life better. It allows us to be more present and to just really appreciate things in life where people, I don't know, I guess they think it's going to be scary and that it's dark and it's all these other things, which is not really the case. So I'm happy to talk to you about it. 

[00:02:26] Nancy: I had an early loss in my life.My mom passed away when I was 12. My understanding was so different from my peers for many, many, many years. And then working with seniors. It was very clear to me that there was a recurring theme that went along with all of that, which was that if they knew then what they know now, they would have done things differently, which really allowed me to have the perspective that I don't want to have regrets.

[00:03:00] I want to do things differently now while I can make a difference on the course of my life. 

[00:03:05] Jill: Can you tell me a little bit more about the death of your mother? Because 12 years old, that's young. That's really an age where we're just getting to know who we are as people. And we still lean on our parents a lot at that age.

[00:03:20] And I'm sure as a young woman losing your mother, there probably was a lot that came up. So is there any other stuff you want to share about that experience? 

[00:03:29] Nancy:Well, losing a parent at that age, I'm sure universally challenging, certainly losing a mother versus a father for a young girl was, you know, I'm sure there would have been other detrimental consequences if my father had passed, but I was living in New Jersey and I had two older sisters, they were 18 and 20, and they were war ready, well on their way to adulthood.

[00:03:56] One had actually just recently gotten married. So my father and I moved to Maryland, just he and I, and he immediately started dating, which really meant that I ended up with a lot of alone time in a place that I had never lived before away from all of my family, everything that was once familiar to me.

[00:04:17] So it was an extraordinarily, very challenging, difficult year where I was grieving. In an isolated, inward kind of way, and even prior to my mom, even prior to her full death, her whole sickness with cancer was not really talked about in my family. There was no opportunity. I had never known anybody that got sick who didn't get well, so it never occurred to me.

[00:04:49] Even though she was bouncing in and out of hospitals, she was losing her hair and was wearing a wig, her legs were blowing up as well, never occurred to me as a child. That my mother could die. So I had no real preparation for her passing. And when they finally realized that her death was around the corner and told me, she was already in a coma.

[00:05:14] And I wasn't really comforted. Or taken under anybody's wing on how to deal with that information. And I remember as a child standing on my bed because our windows were kind of high towards the ceiling and looking out the window and, and talking to God as a 12 year old saying, my mom is really a good mommy.

[00:05:39] Don't let my mommy die. And then two days later, she died. 

[00:05:43] Jill: That must have been very difficult as a child. But I feel like any age when you lose your parent, especially it's hard, but as a child, I think so like my children, 12 and nine and my daughter, especially she's nine, but she, she needs me. And I also know that there's nothing I could really do in the long run.

[00:06:05] I try my best to take care of myself so that I can be around as long as possible, but I'm trying to prepare. Both the children for the fact that like, it could happen at some point without scaring them, without overwhelming them, because as you pointed out, especially in the past, it's gotten a little bit better, but not much better.

[00:06:26] We don't talk to children about death and dying and the realities of it. And because we're afraid we're going to upset them and we're going to scare them. But it feels like not talking to them, not preparing them, is more damaging than allowing them to feel upset and to vocalize it and process the emotions.

[00:06:46] But I know that's work that both of us do. Really kind of allowing people to process, right? Touch into their feelings and work through them. The next question is, this kind of started you on your path to the work that you do now. Like, how did you get from there to here? 

[00:07:02] Nancy: Well, that I wanted to do something with grief.

[00:07:05] And when I got my master's and I had an opportunity for my placement, it was at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia and I was there for the duration for a year, two semesters of getting my master's and I quickly learned that I did not have the backbone to work with parents of sick children.

[00:07:30] It was a spiritual crisis for me because these children were born unhealthy. So I immediately, punctuating, went into aging because that's the natural order of things. And I did really, I took to that very well and immediately started in geriatric care management while I was living in Florida. And because I had read a book called Necessary Losses, I understood that grief is more than just about dying or somebody dying, that when I mentioned earlier that I had lost my neighborhood, my friends, my family, when I moved from New Jersey to Maryland, that we grieve All different kinds of losses throughout our entire lifetime, which really helped normalize the process for me.

[00:08:26] And that turned out to be a place that I really did well at. I wanted to add also something else about. My mom's early death. Very recently, I'm working with a 30 year old girl. Actually, she's probably a little younger than that. She's probably 27. And she's going through a trauma in her life. And she wanted to be able to sit and talk to her mother, who was aware of the trauma, and her two older sisters.

