The Science of Generativity- How Kinship Care Prevents Cognitive Decline

Grandparents raising grandchildren insights

SPEAKER_00 1:19

We often hear the narrative that grandparents raising grandchildren have been robbed of their golden years. We talk about the burden, the stress, and the sacrifice. But today we're flipping the script. Dr. Deborah Heiser, a psychologist, author, and TEDx speaker, is back to explain why, from a developmental psychology perspective, this stage of your life is actually when your brain is most primed for leadership, legacy, and what psychologists call generativity. Welcome to Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, Nurturing Through Adversity. In this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren. As we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support, I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of child rearing for children who have experienced trauma and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care. We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you. Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored. I have to admit that for the first three years of this journey, I didn't feel like I was winning. I felt like I was surviving. But recently I crossed a bridge where the joy started coming back, and I realized there's nothing else I'd rather be doing. Last week my husband and I were out in the yard throwing a baseball. My grandkids eventually wandered off to do their own thing, but we stayed out there for another 30 minutes just throwing the ball. And I realized I haven't moved my upper body like that in years. We chatted about that, and Dr. Heiser helped me see that these moments aren't just extra work. They're the biological fuel that keeps the Ebenezer Scrooge stagnation at bay. We aren't just raising kids. We're gaining a powerful new identity. Welcome back, Deborah. Thanks for having me on again. I love your show and what you're doing. Thanks. It's so nice to see you. I know many of us grandparents complain about being exhausted, about not being able to do all the things they can do when they retire. But you being a specialist on generativity, help us understand why being a kinship caregiver might actually be the most healthy thing we can do for our aging brains.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

My gosh. You know, I love that you asked this question because most of us think, well, of course, and we know that the kids are getting a lot out of it when there's kinship care and that the caregiver is giving that. But the things that you get as one who's giving is astronomical. It's the things that you can't see. So generativity is the desire to give back to others without expecting something in return. It's you wanting to make your mark. It's you wanting to feel that the there's meaning there. Like we all have heard about purpose, but meaning matters to us. And when you're able to give to others, it taps into your emotional part of your brain. That part of your brain is saying, I matter in the world. All those boxes I checked off for so many years that maybe were for other people's goals or that you just felt like you had to do. This is something as a caregiver in kinship that you're taking on because you want to do it. You have a new sense of meaning. So it's an emotional boost for us.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

And I know I've spoken with many other specialists that say that's the important thing is that we acknowledge that this is something that we want to do. You know, it's taken me a while to get there. I I would say that the first three years, I did this because I felt it was the right thing to do. And not that I don't love my grandchildren, but it was a difficult choice for us. But I made that recent bridge where I felt the joy coming back into my life. And I thought there's nothing else I'd rather be doing. That was an important shift for me.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

I love that you talked about how you had to get there. Because anytime there's a transition, we have that feeling of, is this what I want? Do I like this? That newness is scary. That newness feels almost like, let me just go back to my comfort zone. Let me just run back to wherever that was. That could be a move. That could be a new job. That could be getting married. When people have a new child, they say, Oh my gosh, what did I get myself into? Um, or where is the expert here when you're starting something new? It doesn't matter what it is. It can be good, it could be the best thing we've always wanted. And that same exact feeling that you just talked about is how we feel in almost every single transition. But getting to that over the rainbow is magical.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Don't you think that we often think of retirement as being that over-the-rainbow experience? And then we find out that maybe we're stagnating. Yeah. Yes. How important is that for us from a scientific standpoint?

Rethinking retirement and preparation

SPEAKER_02 7:36

So whenever you're going through a transition, you want to come in as prepared as you can. And you brought up retirement. The prep the preparation that we've been talking about is just money. And that's it. Nobody talks about anything else other than make sure you have enough money. And that and the other message that had been given and is starting to shift now is just go relax. If you're not relaxing, there's something that you're doing wrong. Like, why aren't you relaxing? Why aren't you sitting back enjoying yourself? So the narrative that we've been preparing for is one that makes it more difficult for us in retirement. Some people don't want to retire, but they feel like they have to or they're not a success. They feel like once you do retire, what do you do with yourself? You know, there's only so much relaxing that people like to do. So taking on a purpose goal or something that matters to you, something meaningful, getting reconnected in ways are all important. When we don't do that, that factors into the whole loneliness epidemic. So we've kind of built this narrative for ourselves that is not ideal for retirement, where we have expectations of relaxation that is great for two weeks, maybe even two months. But then after that, we start to get that itch. What do I do? How can I make myself feel like I matter?

