April 30, 2025 • 50 mins
In today’s episode, Lisa’s special guest is Ken D. Foster, author of the book, “The Courage to Change Everything” Ken is known for empowering audiences to tap into their courage to become more powerful, effective, and productive in order to change their lives for the better. This ideology aligns perfectly with caregivers and family members to offer strategies to help conquer and manage the overwhelm of a dementia journey. Ken addresses some of ways that we can best acknowledge and ignite our inner courage; what steps we can take to use the consciousness of courage to break through our self-imposed limitations; how it’s really possible to reinvent ourselves at any age; the role that self-awareness plays in finding the courage to change what stands in our way of happiness and peace, as well as insights into how we can use our courage to avoid burnout, plus much more.
You definitely won’t want to miss this awe-inspiring episode!
Mentioned Resources: “The Courage to Change Everything” https://couragetochange.us/
About the Guest:
Ken D. Foster is a keynote speaker, best-selling author, business strategist, and news personality, who owns a broadcast and media production company. He is the executive producer and host of the Voices of Courage Show syndicated on TV, Podcast, plus Radio which is broadcast in 185 Countries. Ken specializes in working with people who are committed to leveling up their lives, maximizing their highest potential, and contributing to making the world a better place. Ken’s book, ‘The Courage to Change Everything’ provides proven strategies to help people stand in their strength and awaken their inner genius.
About the Host:
Author Lisa Skinner is a behavioral specialist with expertise in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia. In her 30+year career working with family members and caregivers, Lisa has taught them how to successfully navigate the many challenges that accompany this heartbreaking disease. Lisa is both a Certified Dementia Practitioner and is also a certified dementia care trainer through the Alzheimer’s Association. She also holds a degree in Human Behavior.
Her latest book, “Truth, Lies & Alzheimer’s – Its Secret Faces” continues Lisa’s quest of working with dementia-related illnesses and teaching families and caregivers how to better understand the daunting challenges of brain disease. Her #1 Best-seller book “Not All Who Wander Need Be Lost,” was written at their urging. As someone who has had eight family members diagnosed with dementia, Lisa Skinner has found her calling in helping others through the struggle so they can have a better-quality relationship with their loved ones through education and through her workshops on counter-intuitive solutions and tools to help people effectively manage the symptoms of brain disease. Lisa Skinner has appeared on many national and regional media broadcasts. Lisa helps explain behaviors caused by dementia, encourages those who feel burdened, and gives practical advice for how to respond.
So many people today are heavily impacted by Alzheimer's disease and related dementia. The Alzheimer's Association and the World Health Organization have projected that the number of people who will develop Alzheimer's disease by the year 2050 worldwide will triple if a treatment or cure is not found. Society is not prepared to care for the projected increase of people who will develop this devastating disease. In her 30 years of working with family members and caregivers who suffer from dementia, Lisa has recognized how little people really understand the complexities of what living with this disease is really like. For Lisa, it starts with knowledge, education, and training.
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Episode Transcript
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Lisa Skinner (00:00):
Hello everybody, and welcome to another brand new episode of the truth, lies and Alzheimer show. I'm Lisa Skinner, your host. I am super excited about today's episode because I have a very special guest with us today, and I'm going to introduce him in just a second, but I asked him, I was just recently a guest on his podcast, and we had such a powerful and dynamic discussion, mostly related to Alzheimer's disease and dementia, but I thought Ken would be such a perfect guest for the truth lies and Alzheimer show because of what he does and what he offers, and the impact that it could have on our caregivers and our family members, who are either currently going through this devastating and heartbreaking experience with the people they're caring for, living with Alzheimer's and dementia, and also their family members. And as we all know, this is a very long course disease. The average is eight to 15 years. My grandmother lived with it for 20 years. So it's unpredictable at how long we actually will join somebody in this dementia journey, and for caregivers, especially, it is can be very overwhelming. So Ken's going to give us some suggestions today of how we might be able to manage that a little bit better. But let me get right into my introduction of this very special man. His name is Ken D Foster and just a little bit about his background. He is a keynote speaker, a best selling author, a business strategist and a news personality who owns a broadcast and media production company. He is the executive producer and host of the voices of courage show syndicated on TV, podcast, plus radio and broadcast in 185 countries. He specializes in working with people who are committed to leveling up their lives, maximizing their highest potential and contributing to making the world a better place now can has developed a science based highly practical solutions for stimulating human potential in either companies or individuals who are seeking personal balance, increased profitability, organizational productivity, time management, meditation techniques, systemic solutions and authentic team building, communication. His book is called the courage to change everything which provides proven wealth strategies and success principles to help people stand in their strength, awaken their inner genius and fast track their success. And the forward for his book was written by the famous Stephen M r COVID. That's pretty impressive. His book, The courage to change everything, gives readers the exact messages they need daily to instill wisdom and wealth principles deeply into their consciousness. Okay, you asked me, What does this have to do with Alzheimer's disease and