The HME180 Podcast – Episode 7 – Dr. Ken Druck, Resilience and Aging Expert

Introduction: Welcome. You’re listening to The HME180 Podcast. On this very special episode of the podcast, your host, Sue Chen interviews Dr. Ken Druck, resilience and aging expert and author of “Raising an Aging Parent.”

Sue Chen: Hi, and welcome to The HME180 Podcast. I’m your host, Sue Chen. And this is episode number seven. We launched at the beginning of this year, and we’ve had six phenomenal guests, truly the best of the best in our HME industry, all unique with different incredible stories, but all aligned—and all aligned with you with our shared mission of improving lives and empowering human ability.

For this episode number seven, I’m gonna take a pivot, which is a small shift that can make a powerful and transformational impact. So, before I introduce our celebrity guest, I wanted to share a verse that comes from the Bible that we all know: “Love is patient, love is kind.” Being so ubiquitous in describing what love is, we can often forget the patience and the kindness. Yet those words are so intentionally stated in this verse for a reason, love is patient and love is kind.

So let’s take this definition of love to the often very challenging and confusing relationship with our aging parents. Our very special guest today is perhaps the foremost expert on “love is patient love is kind.” Dr. Ken Druck is one of the world’s leading experts on aging grief and resilience. His expertise, inspiration and guidance is so sought after and featured on just about every medium from CNN, the Wall Street Journal to Oprah. He has received numerous lifetime achievements awards and the author of best sellers, including “Courageous Aging”, “Raising an Aging Parent,” and most recently, “How We Go On.” And Dr. Ken Druck is one of the coolest and kindest people I know. Welcome Ken to The HME 180 Podcast!

Dr. Ken Druck: that welcome from one of the kindest and coolest people that I know it goes right in. all the way up. Thank you.

SC: It’s so good to be with you, Ken. This is like a dream come true.

KD: And, and the extension, you know, the people that are around you and that are watching this podcast and the people that I’ve met in your company and in your YPO circles and friendship circles are also extraordinary that I also feel blessed and lucky to be in the company of people who are tuning into the podcast and who are

wondering who are asking all these questions about the quality of our family lives and what do you do? And, and how do you handle? And, and how do I become the best version of myself?

SC: Yeah. So shout out to everyone listening because that is the most important thing is to take on life’s challenges with love.

KD: Yes and kindness.

SC: Yes.

KD: You know, kindness, boy, we’ve used that word for so long. But I wanna drill down to what really kindness where kindness starts and I wanna share the excitement that I have about the new discoveries. What I’ve become so much even more aware of that has to do with kindness to ourselves because that’s where all kindness starts.

And we forget that we look, you know, we look around to see who we can be kind to. It’s like, look in the mirror. It’s like, how about that guy? You know, how do I show myself every kindness? How do I show myself patience?

SC: I love that we’re starting that way, because it does start with the person you see in the mirror every day.

KD: Absolutely.

SC: If we can’t put ourselves first with patience and kindness, then we can’t share that with others.

KD: And we, and most of the time, we don’t even know what we’re doing. We look in the mirror and it’s like, wow, didn’t you have a hairline that went down here once you know, or whatever we say to ourselves or you’re late!1 Or, you know, whatever it is that is self-criticism, self-condemnation, that loop of the ways we talk to ourselves that are impatient, unkind, hypercritical and we keep coming back–and sometimes we don’t even know we’re still doing it until we catch ourselves with our foot on our throat. We catch ourselves at those moments of impatience. It’s like, look at me, look at my foot on my throat. Look at how much I’m rushing myself. I’m pressuring myself. I’m condemning, I’m judging myself. You know, I’ve already decided rather than taking our foot off our throat and moving our hand down to our heart and saying, “Deep breath, you know what it’s gonna be ok?

SC: Yeah.

KD: If I’m running late, I can call, I can, I can plan better next time, I can show myself every kindness in the challenges, the losses, the changes, the transitions of this moment. But this moment, this what now moment that life is presenting me.

