The Courageous Caregiver Roadmap: Five Essential Tools for Families

Host: 00:01:00

My guest today is Doctor Delia Claremont, a physician with expertise in helping families cope as they deal with a serious illness.

Host: 00:01:08

We're going to chat about her daughter's story and when she fell off the horse onto her head, very challenging recovery.

Host: 00:01:14

This experience cemented by her passion to support caregivers of people facing injury and illness.

Host: 00:01:20

She recently released a book called coping courageously, a heart centered guide for navigating a loved one's illness without losing yourself.

Host: 00:01:28

She supports caregivers using a framework that she created called the courageous Caregiver roadmap.

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We welcome her to the podcast.

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Well, doc, how you doing today?

Host: 00:01:39

Good to talk to you.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:01:41

I'm doing great.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:01:42

Thanks so much for having me.

Host: 00:01:43

It's a pleasure having you on.

Host: 00:01:45

I'm dying to have this conversation with so many people in our world who are dealing with, or will be dealing with probably at some point in their life, either ill or ailing parents or relatives.

Host: 00:01:57

So it's always good to have that.

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How do we support people as they cope through those difficult navigations of life in our generation?

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So thank you for being able to come on and give us some insights from your own personal experience.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:02:09

My pleasure.

Host: 00:02:11

I like to ask my guest this question to kind of get to know you a little bit better.

Host: 00:02:14

What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:02:20

I think the best piece of advice that I have ever received, which I have given to my daughters over and over over the years, is don't judge your insides by other people's outsides.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:02:33

And the reason I say that is that we as human beings generate a lot of our own suffering by comparing our experience to how we think it should be.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:02:47

And so for sometimes that is, you know, that person looks like everything's happy in their life, and I'm struggling or fighting with my spouse or having troubles at work, when in reality, that other person probably is also fighting with their spouse or having troubles at work or having their own flavor of challenge, because that's just the way life goes.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:03:06

So us comparing our own real, complicated life to someone else's perfect, shiny life generates a lot of suffering that is just unnecessary.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:03:18

There's enough real suffering.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:03:19

Why would we want to generate extra suffering?

Host: 00:03:22

Right?

Host: 00:03:22

Someone said tomorrow has enough troubles of its own to worry about going and adding more to it.

Host: 00:03:28

So.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:03:28

Right.

Host: 00:03:29

I love that.

Host: 00:03:31

I'm always curious.

Host: 00:03:32

People like yourself who have lived life, have people in their lives who've come alongside them and been role models and mentors who were some of those people in your journey, and tell us what about them made them special.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:03:48

That's a great question.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:03:51

I think I'll list two people, if that's okay.

Host: 00:03:54

Sure.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:03:55

So it came from a little bit of a challenging childhood, but I had an aunt who I didn't see that often, but I held her out in front as a kind of beacon of the kind of woman that I wanted to be.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:04:12

She had had six children.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:04:14

She had five living children at the time.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:04:16

And she had this beautiful garden, and she would make her own pasta sauce from scratch, and she would make pasta from scratch, and it would be hanging in the kitchen, and she would have big family dinners where, you know, all the children would sort of bicker.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:04:31

But there so clearly was love there, and that was not the experience in which I was living.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:04:36

And I just thought, I want that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:04:39

And I feel like I did create that, and I'm really proud and happy of that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:04:44

And so she didn't even know she was that to me.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:04:47

And so, for me, that's the interesting part about that story, is that she was just living her life.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:04:52

But I saw it and integrated it into my goals, my vision for myself, and it really helped me live a better life as an adult.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:02

So that's one.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:02

And the other is my father.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:06

And I want to tell you a little story to illustrate this.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:09

So, he is a unique dude.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:11

Let me just say, he's a unique dude.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:14

I didn't grow up with him, but I did see him growing up, and he is kind of a.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:20

An introverted, live alone, engineer turned artist kind of interesting guy.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:27

And he was working as an engineer.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:30

And then in his fifties, he took up sculpting, he took up art, and he was doing it on the weekends, working full time.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:37

And then at some point, he decided, you know, I really need more time to work on my art.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:41

That's what I want for myself.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:43

So he went to his job, and he said, I need to work every other month, so I'll work for a month, and I need to be off for a month so I can really focus on art, and then I'll come back and work for a month.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:53

And of course, they said, get out of here.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:56

Like, no.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:56

Are you out of your mind?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:05:58

This is not a thing that people do.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:01

And he said, okay, it's been great working for you, you know, thank you.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:06

Goodbye.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:06

Basically, he had decided he was an engineer.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:08

He was willing to go work in a pizza place because this is what he needed for his own well being.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:13

And because he was so good at what he did, when they saw he really was going to leave.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:17

They were like, well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:19

And you cannot believe it, but they let him do it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:23

And so he switched on the full moon.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:26

So every full moon, he would either leave work or come back to work.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:29

And in the lab where he worked, they ended up calling him the moon man, because he would come and go as the moon changed.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:35

And he did this for the last ten years of his career before he retired.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:41

And the only reason he lived this incredible experience where he could have a month at a time to do art was because he asked and he really needed it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:52

So he was willing to make it happen no matter what.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:54

And because of that, the world kind of opened up and gave him what he needed.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:06:59

And I find that very inspiring.

