Success from the Inside Out with Kimberly Diaz | DFS 406

Hey, welcome to Destin for Success. I'm your

host, Jennifer Takagi, and I have a new friend now, a new

best friend, Kimberly Diaz. And I'm so excited about this topic.

We've already spent like, I don't know, 20 minutes in the

green room, like hitting all the bases on this. So now, now we're

going to share it with you. Success from the inside out,

rewiring your mind for lasting impact. Kimberly is an RN, a

dementia consultant, and I cannot wait to dive into this

topic of rewiring your mind. I think it's so powerful. Thank

you for being here today.

Yes, thank you, and thank you for this platform

that you know that's going to allow conversations like this

matter.

We've been going on a while about what's

inherited, what's not, what choices do we have. So, let's

get into it. How did you become so passionate about this topic,

yeah. Actually, it was.. I feel like it was a

journey that chose me, not necessarily one that I chose. I

knew from about four years old that I wanted to be a nurse, and

that was from watching my grandmother take care of my

grandfather and spending a lot of time at Heinz VA in Cagu,

Illinois. He was sick a lot, so back then kids weren't allowed

in the room, so I'd be out in the common area surrounded by

all these veterans, and from very early on I just felt my

heartstrings being pulled, and that these type of people were

who I wanted to help, and then, as I mentioned, watching my

grandmother for years, you know, have this unwavering devotion,

and taking care of my grandfather, you know, it was

great, she really showed how to give everything to someone else,

but right when you're giving everything to someone else,

there's not much left for you, and then you know, I also

never.. my parents are really young when they had me, so my

grandparent was kind of the first real adult in my life, but

then what I learned, I really never learned or felt cared for

myself, and for years never really felt like I had a voice,

and I learned over the past several years that was really my

connection to people with dementia, because they lose

their voice and they aren't believed, and because I was

like, why, why do I feel so drawn to this, and that's what

really is what I found is advocating for them and helping

people to understand what they're trying to say under the

words that they're not saying, maybe it's the behaviors or the

actions that was really what kind of drew me in to dementia

specifically.

Well, I, my grandfather had, I think, what

they called it back in the day was hardening of the arteries,

and with hardening of the arteries, some of the memory

issues came in, and my mother-in-law had Lewy body

dementia, and it's hard, and it's a lot, and it, it truly

takes a special kind of person to take care of them. My parents

were ill towards the end of their lives, and I was hopeful.

I didn't like to take care. I tried to take care of them. I

wasn't very good at it, but I loved them and cared for them.

And so, caring for a stranger takes a special kind of heart to

feel for them, and care for them in a way that I'm not going to

speak for most people, but like I could not do, because that's

not my calling. I do think we are called to different things,

and that's well, that's just not mine, and I'm so grateful there

are people that like are so when we're looking at our mind, and I

literally use the term rewire your mind for success, so super

aligned with you here today, Kimberly. But what can we do?

Like, okay, I don't want to get this, I don't have it, I don't

have any predisposition, which we talked about that, bring that

up, and what can I do to stay healthy and active longer

mentally?

Sure, so you know one of the biggest things,

unfortunately, in this country we have all this ultra-processed

food, right, that our bodies don't even recognize that this

is food, so controlling the controllables, so what you're

putting in your body, in terms of food, sugars, carbs, garbage,

right? We have control over that. I understand that some of

it is impacted by cost, but there's still things you could

buy that are still affordable, um. What we're putting into our

minds, social media, news, our phones, you know, all of this

negativity that is just bombarding our brains is not

good for our minds, and our bodies react to our minds,

right, and our bodies don't forget, so illness I really feel

comes from your mental state and what's going on with your mind.

I myself was, I had a lot of trauma growing up. I became a

single mother of two kids before I went to nursing school, and

during nursing school I developed some. I couldn't

write. We didn't know what it was. Fast forward, I developed

something called dystonia, so I had to have brain surgery in

2018 and my neurologist, who is an expert in movement disorders,

told me that that was, you know, the nursing school was that last

trigger for me that flipped that switch for disease, and then I

developed this movement disorder that I lost the ability to use

my hands, my feet, I mean, it was devastating to the point.