dementia? And really, the parallel there between his expertise and what we talk about on this show is finding our courage and our strength to continue to do what we do every single day, which is we all know can go on for years and years and years. And I don't think that anybody would argue that this is probably one of the biggest challenges that all of us who have been through this face. How much longer can I do this? How do I find the strength and the courage to keep going? So that's what Ken is here to talk to us about today, and I can't wait to hear what he has to say. So without further ado. I'd like to welcome Ken to the show. Thanks for being here, Ken, it is such a pleasure to have you here today. I was just on your show a few weeks ago. It was such a positive experience for me, and I know that this is just going to be a dynamic conversation for us today and for our listeners, so maybe they can find some answers to how they can get through this experience in their life with maybe a little less stress and more happiness. But
Ken D Foster (05:36):
well, I hope so. And and thank you so much for having me on your show. And, you know, it's, it's a long journey, as you mentioned, with the dementia or Alzheimer's diseases of the mind. And you know, there's, there's some science around it these days, kind of getting to cause, you know, I have a show also called heal it. And you know, in that show, we try to get to the cause which you were on there, because, you know, cause and effect. So, yeah, you know, this is a, this is a difficult journey, and I'm nobody has needs me to tell them that. But you know, with any journey in life, we're all on a journey. We're all in quest. Some are more difficult than others, but during that journey, you know, the first step that I know is whatever the journey is, we have to honor the journey. You know, we have to acknowledge that the this is a sacred process. Every moment matters. You know, we focus on the presence, rather than, you know, trying to fix or fade the the individuals that are going through this. You know, we're there to in my world. We're there to learn how to love deeper and deeper. And it's sometimes you go, I don't want to love anybody like this, you know, because it's just sometimes it gets ugly, but truly it is love that changes everything. Can
Lisa Skinner (07:10):
I ask you this question? So with the World Health Organization officially recognizing burnout as a true syndrome, what insight can you share with our audience? My audience about how to use courage to avoid overwhelm, because people who care for people living with dementia and family members who are going through this experience, they live in a world that is not short of overwhelm. So how can your ideology of finding courage apply to people in the Alzheimer's world? Well, first
Ken D Foster (07:57):
of all, let's, let's define courage. Courage is something that is innate. It's in all of us. It shows up when we walk into the unknown. It is an energy, it's a feeling, it's a power within us. Now, I said it shows up when we walk into the unknown unknown. That's that's accurate. Okay, so if you're doing the same old thing, same old thing, same old thing, you may think you're in the courage, but truly, you're just doing the same old thing. So in my world, you know, there's, I think the World Health Organization came out and they, you know, or one of the agencies just said that in the United States anyway. So it wasn't a who, but yeah, I think it was the one of the psych psychology associations, so that 60% of the people are stressed out in this country. So it's now whether you have, you know, you're going through Alzheimer's or or dementia, or your take your caregiver in some other capacity. Where does stress come from, and what? What we learned? Okay, and a lot of people don't want to hear this, but you know, we're creating our own stress, right? We're creating our own stress. You can't make I can't make anybody happy if they choose to be unhappy. And I can't make anybody unhappy if they choose to be happy. I just can't. I've been coaching people for over 30 years, okay, three decades, and I can, I can tell you that when people can shift how they use their mind, because the mind is over emotions, emotions over actions, actions over result. So when you can start to shift what you focus on, you can start to shift your attitude, and you can actually start to feel better. Now, some caregivers, and actually, if it's not some, there's a lot of caregivers that have to set boundaries, right? You just have to have boundaries. And if you don't have those boundaries, if people are testing your boundaries all the time, and that's you know, you saying yes to your you're over saying yes, okay, then you have to develop the outside of that, the the other side of that. You gotta. Develop the no power, right? So people have, you know, I want this. I want this. I want you to do this that you go, No, I won't do this. You develop your won't power or no power in in that situation. So we gotta understand how we use our mind. We have to understand our boundaries. And those are the first two steps to getting out over well.
Lisa Skinner (10:22):
So you say here that overwhelm is prevalent in this century. You just said that it seems like the more we do, the more there is to do. I'm quoting you. Yeah, many people think they will never get caught up, right, right? This is just a symptom of not realizing what our your soulful self can accomplish, and probably saying yes too much to the whims, desires and demands put before you. Unfettered courage can change this around permanently. So I'm going to ask you to kind of go a little deeper into what you mean by that. But I also want to say because maybe you can address this. Too many, too much. Saying yes to too many whims, desires and demands are part of what somebody is taking on when they're caring for somebody with living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementia. It's just goes with the territory, and I think a lot of caregivers would not argue that it's just part of their world, and you never know what you can expect. Things just come up out of nowhere, and you know different behaviors and different symptomology, and that's why it's overwhelming. So how do you how would you speak to to that piece of it that sometimes it's out of their control, the demands that are put on them. You say, unfettered courage can change this around for people, but I think their struggle is alright. How do you make that happen?