Host: 00:07:01

That is so cool that he was so passionate about what he believed in and felt so strongly in it that he was gonna.

Host: 00:07:07

He was willing to risk what was safety to go and pursue something that he felt really passionate about.

Host: 00:07:14

That's really.

Host: 00:07:14

That's really a neat story.

Host: 00:07:15

Thanks.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:16

That's exactly it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:17

And that's what I find so inspiring, that very thing.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:20

Cause a lot of us, myself included, I struggle with this, but I'm working on it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:25

We are maybe ruled a little bit more by fear, like, oh, well, but will I make enough?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:30

And can I really give up my job as an engineer to work in a pizza place?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:33

You know, those kind of.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:35

Of, oh, gosh, could I really do that?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:37

Ideas?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:37

And he was just like, nah, this is what I need to do.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:40

So this is what I'm gonna do.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:41

And I think that we don't have enough of that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:43

And I think it's very inspiring.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:45

And I look for ways in my life when I can emulate that.

Host: 00:07:48

That is so neat.

Host: 00:07:49

So you've given us a little taste of your background, but give us your personal story.

Host: 00:07:54

Cause I think I know your personal story impacted your book, so kinda give us your story.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:07:59

I think perhaps what you're referring to in this particular context is my daughter had an accident at one point, which really changed our experience in life.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:09

So I have two daughters, and both of them have had medical conditions.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:14

But one of them, at age twelve, fell off a horse that had spooked and was racing at top speed.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:20

And she fell onto her head, dented her helmet, which shows how much of an impact there was.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:25

And she really had a tough time.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:31

And it was about a three year recovery that included things like excruciating headaches and neck pain that nobody for a long time could figure out.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:41

The reason for it made it in the beginning impossible for her to go to school.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:47

And so she couldn't go to school.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:49

And then we would go to doctors and they would say, oh, brain rest, brain rest, brain rest, brain rest, brain rest.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:54

We're like, it's been weeks.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:54

It's been more weeks.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:55

It's been more weeks.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:57

The girl's got to go to school.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:58

What do we do here?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:08:59

And she was sobbing and screaming and unable to sleep and had twelve out of ten pain 24/7 in addition to a whole bunch of other things.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:09:10

And so after a while, we tried to send her to school, but she couldn't do anything.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:09:16

And they didn't make her do tests, they didn't make her do any work.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:09:18

She just would try to go to school.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:09:19

ery single day for months, by: 11:00

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:09:28

So we did this crazy thing for months where every day we were like, maybe today it will work and we'll just take her to school and it's going to be okay.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:09:36

And every day she was in excruciating pain, couldn't cope and had to come home.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:09:42

And so she lost not only her experience of herself as a learner, but she lost all her friendships because she was not fun to be around and she couldn't do anything anymore.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:09:53

And, you know, she was miserable.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:09:54

And so other twelve year old girls are nothing wonderfully supportive of a situation like that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:01

So she lost her whole sense of who she was.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:03

And eventually we realized, well, this is silly to play this game every single day.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:09

And we pulled her from school and the plan was to home school her.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:13

So I was working and my boss at the time, thankfully, was very supportive because I went and said, look, this is our situation.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:19

Either I have to quit or I can bring her with me and I can homeschool her while I work.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:25

And he said, okay, let's try that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:27

So this was the first time, it had been now many, many months that we realized, oh, guess what?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:32

She can't read anymore.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:34

They didn't know at school because they weren't having her do anything, but I was having this fantasy, oh, she'll just sit next to me or lay on the ground and do her work and I'll do my work, and then we'll send in the work to the school and it will be fine.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:48

No.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:48

So she couldn't read anymore.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:49

She couldn't understand.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:50

And she had been straight a student in a college prep school up until that point.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:10:55

And so that was a big, like, oh, my gosh, this is very different.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:00

Like, she.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:00

This isn't just like, well, let's wait a few more weeks, and she'll go back to school again.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:04

Our whole situation had to change.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:07

And so not only was she in this excruciating pain, but she couldn't read.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:12

Her swallowing was backwards.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:15

Food would come out her nose when she would swallow.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:17

She couldn't understand language in the same way anymore.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:20

Her personality changed because her brain was damaged.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:24

She had tremendous anxiety and depression that she had not had before.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:29

And so it really upended our whole family, not just her, but me, my husband, and her sister as well.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:38