SC: So as we embark upon this very important and courageous discussion, let’s all remember to love ourselves first with kindness and patience. Ok. Well, we’re all going to do that. In your book, “Raising an Aging Parent.” It’s so relevant, deeply honest and actionable. with one of the most important relationships with that second part of life with our parents. I recommend everyone get this book and I’ll share the link in the show notes. So let’s dive into this relationship in the second half of life. And I would like to start with deep empathy to understand what’s happening. So, Ken, what’s going on? What would our parents tell us if only they could?

KD: You know, the, the, the first thing is that there, there might be people even listening to this that are going, “Oh my God, my parents didn’t get to be old.” You know, or, “My parents left already. What does this have to do with me?” And I want to assure you this has everything to do with you. Both of my parents are gone.

But the opportunity for me to become even more aware of what I’m deeply grateful for, of what my parents were going through, becoming more compassionate, more understanding of the world they lived in and how they did the best they could, and things that I’m still angry at them about and finding constructive ways to deal with that. So please, everybody’s invited to this conversation. It’s, it’s about us and, you know, if our parents could tell us if they, you know, were to say, “You know, I probably haven’t said this to my son or daughter, but I, but maybe I should, maybe it would help them.” You know, it would be what my mother told me several months before she passed.

She pulled me close here. We were, you know, we used to go out to lunch a couple of times a week maybe. And this, this week I went to see her and she had been really getting weaker and she pulled me close–closer than I’d ever been–It’s like “Mom!” You know, and she pulled me close and she says, “Do you know how much I love you? Do you know how grateful I am for all the ways that you have shown up in my life? Do you know? I want you to–I just wanna make sure you understand that.”

What I didn’t realize at the time because I left 20 minutes later, I had to jump back into the, the car and, and get to my next appointment and, you know, this was just supposed to be a lunch with mom. I got back into the car and I turned on the radio and I said, “What am I doing? Turning on the radio? I just went through a moment that some people pray to have in a lifetime where a parent steps forward and declares their love and gratitude for all the things that we have done.” Now, we, we could, some of us are in a courtroom with no, with no, with only a prosecuting attorney. “What didn’t you do for your mother? What could you have done for your father?” We’re prosecuting ourselves rather than saying, what are the moments and times that I really reached out that I really made some sacrifices that I really expressed the full measure of my love for my mom or my dad. I said or did something that really made a quality difference in their life. It could even just bring, bringing over the grandkids as often as I did. Who knows? You need to, you need to focus on receiving.

How many other times in your life have people tried to love you and appreciate you? Where you deflected where you turned on the radio or some other noise? But you couldn’t accept it. You couldn’t receive it how to graciously receive what people are giving you. That we’re so busy and caught up in our own to do lists, and our own responsibilities. You know, we’re the sandwich generation. We got, we’re raising kids. We’re start–you know, we’re growing a company and we’ve got aging parents and we’re caught right in the middle of the, the busiest, most demanding time of our lives.

And they may think that we’re not able to really understand not only the love and gratitude that they’re expressing, but what they’re going through that they’re not, you know, sometimes we project, we think, “Oh, they’re, they’re feeling alone most of the time,” or “They’re scared, they’re going through an existential crisis because they’re, they’re approaching the last chapters of their life and they don’t know, they, they look at their watch and they don’t know how much time they have left,” or we, who knows? But, but sometimes they open the door and they try to express that or instead of, “Mom, how are you?” you know, and cutting the conversation off, it’s, “Mom, how are you doing, really?” Or, “Dad, what’s it been like since you’ve been retired?” or, you know, “One of your best friends just passed or you’ve moved out of the family home or, you know, you gave up the car keys a couple of years ago. What’s it been like learning how to use Uber? You know, and Lyft?”  But asking them open ended questions that give them a chance to reveal what it is like for them having turned 70, 80, 90, 100… what it is like for them after they’ve suffered some of the losses because a lot of losses come with getting older, you know, including the loss of their partner, their wife, their husband.

I runs partner laws, support groups. And I’m always amazed at what people go through the sense of the deep sense of loss when you’ve had somebody in your life for all these years. And they have been the hub–they’re the person who does this and they’re your companion. They’re your partner in this existence. They’re the person you tell about the little things that nobody else cares about or wants to listen to. And suddenly you’re there, you get into bed and there’s all this room on the other side of the bed. It’s understanding what they’re going through and what it’s like to be with you.