Ken D Foster (12:21):
So remember I said, Courage shows up when you walk into the unknown. So some of you are Go, go, go, go, do, do, do, do, do, and you don't take any time to slow down to succeed. So isolation is the is the i i want to say isolation and stillness are the prices that we pay to get out of overwhelm. And what I mean by that is that when you're feeling that sense of that's it's just too much. It's time to stop immediately. It's time to go find a place, to quiet your mind, to still yourself, even for five minutes, you'd be amazed at what five minutes of just stillness, where you take some deep breaths in, tense up your body, double exhale out, do that three to five times. Okay, tell your body, okay, to relax. Give your body a command, okay, the mind is over the body, okay, the body's not over the mind, but the mind can control the body. So you tell your body to relax, take some deep breaths, calm yourself. And there's a realization that we all need to know, okay? And that is, you know, in my little finger here, I have atoms, right? If you split the atoms in my little finger, there's enough power in there to light up New York City. So we all have to remember that, you know we we have the power. It's in us. What disempowers us is what we really have to look at, what takes away your energy, your your vitality, your your your power, right? Just your power. What takes it away? Well, what takes it away, of course, is thinking that it'll will this will never end, thinking that this is too much, thinking that I'm in overwhelm, thinking that this will never end. You know, how do you feel when they even say that to you? You're like, oh, okay, so our mind and what we focus on, we feel if you're focusing on what you don't have, if you're focusing on what you're what you're lacking, if you're focusing on this is too much. I guarantee you're going to feel it right. So if you were to, what if you would shift the mind and start to affirm, okay, everything is working out. It's if there's a great plan for me for this. I'm evolving. I'm growing. I'm getting better and better every day in every way. And listen, it's kind of silly, isn't it? But, you know. But when you start to say those things, you actually start to feel differently. So it it the mind. Can we can do a lot with our mind. Okay, that's first step. But remember, stillness is the price, and isolation is the price we pay. To get out of overwhelm, we gotta reconnect with that stillness, that peace inside of us, you know, people are always looking to buy peace of mind, right? Well, when I buy a new car, I have peace of mind. When I go out and I make more money, I have peace of mind. Well, when I get this new relationship about peace of mind, oh, you know, I'm a caregiver, when this goes away, off peace of mind, no, you won't. You won't. Okay, you'll just have something more to do. Peace of mind is something that we let go of thinking the pieces I just said, and we start to affirm the greatness that's within us. We live from a place of gratitude. I don't know about you, Lisa, but when I wake up in the morning, my eyes open up. First thing I think about is what I'm grateful for, because I've learned how I start the day is a lot of times how I end the day.
Lisa Skinner (16:10):
I do the exact same thing, and if I'm hearing what you're saying accurately, are you just kind of to just present this in a different way, because I think this is important for people to to be conscious of. Are you saying that being self aware plays a role in having the courage to change your life, because I have had eight family members who have lived with Alzheimer's disease and related. And I know, you know, I've walked in the shoes of caregivers. I've been a, you know, a surrogate caregiver, if you would. I've watched people do this for 30 years now, and I know what they go through. I know what we go through every single day in this world. And you can't help but become negative about the tremendous demands that are put on you. So I think what you're saying here is, if you're aware that you're looking at something with negativity, versus trying to turn it around and find the positive in it, that can make a huge difference. Am I? Am I? Here? You hear me, correct?
Ken D Foster (17:39):
And here's the thing, you know, I'm not saying there's no problems, there's no problems, there's no problems. And try to be so positive personally, you know, like, everything's fine, you know, everything's great. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that with, like you said, with mindfulness, looking and realizing that you are in charge of your thoughts. Okay, nobody else. One of the things I do with my coaching class is, you know, some sometimes we live in denial, okay? And some of you know, in other words, well, you know everything's going to work out. Well, maybe it won't work out, okay. But here's what I know, is that if you you tell yourself you know what, it's coming, yeah, it's coming the next the next surprises come in. The next doctors come in the next, you know, just prepare yourself. Okay, it's coming, right? And there's a place within us that only only we can create peaceful environments within ourselves, right? You know, life demands a lot life demand. You know, life is here to help us to grow, to learn, to evolve. And sometimes it takes a lot. Sometimes it takes more than you've ever imagined. And sometimes you look back and you go, Wow, where did I find that? The energy, the courage, the power to to move past that, what was already in you. You just stepped into it. Sometimes we play really, really small. Now, listen, I don't, you know. I can't imagine, you know, walking through what a lot of you walk through. Okay, it hasn't been my path to be able to take care of a mom or a dad or a friend or my wife with Alzheimer's. Hey, it may come. I may have, you know that may happen to me? Okay, here's what I know I will continue to do because I live my life this way. First of all, be very clear on creating a positive environment, a peaceful environment, soft music playing in the morning. For me when I wake up, I put on YouTube now, and they have I put on high energy frequency music on YouTube, right because there's a lot of science around it, there's certain megahertz that we can listen to that will uplift our minds and help our minds to stay healthy and vital. So, you know, music is very important piece here. You know. So I think journaling your journey sometimes helps to really just, you know, talk to you, let that journey, let that journal be your guide. Yeah, you know, journal everything in it, how difficult it is, what's happened, what's not happened. You know, where you found strength, where you didn't find strength? That helps us, and I think forgiveness on a daily basis. Every single day, we have to release and let go of what happened, right? Because otherwise we builds up. It's like if you go through something that's very difficult and you go, Oh my god, I can't believe this happened. And then you start anticipating it's going to happen again and again. You start building that up in your mind, and quite frankly, you're not going to feel good about what you're doing. So release is really important, by the way. On my website, if you For those who'd like this, there's a free release process there. You just go to Ken D foster.com scroll down on the page and look at the release process. It helps people release shame and guilt remorse. Shoulda, coulda. Woulda is, you know, trauma, drama. It's designed that way. It takes most people about three hours to do the first first round of that. Okay, but a lot of people tell me it's like taking a dark pair of sunglasses off they've never even knew they had on when, when they complete that. In other words, you release, you feel lighter, you feel better. Um, that's the formula for success.