And so the other thing that was challenging for us was that nobody could figure out what to do.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:43

And we like it in medicine when we say, oh, you have this problem, and here's the pill that fixes it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:49

But this was a complex situation.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:52

Nobody could figure out what to do.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:11:55

The advice we were getting from the medical system really wasn't helpful at all.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:12:00

I was in integrative medicine at the time, so I took her even to our integrative medicine doctors, that information also alone was not particularly helpful.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:12:09

They said, well, stop eating sugar and clear the mold from your basement, and all the pain will go away.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:12:14

And of course, that wasn't true.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:12:16

And so what ultimately happened, speeding towards the end, is she had, led by me, a truly integrative, palliative, meaning symptom based treatment plan, which included a ton of stuff.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:12:30

So medicines, procedures, injections in her neck, surgery for her neck, meditation, guided imagery, yoga, massage, emdr, which is for trauma, because the fear she felt while she thought she was going to die on that horse, something called behavioral optometry to help her eyes and her brain work well together, something called neurofeedback to get her brain back online, plus counseling, plus physical therapy, plus chiropractic.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:13:01

So this kind of all around approach, plus an educational approach of a school that was specifically for kids who were struggling with learning but were very brighten, got her better.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:13:12

It ultimately got her better.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:13:13

And she just fairly recently graduated from college with very high marks.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:13:18

And I'm so proud of her and happy for her.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:13:22

But also she grew as a person.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:13:25

She did.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:13:25

And towards the end of it, she was able to see that there really, truly were blessings, even in this incredibly difficult experience.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:13:33

And so I think that whole experience impacted me as a person, for sure, but also as a doctor, really getting what it's like from the other side and really getting how important.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:13:46

Integrating a fully medical approach plus complementary modalities to round out the whole person and whole family approach to getting better from something complicated.

Host: 00:13:58

That's an interesting story.

Host: 00:14:00

I'm curious, could you, because you've been on both sides of this coin as a doctor, you know what the doctors say.

Host: 00:14:08

But for people out there who are struggling with people who are dealing with illness in their family and their caregivers, to people who have a lot of medical issues and require a lot of time, what would you kind of say for people who don't really understand?

Host: 00:14:25

Cause I think a lot of people look at that on the outside.

Host: 00:14:27

They don't understand the frustration, even the pain that the caregivers are going through.

Host: 00:14:34

And they kind of sometimes dismiss it going, oh, it can't be that bad.

Host: 00:14:38

Or they don't know even how to even step in and say, how can I help?

Host: 00:14:42

You know, those people are at the end of their wires, I mean, end of the line sometimes because there's so much put on them.

Host: 00:14:50

So maybe kind of speak into that, people who are listening for those in that situation.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:14:55

Absolutely.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:14:56

So I'm an integrative palliative care physician, and so that means nothing, not just end of life, but the care of people with serious illness.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:15:04

And the way I see it is whole person care for families, not just patients, families facing serious illness, using all of the tools that work.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:15:12

So that's all the medical tools and the non medical tools.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:15:15

And what I found as my time as a practicing integrative palliative doctor is that some families, even with a very difficult diagnosis, were doing okay.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:15:29

They were struggling, of course, because it is so incredibly hard.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:15:32

But the family wasn't falling apart.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:15:34

And then other families, same severity of diagnosis, but these other families were really fracturing and struggling to the point of hanging on by their fingernails as a family, like, really not doing well.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:15:48

And I became very interested in what's the difference?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:15:52

What are the people who are tired and overwhelmed but finding meaning in the experience, getting the help that they need, connecting as a family instead of everyone to their own corners?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:16:03

What are they doing?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:16:04

And if we teach that stuff to the other families, can we help those families do better?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:16:08

And of course, it turns out you can.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:16:10

And that was why I wrote this book.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:16:13

My book, coping courageously, a heart centered guide for navigating a loved one's illness without losing yourself.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:16:19

And it's in that book are so many tools that the families who were doing well were using that worked.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:16:28

And so from that, I've also kind of tried to figure out, to answer your question, what are the things that people need, like, what helps?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:16:37

Aside from reading my book, which I do think helps, but really, like, kind of in a structural way, what helps?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:16:44

And so I came up with something that I call the courageous, caregiving roadmap.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:16:49

And there are five parts to that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:16:52

And this is what I really think people need to do to know, to get help with in order to cope with the situation of having a seriously ill loved one.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:03

So those five things are.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:05

The first one is managing the medical machine.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:08

So the medical system is crazy and a mess and does not work as well as we all wish that it would.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:16

So I do think that it's important for people to learn.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:19

How do you get the best from your doctor?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:21

How do you keep your loved ones safe in the hospital?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:24

What should you bring when your loved one goes to the hospital?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:27

What do you do if they're about to give your loved one a blue pill and you never saw that blue pill before?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:32