SPEAKER_00 8:54

You talk about that biological itch that we get after we're 40 to mentor. And in this sense, that's what we're doing as grandparents, raising grandchildren. Is that, is that um, is that a biological thing, like a like like the time clock that goes off when you want to have a baby? Is that something that happens to most people when they turn 40 or after they turn 40?

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Yeah, it's an emotional developmental milestone. That's why it's key for most people. We expect physical, like learning to walk, learning to talk, all of those kinds of things. We have a whole series of emotional life stages that we go through in midlife, and it has room, just like you could learn how to walk at six months or 18 months, and it's all still normal. So it can hit at any time. But what happens is we do get that itch, and you'll hear it in subtle ways. A person will hit midlife, it could be 40, it could be 50, it could be 60, it doesn't matter, it could be even a little earlier. There's that big time frame there. But um, they'll say, I think I'm gonna start blogging. I think I'm gonna start a podcast. I think I'm gonna, you know, and that gonna is maybe involved in philanthropy philanthropy. I'm gonna um get involved in a community organization where I volunteer my time. It can be any of those things. And you start to hear that once a person hits midlife. And that is an expected milestone just like walking and talking. We all know the person that doesn't do that, and that's the person that looks like Ebenezer Scrooge, where on paper they have everything. They have their, you know, they could be self-made, have a mansion, have people taking care of their needs, but they're miserable. This is what keeps us from being miserable is engaging in what's called generativity, which includes mentoring, volunteering, and philanthropy and putting yourself out there the way that people do when they want to get their expertise out to the world.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

And is that Ebenezer Scrooge attitude detrimental physically?

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

How does it show up?

Impact of stress on well-being

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Our emotional trajectory matches with good physical trajectory and good cognitive trajectory. So if we're gonna look at all three of those trajectories, if you are feeling great, you are usually cognitively better and you're gonna be physically better as well. So imagine yourself if you're stressed and you are feeling like I need more, more, more, more, more, or somebody's trying to get what I have, or you're just unsatisfied, you're probably gonna have different blood pressure than somebody who's not feeling stressed. All that cortisol that goes through your body is not helpful for your cognition. So both physically and cognitively, you're not gonna be doing as well. And emotionally, you're more likely to be lonely and not know why, and possibly more depressed as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Hmm.

Managing life as grandparents

SPEAKER_00 11:50

So, in a sense, managing schedules and doing school runs and the emotional regulation that we have to work with as grandparents raising grandchildren. I mean, I wish someone gave us a little bit of prep work before we got into these roles on working with traumatized children. Honestly, I mean, if I could change anything in the system, it would be that. But that being said, once we do adapt, which I feel like I'm just getting to after four years.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

My neighbor was saying to me yesterday, and she's the same age as I am, maybe even a year younger. And she said, I don't know how you do what you do. And I thought about it, and I thought, I really don't know how I do what I do. But I'm happy. Yes, I have to take a nap. Yes, I go to sleep feeling like I'm doing something significant when I wake up every day, even if it is getting a child off to school or lining up doctor's appointments. So maybe the mental activity is not only making me feel younger, but it it might even prolong my life. It could.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

You know, you're also, while you're doing that, you we everyone's heard of the emptiness syndrome. And that's where you feel an emptiness. And people can feel loss and they can feel loneliness and they can feel all of these things. Well, you're doing the opposite as a kinship pro caregiver. You have um a new identity just when others are losing it. You know, as grandparents taking on caring for their grandchildren, you are gaining an identity when it's most hard for others to find an identity. They've just lost some. My identity with my job title, my identity as a parent who's raising children, my identity as whatever it is has shifted with losses of identity that people feel. You've never really lost them, but people feel that. Well, you've just added one. And identity is one of the most valuable things that we have. When a person carries their, I often call it their identity card, their business card, their title, they feel pride in that. That is what they say. This is my identity and who I am. Well, losing an identity can feel hard, but gaining one, people don't talk about the real reward that's there that goes really deep within us.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