Here I was a nurse, I was a trauma flight nurse, I was on

the IV team, I was very skilled with my hands, and then I lost

my ability to use my hands, but fast forward, it was a blessing

in disguise, because I found a mentor that said, you know what,

you don't need your hands, you've got, you've got the

knowledge, you've got the heart, you've got, so she grew me to be

a supervisor, manager, and that's why I'm a small business

owner now. So, sometimes we look back at our life, we don't

understand what we're going through in the moment, but then

later it's like, aha, now I understand that's the path I had

to take to get me to where I am, and being able to serve seniors,

and mostly the adult children are really the ones that I'm

supporting, that sandwich generation, generation 35 to 60,

right, trying to manage your career, manage your kids, manage

your life, and you just think that in hormones and divorce, or

you know, whatever, you think things are finally going good,

and then, bam, mom or dad gets sick. Now you've got a whole

nother job you never applied for. Yeah,

a whole nother thing. I made the comment one

time, and I think it's true that a lot of marriages fall apart

when they're in their 40s, because now they've been

married, you know, often close to 20 years in there, their kids

are kind of grown up, ish, and, or, you know, grown and leaving

the house, and then you got the parents coming in, and then

you've got, I mean, menopause is real, people laugh at it, but it

was never discussed in the past, but it's a true thing, and you

have all this coming on, and then these poor stupid men, they

get a divorce, and they marry somebody way, way younger, 2030

years younger, because they just want to bypass, they want to be

dead, and they don't have the form to stick it out for the

menopause.

Yeah, well, and you think about, like, if I

think about over the decades, there I've had so many different

versions of myself, right? In at least in you as well, Jennifer,

we're always at least me, I'm thriving to be better today than

I was yesterday, right? Just just baby steps, and my husband,

he's always like, you know, I wish we would have met earlier.

I said, you know, what, we would have not been together had we

met earlier. We met exactly the time we were meant to be. You

know, it's the time of season of your life, the season of my life

we were meant to be together earlier. He's an engineer, he's

an electrical engineer, he's not as nerdy as some, but there's

that part of him and I would have not been attracted to that

when I was younger, I just wouldn't have been.

My husband's almost nine years older than I

am, and my mom and I were talking back in the day, and I

said, you know, Bill has shared a few stories about how he

behaved, because he had been married before, also how he

behaved early in his 20s in his marriage, and I was like, "Oh

no, I wouldn't have stayed with you either, like I would have

totally been out. So sometimes you have to mature, but that's

part of like growing old together. I'll just put that

kind of together, is you have to grow together, and that personal

development is such a big deal. And I had a friend, because part

of the work I do is energy healing, and she's, and we, she

and I were high school friends, and she said, man, of all the

people in high school, you're the last person that I would

have thought would have gone into this, and then I worked

with her as her. Coach, and she was my client. She was like, oh

wait, no, this makes perfect sense. Like, I get how you got

on this path. That did we pick it? No, we like, I loved it when

you said the journey chose me, because I did not wake up one

day and say this is what I want to do with my life. Like, all

the way along the way, it, the right doors have opened for me

versus like people who are in some fields, like engineering,

the law, a lot of medical professional, like you always

knew that's where you wanted to be. Sometimes it took longer

than others to get there, but you knew that's where you wanted

to be. Yeah, I went to college because I didn't want a

full-time permanent job yet, like that was my motivating

fact.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we all have to have

something that you know motivates us, purpose, right?

You know, talk about rewiring your brain. You know, purpose is

such a big piece of that. And I think that in dementia and in

seniors, what I find a lot of times is here's these people

that have been, you know, taking care of a house, taking care of

a business, take, you know, who knows all of their life, and

then all of a sudden they're put maybe in a community or in their

daughter's home or wherever it may be, you just sit here,

right? None of us are meant to be that. We all need purpose in

order to wake up every day, and I find that we, we put them in

front of a TV. Come on, none of us are meant to live that way.