SC: And that understanding I think can be very precarious and scary because of that relationship, which has changed so much. And if I could share with you what I’ve seen and heard from my fellow friends who have parents in their, you know, seventies and eighties and nineties. So they’re sharing this with me. They’re saying that the communication is now has a lot of passive aggressive conversations, that there is an isolation cycle, so finding every reason to be alone despite efforts of loved ones. And that in that depression and isolation, what they’ve also shared with me is that there’s a weapon to further the isolation cycle, which is digging up pains from the past. So it sounds like, and we’ve talked about this, that it comes down to a loss of value and a loss of control. And maybe it’s because they’re grieving and that’s what you were talking about is that they’re grieving. So help us understand how to have conversations around this grieving.

KD: I talk about in, in “Raising an Aging Parent.” I talk about grieving the loss of our younger self and grieving the loss of our past, our nostalgic past, even with a, an, an adult child. And you’re going, “Weren’t you just a little kid?” Now, I watch my grandkids and I remember when you were that age and you know, and they’re, and they’re, it’s, they’re remembering, they’re having sweet memories, but they’re also facing the fact that this is

winding down that that season of life has passed. And so the question then becomes how, what are the do’s and don’t of supporting somebody who’s grieving, even if it’s your aging parent? How do we support? What is support and what is not support, you know? Not support is, “Oh, don’t worry, dad, you’ll get over it. You’ve had a perfect life. You’ve had a great life.” Try to talk them out of their feeling. That’s the wrong thing to do. I mean, to say, you know, “Dad, I can see that you give yourself a really hard time about that part of the past that you should have been more loving with mom or you should have made more money in the company that you didn’t leave enough for all of us or that you fell short in some way. As a father or as a mother, mom, you know, and, and wouldn’t it be a good thing that I can’t talk you out of that? And sometimes I catch myself trying to build you up, back up and show you the value that your life has had because I feel so sad. I’m watching you sad—be so sad. It makes me sad. It makes me feel like you’ve kind of factored out all that you’ve done all that you’ve meant to all of us, all that you’ve been all the ways you’ve contributed to our lives,” And sometimes putting a list together of, you know, I often do this with couples that I work with. I’ll say, “Give your husband or wife, a list of 25 things that you are so deeply grateful for. 25 specific reasons you love them. What you love about them.” And because often we don’t really make in specific terms and you can do that with an aging parent by saying, “I want to tell you 25 things that I will forever appreciate and remember and cherish and that have become a part of me that whether you are here or not, are a part of me now. And I hope I can pass on at least that much.” So sometimes, you know, the big, the big challenge for a lot of older people is facing the end of life.

SC: Yes.

KD: Like how many issues are bigger than that? This, this, this is a lease deal. We get to confront  impermanence, we get to confront our mortality. So how do you help? How do you support somebody?

You say, you know, “Dad, I, I’d love to talk about that some more. What do you think? What do you, what, what are you thinking about, about dying? What do you think about all that stuff? Is there some part of, of your house? You know, you’re trying to put your house in order? Is there something that I could be doing to support you?” That’s what support is. Saying, “What could I if I could say anything to you, if I could do something to support you and help you? And what you’re having to face and the challenges of this moment, this what now moment in life that all of us are gonna have to face. What would that be? Think about that, Dad. You might not have the answer right now. But if you could think about that and we could talk about that, it would give me such joy to know that I could attribute, you know, I in even in some small way to the quality of these days in your life.”

SC: And so what you’ve just shared is that grieving is happening as you are entering your end of life. There is grieving that’s happening—to not be afraid of that. And grieving shouldn’t be lonely and that some loved ones can come into that grieving conversation and connect there.

KD: There’s a continuum. You’re absolutely right. Spot on. There’s a continuum from courage and strength and meeting the moment in our life to being too afraid, becoming indifferent, becoming numb and avoiding. From meeting the moment to avoiding the moment. And so it’s not just that our parents are grieving. We are grieving. We have this anti anticipatory grief. “Oh my God, my father’s—one day, he’s not gonna be here one day. She’s not gonna be here. How am I gonna, how am I gonna face that? I didn’t want to think about that.” So I think it’s important that we do think about it. I think it’s important. We do talk about it since it’s something we’re all gonna go through. It’s something that’s important to, to talk about.