I would imagine a lot of people aren't even aware that that's going on. And they might feel depression creep in and not really understand why. Yeah. We all want an identity. You know, my husband bought us all softball ball mitts, baseball mitts. I stand corrected. He is always correcting me. I say softball, I mean baseball. And we we got all of our mitts and we were out in the field, and and then my grandson decided he wanted to go ride his bike, and my granddaughter decided that I know she stepped on some fire ants, and that was it for her, so she went in the house. So my husband and I were out there tossing the baseball for probably half an hour, and the thought that came to me is I would never be out here throwing a baseball if it weren't for these kids. Yes. And I was going, you know, I haven't really moved my upper body like that for a long time. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Yes, exactly. People don't realize how active you are when you have younger kids around. You have to be. And not just physically, but you have you have to be on when you're outside and you're with kids. It's a different thing than when you're watching television. It's a whole different being on.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Yeah, I agreed. Even if you go to the gym, I think staying active is very, very important. And um, and that's the other thing. I feel like I have a reason that I have to stay healthy, I have to stay well, I have to live as long as I can because these children need us.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

And I don't know if I would feel that otherwise. And I had never thought about that before. So another plus. That's part of the purpose.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

You know, we all need to have a purpose when we're living, and that is a big purpose.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Another thing that crossed my mind is when their parents have failed and we step in. If we don't view ourselves as grandparents or parents, just being mentors, we can transfer all that intellectual property, all the family history, um, all the memories positive. Hopefully, as you know, I try and focus on the positive memories of their parents and sharing that with the kids because they're not around or they passed away. Um, I think that that's really a great way of looking at our roles, not so much as grandparents anymore, not so much as parents, but as as mentors. For sure. You are.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

You know, a lot of people don't realize that I mean, you don't even need a title on this. We had my mother-in-law who lived with us for 10 years. So there was a lot of blurred lines in parenting. You know, we might say, hey, you can't do that, and she'd come with a candy bar behind our backs, you know, like it was all fine. It was all good, but they the kids learned where to go, where to get what they

Mentorship and family values

SPEAKER_02 17:43

needed. Was there mentorship from my mother-in-law for sure? They had all the traditions and things passed down from her, like, you know, holidays and values and things. I think that as long as you are passing on legacy to your grandchildren, it doesn't matter your title. You're going to be giving them values, which is really what people want, right? They want people to grow up with the values that they hold to be important. And that can be that the parents that they no longer have had those too, but it doesn't have to be that either. The title of caregiver, grandparent, mentor, you're all of

Understanding personal connections

SPEAKER_02 19:49

them.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Really.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

And I think sometimes we attach too much importance to those titles. These kids call me Laura, Grandma, Mom. And sometimes people are overly sensitive about that. And I think uh it's whatever they need to call you, but if you are their mentor, really that's the most important thing.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

It's really how do they feel about you? And people can see that in, I always say, look at actions, not words. Um, because if they are relying on you when they feel low, if they need help, who do they go to? If they're feeling in crisis, who do they go to? When they're happy, who do they want to talk to? If there's some good news they have, who are they sharing it with? And if you're involved in that, that's what matters. Not if they come to you and so they say, Hey, Laura, here's the news. It's they came to you. And I think that we're sort of primed to have a label or a name for things. But if you look around, people have different words they're they're called, you know, for mom or dad or grandma or grandpa. It's not always that. It could be there's a million different nana and nona, you know, a million different names. It doesn't matter. It really just matters the action.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

And I think that also the act of mentoring um a grandchild can really help a caregiver heal the trauma trauma that they feel towards their biological children. I've noticed that for my husband, my uh these are his biological grandchildren. And the fact that his son has abandoned his children has been very traumatic for him. But I've watched that heel, I have seen him turn around his trauma and pain over his son through the love that these children show him. And I think that that's important. It has nothing to do with generativity, but I guess for grandparents, for many grandparents, even that aren't raising that their grandchildren, that can be important. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

That is generativity. We mentor because we get something out of it. When we're going to do that, when and when we're engaged in generativity, which is giving to somebody else without expecting something in return, it's because we want what we need from it. Of course, he's healing that feeling. He's seeing that it's okay. This legacy that he started, right? Um, he's down to his, he's now looking at his grandchildren, saying, it's gonna be okay. This is all right. I see my legacy here. That is healing. Yes. So most people think that the mentorship is just for the recipient, right? The person that's um receiving it. But we do it because we actually get as much or more. When we get to see a legacy, which is kind of what generativity is about, you get to see your legacy when you're mentoring somebody and you're saying, I see they got those values that I wanted them to have. I see they're following the traditions that we follow every holiday. I can see a little bit of me and how they stand or they move or they talk or what they're doing, whether you know they're a biological relation to you or not. You're able to see some of those things that they pick up from you. That's legacy. And that's the power of it, because you know that once it's with them, it's going to move on to the next person and next person. So it's kind of a little feeling of immortality.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Many times our children grow up and we're disappointed, or we, or we don't have relationships with them. And that's so sad, I think, for a parent. But when you can go back a generation to their grandchildren and reconnect that way, you can remember the very joyous part of raising a child. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