No interaction. I, when I left my federal

career, became an entrepreneur and was able to have

flexibility. I started going to water aerobics. I have a problem

with my insurance card not connecting with my gym, and so I

haven't been in a while. Also, a couple of surgeries in there,

but I'm going to get back in it. And when I started going, there

were women in there, in their mid to late 90s, and they were

active, and they walked up and down the steps, and got in and

out of the pool more easily than I did. Is because I needed knee

surgery, I got that taken care of. I can now get in and out, go

up and down the steps with ease. But I was like, I want to be you

when I grow up. I want to get up every Monday, Wednesday, Friday

morning, and be at water aerobics, and then get dressed

for the day, and have a day, and not like you say, I do enjoy my

hours binge watching stuff, but I also want to be able to be

active, so what, like, I mean, we're of the age, right? Like,

what can you and I do from now until like when we fall out? I

love that book, Younger Next Year. Do you know that book? I

love that book. And at the very beginning it said, do you want

to go down the cliff slowly or fall off it? And I was like, I

don't want to fall off a cliff. And then the analogy hit me. Do

I want a slow decline where I can't get out of a chair

anymore, or do I want to follow us and be dead? And I was like,

oh yeah, I want to go till the end and then just be done. So,

what can I start doing now? Cuz it's never too late, right? We

can always start being better today than we were yesterday.

What can I start doing today to start wiring my brain for that

health and success, I get I need to eat better. I'm not going to

do that. I'm pretty confident I'm not going to do that. I can

do the screen time and what I put into my mind, but what other

action? So,

for me, what I personally did, three, well,

four, four years ago now. I stopped all alcohol. I just..

I.. it just was not serving me in the way it used to, right?

Yep. I started.. I was referred to Dr. Joe Dispenza. So I

started.. so I started a very solid morning routine, which I

still do today. I wake up at 440 I go in my room, I meditate, I

journal, I read. Then my husband and I last Christmas we bought

each other an infrared sauna that we share, so I get over in

there for 50 minutes every morning, I'm hydrating myself as

soon as I wake up in the morning, and then I'm to the

gym, which is three minutes - it's actually pole fitness

class, three minutes from my home. I'm there by seven or

8o'clock every morning, working out for an hour or two. I'm done

by 910, in the morning, and then I'm - I've energized, I filled

my cup up, and then I'm ready to serve everybody else, so it's

really filling your cup first for so long. I know myself, and

a lot of us, a lot of women, we're used to pouring into

everybody else, but you can't pour from an empty cup, you've

got to fill that cup up, and for me it means getting up early.

And I've always been an early riser, so it's not been a big

deal, and for some people that's not going to work. You've got to

figure out what you can do, what what gives you that spark, what

lights you up, and do that. Maybe it's a walk with your dog,

maybe it's breathing exercises. You know, breathing is

wonderful, um Bless you. But once I started putting myself

first, everything changed, and I realized it's not selfish, it's

necessary, and getting my hormones in check. Right, Biot

has been wonderful, I and

I love that, because your morning routine is

yours.

Yeah,

and it works for you,

right?

And 440 comes for me once a day, and that's a

pm, not an am, yeah, and and you've got a very robust, I'm

going to use the word robust, you have a very robust morning

routine, but for somebody like me who has a minimalistic

morning routine at best,

yeah,

going on a walk in and of itself is movement,

it's getting up, getting out, getting about, and your walk can

be outside, and depending on where you are, it could be

indoor. I love all these things on social media about indoor

walking, like, and I think it's called tai chi, you know,

walking, walking, or tai chi, or Tai Chi for walking or

something. Anyway, like, there are so many things you can do

without having to leave your home. If you

even on YouTube, there's videos where you can be

like walking down the streets of London, and you're just in your

living room, taking those steps, moving that body, drinking your

water, you know, your coffee, what you know, whatever, but

just taking some sacred time for yourself, where everybody else

is going to have to wait, the animals are going to have to

wait, the husband's going to have to wait. This is me time.