Lisa Skinner (21:33):
So one of the things that I read that you talk about in the courage to change everything is the importance of becoming aware of your inner genius. What does that mean? What do you mean by that? Can you elaborate?
Ken D Foster (21:52):
I absolutely would love to elaborate on that so we are all born geniuses. And what I mean by that is that we come into this world, and of course, we're socialized into different systems, into uh family systems, into uh, school systems, into religious systems, and and on and on it goes. But at you know, and so we're programmed. We got a lot of programming. You listen in the news, that's programming you you're listening, you know, on one side of the political argument or the other. Now you're programmed into that. So we're all, we're all putting all of this into our mind. Where does it go? Well, it doesn't go away. It's, it's layered in what Carl young might call the collective unconscious of the subconscious mind, okay? And, you know, and then we have the conscious mind, everything we see, feel, taste and touch, right in this moment. And then there's something else. It's called the super conscious mind, okay? Some people call it the universal mind, because some people call it the Acacia records. There's a lot of names for this super consciousness. Somebody people call it, but it's that place within us where we can get quiet and still, that all of the answers to everything that we've ever wanted to know lie. It's not it's not an AI, it's not on. You know, you don't need more AI, you don't need more Google, you know, I mean, if you do you need more information, of course you're going to look in those areas. But what people fail, fail to lack or lack is what we would call gut instinct. A lot of people call that, right their God. They have a gut instinct. Or what is that? I call it intuition. There's an intuitive side of us that can tap into these higher realms of consciousness, we find that a thought is not individual. Thought is universal. We're tapping into these higher realms of consciousness. People that are meditators, people that are, I guess, have learned how to use their mind be in theta waves or gamma waves, because that's where the creativity starts to open up. The sciences neurosciences showed us that, so that we have the ability everybody has, the ability we're all born with this, to tap into our inner genius. That's what I call it. Okay, so
Unknown (24:17):
it takes,
Ken D Foster (24:19):
we all have it. It just takes development. We have to develop our intuition. We can develop it through walking in a forest and being mindful. We can develop it through meditation. We can develop it by by music, by staying in this, you know, beautiful, high frequency music, right? I have a story around that. I have one of my my nephews has, ADHD, ADD, you know, he's been diagnosed with a bunch of stuff, right? And he was in high school. He got beat up. When he got beat up in high school, he went completely in. Nobody could talk to him again. He stopped talking to everybody, and he had to drop out of. High School, I had a friend. His name is Mark Romero. Mark Romero was one of the first this is about 20 years ago, 25 years ago. He's one of the first musicians that they study this frequency of his music, and the scientists study this resonance that his music was giving out. And what they found out is this resonance of this music, and they didn't know why, at the time, had a the ability to help people to reconnect with their in their brain, heal themselves. So anyway, long story short, I'm driving with my nephew, and I said I thought I'm going to put on Mark's music. I want to see how it works for him. So I put on his CV at the time, and sure enough, Jordan starts talking to me, just as we are right now. I'm like, This is really weird. He's been in for a couple years at the time, right? So we and I went, wow. Okay, great. This, you know, this is a science that needs to be studied now, there's a lot of studies around music and and a lot of the mind diseases right now, and they're finding findings. You know, that people can improve, right? They can get better the economy, if you have can get better with certain frequencies. Does it apply to everybody? No, okay, why? I'm not a scientist, but I do know that a lot of studies going on in this area. Was
Lisa Skinner (26:27):
this particular music that you were playing for your nephew, by any chance, on the theta frequency, because I was just reading recently, I'm
Ken D Foster (26:36):
guessing it's theta and it's there's also rife, rife his they studied rife frequencies that 900 I forgot the hertz, but it's like 400 and something hurts. And 900 something hertz, and 1000 something hertz, they seem to put us into a theta gamma state. So yeah, meditators, long term meditators go into these states consistently, which I happen to be one of those.
