Daphne Davis’s Wellness Formula: The Mind

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio. And Welcome back everyone to answers for elders radio with the Daphne Davis show. This hour is we’re here and, daphnitely, we spent the first segment of today’s hours talking about your mind, the I mean excusing your body, that three legged stool and which is nutrition, Hydra hydration and medication and really having that in balance in key and I think those were really important. So we move from body. Now we’re going to go into mind, and mind is big. It’s our brain. It’s all the different aspects of mental health and Daphitely, you you’re a really good resource when we really don’t know what’s going on with mom or dad. Maybe they’re isolating themselves a little bit more, maybe they all of a sudden say I don’t want to be going out of the house. There might be some fear factors, all different things. What what are you? What are your thoughts about those kind of signs? I personally think that having a healthy mind is kind of the beginning of looking at holistic health. When we’re having more birthdays and many times and I want to kind of present and maybe a new concept of thinking. Think about each one of US having a finite amount of energy to get through each day. And and think about yourself as a listener right now. Am I surviving through my day or am I living through my day? Hmm, am I in kind of a semi crisis mode where things aren’t as automatic for me anymore. I have to think about and don’t get worried. We all walk into a room and forget about what we were going to do, but that’s moving into that survival instead of living. And so there are times when we can protect our mind through having added support. Now, as the listener right now, whether you’re the elder or not, think about the added support that you may get, maybe from your church community, making sure that you have your Friday afternoon to get with your girlfriends. That’s a form of support that kind of lets you check out from the survival daily mechanical things right kind of rejuvenates you a little bit. There’s things that you could have your sons or daughter’s coming to help you with. Somebody might be, you know, pruning your roses in the spring for you, and you used to do that yourself. That’s a good thing. It’s not a thing of Oh my gosh, I’m losing my life. No, it’s that you’re wise and that you’re allowing yourself to make choices about how do I want to use that finite amount of energy that I have in my brain, because we’re going to have to work harder. It’s it’s happening decades of life. That’s very it’s normal. And so when we’re thinking about our mind, I want you to think not just in terms of the automatic things we go to and in terms of mental health diseases, of dementia, neurological diseases and Parkinson’s depression. You know, that’s not where I want you to go. I want you to think in terms of how am I using my finite amount of energy that I have each day? Am I living or am I surviving? Very good and if I’m in a survival mode, what things can I pass off to someone else or what things in my life really aren’t that important for me to do anymore? So let me get to some specifics. Something like I’m tired of cooking and thinking about what I’m going to eat every day. Does that ever cross anybody’s mind? I just don’t know what I’m going to have for lunch today. Oh, I’m not even hungry. I’m not going to eat lunch day. I’ll just skip it. Or you get into folding the laundry now and so then really you did skip lunch, and there goes at three legged stool of nutrition is going to be a little bit lower. That might be it’s something that you like. I wonder how I could have someone else kind of figuring out my meals. or it could be something like just maintenance on your house, having a housekeeper come into your home. That I really don’t want to think about. Okay, am I strong enough today to actually get down on the floor and wash my kitchen floor? HMM, it needs it. Is that how I want to use my energy? Is that a living thing or is that a surviving thing? So that’s what I think about when I think about our mind health. How are we using that’s one aspect anyway. How are we using our energy that we have on a daily basis? And then, in terms of thinking about the next chapter of life? We’ve all had chapters of life. We went to elementary school, went to college, got married, had kids, became an empty Nester, retired, from our jobs. I mean a chapters. They happen all the time, and now, whenever that magic ages were like, Oh, I’m in the next chapter of life and I can’t do everything that I did when I was fifty, and that’s okay. Interesting that you say this. I have a dear friend. I won’t mention her name, but she is now eighty years old and I love her like family. I called her yesterday. Touch how it goes it. I’m bored. She’s afraid of going out of her house. She knows that she’s going to have to be in a wheelchair when she goes out. She lives alone and I those that was a huge red light to me. Being bored, as usual, quote Unquote, Board Im leads to all kinds of things and it concerns me. It concerns me that she’s isolating herself because because she’s not getting out and being socialist, you know, and she’s an introvert as it is, but sometimes you have to give them a little boost, you do, and that moves into the kind of that spirituality in the spirit of our person. But in this actual mind area, right it’s just making a decision that I can think about my mind right my energy level right, my chapter of life, and none of this is bad. But yeah, but it’s not surviving. It’s exactly what I mean. It’s some choosing to live instead of survived. If things are causing you stress, if you’re thinking, oh my gosh, I got to somehow go and pick up my medications, let’s figure out how to get them delivered. Yeah, that’s a survival thing and that doesn’t say, Oh, now I can’t drive to the pharmacy and go get my own medications. Know, that is a wise percise it is. It’s a wise person that says that is really not the most important thing for me to be able to