[00:08:58] And her mother said to me, I don't see why we need to involve her two older sisters. And to me, I said something a little blunt. I probably could have said it a little nicer. And my answer was, because one day you'll be dead, and your daughter's going to need her older sisters. And instead of getting angry at her, well, why didn't we know about this when it happened?

[00:09:22] And why didn't mommy tell us when? This way will be part of her support system. And she won't have to reach out to them for the first time after you're gone. And the mom said, I would never, ever have thought about that. But because I live with an early death in my life, I can see clearly, not just the impact when I was a teenager, but it's a lifelong wound in my life.

[00:09:51] That continues to have impact. It didn't, it wasn't a brief time in my life. It is my lifelong process that has been changed by that experience and my perspective. 

[00:10:04] Jill: Yeah, it's something that we can't, we can't understand how much it changes your life until we go through it. And I think that's okay, like there's definitely no shame or guilt or anything about being like, well, I don't understand because we're all going to get there eventually, or we're going to die first, which no parent really wants.

[00:10:23] I know my daughter will say that to me, like, Oh, I want to die before you. I'm like, Oh no, no, no, none of us want that. But I think in her mind, she already knows that it's going to be hard for her to lose me. So I understand that, but also. I don't want her to die first. 

[00:10:42] Nancy: Well, I think too, one of the benefits is it allows me to speak with a certain conviction when I share information that doesn't occur to people.

[00:10:57] They trust my perspective. They find value in my point of view, and given the nature of my career where I am helping people navigate aging, death, dying caregiving, especially in the field of, um, Alzheimer's and dementia. The silver lining is that I have wisdom from my experience and my point of view that allows me to save other people from regrets.

[00:11:32] Jill: It definitely helps to have that experience. People will know that you understand where they're coming from with all of these things because it is difficult. And as you pointed out. There's so much grief in our life that is not even necessarily about death, but we're not taught to process the grief.

[00:11:50] We're not taught to honor that and say, it's okay to really grieve, especially, you know, moving and leaving behind everybody that you knew. And there's so much grease that comes with that. But we're not allowed by society and people around us to really feel that sometimes. And so what do we do? We hold it all inside and then eventually it's going to come out or it's going to make us physically sick.

[00:12:18] It's going to. potentially make us mentally sick. So there's a lot of negative side effects that come with not honoring and processing the grief around everything. 

[00:12:29] Nancy:  Well, that is exactly what happened. I was in my mid twenties, I guess, 10 years, 15 years after my mother's passing that I had a little bit of a breakdown, enough to say, I need help.

[00:12:44] And I went and worked on. Grief and loss for myself in an experiential group and I did a grief and loss handbook like a workbook with a good friend of mine and really started my own healing process from all of the neglected men I felt afterwards and the death of my mother. And what I wouldn't have liked to have been able to say, and it was that kind of experiential where there was role playing and it was extremely healing and therapeutic for me.

[00:13:20] Yeah, we need to heal. And that was really the beginning of my understanding of what self care meant, that I was responsible for my emotional well being.

[00:13:33] Jill: I like that phrase, responsible for our emotional well being. Because yes, the world around us will inflict pain and suffering, but we are the ones that are responsible for healing that pain and that suffering.

[00:13:49] And it's unfortunate because I know, even for me, some of the traumas that I've had in my life. We want to blame the other people. It's like, well, it's all their fault because they did these things to me. And to a certain extent, again, I didn't have the support, I didn't have the knowledge of how to process it when it happened, especially one thing that was pretty big for me in my life.

[00:14:15] And so I didn't process it for many years, but it affected so much of my life. Until I was able to say, yes, this person did this thing to me, but I'm not going to continue to suffer 20 years later for something that really, it's just, I can't do it anymore. I don't want to do it anymore. And so I had to go through the process, my own process.

[00:14:42] Of healing that for myself. 

[00:14:44] Nancy: I work with a lot of trauma survivors. And one of the, uh, I have a bunch of stickers. People call them memes, I call them stickers. And one of my favorite ones says, I didn't cause my trauma, but I'm responsible to heal it. And that's really true. Um, not getting stuck in the blame really gives us the opportunity to take ownership of our recovery.

[00:15:10] And helping us become better versions of ourselves, which is really what we're going to talk about in our retreat because of being a compassionate, empathetic person. I went into that helping profession really initially to get some unhealthy emotional needs met that. We're left unaddressed and then as I healed when I went into therapy, I said to my therapist, I want to be so healthy.