Lisa Skinner (27:08):
Yeah, and I'm reading recently that if you can tap into the theta and some of the other frequencies, you can just really change your paradigm about about a lot of things, you know, changing your gut reaction of being a negative one, to turning it around and finding the positive in it. So, yeah, I think we need to maybe do a little bit more research.
Ken D Foster (27:37):
I think you know, Nicholas Tesla back in the 1920s you know. And Einstein basically repeated the same thing, but he said, If you want to understand the universe, understand energy, frequency and vibration, right, right? So, you know, we've got, we've come a long way in the last 10 years. There's a lot of research about energy, frequency of vibration to heal, everything from infrared, infrared healing to, you know, sound healing, light healing. There's, there's a lot going on in this field. And, you know, it's, it's interesting, because I found this in my own life, in life, a lot of clients, Lisa is that is healing is a journey, okay? And, you know, it's a quest, right? We get on this quest, and just because a doctor says, oh, you know what, you you're never going to heal, okay? That believe the doctor, because he doesn't know how to heal that. Okay? I've had several people come on my show that the doctors told them they'd never heal, and they healed and went on to become teachers, alright? But, but you have to get on a quest and start to realize that there are individuals out there that can improve your life that it can improve what's going on. We're not meant to be on the planet to go through continuous pain and suffering and misery. Those are warning signs that something needs to change. Right? We need to change, whether it's in our attitude, whether it's in our physical life, whether it's in our spiritual life, whether it's in our environment, right? You know, some people live in very toxic environments, alright, they have chemicals in their environments. They're under, you know, Wi Fi towers. They're under power lines. They're they've got any number of poisons in the environment, and they're not aware of it, okay? And the same thing in our foods, you know, you know, I heard recently that, you know, you know, diabetes is, is, is sugar. In the liver. You know, Alzheimer's is sugar in the brain. You know, anyway, it went on and on. I thought, well, that's interesting. I'm sure that there's a cause there. This probably may not be the end all be all, but I think we need to look at, what are we putting in our bot mind? What are we putting in our body? What are we? What are we living in, in our environments? And when we can start to be open and aware, to be mindful of it, and you know, if it's not working again, based on the premise, we're not here to be in misery and suffering and pain all the time, if it's not working, then what is it that we need to do to change? There's a question that I ask myself, and I have my clients ask every night that is, what worked today, what didn't work today, and what can I do to improve tomorrow? If you were to ask that question for the next 365, days, little steps, little improvements. Okay, you know, the doctors don't have all the answers, the coaches don't have the answers. The therapists don't have your answers. You have your answers, but it takes a little work to get to them. And here's the thing, if disease, yeah, had a doctor describe this to me, he he said people are basically in four stages of health, okay, of disease, excuse me, stage one in the people can pretty much heal themselves in stage one of a disease. Stage Two, they may need a little help from a practitioner, possibly a MD, that could help em. Stage three and four, when doctors usually get a hold of people right, because they did not they haven't been a conscious of stage one or two. Stage three, they can still heal. Stage four, it's highly unlikely they'll heal. And a lot of people don't see a doctor for their pain in their back or their legs or their neck or their gut or their their their mind until they get to stage four and they go, Oh my gosh. You know, I'm in stage four. I didn't know it well. It's because somehow you were not paying attention. Hate to say it. You know, health is and people don't like me to say this, but when we take 100% responsibility for what happens in our world, then things start to change. So no more blame, no more shame, no more guilting yourself or anybody else, you just take responsibility. Okay, this isn't working. If you're an overwhelmed that's not working, okay. If you're over giving that's not working, okay. It's like we feel trapped. Because, wow, who else is going to help me? I don't know, but I do know this, I wrote a book. My first best selling book was called Ask and you will succeed and get it on Amazon. And it's filled with specific questions to empower people to ask the right questions in 35 different areas of life, whether it's in health or in business or in having quantum breakthroughs in your world. If we ask, and we keep asking, we stick at it, it's a quest, we will get the answers, and we can break out of overwhelm and stress and worry and concern as a permanent fixture in our lives. Well, you've
Lisa Skinner (33:23):
already given us some really valuable insight and tips on taking some baby steps to change this situation. And as we all know, and this is actually a fact, a lot of caregivers for people of who live with Alzheimer's disease and dementia become so overwhelmed and so stressed out, they die before the people they're caring for do because they don't know how to release they don't know how to let go. You've already given us some good advice on how to do that, but, and you know, we talk a lot about this on this show, to try to provide caregivers with tools to kind of retrain how they're going to respond to a lot of the behaviors and and things that we see that accompany these diseases. And I'll give you an example, because I want to break this down for our listeners so they actually can relate it to what this might look like in an everyday situation. So let's say you're caring for somebody with Alzheimer's disease, and we know that one of the behaviors and symptoms that is very common is that they can display signs of pain. Paranoia and suspiciousness. So it's not uncommon for a caregiver to be accused of stealing the person they're caring for, jewelry or something one of their possessions, that maybe the person that they're caring for actually put it someplace and can't remember. But