Well, and if you've ever been on a commercial

airplane, which most people have, they literally say put

your mask on first if the oxygen mask drops, and then help the

person next to you, because if you go to help the person next

to you, then you're out of oxygen before you get them taken

care of, and obviously they can't take care of you, right?

So you have to fill your cup first, and on the water thing, I

drink a lot of water. Just in general, I drink a lot of water,

and I had someone say what I don't really like water. I'm not

gonna drink it, and you know, they said I needed more water,

but I just don't like it, and I was like, you know, it's like

medicine, and you just do it because you have to, and what's

there not to like about water? It's flavorless, it's

nothingness, but it hydrates your body, it lubricates your

joints, like it has so many great rough, it

makes your brain clear.

Yeah, and I said I don't understand, like

there are things people say, and I'm just like I just almost

check out because I totally don't understand it, but I have

a water bottle that I have started filling up, it's 25

ounces, putting a couple of cubes of ice in it, and I bring

it to the bedroom with me, and the next morning my goal before

I leave the bathroom from showering, hair, makeup, the

whole bit, finishing that whole 25 ounces before I start the

day. I heard that was a really good thing to do, and I'm really

working at doing that. And I woke up Tuesday morning and I

walked in the bathroom, and I flipped on the water to brush my

teeth, and we had no water. There was a water line break

around the corner, and I went in, and I woke my husband up,

and I said, "We have no water. I have a hair appointment, so I

had some face wipes, so I just kind of did a whole body wipes,

wash off, put my makeup on, gut dress, and if I didn't have to

do my hair because I was going

to go to the hair salon,

and I said I have an order to pick up at

Target, so I'm going to run use their bathroom, so I will see

you this afternoon, but I had that bottle of water, and so I

was able to brush my teeth, and I said I will give you a cup of

my water to brush your teeth to, and he was like, "Oh, that's so

thoughtful. Thank you for doing that. But it was like, "Man, I'm

so glad I went to bed with that bottle of water, or we would

have been a little bit out of luck on that. So it's just like

medicine, if you're sick, you're. Gonna take whatever,

whether it's homeopathic natural stuff or it's actually a

prescription, whatever it is, I don't really care. You're gonna

take something, a vitamin C tablet, okay? It's the same

difference. Just drink the water, suck it up, buttercup

treat well,

and I'll be honest, I put electrolytes in

mine, flavored electrolytes that have no carbs, no sugar, and I

do. I take a 32 ounce bottle, I fill it up at night, I put it

next to my bed, so it's the first thing I'm drinking in the

morning. I finish that whole one before I'm, I you know, I go on

to the gym, and then I bring another one to the gym, so I

mean it's just a routine. I also have ADD, so I need structure,

and I work really well if I have structure, and if my structure

gets messed up, I have a hard time. I mean, I'll be honest,

but my husband knows when we go on vacation, I still get up

early, I do my meditation, and we're at the beach, it's great,

because I'll just go outside on the on the balcony, or whatever,

and do my thing, and he can sleep in a little bit later. He

prefers to exercise in the afternoon. I'm out of energy

because I'm up at 440 in the morning, so you know you have to

nap when he's..

we're in bed by like 830 Someone talked about

going out Friday at eight. I looked at my husband, I go late.

I'm like 8o'clock to go outside to go out. I don't know if I can

do it.

Yeah, we do that well. And we talked at the

beginning when we were in the green room about how I've been

spending a month the last couple years in Spain, and we've got a

trip planned for this fall, and one of the things is we work off

Pacific time, and so we do sleep till noon in Spain, but our day

starts at four and goes till midnight, one in the morning, so

it's like we've had to adjust our schedule to the time zone

where we are, right, so it works with us time zones, but what,

whatever it is, I think the the gist of this is create a routine

you can do if you're not going to drink 2532 ounces of water

for sale,

do 12 exactly start with

something, something is better than

nothing. The more you do it, the more it becomes a routine. The

more routines you have, the less your brain has to work really

hard,

right? Right.