[00:15:41] I never ever want to help anybody ever again. And then I realized that I was really good at it and I could learn to help people without being drained. Without me being invested in the outcome and I learned how to be grounded and centered and offer the best I had to offer with compassion, with warmth, with a lot of empathy, with input, guidance.

[00:16:10] Drawing big pictures, reviewing everything with them, not being phased by anything they tell me. And the other thing that was a real gift was I would tell my clients, you can not disappoint me. No matter what's going on in your life, what you do, what you don't do. You can't disappoint me. And the other thing is you don't have to take care of me.

[00:16:37] You will never, ever be bothering me. I am strong enough, but well enough that if you reach out to me and it's not a good time for me, I can say that. So you can not be a bother. You can not be a bird because so many people that have been wounded are so afraid that their wounds are too much for other people and they don't get to a place where they're comfortable opening up and sharing that.

[00:17:04] Jill: Oh my gosh. There's so much good stuff in that. Because you're right, that in order for us to show up fully, and I like that you pointed out that sometimes for those of us that want to go out and help people, it's actually, in some ways, a selfish, subconscious, selfish desire to fill something in us. And if we show up that way, it can actually be really damaging to the people around us because then we are more likely to take on more than we can handle.

[00:17:37] We are more likely to not hold our own boundaries so that if somebody does reach out to us and we're exhausted, we don't want to let them down. We don't want to say no. So we do it anyway. And then we resent them and we get exhausted. And all of those things. Where as we heal, then we can really show up in a way that allows other people to heal.

[00:17:59] And it's not easy for us to heal a lot of our own wounding and heal those needs, fill those needs ourselves. So we're not relying on the people that we're serving to fill the needs, but it's definitely doable. It's definitely possible. There is support and there are resources out there to help us heal in order to show up as our best selves.

[00:18:20] I had done that in my previous career where I was working. I mean, I still do work there part time, but I taught a job training program to people that were coming from a background that tended to have a lot of trauma, a lot of violent deaths, a lot of drug overdoses, people that were coming in and out of the prison system.

[00:18:39] There was a lot that they were bringing with them. Right. And until I learned, first off, like you said, I can't help everybody. And I can give everybody my full effort, but some people just, they're not there yet. They're not ready yet. That doesn't mean that they won't be at some point, but I was like, it was so heavy on me when I was watching people go back to behaviors and then in some cases dying because they went back to those behaviors.

[00:19:08] So I had to learn how to process that in my own way. My meditation practice has been huge for that. Being able to ground myself before I would go into my job and feel like I was fully present for myself first, caring for myself first. But it is hard when you love helping people and you genuinely love the people that you're helping.

[00:19:32] It's like, right. But there's also, you can't be responsible for them doing What we need them to do in order for them to take those next steps. 

[00:19:43] Nancy: Well, for me, incorporating a spiritual practice was extraordinarily a gift to myself. And I do believe that there's some energy tied into creation. So whenever I was feeling a yank about.

[00:20:03] What happened, the outcome being different than what I would have hoped. I would remind myself that God did not die and put me in charge. And that was very clear that my best was good enough. And I also value the gift of being present when somebody is suffering. If I can change nothing about the outcome.

[00:20:26] Other than to give them my presence, because I was very isolated when I was in pain and suffering, and just to be with somebody is enough, even if nothing changes. I think it's huge. So I don't discount my helping or assistance if all I have to offer is my presence. That's huge.

[00:20:54] Jill:  It is huge. And the idea of active listening.

[00:20:57] But first, the first time I heard that, I was like, I don't know what that means. So like a lot of things in life, when I don't know what it means, I try to find out. And so I spent a lot of time trying to learn what that meant. And then I realized that I was doing what most of us do. I was listening to respond.

[00:21:16] I was listening halfway, because I was already thinking in my head of what I was going to say back to the person and how it was going to, in some cases, recommend that maybe they try this or think about things this way. And when I was able to really understand that sometimes the best thing we can do is just sit and listen.

[00:21:37] They don't need a response. They don't need help. They don't need recommendations. They just need somebody that's actually listening and making eye contact and allowing them to know that they're actually really being heard. That can be more healing for somebody than anything else. And sometimes they'll even as you, you know, and sometimes I almost need to bite my tongue, like, cause part of me is like, Oh, I want to say this thing.