because of the changing brain and the damage that the brain disease has done to the brain, they become suspicious, they become paranoid, and their first gut reaction when they can't find what they're looking for is to blame their caregiver. Now our gut reaction to that as a caregiver is usually defensiveness and arguing and saying, How can you possibly blame me for this? I care for you every single day, or I'm your daughter. I would never do that to you. And what we teach here is a different approach to that same scenario, to turn the whole situation around in just the words you say and how you handle it, but that takes changing your way of thinking, and it's going back to that self awareness and not just reacting on gut instinct. We have to recondition ourselves, because the gut instinct reaction is only going to further exacerbate the situation. Yeah, create more anxiety, create more anger to the person that is accusing you. So we have a whole formula for, you know, best practice approach versus the gut instinct approach. Yeah. So if that situation arises, because I want to break this down so people out there can actually relate it to something that commonly happens. And I think what I'm taking away from this entire discussion and conversation is the awareness, is the self awareness, and you have to stop yourself from, I don't like being accused of stealing her jewelry. I would never do something like that. How could she possibly accuse me of that? That's the gut reaction. But it's not the right approach to trying to de escalate the situation. It's turning it around by validating and acknowledging and the words do you choose, and this is all part of that self awareness that you're talking about, stopping yourself and go, Oh no, if I get angry because I'm being accused of something that I clearly know I would never do, which is the gut reaction, because you feel hurt that this person could possibly accuse you of stealing. But you have to stop yourself until it becomes second nature and tell yourself, don't react that way. I have the tools to turn the situation around, and then you pull that tool out of your tool belt and but it takes a very, very The point I'm trying to make here, it takes a very strong conscious effort to do that until it does become second nature. And that's not easy for any of us. And I think this is one of the things that caregivers and family members struggle with the most.
Ken D Foster (38:51):
Yeah, they get, you know, we all get caught up in the moment and, you know, and can react. But here, here's the thing, we have to shift at a kind of a global level of our consciousness, and this, hopefully, if you're listening to this, you may want to replay this show a couple times, because I'm giving a lot of tips here, and so is Lisa. So we have to shift from, first of all, you're not a victim here, okay. Now you might feel like a victim, okay, but you're at choice. All right, if you don't feel like you're at choice, I would stop and write out 10 different choices that you could make in this moment today. Great idea, 10 different choices you could make today, so you know you're at choice. You are not a victim, okay? And you know, there's, you know, you're volunteering for this, or you're choosing this at some level, okay? And you go, Well, I'm stuck. I can't do this. I mean, I don't have enough money to hire somebody. Well, you know, there's a lot of service organizations. There's a lot of people out there that are there to help. Have you reached out? Up to them. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not here to criticize you. I'm here to open your mind and open your thinking so that you can have people have more choice, right? So we get out of victimhood because we feel like a victim, we get angry, we we people react. Okay? We just do second of all, once you realize you're a choice, then you choose not to personalize it. Okay? It's not, it's impersonal. Somebody says something to you, okay, quite frankly, you know, when people say stuff to me all the time, I've been coaching forever, okay? But you know, I don't pour if I personalized it off, I took on that energy right then, man, I'd be reacting all day long. So it's an impersonal conversation you may be dealing you know, if, if somebody's accusing you and you're reacting, that's something going on inside of you. It looks like they're causing you to react, but it's inside of you, your reaction is there. So I'd ask myself, what else happens for me and replay it in your mind. Okay, somebody accusing you is taking something replay it. Well, how could I replay that differently next time? How can I do that a little different? And maybe there's some deep work inside of you, which I gave you the release process on my website for free. Okay, maybe you need to release some of your old ways of maybe somebody else accusing you or you not doing, feeling like you were enough, or what have you, okay, yeah, I'm just saying, okay. So the other part of this is, if you want to, if you want to take control of your mind, okay, you have to put a pause in. You have to put a pause between your reaction and and what you say, your response, right? It has to be a pause So somebody says, hey, you know what you You stole my you stole my watch. I can't believe you did that. Now, what I would say to myself is interesting point of view. Okay, interesting point of view. Oh, okay, you You're accusing me interested, because I need a pause there. I need a pause inside of me, so and not go to defensiveness, right? So I might just stop in in, you know, and I know you, Lisa has a lot of compassionate tools that she gives you also to deal with these, these, these situations like this. But I pause interesting point of view. Take some breaths, and you don't have to respond, by the way, nobody says you have to respond or say anything. A lot you're at choice again, right? You know, you might say, well, you know, let I'm not, I'm not prepared to talk to you about this right now. We'll have to talk about a little later. Is that okay? Or you can Lisa, you can give her some of them, some of your tools that you use with compassion, but reaction, okay, somebody says something to you, you want, don't want to react. You want to pause, take some breaths, and then you want to tune into a response coming from love, as opposed to anger, upsetness, anything else your ego, right? So you either come from your soul or you come from your ego, your choice. But it takes practice. That's what I want to say.