How do you keep track of all the stuff?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:36

How do you get a second opinion?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:37

How do you know if you need a second opinion?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:39

How do you manage this craziness?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:41

The first one.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:45

The second one is, I do think it's really important that people intentionally face the tough stuff.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:53

So what I found in some families who are really not doing well is they were like, la, la, la.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:17:59

Do not tell us a bad diagnosis.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:02

We do not want to hear it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:04

We don't want negative thinking.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:06

We're not going to talk about that, period.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:09

And even though that seems like it might make you feel better or make your family feel better, in fact, it makes everybody feel worse, because refusing to look at it or talk about it doesn't mean it isn't true, and it doesn't mean everybody's not scared.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:24

It's just like trying to stuff the monster in the basement and you can still hear him growling down there, right?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:29

So it doesn't make you feel safe.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:31

It just kind of increases the.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:34

The power of this fear because everybody's afraid to talk about it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:37

So I think being open to talk about the tough stuff doesn't mean you have to be depressed all the time.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:43

But, like, okay, let's just hear it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:45

Let's just look at it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:45

Let's put it on the table.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:46

Let's everyone talk about what's happening.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:49

It takes actually away some of the fear and away some of the power of the difficult stuff.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:54

So that's two.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:55

So, first was manage the medical machine.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:18:56

Two was be willing to face the tough stuff and look at it, talk about it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:01

Number three is people need help.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:03

Making high quality medical decisions, because if someone you love is sick, there's 40 million decisions to make.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:11

And often caregivers are left to make it all by themselves, and they've never had to do this before.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:16

And they don't know, like, should we take away the car keys from mom?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:20

Should we?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:21

You know, we're having trouble caring for dad at home.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:25

Should we put him in a facility or not?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:27

But we said we wouldn't, so should we.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:29

How should we get a new doctor?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:30

We don't love our doctors.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:32

How do I make my siblings do the stuff they're supposed to do when they're not doing it?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:38

Like, do I cut them off?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:39

Do I not?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:40

So there's a million decisions.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:42

So I think learning some skills and decision making, and there are some skills in decision making that helps.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:47

That's three, four.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:19:50

We need skills to manage our own strong emotions because people are so scared of their own feelings, and then they stuff them back in the basement with the other monster, and that makes people feel worse.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:01

And it separates families, right?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:03

Like, if one person is feeling sad about it or saying, you know, what?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:08

Is dad gonna die?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:09

And everyone in the family jumps on them, is like, don't you say that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:12

We're not gonna have that kind of talk now that shut that person down now the family's not as close.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:17

They don't feel comfortable speaking anymore.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:19

And if you yourself are afraid of your feelings, maybe you shut down to your family, and you're like, no, I'm fine.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:24

Everything's fine.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:25

Fine when it's not fine, you know, like, it's okay to cry together.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:29

And we need some skills to manage strong emotions.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:32

Feeling emotions will not kill us, but sometimes it feels like that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:36

So that's four.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:37

And then number five is, oh, my gosh.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:40

Caregivers have to fill up their own cup, because you cannot pour from an empty cup.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:44

You cannot drive the car on an empty gas tank.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:48

Caregiving is so hard.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:50

And people sometimes feel like, oh, it's not about me.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:52

It's about mom.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:53

I'm fine.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:54

You know, I don't need anything.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:55

It's all about mom.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:20:57

But when you do that, you become so depleted that not only do you feel terrible, but your empathy goes down.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:21:04

Cause that's what happens.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:21:06

And you get maybe even crankier.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:21:08

And, like, mom doesn't want a cranky caregiver either.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:21:10

So it's even a gift to your loved one to take care of yourself so that you can show up with your most loving, warm, healing presence, which if you are totally depleted, you simply can't do.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:21:23

So filling up our own cup, taking care of ourselves, is really part of caring for somebody else.

Host: 00:21:29

I love all five of these, and I know from someone who's dealt with some of these things in my own life in terms of family, number one, is one of the hardest ones, is managing the medical machine, because there's so many complexities to the medical machine.

Host: 00:21:45

You got the insurance component.

Host: 00:21:47

You have just the doctor interaction component.

Host: 00:21:49

I just had a doctor on my podcast, and we were talking about how, especially, like, people who don't have the resources that others may have, maybe because where they live, because of their background, their ethnicity, that sometimes the doctors are very short with them.

Host: 00:22:09

They come in, they don't have time to discuss things, talk about things, and so you feel like you really don't get enough time to get your questions answered.

Host: 00:22:18

So how would you.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:22:19

Yeah.

Host: 00:22:20

How would you recommend for a family who's dealing with some of those medical issues?

Host: 00:22:23

How do you approach a doctor with questions?

Host: 00:22:26

Because a lot of times that's the hardest thing.