[00:22:01] And then I'm like, no, don't say it. Just listen. They'll eventually say what they needed to hear. It's like allowing their body to let out some things that are on their mind. Once they get it out, then all this like wisdom starts to come to them from inside, from God or whatever it is, maybe, but it comes out from them.

[00:22:23] And then they'll say something and then afterwards they'll say to me, this was the best conversation. And I'm like, Amazing. And they're like, you're so wise. And I'm like, I maybe said 10 words in a whole hour. So like, it's really you that's wise. The wise part for me was just holding that space for you to vocalize and get out because I'm one of those people that when something's in me, I'll start to feel it in my physical body.

[00:22:48] I need to get it out either by speaking or moving or. Breaking things, like sometimes I just, I have to get it out. And I think vocalizing is different than just thinking it through in your head or even writing it out. Something about saying the words makes a difference. And so that act of listening for people can be one of the greatest gifts that you can give somebody.

[00:23:10] But most of us don't know how to do it because again, it's just not the way that we usually do things. 

[00:23:16] Nancy: Well, in addition to suspending an agenda, learning to be very curious and just asking good questions that helps the person, helps draw out their own wisdom is, is definitely part of a skill as a therapist and to really not Be overly eager or invested in any agenda.

[00:23:42] Jill: Not thinking about the outcome that you want or what you want to hear them say. Just, yeah. What's the, like not being attached, right? Non attachment. That's a big thing within Buddhism, right? Non attachment. 

[00:23:53] Nancy: Well, that's one of the things we'll talk about in the seminar is, is the whole purpose of what detachment is.

[00:24:00] What doors open from being detached. And how detachment from other people's process allows you to be more present for them. 

[00:24:11] Jill: Yeah, I'm really excited about. So what Nancy is talking about is together we're actually going to be presenting. You're the main presenter. I'm just doing a little tiny segment. And it's called Taking Your Power Back, How to Prevent Burnout.

[00:24:24] And it's geared towards people like us that are professionals in an industry where we're working with people that are aging and nearing the end of life. And it can be like a lot of careers, right? It can really lead us to burnout if we're not caring for ourselves. 

[00:24:42] Nancy: And it's an emotionally charged career because the people we serve are highly anxious.

[00:24:49] Jill: Yeah. Anxious. Afraid. Confused. Overwhelmed. A lot of things because they're facing something that we've avoided. And if anything, you know, think about how society views aging and death. It's like we just want to push it off somewhere else. We don't want to think about it. We want to do everything we can to prevent it rather than accepting that aging and death is a natural part of life.

[00:25:16] It's part of the life cycle. If we're born, we're going to die, right? Like it's just the reality. 

[00:25:21] Nancy: So it's also the, the burdening of having a responsibility for somebody else. Who's not well enough to be responsible for them. And the people I run into take that responsibility extraordinarily seriously and they want to get it right.

[00:25:39] Jill: Because again, we get into this career, not because we're going to make a lot of money at it. We get into this career because we want to help people during this stage of their life. But it is easy to burn out if we don't have the tools to care for ourselves. And sometimes we feel like taking the time to do self care is really selfish.

[00:26:01] I mean, I know for me, I'm one of those people that if I am reading a book or if I'm watching a seminar or if I'm watching even anything, whether it's a documentary or whatever else, there's part of me that thinks if I can't use this information to help somebody else, I'm not going to do it. I can't do it just for myself.

[00:26:20] That's been something that I've been working through, right, working on my own worth that sometimes I need to just do something because it's good for me, but also realizing that if we care for ourselves, if we take care of our own well being, that's how we're going to be healthy enough to show up and serve the people that we need to serve.

[00:26:42] If we burn out, we're not going to end up Really helping people in the way that we want to, it's going to come out through our body language and our tone of voice and all these other things that were just exhausted. So it's important for all of us, but I think especially for people that are serving others that we really do take care of ourselves to prevent the burnout.

[00:27:04] A lot of times it's like, let's wait until there's a problem and then fix it. How about we just prevent it from happening? How about we work on it now before we hit that point?

[00:27:13] Nancy: Right. Cause the other sticker I love is you can't pour from an empty cup. So we have an obligation to our profession to keep our cup full, right?

[00:27:24] Which is our first requirement to be of service to anyone is to enter that space with a full cup. Yeah, 

[00:27:32] Jill: I've heard it said something like, you keep the cup full and then the overflow is really what you're giving to others. But you don't have that overflow if you're not keeping your own cup full.