You know, it’s so interesting. I flashback here I am at the Amundson Theater in Los Angeles with my oldest daughter Jenna and it’s her birthday and I took her to see “Phantom of the Opera.”

SC: Love Phantom.

KD: And she’s sitting there crying, squeezing my hand so tight. This is the scene where the girl visits her father in the graveyard. I mean, the whole Phantom of the opera is about her replacing this guy comes by and he’s a father figure and she’s, she’s grieving the loss of her own father. “Dad, where are you? How can I be with you? How can I continue to love you? The love that never dies” And then this person shows up and, and she fills the emptiness with that temporarily. So I’m sitting there with my daughter, Jen who’s 18 years old and he’s got three more years of life to live because she died at age 21.

SC: So sorry.

KD: And she’s squeezing my hand and crying because I’m the one that’s supposed to die. I’m the one that’s supposed to get old and die. And three years later, I’m burying my daughter who died while studying abroad in India. And I think back to that moment that we all in, in general ways—that grief—you can’t understand life until you understand grief and love and loss. That, that the price of loving somebody is that we also fear losing them. That we don’t wanna go through the experience of—we wanna love them. We wanna take them all the way into our hearts, but we don’t wanna, we hate the idea that one day we will lose them or we may lose them, including the parents who lose their kids.  The husbands and wives who lose a spouse. Yeah, the, the adult children who lose parents. And I think it requires that we meet that moment with courage. That “What now?” moment. That we really show up and we show up with, with love, we show up and it’s ok not to have all the answers. You know, that’s a tough one for, for a lot of us, it’s like, “What? I don’t have the answer. I don’t know what to say or do?” We need to allow ourselves with our hand on our heart of kindness. Those moments of unknowing this and even own up to them and say, “Dad, I don’t know what to say to you. I love you so much and it scares me and it, it makes me so sad that one day we will part. You know, but here’s what, here’s what I wanna make sure we’ve said and done. Here’s what I want. I want us to have every fullness, every moment of love and appreciation, direct communication. I want us to be able to trust each other.”

Years ago I wrote a book called “How to Talk to Your Kids.” It’s “How to Talk to Your Adult Parents!” You communicate with them and the way to communicate, the best way to communicate is to listen.

SC: Yes!

KD: Is to bite—get that scar tissue on our tongue. Resist talking, listen, ask open ended questions that, that aren’t really messages disguised as questions, messages disguised as questions. “Ken! Have you always worn those glasses?” That’s, that’s not a real question. That’s a message disguised as a question that you don’t like my glasses or you think I should get rid of them. They’re old fashioned or something. Open ended questions are taking the time and listening and learning and getting to know your aging parent. Even those parents who are difficult to get to know. They want to be known, they want to be understood, they want to be heard. The greatest gift you can give another human being is the experience of feeling understood and the experience of feeling loved

SC: Understood and loved.

KD: And the way we do that is by listening.

SC: And by asking open ended questions rooted in love because you’ve talked about life change literacy and how it’s really lacking and we’re really not prepared to have these conversations. There’s not a lot out there to give us instruction. So and that language needs to be around dignity and respect.

KD: Now, I do that every day, you know, because I imagine some people are listening and saying, how can I cultivate those kinds of awarenesses or skills or practices in my own life? You know, I start, I’ve learned how to do something in, in my own life and I bet you have something similar you do. And I start my mornings, I get up a little early and I take the dog and I get out on the dirt trail and I walk—I have a dirt trail near my house—and I get out and we walk and I ask myself at least four questions.

The first question is today, what’s weighing most heavily on my heart today? It could be what’s happening in our country. It could be a friend of mine just passed Whatever it is…if it’s personal, social, political, it could be something somebody said to me or did or didn’t do. Today, what’s weighing most heavily on my heart?

Question two, what’s making my heart sing today? It could be that there’s a flower that bloomed on the side of the trail. That could be enough. It could be that I’m grateful that I have this beautiful dog and he runs out ahead of me but never too far. Whatever it is.