do. Instead, I want to be able to have some energy with my grandkids when they come over on Friday afternoon. Exactly. I’m not going to exhaust myself figuring out how to get to the pharmacy. Right. It’s a matter of choice. It’s a matter of choice. I loved that. It’s a matter of you saying I am going to make decisions and I’m going to have a quality life. I love, not going to stay in survival mode, maintenance mode. I’m going to be in living mode. And it’s also could being making a choice to move out of a your family home because it’s home overwhelming. Yeah, it’s making that choice to move into it a retirement living situation where these things are provided exactly. You don’t have to you don’t have to worry about home maintenance anymore. Right. It’s making those choices that you have more of you to do the things that you love to do exactly. Now, let’s just extrapolate that a little bit. So you as a family, let’s say, hubs, husband and wife. Yeah, you’ve been in your home for sixty years and you’re like, we’re just going to keep modeling along and this is what we’re going to do and I’m dog gone and I’m going to go up feet first from my house. Ah, I’ve heard that. But if you made the decision, the conscious decision, to be in a living mode and you move to a community that has other like minded people, and that would be a part of what pinnacle would help. Right. What are your highest values? What are the things that you’re interested in? Will move into kind of a bucket list in our next seven segment, but what are the things that are important to you? And think about how much purpose you could have in terms of influencing other people’s lives. You may think that, oh my gosh, I’m exhausted, but because you’re being wise and proactive and you’re doing things before you’ve had a catastrophic event or before your three legged stools following apart, there you have the energy to energize others. Yes, what a gift you’re giving to take yourself out of your own home, you and your husband, you know, you and your wife go to another community and you have the spirit of living to share with someone else and making the choices of you know, I choose to go on, go see the tulips. I choose to not, you know, not have to clean my house anymore because they’re going to do it for me. Exactly. I choose to, you know, have eat gourmet meals every night and and I can order off a menu. Yeah, and I don’t have to worry about what am I going to cook tonight, or why am I going to sit here and, you know, and have nothing to do? Exactly, or even I’m want to go back to the idea of you could invite Pearl down the hallway. Yeah, just needs the invitation of feeling important. Now let’s say you’re the person who needs to feel important. And so you you take the courageous step of saying I don’t want to just survive anymore. And you say, Oh, but my personality is shy and introverted. I that’s not me. Well, you move into a community that’s gentle and not the bee hive of energy, but understands people’s personalities, and that’s again we’re pinnacle. Will help you find the right community. You move there and you have a new friend right that is inviting you and now the very thing that you may have been wishing for a lot of your life. You matter to somebody else exactly, and in that you’re giving them purpose. This is such a symbiotic community kind of thing. This is where we really in the stage of life, this next chapter of life, that we get to give of our selves and ways that we’ve never imagined. Yeah, in the smallest of ways, you are giving to yourself. Absolutely. This week has been full of couples for me this week and people who are struggling. Valentine’s Yes, it is. It’s a lot of couples and they’re just struggling and and I’m having the joy of being purposeful. The people are inviting me into their journey of life and in our team and being able to help them discern what what does this look like? Now I want to talk just a second about you may have been having these conversations with your family, and sometimes our mind and our spirit gets a little defensive. Our Egos can show up, Yep, are historic relationships with each other can show up. I have a family of six children right now that I’m working with and they all have different ideas for mom and as usual, yes, and, but I have the joy of helping them stay focused. And so having a third party come in you and help a family, let’s say you’re very functional, you all love each other, you get along, you you’re not snapping at each other. Still, having that third party come out and paint a new picture is valuable in terms of no one gets caught in hidden agendas. All. That’s what Susie always talks about. That’s her hot button, and you know, Fran over here, she’s she’s all about the mechanics of something, and you know, we just get to forget about those exactly. Have the third party come in and be able to share their skills to being able to open up new avenues for that next chapter of life. Yes, it’s exciting. It is, and everyone we are. Daphne’s going to be back and we’re going to go into the spirit side, which we’re going to be talking a little bit about, you know, depression, all the different things that can happen and how do we improve that side of life. And in the meantime, Daphne, how do we reach you, because we didn’t do it the last segment and I wanted like say, pick up the phone, called Daphne. Yes, ask her your question. How do we reach the phone numbers eight hundred and fifty five, seven, three four, one fifteen hundred. I almost forgot it for a minute because I don’t die, but it’s eight hundred and fifty five, seven, three four, one five hundred. And then we also have a website that you can see a little picture of me and all of our team there, so I can look to go Daphne’s podcast there. Yes, and they’re all all there, and that’s at pinnacles senior PLACEMENTSCOM. Well, I’m excited and everyone. Daphne will be right back. The preceding podcast was provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio to contact pinnacles senior placements. Go to Pinnacle Senior Placementscom