[00:27:43] But our culture really just teaches us, especially as women, as people that we were raised, female bodies, whatever you want to say it as, that we need to give to everybody around us, you know, whether it's children or our parents or our spouses or whatever else it is. You give to everybody around you first and then maybe you take care of yourself, but it's really healthier for all of us.

[00:28:07] And I was 32 when I had my first child. So I'd already had a life. I had lived a lot, but I mean, I had a life that all of a sudden I was like, Oh, these little humans need so much of my time and my energy. And I had nothing left for myself. And then again, and then I was trying to work full time at a career that I was like showing up for all of these people.

[00:28:31] and wanting to help and serve. And I was burning out. I was exhausting myself and I was not showing up as my best self for anybody. My children, my students, my husband. I had to learn that if I don't take care of myself first, I can't be there for anybody else. And I am a much better parent now that I've worked on myself.

[00:28:53] I am a better spouse. And in a lot of ways, I am a better teacher and I'm a better guide for people in this space as like the end of life, because I've learned different techniques to care for myself. 

[00:29:07] Nancy: In the talk, I'll reinforce this, it is certain to me that the consequences for burnout can lead to an early death, that this is not just fatigue, this is not just physical exhaustion, that the consequences in the body for ignoring our own well being are catastrophic at times, that this is not So thank you.

[00:29:34] Something to be taken lightly. This is just not, like, good fuzzy stuff. This is life altering self care. And it was demonstrated to me in a very glaring way when I started working with what I call well spouses, being married to somebody with Alzheimer's that were in the caregiving role. And immediately, Their adult children became very concerned that they were going to lose two parents to the same disease and one through caregiving and one through the body changing by the brain changes and teaching caregivers the necessity of their own emotional and physical well being, taking a priority over looking after the identified patient with the disease.

[00:30:27] Jill: Yeah, and I'm thinking now too about how we end up with coping mechanisms that also lead us to an early death. So we're feeling those signs of burnout. So what do we do? We drink, we overeat, we overshop, so we spend too much money. There's a lot of really unhealthy coping mechanisms that we use, totally dysfunctional, and it ruins our life.

[00:30:53] It ruins our family's lives. It can physically lead to early death just because of the fact that drinking too much or doing drugs or whatever else is physically bad for your body. But then also, you know, if you start really down a path of addiction, whatever it is, again, it could maybe be gambling, people end up taking their own lives because they're so lost in that.

[00:31:14] They don't know how to get out and they ruin their lives and they ruin their family's lives. And so then they end up actually killing themselves because they're so deep in it. And I know I used to drink too much. I mean, I don't think I was ever at a point I wasn't, you know, I wasn't out of control with like my family or my friends or anything like that.

[00:31:32] I realized then that I would come home from work and I'd have a glass or two of wine every night. And that's like, sometimes it would get earlier because I'd get home and it would be like three or four o'clock and I'd be exhausted and trying to deal with the kids and everything else. A lot of nights I didn't even get home until six o'clock and I was running kids around like.

[00:31:52] So I was using the wine as my way to cope (and discharge) exactly to discharge. And then I wasn't getting up early enough in the morning to do this routine that I was trying to put in place, which was some movement, some yoga, some meditation. So they kind of went hand in hand in order for me to get up early enough in the routine that I knew I needed before going to work.

[00:32:17] I had to stop drinking at night because if I was drinking at night, I would not get up in the morning. So the two of them went together and it was also because of that drive of being like, I am going to end up physically sick. I could tell I was feeling it already in my body. And I was like, I have to do something.

[00:32:35] I want to be here for my children. I want to be around long term. 

[00:32:39] Nancy: And that the dysfunctional coping strategies is one way, but the evidence is also very clear. What stress does to us in terms of cancer and GI upset and different kinds of muscular diseases, that all of those things have a tipping point.

[00:33:02] Where stress and tension and holding all of that in and insisting that we can handle it and do more does have a negative impact on the body in general. So there's many, many ways of not paying attention to our wellbeing. That it's going to have an adverse impact on our quality of life and our lens of life.

[00:33:28] You're absolutely right about that. And that's one of the things I hope that we can review together, because I really want people to understand this is not... Insignificant. This is like playing with matches. You know, worry is firm against yourselves. I just want them to really understand the power that they have to do harm or to do good for themselves.

[00:33:55] Jill: And it's important that we take that time for ourselves. And yeah, I'm excited to do this because my little segment is going to be on movement and meditation because it has to I mean, it's changed my life. I can't stress that enough that I might not be here today if I didn't find yoga and meditation.