Host: 00:22:28

If you can get a doctor interact with you and have a discussion with you, sometimes it kind of lowers the anxiety in that medical machine you're dealing with.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:22:38

Yeah, yeah.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:22:39

That's such a great question, and there's a lot in there.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:22:45

But let me talk about specifically the one about connecting with the doctor and getting your questions answered.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:22:50

Let's assume that most doctors are trying to do a good job.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:22:56

If you have the occasional really jerk doctor, you should dump that doctor and get a better doctor.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:01

But let's assume this is a nice person who's just stressed out as doctors are feeling rushed and doesn't mean to come across like they don't care about you, but kind of it feels that way.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:11

We'll assume that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:12

And so here's what sometimes happens.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:15

I'm going to tell you this, and then I'll explain why you want to do different than this.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:19

Sometimes doctor first comes in, and everyone's sort of polite, and the doctor says, oh, hi.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:24

Okay, what can I do for you?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:25

Okay.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:25

And the doctor is saying, all right, here's my questions.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:28

I'm doing an exam.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:29

And then they start telling you, all right, this is what we're going to do and change this medicine.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:32

We're going to do this thing.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:33

And the family or patient is being polite in the beginning, letting the doctor do their thing.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:39

Then the doctor, in their mind, they're looking at the time, they've got someone else waiting, and they're closing up in their mind.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:46

And then what happens is what, in medicine, we call a door handle question.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:49

So the family has been waiting for their turn, but the doctor thinks they're closing the visit and they're about to move on to the next person who's waiting.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:23:59

And then as they're like, okay, so, you know, I'll see you next time.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:02

The family says, well, there's just one thing that's a door handle question.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:06

But this is the thing they really wanted to talk about.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:08

And they want ten minutes to talk about this thing, but the doctor is done.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:12

They spent the minutes that they had for this visit, and so that is so common.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:17

And then the doctor's like, well, okay.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:18

And they say, well, something fast.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:20

And then they move.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:21

They leave.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:22

The family feels like, oh, my gosh, this was so important to me.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:24

I've been waiting so long to talk about this, and the doctor gave me two minutes.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:28

That is so common.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:30

But there's a way to not have that happen.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:32

And here's what you do instead.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:33

You write down what you want to talk about first.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:36

So you're clear.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:37

When you go in, you write it down, because when you go in, sometimes you forget, like, you see the doctor, like, I forget what I wanted to say.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:42

Write it down.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:43

I want to talk about, you know, should dad still be allowed to drive?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:47

So when the doctor first comes in and says, hi, nice to see you, you say, I want to say, I know we don't have that much time.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:52

I want to say right up front, it's really important to me that we have time to talk about, should dad still be allowed to drive?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:58

I want to say it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:24:59

That's the first thing you say.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:25:01

And now the doctor knows, okay, I got to manage this time, including this thing that is important to this family.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:25:06

So they may start right with that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:25:08

They might go, oh, okay, well, let's talk about that first.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:25:10

Let's spend the whole time talking about that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:25:11

Or they may say, okay, but his blood pressure was a little high.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:25:15

So I do.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:25:15

We do have to talk about blood pressure.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:25:16

But now I'm managing.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:25:18

I'm going to do blood pressure faster so that I make sure I save, you know, seven, eight minutes to talk about this thing that's important to them, family.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:25:25

So if you do that and you say right up front, I just want to let you know, I know our time is limited, but this thing is really important to me that we talk about today.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:25:33

Unless your doctor is a jerk, they will rearrange the visit to make sure that your thing gets covered.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:25:38

If what they say is, well, I don't care what's important to you, we're going to do what I say, then you get another doctor.

Host: 00:25:42

I like that.

Host: 00:25:43

That's good.

Host: 00:25:45

Another part that I think is really key, too.

Host: 00:25:47

For me, all these are really important.

Host: 00:25:48

But four stuck out to me, too, is how do you manage your own strong emotions?

Host: 00:25:55

Because it seems to me like a lot of times, especially when you have multiple people in the family and they're all trying to provide input on care for a loved one, maybe it's a parent or a sibling, that either we try to bury our feelings or our emotions, or they come out overly aggressive, that dominates the time.