The third question, it’s the promise that I make to myself today. It’s usually something having to do with something we’re really trying—we’re aspiring to take better care of ourselves to represent ourselves more forcefully and lovingly and kindly in a relationship. I mean, I have that conversation with my mom or dad that I’ve been putting off for weeks.

The fourth question I ask is today, the gratitude that’s swelling up inside of me is for what? I live in a great country. I’ve been, I’m given clean water. I have a roof over my head. That may be one of the gratitudes—I’m  naming all the people in my life. How blessed am I that I have two little twin grandsons that I get to be with every day? “How blessed am I?” is the beginning of the sentence. How blessed am I that what and allowing ourselves that gratitude? And then sometimes I throw in another question or two, like the thing that I could probably let go of a little bit more.

SC: Hm. I like that one.

KD: You know, because I’m the kind of person that sometimes holds on to things. And I went over to my daughter’s house a couple of days ago, I took care of one of the kids and I brought over a whole bunch of stuff from Costco that they needed and, and she was in the backyard with a good friend that she hadn’t seen a couple of years and she, she just, “Hi dad,” you know. I got back in the car and I said, “Hm.” I got a little grumpy. Like I should have gotten a, a thank you and more acknowledgement or a little more time. And I said to myself, “Let it go, let it go. You know, she’s seeing friends, she hasn’t seen, she’s not perfect. She, of course she could, she’ll call you later and say thank you. Let it go.” Sometimes you, you react to things that you need to let go of or you hold people grudges with people or you hold something against them because they didn’t do something or they did something or God knows what. Project that kindness you’re showing up for your yourself onto other people. Cut some slack, give some forgiveness.

SC: And you know what resonated with me as you were sharing those four things and five things that you do in asking yourself and asking your heart. Wouldn’t that be an amazing conversation to have with our parents?

KD: Yes!

SC: Because I feel that we can kind of get stuck in the loop of negativity. Because there is this disconnect that continues to happen. A way to reconnect is to say, “Mom, dad or mom, let me share with you what’s heavy on my heart? Let me share with you what brings me joy. Let me share with you a promise I made myself that I’m gonna do. Let me share with you gratitude.” And when you share that, then maybe that they reciprocate and share the same thing. And then all of a sudden you have door to have meaningful conversation.

KD: I love that you said that and you could even preface it by saying, “I know you will, you like finding out how I am when I tell you how and I wanna be real and authentic with you and tell you how I really am what’s really going on in my life. And so I’d like to start and share with you the way I talk to myself. I answer these questions and then after I finish, I’m gonna invite you to share the same things with me. If you feel up to it. maybe you feel up to it the next time we get together. But I want you to think about that because it’s important for me to know how you are and what’s going on in your life and what’s making your heart sing, especially.”

You know, one of the things I’ve learned working with people for over 40 years is that the best place to start is often tell me something good that you’ve done that’s, or that’s happening in your life right now. Or something good you’ve done for yourself that has made your life better this week. And they could just have gone through a tragedy. I don’t care. Tell me something good that you’ve done for yourself this week that’s helping you. That’s helping you heal, that’s helping you rise up out of these ashes or rise up out of a challenge or such a down period or such a setback in your life. Tell me one good thing you’ve done because it establishes that because often we don’t think about that. What, you know? Yeah. What it good didn’t—oh, I did something for myself. You know, I went, I took myself for a walk to the corner and back or I went out for a drive or I listened to my favorite music that I don’t play often enough.

SC: It creates some positivity in that conversation.

KD: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

SC: So I’m going to now address something that I’ve had so many conversations with people about which is the disease of denial. It seems to infect and spread and, and so what do you do with an aging parent that resists change and in complete denial? How do you have that conversation?