Lisa Skinner (43:19):
Okay, wow, you've given us some really, really great tools, ideas, resources. I'm going to ask you one more question, because we are running out of time. What do you believe, or what do you feel that you are most aware of that people are not that could help them generate courageous success. And I you probably already mentioned it, but to wrap things up, can you just really whittle it down to maybe one main point that you you know that maybe you've learned through your path down the yellow brick road to where you are today, that maybe you wished you had known in the very beginning, that could help Our audience today.
Ken D Foster (44:19):
Well, I'd say this. I woke up and I came out of the delusions of life in 1992 and I heard this little voice inside me saying, You got to feel the pain to make the change. And I took it to my therapist at the time, and seen him for a year, and I said, Doc, what's this voice of hearing God, feel the pain, to make the change. And he looked at me, and he said, Ken, I can't help you anymore. Said, you have to go follow that voice. And as I walked out of his office, wondering, didn't he like me anymore? Or why would he say this? You know, I realized that that was the voice of courage. Was the voice of truth. And I needed to start to listen to listen to those symptoms of what was not working in my life, the areas that I was suffering in, in relationship at the time, in physical health at the time, and and in financially at the time, I needed to look at what I didn't want to look at, and then I need to, needed to create a plan around that okay, to to not stay stuck, you know, and sanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. And I was doing that. So I needed to go, to go there. I need to learn that. What that taught me the most important thing that we I shared with you earlier, as I learned to meditate, I learned to find out. What was that voice, feel the pain, make the change. What is that little inner voice that I called intuition today, and many people call it, but that intuitive, that understanding that little silent voice that speaks to me. So I figured that out. But then the hardest part was to have to start to
(46:08):
listen to that voice and trust that voice, and have faith in that voice, and
have have a understanding, a real a real understanding of that voice, that voice is learned, is is the voice of wisdom. So it's the voice of truth. And when you can hear it within you, when you stop going 90 miles an hour and you take breaks throughout the day, five minute, 10 minute, connect to yourself longer periods of stillness and contemplation in the morning, in the evening, when you can do that, life changes and it gets better, it'll get better for you. It's a universal principle that I'm teaching you here. So if you have
Lisa Skinner (46:51):
given us probably the most powerful takeaway of of for all of us, I don't think there's a whole lot more to say that was a very, very powerful takeaway for all of us to, you know, just really digest and try to implement into our daily lives. Thank you so much. Did you want to No,
Ken D Foster (47:16):
I think, I think that that's right. Come. I hope people will come and visit me. Visit my website, Ken D foster com, on that home page too. If you'd like to connect with me, you'd like to talk to me a little bit about how I might be able to support you. I love, love to invite you to do that and
Lisa Skinner (47:38):
also find the the release resource,
Ken D Foster (47:42):
yeah, they can find the release process right at Ken D foster.com Ken D foster.com you can find that and you can get in touch with me. There. Too. Awesome.
Lisa Skinner (47:51):
Wow. This has been just an incredible discussion. I appreciate you being here so much, and I really hope that it resonated with a lot of people who will be listening to this, because it's such a just important part of the world, of their world, when they're caring or have a family member who's living with Alzheimer's and dementia. So every little bit helps that we can, you know, help relieve some of the overwhelm that we've been talking about during this episode, and hopefully make their worlds a little easier to cope with,
Ken D Foster (48:34):
as I would just my final thought on that would just be, you know, trust The process. You know, dying is part of living. You know, though it's painful, you know, it can also be a time of deep love, reflection, forgiveness and and even beauty, if we, you know, if we put on the eyes to see that beauty, alright?
Lisa Skinner (48:57):
Thanks again for being here, Ken, appreciate it very, very much. You're an amazing human being that'll conclude this episode of the truth lies and Alzheimer's show. I'm Lisa Skinner, your host, and we, of course, will be back with another new episode next week. And I hope everybody out there listening to this today enjoys a very happy and healthy rest of your week. Thanks again for being here and spending part of your day with us, and we'll be back next week. So hope to see you then. Bye, bye. You.