Um, it's Steve Jobs, maybe Bill Gates. There's

another one, maybe it's Elon Musk, I don't know, and they

wear the same outfit every day, not the same actual clothes, but

they're

right, right, but the same. Yep, black

shirt and blue jeans, I think was Steve Jobs'

outfit of choice, and he didn't like to think about it. He could

get it like that was one less choice. So, if you have a

routine, if you've got that bottle of water, whether it's

eight ounces, 12 ounces, 32 whatever,

right? If

you start doing that every day, your body and

your brain are going to get used to doing it every day. Okay, so

I need to have a morning routine, whether it's huge or

little, robust or minimal. A morning routine. Mine is shower,

hair, and makeup, that's what I do every day. Somebody goes, do

you wear makeup every day, and I was like, yeah, I've done hair

and makeup every day since I was 12, so yeah, I'm going to, yeah,

that's just what I do,

right?

You may not wear any, and that's fine,

exactly, whatever you do, you, yep,

whatever your routine is, okay, so now I'm

going to, I'm going to do my morning routine, I might add one

more thing to be a little bit more in tune with the health

side of this brain activity. I'm going to have a little more

activity, physical activity, walking, yoga, strenuous

sections, and

I always tell people, I don't care what you

do, as long as you're going to do it, it's got to be what works

for you, right? Doesn't matter what works for me, it matters

what works for you, and the other huge piece is sleep,

sleep. Okay, we need sleep, especially women. I'm menopause

now, I'm past the perimenopause. I can't do four or five hours

like I used to, I'm a basket case, I need seven or eight, and

sometimes I have a heck of a time getting it. I can fall

asleep well, but sometimes I wake up in the middle of the

night and I have a hard time falling asleep. So I personally

use sleep stories. I've got an eye mask with, you know, some

headphones in it, and I put sleep stories on, and that helps

me fall back asleep. So, again, you know, along with some Dr.

Amen, restful sleep, and some magnesium, and things like that,

but you know, your sleep is just as important.

Well, and I've always been a good sleeper. My

one of my sisters said her earliest childhood memories

center around my mom banging. In the frame of her bed with a

vacuum, because my mom wanted a perfect house, and with four

kids and a husband, and we always had dogs and cats, and

who knows whatever else running through the house. The only time

to do is when she got everybody in bed, and so we're all really

good sleepers. If my sisters and I don't sleep one night, we're

very cranky the next day, because we're.. and my husband,

I first got married, he woke up one morning, he was kind of

irritable, and I was like, what's going on, and he goes, I

was talking to you last night, and I realized you were asleep,

did I tell you good night, and he goes, yes, and then I was

saying blah blah blah, and I went, no, I said good night,

that's I'm

out, yeah,

over,

yeah, lights out,

I don't do that anymore. Okay, I need to

hydrate,

yeah,

I need a morning routine that includes

some kind of activity throughout the day, I need to have it

scheduled in the morning, so I know when I'm going to do it,

right, whether it's morning or afternoon, like you're right,

right.

Um, I need to get sleep.

Yeah, yeah.