It it still gives you that hopeful feeling that you want to have. It gives you all of those feelings of accomplishment, of feeling that love feeling is is reactivated and reignited. Um, all of that that's right in our core that we don't really talk and write about so much, but is the fuel that makes us run comes back.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Yes, yes. Many of us experience exhaustion and and depression sometimes can be a factor. You, I know, won an international award for your research on depre depression identification. So, for a kinship caregiver who's powering through, how can they tell the difference between? Mission fatigue and clinical depression? How can we be proactive in protecting ourselves from that difference? And what do we do to prevent it?

SPEAKER_02 24:53

So that's really hard. And that's why when I first did the research on depression, I found that it's hard

Creating the Depress Check tool

SPEAKER_02 25:00

because people don't recognize it in people they know or in themselves. And that's because as we age, the symptoms are different. If you talk to an older adult, they may say I have a backache or I'm feeling fatigued or I have a headache. And a younger person won't use those same symptoms. So it's really kind of tricky. I just developed something called depressed check that looks at depression and anxiety for 13-year-olds old on to the end of life. And it uses whatever scale the age of the person is. And I made it free because I've seen so many people out there who they either are not getting assessed, they don't understand what these feelings are that they have. But then the other problem is people will say, Well, I don't know how to find a provider. You know, when you're depressed, which anybody who's felt that, you're not motivated to then go search and research and find a provider that takes your insurance, speaks your language, that, you know, has everything that you want. So I also added that to it because this is one of the trickiest things. Depression identification is difficult. And so a person that thinks, I don't know, I'm just feeling a little off. You can take a screener, it takes less than two minutes and find out if you might be someone who's a candidate for seeing somebody.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

I'll put a link in the show notes. I think that would be really helpful, both both for ourselves and for the kids we're raising.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

Yeah. You know, I can add something that goes even lower than 13 for people who have kids and they want to screen also. Um be great. Yeah, you know, anybody who has a question about that can always reach out to me. I do this because I care about this topic area and I've made it free. So anybody who has feedback, I'm always welcome, you know, welcoming it and willing to add more for it.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Thanks, Deborah. How does having a successor, the grandchild, to invest in change the chemical makeup of our aging process?

SPEAKER_02 27:04

So if you put two people in a room who are older, you'll hear

Cross-generational dialogues and learning

SPEAKER_02 27:11

a dialogue that it will will be pretty stagnant. It'll be the same one, very similar over and over again. If you put an a person in one generation in a room with another generation, the dialogue completely changes. And you will then see people using new terms. You will see the younger people use some of the terms that the um older people have used, and vice versa. But there's a whole lot of learning that goes on. And that's reverse mentoring that's happening also, where we're learning and gaining new information and knowledge and cultural values that are out there that we would have been missing. So our whole entire, you know, cognitive outlook starts to change when we're around a younger generation.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

That's really interesting. I never thought about that before. I've actually learned how to play a couple of video games that I wouldn't have otherwise. And one of them I don't care to learn anymore about. And I've been pretty open with the kids about that. And the other one is kind of fun, you know. You know, you're also, I love to hear that, first of all.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

And I love that you played video games with them. You know, the the neat thing is as you're trying new things, you're going to be trying new things, things that you wouldn't have done. And those are not the only examples. You also went out and you did some softball throwing on the front lawn. You're always doing new things. And that's continuously helping you to grow. And that is reverse mentoring. The younger people are having you live and learn in a new way. You are taking in from their culture, you're able to say, this is what they do, and this is what they're understanding and learning. And sometimes it's harder when a person is a parent. They're caught up in, I got to get, you know, work done, I got to do this, I got to do that. But there's a tiny little like synaptic window there that's a it's small, but it it's just that little bit of room that you have as a grandparent or somebody who's not the parent, where it gives you just that little tiny bit more um, I guess, energy to look at things through their lens. And that's where that reverse mentoring really comes into play.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Well, I'm always speaking about the fact that we have to be so competent and deal with so much as grandparents that life can just get too serious. And I think it's very important to take advantage of those windows to just be with them. We probably learn more from that than we do from anything else that we do. And that never stops.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

I mean, I'm I I had people over this weekend and my kids came, and one of them is,

Learning from younger generations

SPEAKER_02 29:57

you know, he's 21-year-old. And I learned all the new, not all, but uh what felt like all of the new culture, the words, the things that they're talking about, the terms that I did not know existed. And I then went and I looked them up and then I talked about them with another person. And it opened up a whole new window into thinking and how people are looking and thinking about a whole different age segment. And then we were able to take that back and say, how do we feel about this?