KD: With a parent who is in complete denial, the conversation starts with yourself. You need to tell yourself it may not be possible for me to open a conversation or to invite my mom or dad to that party because the only defense they have from feelings that they can’t even manage that are so overwhelming, that are so painful, that are so uncomfortable—the only defense they have is just complete abject denial. They are not going to—I’ve tried every way. I bought them delicious chocolate cake. I begged them, I pleaded with them and it never comes out. They live in that denial. It’s part of their protective armor. And so I think the conversation that starts with is am I butting my head against a brick wall? And I need to understand that the only defense my parent, my mom or dad has from feelings that would come up that they cannot allow themselves to believe that they, they would feel safe or they might unburden themselves that there is any benefit from baring their soul, from admitting fault, from apologizing from owning up to and taking responsibility for their part in something that went sideways. They cannot do that, and me forcing them or pressuring them or guilting them or shaming them or trying to conjure them into an admission or into an acknowledgment that there’s something really there, is only gonna put distance between me and them.

SC: So what do you do?

KD: I’ve got to confront the part of me that needs their truthfulness.

SC: Okay.

KD: Insisting on their truthfulness that wants to change them so they can love me better. That wants them to do it for me, even if they’re not gonna do it for themselves or whatever it is, that’s motivating us to want them to come out of denial. Or the part of me that feels so helpless because it would, it would give life. And I know all the benefits to that it would take it to stop denying something we could make a change, we could make an adjustment, we can do this, we can handle it and you believe it with all your heart and you believe that that’s the way I can love my father or mother, but they’re unwilling to be loved in that way. So we got to confront the part of us that feels helpless.

SC: Ok.

KD: The thing that we can say to our parents is it’s not a sense that begins with “you.” It’s a sentence that begins with “I”, and it’s like dad, “Sometimes I feel so helpless. I feel like I’m not being the best son that I could be to you because I keep my mouth shut. I ask you about driving the car or moving out of the family home or how you doing since mom passed or whether you’ve been really down and it would be a good time to get some help or whatever it is or some health related concern. And I ask you about it and you don’t wanna talk about it. I don’t wanna talk about it. You block me, you, you, you change the subject, you do 100 things. And I walk away feeling like if I just sit and say nothing, then I’m part of the problem. And I tell myself that I need to be part of the solution. I need to have the courage to speak up and implore you, and try to convince you that it would be so—in your better interest to open up and share it and be honest.

“But then I get, then you don’t want to talk about it again. And I feel like I’m failing you. And I just wanted to tell you that that’s—sometimes when I press you, it’s because I feel like I’m failing you. And I just wanted to share–I need—you don’t need to say anything. I don’t need a response. I just needed to share that with you. That that’s sometimes why I press you because I feel like I’ve personally, if I were a better son, I would have said something to you or I would have found a way to make you feel safe enough or to have pointed out the benefits to you better so that you would have opened up and if, and if this is the way it ends that you just don’t, then I might, yeah, I’m the kind of person who might even beat myself up after you pass. It’s like, you know, I wasn’t a very good son. I never—my father never felt at ease enough with me or confident enough in me or I’ll blame myself.

SC: So being very vulnerable.

KD: It’s only because I feel like the best son, the, the most loving thing I could do would be to help you to be your trusted confidant.

SC: So taking the, the focus away from “You are not doing this, you are in denial” to, “This is, it’s because I care and I love you.”

KD: Yes.

SC: Okay. So, in this HME 180 community, most of the listeners on this podcast are the amazing people that work at medical supply stores and independent pharmacies and at NOVA, we call them MVPs because they’re the most valuable person to that customer or family relationship when they walk into that medical equipment store and they actually have the power to chip away at that disease of denial. I’ve seen it and even break it down when it comes to like trying a cane or a walker or getting fall prevention products like in the bathroom or that our bed rail is to protect and embrace and not confine. So our MVPs can actually break away that denial of using a cane or walking product, which is amazing. So can you share some insights on why they—pretty much a stranger but they are the MVP—how they can deepen their empathy, superpower and life change, literacy with the people and the customers they engage with?

KD:  Beautiful question, beautiful proposition, beautiful opportunity for any of you who are the MVPs. You are my heroes because so much of what you do goes unseen and unnoticed, it’s the quiet part of your presence and sometimes the moments are even so subtle that they would be unnoticeable to most people. But it’s the way you’re showing up ,and it’s the way you show up. And since we are all a work in progress, since we all have the capacity to ripen and grow and be an even safer, more caring, more trustworthy, more receptive, better listeners…we all have the capacity for the rest of our lives to improve and strengthen those abilities that the opportunity is for you. And I would—you be the first person I’d ask, I’d say, “Where is your greatest opportunity become, become even better so that you’re not just the MVP, you are the MVP+. Plus, plus, plus. What do you believe is the greatest opportunity? Where could you improve even more? How could you make good better? In what areas? What would you have to get even better at that you’re already great at?”