Host: 00:26:19

So how do you get people, what kind of skills do you talk about in your book to help people manage those, all the different emotions that are in the room?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:26:29

Yeah.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:26:30

I'm going to give you one underlying idea first, and then I'll talk more about the specific answer to that question.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:26:36

The underlying idea is that we create more suffering for ourselves by beating ourselves up about our emotions than we would if we just them.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:26:48

Right.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:26:48

We spend so much energy trying to not feel sad, not feel angry, stuff it away, that if we just said, like, just acknowledge this is happening, I feel sad today.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:26:59

I feel sad today.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:00

I'm going to set a timer and give myself 15 minutes to just cry and cry and cry.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:06

When the timer goes off, I'm going to wash my face, take the dog out and have a snack.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:12

Right?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:12

Like, rather than stuffing it and trying not to feel it, we give ourselves a little time, because if you stuff it, what happens is at some point it explodes out on somebody else.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:21

And so you go from zero looking like you have no emotion to all of a sudden you're yelling at everybody or you're losing your mind crying, and everybody's freaked out.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:29

Whereas if you just give yourself 15 minutes here and there when you need it, it's like a let's the air valve out, right?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:36

It lets the pressure out.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:38

So that's one just underlying concept.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:39

But then the other thing that I think is important to know is that we all have different personality quirks.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:47

Right?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:48

I use the positive intelligence model.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:51

There's a book called Positive Intelligence, and it's not my book, but I recommend it highly to other people.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:27:55

And it talks about the different negative voices in our head and how that makes our emotions worse, more challenging.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:04

So everybody has a judge saying, oh, you're not being a good enough daughter, or you're not being a good enough sister or judging somebody else.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:12

He's not being a good enough brother, you know, he's not helping as much as he should.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:16

So this judging part makes everything worse.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:19

We judge ourselves, we feel badly.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:21

We judge other people, we feel angry and resentful.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:24

And if you start an interaction with another person and you're bringing your judge and you're angry and resentful, boy, are they going to be defensive.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:31

And all of a sudden, everybody's fighting, right?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:33

Whereas if you didn't bring that judge, you brought compassion instead.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:37

Like, hey, this is a hard time for all of us, huh?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:40

Nobody's fighting.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:41

So a big part of this is prevention of unhealthy emotion.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:47

Like, everybody's fighting by noticing our own stuff.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:50

So the judge is one another.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:53

The language that this book tends to use is called saboteurs.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:56

So the negative voices he calls saboteurs.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:28:59

So other negative voices are the controller, right?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:01

Some people are super controlling.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:03

So you show up to be helpful, and you're cleaning up the house, mom's house, and one of the siblings like, oh, you're doing it all wrong.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:09

What is wrong with you?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:09

Why are you even bothering to clean if you're going to do it that way?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:12

They're trying to control the situation to make themselves feel safer, but now the person who was helping, now they're annoyed.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:19

Right?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:20

Now, all of a sudden, there's negative emotions in the house, and we're fighting.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:23

And so learning about your own stuff so that you can see it and calm it and learning skills to calm it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:32

You know, deep breathing skills, mind body skills, noticing.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:35

Oh, I was just about to judge him, but how about let me not do that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:38

Let me just go in the other room, put water on my face, take a couple deep breaths, like, wow, that was my judge.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:44

But that is not going to be helpful.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:45

So let me try to lead with empathy instead and say, hey, it looks like you're having a hard time today.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:49

Me too.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:49

This is really a hard time.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:50

You know, we're sad about what's happening to mom, and when you lead with that, all of the difficult emotions get smaller.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:29:58

And if what you're left with is sadness and grief, those are perfectly fine, normal, healthy emotions.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:30:05

And you shouldn't try to make them go away.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:30:08

You should allow them to come.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:30:09

They'll be there for a while and then allow them to pass, because it's just part of being a human being that's so helpful.

Host: 00:30:16

I was thinking about your last one, too.

Host: 00:30:18

This is the one.

Host: 00:30:18

I think a lot of caregivers struggle most with that.

Host: 00:30:23

Either you develop a martyr complex from this one, or you just don't think you deserve any more and you don't, you feel guilty giving yourself that time to fill your cup.

Host: 00:30:34

Kind of spend a little bit of time for those who are feeling that way that it's just selfish of me to think I need time for myself.

Host: 00:30:41

Because if they don't do like you said, they're going to burn out and it's not going to go well.

Host: 00:30:46

So maybe kind of give them a word of it's a permission maybe, to take care of themselves.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:30:52

Exactly right?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:30:53

Yeah.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:30:54

I think almost every caregiver feels this way.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:30:57

So if you're a caregiver and you feel like, oh, it would be selfish of me to think about myself because it's really all about mom or dad or my spouse or my sister or brother or my friend, you are in good company because almost everybody feels that way.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:31:11

However, it is not helpful, and this is the way that I think it's most helpful to talk about it, is that it's not just, oh, you deserve it, you should take care of yourself.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:31:23

Which is true, you do deserve it, and you should take care of yourself.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:31:26

But people have trouble receiving that sometimes.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:31:29

But the truth is, you will be a lousier caregiver if you allow yourself to get depleted.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:31:37

And if you truly care about your loved one, you want to show up as the kind of caregiver that they deserve.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:31:45

And if you wear yourself to the bone, I don't care how wonderful a person you are, you will not be as good a caregiver.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:31:54

You will be more short with them.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:31:56

You'll be cranky sometimes, you'll be more perfunctory, like you're doing the things you need to do, but in your mind you're somewhere else.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:32:04