SPEAKER_00 30:26

And what you having discussions about it with them is important, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Sure it is. And you know what? You don't have to be serious when you're with that. We were laughing hysterically at the ridiculousness of my age group and the ridiculousness of their age group. Right. And so I love that. You just have to be good enough when you're parenting and when you're grandparenting, when you're a friend, when you're whatever, taking away some of the sting of what people do when they think they have to be perfect and saying, all I need to be is good enough. And psychologists know this. You just have to be good enough. And the bar is not as high as we think it is. So if you can let go and just have a little bit of a good time, it's gonna be much more pleasurable.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

I I'm I want all grandparents out there that are listening that it actually is good for our bringings to to engage and explore things like video games or conversations about the things that seem absolutely ridiculous that young kids are talking about now.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

So, um Deborah, I do you have a new website?

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Is it or is it still Deborah Heiser.com. Deborah Heiser.com. And I'm also gonna share with you the depressed check, which is um depressed check.flute dot app, which I'll be able to show you. It's gonna be made into an app also so that people can have it wherever.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Yeah, those are the two places you can find me. I'll put those in the show notes for sure. So my three questions for you, Deborah. I have a systematic question, a taboo question, and a policy question. Our medical system often views aging as a period of decline. So if you were chief medical officer, how would you retrain doctors to see kinship caregivers as high performance athletes of the soul rather than burdened seniors? And I laugh when I say that because I was thinking of Alyssa Liu, the uh gold medal athlete. I thought, boy, I wish I could skate like her. She made me want to learn how to skate. Yes. But I I was watching the Olympics and thinking, I feel like I'm an athlete of the soul these days. I may not be picking up any new amazing sports anymore, but I really do feel like an athlete of the soul. So, how would how would you retrain doctors to look at aging members of society as a different kind of an athlete?

SPEAKER_02 33:16

So I would look at individuals and see what they are doing. And I would be looking at them in three ways.

Understanding caregiver well-being

SPEAKER_02 33:24

How do they feel cognitively? How do they feel emotionally, and how do they feel physically? So if I'm looking at someone who's a kinship provider, um, a caregiver, I'm gonna know already that they are spending their time doing a lot of things. And I'm gonna tap into that and find out what that is. And I'm going to also find out if they're feeling burnout with that, but mostly I'm gonna find out how I can encourage them to do more of the things that they're finding enjoyable so that they can see that. And also give them a few pointers on the fact that they're probably doing things right and they don't realize it and they just didn't have the right title for it, that they have a new identity, that they have a lot of power that comes from the mentorship, and that they are learning a lot more than they ever thought that they were because they have reverse mentoring happening. I think that I would use it as a psychoeducation time for a meeting with them.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

I love that. I think if we had a different perspective of the roles that we're in and look at the assets, it would be more helpful. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

I I want to say that I I would, if I had power over this, I would remove any of the thoughts that when I first started in aging, people had the feeling that if you were older and older was in your 60s or 70s, you should be sitting down. They'd say, sit down, have a seat, relax. And that's the exact opposite of what we need. And I would say that in terms of of this new generation where we think a lot better than we used to, it would be, where are you emotionally with everything? How are you feeling about everything?

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Great. Great. I love that answer. The taboo question that I have for you is do you think it's selfish to find personal satisfaction in a renewed sense of youth in raising a grandchild, even though the circumstances that brought them to you were tragic?