Or the other question is, “Is there some part of you that keeps getting yourself into trouble or you feel like when you do it, it kills the conversation or it dulls the conversation or it gets into too much of a sales pitchy thing that you’re no longer being with somebody.” You’re, you’re in kind of an adversarial thing where they’re resisting and you’re pressing and whatever, What is the thing that you do that triggers, what is it? Is it your impatience in that moment? Is it something they say that you feel you have to counter rather than simply reflecting? So it’s so I hear what I hear you saying is that it would be very embarrassing for you to, to get out in the community that you live in, to get out in a walker or on a cane. You would fear losing status in people’s eyes. And you showing the capacity to understand having listened, showing the capacity to understand and empathize—that superpower that empathy, compassion, superpower is transformative. That’s magic. It’s that ability to say that and not jump in with a sales, “Well, shouldn’t we get you one?” You know. No, give, showing people patience saying, you know, I can, I can appreciate and even validating and appreciate, I can appreciate that. I might feel the same way, you know, and how it seems like maybe sometimes we have to turn the page, we have to win our own approval. We have to not lose status in our own hearts in our own minds.

And then you become a teacher in a way that, that the change that people are looking for is not waiting for other people to become loving and accepting exactly as we want them to be. And then we can do something instead of waiting for permission or waiting for somebody to confer our status, we have to confer our status. It’s almost back to like that, taking your foot off your throat and putting your hand on your heart. It’s—you have to catch yourself doing that. You have to catch yourself and say, “My God, look at, I haven’t even been aware that I’ve been doing this so much. Like, look at me, I can’t believe I just said that to myself.” And then lowering that hand and saying, “I need to practice what somebody would say out of kindness to me in this moment.” Say, “I’m so proud of you for, for having the courage that your status is way above what you need to support yourself if and I’m so proud of you for prioritizing the need for support and safety by using a walker or a cane. How much better you’re taking care of yourself and what looking out for yourself.” That’s what you’d say from with your hand on your heart. So I think you helping people find that voice of kindness to speak to themselves can be liberating because once they start speaking to themselves that way, then you are their ambassador. You, you’re gonna help them deliver the product.

SC: Wow, isn’t that the ultimate empathy? Is it being kind to yourself, being patient with yourself? And then you can truly be empathetic towards others and project that. And I think about the caregivers and the family caregivers and the professional and our MVPs and how, how, how we just forget about ourselves and then wonder why we don’t have the superpower, because it starts with fueling our own bucket first

KD: and we all have experiences, Sue. You and I are, have known each other for a while and we’ve talked about our own experiences, things that we’ve had to do to go back and give ourselves permission to be human, Permission to be going through the changes or the challenges or even harvesting the opportunities that are in front of us. Not just the losses but, but the empathy and the compassion comes with that too. It’s like my God. That’s such a big opportunity. How could you not be a little scared, because that’s what starts converting the fear into courage

SC: Ahh… fear to courage.

KD: After what in grief transforms the pain back into love. Because what starts as love that becomes an unspeakable sorrow wants to become love again. And when we have lost somebody we love and we go through, we allow ourselves to organically go through the sorrow. We give that voice of sorrow expression. We give it patience, we give it loving support. We surround it with loving support. We give ourselves permission to be human. Then organically from the inside out comes the healing comes the renewal. Pushing the reset button and saying, “I’m gonna go on, I’m gonna create meaning and new memories. I’m gonna summon the newfound courage that this moment is calling forth in me, the compassion that this moment, this unspeakably difficult moment is calling forth in me, the strength, the faith, the humility and the permission to not know everything I need to know to get to the mountain top.”

So I treat myself with that kindness. I project when people are nasty and mean and it’s what they’re projecting the way they treat themselves. You know, you, you run into somebody. I run into people these days that they’re nasty or rude or mean or short or, and sometimes I’ll say, “You’re having a tough day.” And 9 out of 10 times they’ll say, “Yeah, I’m having a terrible day.”