So, are there any like activities to stimulate

the brain, get it healthier, or are these all going to be really

great platforms for that to happen naturally. Well,

I was just going to say, and learning new things,

a lot of people, a lot of families with dementia, they

think, oh, well, what I've got them doing Sudoku, or I've got

them doing crossword puzzles, that is not going to help

enhance your cognition, if that's something you've always

done, the brain in order to do to develop neuroplasticity, you

have to teach it new things. I have a couple of apps with brain

games that I use that I just do every morning, but I'm one of

those people that's always researching things, always

learning things I love to learn, so you know, whatever your

passion might be, you know, research, look, looking things

up, but learning new things is really important, and reading

also helps with that. I didn't used to be a reader, now I love

to read, I love just getting in a book and getting in a, you

know, in that little world, and kind of tuning out the world

around me, you know, and around sleep too. A lot of people, I

was having trouble sleeping for about six months, and my

doctor's like, "You need to get a sleep routine, like you have

your morning routine. So I did that for a while, and that

helped me kind of get back on track, which was no eating after

6pm screen time over after 8pm You know, making sure that the

bedroom - we've got a red light in our bedroom instead of a

regular bulb, so that when we walk into the bedroom, our body

knows it's bedtime, it's not wake-up time. Soft muse that you

know, not having the TV on, just different things like that. To I

had to kind of reprogram myself, and now I'm sleeping well again.

It's that, it's that routine. I go in, I wash my

face, I brush my teeth, I crawl into bed, and I'm asleep, like

that's like that's what I do, so whatever that routine is for

you, because of course everybody, then the one size

fits all doesn't really work any diet

or anything. Yeah,

well, and we're seeing it well, it just keeps

it's it's on replay. You should only eat this and you'll lose

weight. Oh, wait, you gained it all back in 10 more pounds.

Sorry, we really meant you should do that. Like,

everything's extremism, and we don't have to be extreme.

No,

a little bit goes a long way. Years ago,

there was our building manager for I worked for the federal

government, and her office was actually in a different

building, but she came over, and I would see her in our building

in various places, if not daily, pretty regularly. And I passed

her one day, and I was like, "Hey, what's going on? And she

said, "Well, I'm going to be over here a little bit more. My

doctor told me I needed to work 30 walk 30 minutes a day on a

treadmill, and you said I could do 310 minute rotations, so I'm

going to try to get over here, because we have the gym in our

building. She said I'm going to try to get over here three times

a day and get my 10 minutes in, and it was like, oh, just 10

minutes makes a difference, and it doesn't have to be an hour of

strenuous exercise, it can be 10 minutes, because if you're doing

zero, 10 is great, 10 is great, do something well, 12 minute

success coach, so I'm going to say just add two more and do 12,

but

there you go, right, right, or you know, I try

to you. Setting a timer for myself when I'm at my desk,

because hours can go by and I haven't gotten out of the chair,

so I always have water next to me, right? And then I have an

hour alarm, so I'll get up, and sometimes I'll do like 10 or 20

squats, just if I don't have time to actually walk, or those

phone calls walk around my house while I'm on the phone, it

doesn't have to be big things, you don't have to pay a lot and

go somewhere, you know, you can do something in your house,

absolutely.

And one thing I have found, and I've seen

research around, and that is the idea, if you tell yourself

you're going to do something, and then you don't do it, and

you don't live up to the promises you make to yourself.

Then your brain and subconscious are like, I don't really need to

support her, because she's not the kind of woman who does what

she

follows through.

And so make your my suggestion and weigh in

on this, Kimberly. My suggestion is set up routines that you can

do, do them consistently for a while, and then if you can add

to add to make it something you're going to do. Not, oh, I

haven't worked out in 20 years, I'm going to go to the gym for

an hour every single day,

yeah, may not be

sustainable from the beginning,

right. The other thing I do in the morning, too,

is I'll kind of try to plan out my day, and I really just try to

focus on like three things that have to get done, no matter,

right? Because if I have a list of 10, that's too much, it's too

much, because there's going to be a phone call I didn't expect,

or there's going to be a patient fall I didn't expect, or

there's, you know, the dog's going to poop on the fly. I

mean, there's going to be something that's going to

happen, but if I've got three, that okay, these are the

absolute things that are going to get done today. And then

think before you go to bed about, look at all the things I

did today. You know, pat yourself on the back, give

yourself an atta boy. These are the things I didn't. Maybe it's

just that I didn't lose my shit in the car right when somebody

cut me off, or

road rage today.