SPEAKER_02 35:26

Oh my gosh, like that what? That's no. Well, no, absolutely not. Every time that we feel a renewed feeling of youth, we should feel good about it. We should stop beating ourselves up for ever feeling good or thinking that it came from some source. Feel good, just feel good, allow it.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

End of story. Yeah. I know someone shared with me, I was talking with it was uh Matt O'Neill who wrote the book The Good Mood Revolution. I said there's such a dichotomy in the grief that we feel and yet the joys that we're feeling at the same time. And he said, that's just that's normal. It's normal to grieve and and be happy at the same time. So I do want to encourage everyone who's grieving and happy um with these little kids that we're playing around with and and know that they don't have to feel bad about that. There's no guilt in this. None. Yes, it's life.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Life a difficult part of life, but it is life.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

Guilt is the thing that gets us all to feel this way, that we shouldn't feel happy. It's like when you have a loved one that you lose and and you someone makes you laugh and you think I shouldn't be laughing, I should be sad. Yes. That's if you are feeling that way, allow yourself to feel it. We're supposed to feel it. That is part of what we are we should feel. Just like it's not good to repress sadness or repress any emotion, allow yourself the anger and do not allow yourself to feel guilt. Just, you know, I know it's easier said and said than done, but that's a big one. No guilt.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yes. I agree. I agree. The policy question that I have for you is how, and I know what I've done in my community to make this happen in my old community, and now I'm in a new community, and I need to work on it here. But can you share with others how we can create a mentor infrastructure in our communities that pairs these experienced grandparents with younger families who are struggling?

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Yeah, it's easier than we think. So we're mentoring all the time. We just don't realize it. We're making impact all the time. All the tiny little acts that we're doing are mentorship. So everyone who's a kinship caregiver, you're mentoring. And you're being mentored by your grandkids, your grandkids as well. So if you want to get more in the community, the ways that you can do that are to tap into the most communities have like a WhatsApp chat, you know, or something like that where you can tap into it. And you can start by saying, Hey, I'm a kinship caregiver. I would love to be able

Starting a kinship caregiver group

SPEAKER_02 38:27

to, you know, get a few people together. Is there anybody who'd like to get together? You go to all the community areas that are typical, the library. Uh, if they have, you know, any kind of group, you can say, can we set up a kinship group here? And you ask people to mentor. So I'll give you an example of how I was able to get something like this started in my area. I went to the Rotary Club and I didn't go there because I wanted to volunteer. I went there because I wanted to talk about the book that I had written. And then I went there and I was like, what? These people are amazing. I'm going to join. I never gave the talk. I just joined. But then I was able to say, hey, there's a bunch of kids who are in Kenya who need mentors. Anybody want to mentor? Literally every single person said, yes, I do. So I was able to connect them. So if you're going to sources or places where people are already primed to give back, they're already in that generative mindset. You're going to be able to get a mentoring program for your area. So we're now going to partner with the school to get rotary members to mentor students and then students to mentor other students. So go in your community. There's already places that just aren't talked about a lot. And ask if you can set up something very informal, very easy, no lifting required. It can be a once-a-month gathering for mentorship. And then you let them all mentor on their own.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Thanks, Deborah. You lit my flame again. I was doing it back in Montana and thinking about how I could get started here, especially since I just don't have the same connections that I did up there. And you just gave me my idea. So thank you. Oh, my pleasure. Well, thanks, Deborah. You're such an inspiration and thanks for encouraging this community. And I know we'll be talking again.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

I'll be delighted to talk again because you are an inspiration. Keep changing the world. Thank you. I will.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

Reflecting on what Deborah said, let's take a moment to look at your identity card. You haven't lost your professional title or your personal history. You've added the title of mentor. Dr. Heiser reminds us that when we pass on our values, our traditions, and even our ridiculous attempts to play video games, we're engaging in reverse mentoring. We're staying cognitively sharp because we're learning a new culture. Tonight I want you to perform a purpose audit. So instead of focusing on the exhaustion, find one moment today where you felt significant. If you're feeling a persistent fog, go to the show notes and click on the link for Depress Check. It's a free tool that Deborah built specifically to help us identify the difference between mission fatigue and clinical depression. Next week, we're joined by Dr. Jeffrey Knight, an expert in natural health and cellular healing. When we talk about behavioral issues in our grandchildren, ADHD autism, or emotional outbursts, we often look at it through the lens of psychology. But what if the glitch isn't in the mind but in the body's

Exploring biological causes of behavior

SPEAKER_00 41:51

hardware? Dr. Knight and I are going to be discussing the invisible toxins from heavy metals to mold that might be driving the behavioral symptoms we see. Dr. Knight helps us understand how much of your grandchildren's struggle is emotional and how much might actually be biological. We are 2.7 million strong, still nurturing and still here. You are an athlete of a soul, and your legacy is just getting started. Keep leading, keep mentoring, and I'll see you in the next boardroom.