SC: Flipping that script, change the emotion, change the life. You were speaking about courage in such a profound and meaningful way to actually live in courage and what courage can do to our states. And I wanted to share with you because you actually have, I want to share with our listeners, you have a courageous living manifesto. Can I share it?

KD: Please.

SC: Ok. It’s: “Courage, empowers us to heal the past, stand in the present and shape the future.” And, and so in that you say that courageous living is a movement. And I think that’s what you just described. So last question when it comes to that relationship with our aging parents, how do we remain courageous to the end and beyond? Because it’s hard.

KD: I think we find that courage in ourselves, the exercise that I talked about that I start the day every day. What am I doing? Is it just about that day? Or am I cultivating a spiritual strength? A strength to deal with this life on life’s terms? And one of life’s terms is that we—everything changes. Our parents get older, we get older, our kids get older, our dogs get older. And to have the courage to face life and life’s terms that our parents are aging and to show them a calm acceptance of what they’re going through what’s happening. But also of how natural it is to say, “This sucks! I hate this. I really liked, you know, have driving the car. I really like the old family house. I liked running at the company. I love being the boss. I loved the family years when you were a little kid.”

You know, having the courage to be able to say that and, and grieve and honor, you know, that, that’s the way we honor our parents is to really be with them not to try to fix them or change them or figure them out. But to get to know them, to be with them, to stand with them, to walk through every challenge with them, including at the end of life. You know, how many people do we all know who will tell you that one of the most beautiful moments of their life was the end of their mom or dad’s life? Where they gave it all up? They gave up every ounce of their love. They poured out, they allowed their heart to be completely broken open. And I say broken open because when we try to resist and hide and deny and dilute, our hearts break, but they break closed. We become the smaller version of ourselves when our hearts contract around the pain. So we don’t ever have to feel it again.

When our hearts break open, we become this expanded version of ourselves. We take a deep breath, we behold this life, what we can see and experience. But also what we don’t know. The mysteries that are so beyond us. But we behold them. We’ll, we understand that we are part of a grand mystery.

SC: Yes.

KD: And we don’t fight it. We allow it, we live in it. We make peace to some degree. We make different degrees of peace. The last chapter of my, “How We Go On” book talks about–it’s called the Tens Moonshot. It’s about death. It’s called make, it’s called “How We Go On With Death.” And it’s about how, how we surrender in a way we surrender, having to know or having to be 100% certain. And we create a measure of peace. We don’t have the whole peace. We, we move slowly and we create some element of, of a peaceful heart. So that when these moments come of unspeakable sorrow and loss, we’re not kicking and screaming and resisting and creating even more pain. We’re allowing life to be what life is and we can say, “You know what I hate this. But I understand that this is the way of life. This is the nature of the life that I have been given and that my mom or dad has been given for as many years as I had them. How blessed am I?” You know, gratitude and feeling blessed are the antidote to the fear and dread of dying. And of somebody we love dying.

SC: Wow, let’s take that. Let’s allow our hearts to be broken open. And every day: Blessing, gratitude, courage. Oh, Ken, I have infinite gratitude to you for being on this podcast and teaching us this—what I call this strategy of love. Thank you so much.

KD: Thank you so much, my dear friend. One of my heroes, my, my visionary leaders that I love following the, the glorious chapters of your life and the things that you are building, including this podcast. I’m honored to have been with you.

SC: Oh, thank you so much, Ken. So you guys can all go to Ken Druck, that’s kendruck.com to learn more about the incredible tools to learn, elevate and master this very hard but so important relationship with our aging parents. Thank you for listening to this powerful HME 180 podcast today and stay tuned for more episodes featuring amazing guests and pivots and go forth and be patient and be kind.

Outro: A transcript and a copy of the visual companion guide is available on our website at HME180.com. Your host was Sue Chen, Chief Educational Officer of Nova Medical Products. Our special guest today was Dr. Ken Druck, resilience and expert and author of “Raising an Aging Parent.” This podcast was produced and edited by Melissa Grace Klose. Our theme music was created by Rebecca Klose. Thank you for listening to The HME180 Podcast and we will see you all again next month.