[00:34:17] And so I'm excited because I get to teach a little bit about that. And then I'm also excited to hear what you're going to say, because even though My self care practice has gotten a lot better. There's always something more I could do. There's always something I can learn. There's always some little tweaks I could make to it.

[00:34:33] So I'm excited. It is in person. So if people are listening, if you're in the New Jersey, Philadelphia area, you can come, it is free of charge. It's something that we're doing to give back to our community. right, to give back to the people that we work with, and to encourage you to really take that time to invest in yourself, to invest in your well being.

[00:34:57] It will pay off for the people around you, but we need to allow ourselves. Permission sometimes is really what it is. Give ourselves permission to say, I am important. And if I take care of myself, I really will show up better in the world, but I'm going to feel better and I'm going to live longer and all of these things.

[00:35:16] And so we're going to teach you some of the tools and the techniques. It's not like one of those things where you do it once. And then you don't have to ever do it again. The things that we're talking about are really going to be about establishing these new behaviors, new activities. I'm trying to even think of the right word, right?

[00:35:33] Nancy: Right. This is a lifestyle change, lifestyle change, right? And it does start with a mindset, but I can tell you, I discovered. Hot yoga at 54 and that movement, that experience, those mutations, also five rhythms, journey, dance, drumming were all things I discovered much, much later in life. So the other point is it's never too late.

[00:36:03] It is never too late to incorporate a lifestyle change that serves you. And one of the things is, as I listened to you that is so moving is you're also modeling, you talk about giving permission, you're modeling this for your own children. They're going to have permission because that's what their mother does to make themselves a priority.

[00:36:30] Jill:  Well, thank you. I appreciate that because I'm trying, and I can't complain. My mother is a wonderful mother, but there's definitely a difference in the way that my parents parented versus how I'm trying to show up for my children.

[00:36:44] Nancy: And that's really the way it's supposed to be. As each generation comes along, they're, God willing, they improve upon the knowledge and the wisdom.

[00:36:55] Um, of a generation before them and incorporated into improvement and having a better quality of life. And I hope it continues for eternity to be that way.

[00:37:06] Jill: I hope so too. I really do. Even though there is sometimes that little part of me. Where you watch your children and they're doing things and they're in a lot of ways like they're smarter than me.

[00:37:19] There's things that they're picking up and there's changes and there's all these things that part of my body is resisting. But then I also realized that that is part of what I'm trying to cultivate in them is. this growth and this expansion and this knowledge and this wisdom that I didn't have access to.

[00:37:37] And so I have that little bit of discomfort sometimes where they push me, but they've also pushed me to be a better person again for myself, but also for them because I wanted to show up and be the best I could for my children. 

[00:37:52] Nancy: You know, that's a very common scene that I hear mentioned at when people are making a toast at a wedding or a graduation or some kind of life cycle event is how becoming a parent presented the motivation to become a better version of ourselves because it really not only impacted us but those that we love.

[00:38:15] That's the power of love. 

[00:38:16] Jill: It is the power of love and our children are definitely Close enough to us that they really they find those places that they can just poke at a little bit I was talking with a Buddhist nun once years ago My daughter was like about three years old and I met her at a meditation center in Philadelphia And we were just talking about life and all these different things and I was saying how in a lot of cases my daughter can really just push my buttons, like really challenged me.

[00:38:44] And she said, your daughter is going to be your greatest teacher. And she wasn't wrong. She really did. She taught me those places, but I have to also take that and see it and work on it, you know, because if not, it was just going to be damaging to all of us. Right. 

[00:39:02] Nancy: You're talking about your commitment to stay open and receptive.

[00:39:06] I'm really glad that we got to spend some time together today. Yeah. Me too. 

[00:39:10] Jill: Thank you so much for coming on. And I will put in the show notes a link to your website, whatever you want to share so that people can find you. If anybody listening has any more questions about what we're going to talk about or how we're going to do it, whatever else, just reach out to me or Nancy.

[00:39:26] We'd be happy to answer any questions, but thank you. I really appreciate your time today. You're welcome. Thank you for listening to this episode of seeing death clearly. 

My guest next week is Patricia Ayers. Patricia taught hospice at Stockton University in New Jersey for nine years. We talk about the widespread misconceptions about hospice and the frustration that arises when clients are sent home without understanding the program, leading to difficult family situations.

[00:39:55] The conversation touches on the importance of acknowledging and accepting the natural progression of life. Society's reluctance to discuss  death, and the missed opportunities for end-of-life conversations.

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