You're not bringing your whole hearted, loving self to every moment.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:32:08

And that is not the kind of caregiver that your loved one deserves.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:32:13

They deserve someone who is filled up as a human, physically, emotionally, spiritually, who is truly present, bringing their loving energy, because they have enough energy, because they took care of themselves and they filled themselves back up again, that's the kind of caregiver I would want.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:32:31

You would probably want everybody listening, would want for themselves.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:32:35

If you turn it around and you think, let's say you're the person needing care, would you rather have a caregiver who never takes care of themselves, who doesn't ever get a break, who doesn't sleep enough, who doesn't move and exercise, who doesn't eat healthy food, who feels exhausted?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:32:52

Think about how that person's going to show up.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:32:54

Would you rather have that caregiver?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:32:56

Or would you rather have the caregiver who gets great sleep, who hires you some help to take care of you so that they can have a break?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:33:03

Who exercises every day?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:33:05

Who meditates or praysen?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:33:07

Who when they walk in, you just feel their warm energy that they're able to share with you.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:33:12

That's the kind of caregiver everybody wants.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:33:15

But you literally cannot be that caregiver if you allow yourself to get depleted.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:33:20

So I do think it's helpful for some people to think about the fact that they are filling up their own cup as a gift to their loved one, not just a gift to theirself, to themselves.

Host: 00:33:32

That's awesome.

Host: 00:33:33

So how's your book being received?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:33:35

It's great, actually.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:33:37

It's so reinforcing and it fills my heart, really, when people reach out to me and say, oh my gosh, thank God for this book.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:33:47

It helped me at four in the morning when I was so worried about what was happening.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:33:51

It helped me figure out how to work with my siblings.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:33:54

It helped me give myself permission.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:33:57

It helped me understand what was going on and make a plan.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:01

And so I really.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:03

I feel filled up about it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:05

And that's why I'm excited to talk about it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:06

And I'd love for more people to read it who need it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:09

And I think it touches on parts of caring for somebody who's ill that we don't always talk about, you know, the deeper human parts.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:20

And because of that, I share some of my own stories in there.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:24

And there are plenty of patient stories.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:26

Every chapter starts with a story.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:27

So it's not a dry read.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:29

It's more.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:30

We're all in this together.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:32

And here's some examples of people who have gone through things and how they handled it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:36

And here's some things that I have gone through, and here are the things you're going through.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:40

Here are some things that might help you with what you're going through.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:42

So I feel like it's a humanizing book.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:45

We're all on this journey together and hopefully it lifts some people up.

Host: 00:34:50

That's awesome.

Host: 00:34:51

So I'd love to ask my guest this question.

Host: 00:34:53

What are you excited about in this season of your life?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:34:58

So in this season of my life, I made a big decision.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:35:02

I am excited about elevating the way serious illness care happens.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:35:09

You know, I could have stayed in a little practice, but I decided to take a leap and further this field of integrative palliative care, which is not a fully developed field, but I want it to be because I think that this whole person approach to caring for families, not just patients, but families with serious illness, using all the tools that work.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:35:33

So medicine type tools and acupuncture, massage, guided imagery type tools, teaching that to families, but then also teaching that to physicians and other clinicians, that's how to change the world, how to change the culture.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:35:48

And that is what I'm dedicating this next part of my life to.

Host: 00:35:52

It's so funny.

Host: 00:35:53

I can see in your vision for what you're doing now the two role models that influenced your life in your decision.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:36:01

Wow.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:36:01

Interesting.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:36:03

I never thought about that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:36:05

Tell me what you mean.

Host: 00:36:06

Well, your aunt, who showed you kind of what it's like to live in a system where you were loved and cared for, is what you're trying to develop for families and taking that leap.

Host: 00:36:18

It's what your dad did, going outside of what, you know the norm is and do something that's outside the box, that's maybe something you never thought about that hasn't been done before, but you're using those two influences to kind of shape what you're doing.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:36:33

Well, you might make me cry.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:36:35

Thank you so much for that insight.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:36:37

I never thought of that before, but I see it 100% now that you shone a light on it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:36:42

Thank you for that.

Host: 00:36:43

Yeah, no, you're welcome.

Host: 00:36:44

I just.

Host: 00:36:45

That's why I always ask those questions.

Host: 00:36:47

I can often see the decisions people make by the role models they were impacted by.

Host: 00:36:53

So you kind of see that being driven through the decisions they make for the future.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:36:57

That is so interesting.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:36:59

What a great interviewer you are.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:37:01

That is so interesting.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:37:02

Thank you for that.

Host: 00:37:03

No, it's my pleasure.

Host: 00:37:04

It's just funny to kind of.

Host: 00:37:05

To kind of see it developing your life that way and.

Host: 00:37:09

And just the different things you've did to just kind of.