Yeah, or I didn't get angry in the checkout line

when they had to do three price checks, I mean, they don't have

to be big things, but when you can, just your nervous system

likes to know what's going on and likes to be calm, so if you

can just take these little moments and really just give

yourself the credit where credit's due, it doesn't have to

be huge things, right? I didn't bite my husband's head off today

when he said something stupid to me, sometimes that's my success

for the day, right? Because the old me would have been like, but

I didn't do that. I use my insight voice, and I just kept

it down, so it doesn't have to be big, extreme things, just

baby steps, just little things that are changing the way that

you show up for yourself

and bond instead

of react.

Yeah, you get to choose.

Yeah,

you get to choose.

And that's what, when I'm talking to the adult

children, you know, when you've got a parent to take care of

you're dealing with a whole history with that parent, right?

You're dealing with decades of stuff, and now you have to take

care of them, and it can be very, very overwhelming. So,

just, you know, just really understanding that you're both

doing the best that you can, and I have actually something called

Aging Parents toolkit.com where people can go, they can kind

that they can help to kind of tell you what type of caregiver

you are, what type of underlying wounds you may have from growing

up with that parent, and what I always try to remind people,

too, is you don't have to heal your entire childhood to show up

with compassion, because you have a choice in how you show

up. We all have a choice, so really just, you know,

remembering we're all doing the best we can, and so is Mom or

Dad, and they've got their own trauma that they put on us too,

right? I mean, this, this is this is cyclical. This is from

decades and generational, and you know, just having some grace

for them and for yourself goes a long way.

Oh my gosh, it's so helpful, so helpful.

Okay, so it's aging parents with an S, parents,

toolkit.com toolkit.com

It will be in the show notes, so if you're

listening to this on your phone, just scroll down to the show

notes, click the link, get that free gift. That sounds amazing,

that sounds amazing, super helpful,

and it's a good way to, that if you want to be,

you know, stay in contact with me, I will respond to them, and

it'll give you, it takes like. Two minutes, and then it'll just

have just your name and your email, and then it'll have some

follow-up information based on the type, the archetype that you

are, and a lot of people think they know who they are, it, but

you may be surprised. I was surprised when I took my test

myself. I was like, all right, but this makes sense, right? I

thought I was going to be different than I was.

Well, I'm going to have to take it, because my

parents are deceased. But I do have a husband, I do have

friends, and so I might need to know how to deal with them too.

You know, the other thing I was going to

mention, like you taking a month and going with your girlfriend

every year, is such a healthy thing that's a taking care of

you thing, and that is so healthy for us. I love when I

get to go visit my girlfriend in Tennessee, or.. and I love my

husband. It's not that I don't, but I can be silly, and that's

different, like just my girlfriend, my one girlfriend.

We've been friends since we were 10, so 46 years. We've got a, we

got in a lot of trouble, we've got, you know, she unfortunately

just lost her husband two years ago at 58 and was really going

through some really tough grief that I helped her with, but you

know, it's still fun just to have those connections with

girlfriends and just that's part of taking care of yourself. Plan

those trips, do those things. Your husband will be fine.

Support system that we need. Right.

Absolutely,

it is, Kimberly. This has been

delightful. It's been delightful to get to know you, and all this

solid information on how we can rewire our brain for success.

Start small and grow big. Any final words for the audience?

You know, I think I would just say again, remember

that you don't have to, you know, heal your child entire

childhood to show up with compassion and treat your

parents with dignity and have some grace for yourself. You're

both doing the best that you can. Dementia is tricky, it's

complicated. And what I ask people to do is a little bit of

planning goes a long way. So many of the phone calls that I

get is after a crisis because maybe the melted teapot on the

stove wasn't enough, or the last fall wasn't enough, because it's

hard to step up and have that role reversal with your parent.

Right now, you're here, they were, this person took care of

you, now you're having to step in that role. So, the validation

I want, I want you to hear that it's hard, and absolutely it's

just to validate people. And then my toolkit, the Aging

Parents toolkit.com

I can't wait to get it. Thank you for being

here.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate you.

I'm Jennifer Takagi with Destin for Success,

and I look forward to connecting with you soon. Bye.