Host: 00:37:12

You can see your dad taking the chance with you staying home.

Host: 00:37:14

I mean, that was another thing I could see when you say, okay, my dad did this one month off, one work at home, and you did the same thing with your daughter.

Host: 00:37:22

It's like I got to find a way to put her first in a situation, which means it may be risking what I'm used to doing with my job to take on this new role as a mom for our family.

Host: 00:37:33

So it's just fun to kind of watch how those influences kind of impact your life, whether you see them or not.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:37:40

Absolutely.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:37:41

I love it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:37:42

I love that you could see that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:37:43

I couldn't see it for myself, but you could see it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:37:45

I love that.

Host: 00:37:46

No, that's great.

Host: 00:37:48

So this is my other favorite question for my guest.

Host: 00:37:50

What do you want your legacy to be?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:37:55

What do I want my legacy to be?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:38:00

I mean, on the one hand, it's the same thing, because I think I'm working on my legacy, but really, at a deeper level, I want to have been somebody who put good into the world and who helped.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:38:17

This is what I like, who helped people see their tough situation in a different way so that they could grow from it in some way, whether they grew personally or they grew as a family, or they learned something or they saw their own strength.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:38:34

And now that I say it out loud, I hadn't really thought about it before.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:38:37

I think that part of that is that I had a little bit of a difficult start as well.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:38:41

But I feel like I have been so blessed to create a wonderful life for myself.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:38:47

And that idea of just because you're facing something difficult doesn't mean that your life has to be bad or doesn't mean that you've lost control or that.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:38:56

That there's nothing you can do about it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:38:58

There's always something you can do about it, even if you can't fix the thing you can look for.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:39:04

I hope this is okay to say, but I say this to patients all the time.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:39:07

Look for the flowers and the poop.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:39:09

You know, life gives us a fair amount of poop.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:39:11

That's the tough part.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:39:13

But there's always flowers, and it doesn't mean the poop's not there.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:39:16

We're not saying, oh, it's all good, it's all great.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:39:18

But even if you lost someone dear to you, you know, maybe you were impressed with your own strength, or maybe you met some amazing people, or maybe people showed up for you in a way you didn't even think they were going to.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:39:31

Or maybe you developed a new interest.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:39:33

And so no matter what the poop is, there's always flowers we can find.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:39:37

And I think inspiring people to see that and learn that so that people going through hard things can grow, that's what I hope to spread a little bit in my little corner of the world.

Host: 00:39:49

That's great.

Host: 00:39:50

I love that.

Host: 00:39:51

As you wrap up today, what do you want?

Host: 00:39:53

The key takeaways for the audience to go away from our conversation?

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:40:00

I think the key takeaway is to approach hard things with open eyes and an open heart.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:40:09

And so that means don't stuff the hard things.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:40:14

Be willing to see them, but don't get sucked into the hard things, either.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:40:18

Bring your lightness, your love, your laughter, your caring.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:40:24

You can do both of those things at the same time.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:40:27

And that, I think, is a theme to what I teach in general, is hold space for two what might seem like opposing things at the same time.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:40:35

So you can be angry and loving at the same time.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:40:40

You can be tired of caregiving and still love your person deeply.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:40:44

You can be afraid.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:40:46

And also, hopefully you can look at things honestly and still bring your whole loving self to it.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:40:52

So making space for all the stuff, it's basically the poop and the flowers.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:40:58

Making space for the hard stuff and also making space for the hopeful and light stuff at the same time.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:41:04

I think if we approach walking through the world that way, it just works better for us and for the people around us.

Host: 00:41:11

That's awesome.

Host: 00:41:13

Where can people find your book?

Host: 00:41:14

Coping courageously, a heart centered guide for navigating a loved one's illness without losing yourself.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:41:20

Indeed, they can find it on Amazon.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:41:22

They can get to it through my website, copingcorageously.com, and they can reach out to me too, through the website, which you can get to integrativepaliative.com or copingcorageously maybe is easier.com dot.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:41:39

You can reach out to me through email there.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:41:41

And if anybody wants to chat about anything or share their experience or, you know, learn from me or connect or give me guidance about how best to help people, I would love to hear from people.

Host: 00:41:52

Well, thank you so much for taking the time and for writing this book.

Host: 00:41:55

Because like I said, we are going to be dealing with some part of this, some part in our life, most likely.

Host: 00:42:00

So you've given us five really helpful skills and courageously caregiving roadmap to kind of walk through that journey with ourselves and our family so that we can be the kind of caregiver that our loved one needs in those moments where they're the most vulnerable.

Host: 00:42:15

Thank you for what you do and blessings on the work you're doing.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:42:18

Thank you so much.

Doctor Delia Claremont: 00:42:19

And thank you for having me and for this really inspiring conversation.

Host: 00:42:22

Well, thank you.