Hello everybody, and welcome to another brand new episode of the truth, lies and Alzheimer show. I'm Lisa Skinner, your host. I am super excited about today's episode because I have a very special guest with us today, and I'm going to introduce him in just a second, but I asked him, I was just recently a guest on his podcast, and we had such a powerful and dynamic discussion, mostly related to Alzheimer's disease and dementia, but I thought Ken would be such a perfect guest for the truth lies and Alzheimer show because of what he does and what he offers, and the impact that it could have on our caregivers and our family members, who are either currently going through this devastating and heartbreaking experience with the people they're caring for, living with Alzheimer's and dementia, and also their family members. And as we all know, this is a very long course disease. The average is eight to 15 years. My grandmother lived with it for 20 years. So it's unpredictable at how long we actually will join somebody in this dementia journey, and for caregivers, especially, it is can be very overwhelming. So Ken's going to give us some suggestions today of how we might be able to manage that a little bit better. But let me get right into my introduction of this very special man. His name is Ken D Foster and just a little bit about his background. He is a keynote speaker, a best selling author, a business strategist and a news personality who owns a broadcast and media production company. He is the executive producer and host of the voices of courage show syndicated on TV, podcast, plus radio and broadcast in 185 countries. He specializes in working with people who are committed to leveling up their lives, maximizing their highest potential and contributing to making the world a better place now can has developed a science based highly practical solutions for stimulating human potential in either companies or individuals who are seeking personal balance, increased profitability, organizational productivity, time management, meditation techniques, systemic solutions and authentic team building, communication. His book is called the courage to change everything which provides proven wealth strategies and success principles to help people stand in their strength, awaken their inner genius and fast track their success. And the forward for his book was written by the famous Stephen M r COVID. That's pretty impressive. His book, The courage to change everything, gives readers the exact messages they need daily to instill wisdom and wealth principles deeply into their consciousness. Okay, you asked me, What does this have to do with Alzheimer's disease and dementia? And really, the parallel there between his expertise and what we talk about on this show is finding our courage and our strength to continue to do what we do every single day, which is we all know can go on for years and years and years. And I don't think that anybody would argue that this is probably one of the biggest challenges that all of us who have been through this face. How much longer can I do this? How do I find the strength and the courage to keep going? So that's what Ken is here to talk to us about today, and I can't wait to hear what he has to say. So without further ado. I'd like to welcome Ken to the show. Thanks for being here, Ken, it is such a pleasure to have you here today. I was just on your show a few weeks ago. It was such a positive experience for me, and I know that this is just going to be a dynamic conversation for us today and for our listeners, so maybe they can find some answers to how they can get through this experience in their life with maybe a little less stress and more happiness. But
Ken D Foster (05:36):
well, I hope so. And and thank you so much for having me on your show. And, you know, it's, it's a long journey, as you mentioned, with the dementia or Alzheimer's diseases of the mind. And you know, there's, there's some science around it these days, kind of getting to cause, you know, I have a show also called heal it. And you know, in that show, we try to get to the cause which you were on there, because, you know, cause and effect. So, yeah, you know, this is a, this is a difficult journey, and I'm nobody has needs me to tell them that. But you know, with any journey in life, we're all on a journey. We're all in quest. Some are more difficult than others, but during that journey, you know, the first step that I know is whatever the journey is, we have to honor the journey. You know, we have to acknowledge that the this is a sacred process. Every moment matters. You know, we focus on the presence, rather than, you know, trying to fix or fade the the individuals that are going through this. You know, we're there to in my world. We're there to learn how to love deeper and deeper. And it's sometimes you go, I don't want to love anybody like this, you know, because it's just sometimes it gets ugly, but truly it is love that changes everything. Can
Lisa Skinner (07:10):
I ask you this question? So with the World Health Organization officially recognizing burnout as a true syndrome, what insight can you share with our audience? My audience about how to use courage to avoid overwhelm, because people who care for people living with dementia and family members who are going through this experience, they live in a world that is not short of overwhelm. So how can your ideology of finding courage apply to people in the Alzheimer's world? Well, first
Ken D Foster (07:57):
of all, let's, let's define courage. Courage is something that is innate. It's in all of us. It shows up when we walk into the unknown. It is an energy, it's a feeling, it's a power within us. Now, I said it shows up when we walk into the unknown unknown. That's that's accurate. Okay, so if you're doing the same old thing, same old thing, same old thing, you may think you're in the courage, but truly, you're just doing the same old thing. So in my world, you know, there's, I think the World Health Organization came out and they, you know, or one of the agencies just said that in the United States anyway. So it wasn't a who, but yeah, I think it was the one of the psych psychology associations, so that 60% of the people are stressed out in this country. So it's now whether you have, you know, you're going through Alzheimer's or or dementia, or your take your caregiver in some other capacity. Where does stress come from, and what? What we learned? Okay, and a lot of people don't want to hear this, but you know, we're creating our own stress, right? We're creating our own stress. You can't make I can't make anybody happy if they choose to be unhappy. And I can't make anybody unhappy if they choose to be happy. I just can't. I've been coaching people for over 30 years, okay, three decades, and I can, I can tell you that when people can shift how they use their mind, because the mind is over emotions, emotions over actions, actions over result. So when you can start to shift what you focus on, you can start to shift your attitude, and you can actually start to feel better. Now, some caregivers, and actually, if it's not some, there's a lot of caregivers that have to set boundaries, right? You just have to have boundaries. And if you don't have those boundaries, if people are testing your boundaries all the time, and that's you know, you saying yes to your you're over saying yes, okay, then you have to develop the outside of that, the the other side of that. You gotta. Develop the no power, right? So people have, you know, I want this. I want this. I want you to do this that you go, No, I won't do this. You develop your won't power or no power in in that situation. So we gotta understand how we use our mind. We have to understand our boundaries. And those are the first two steps to getting out over well.
Lisa Skinner (10:22):
So you say here that overwhelm is prevalent in this century. You just said that it seems like the more we do, the more there is to do. I'm quoting you. Yeah, many people think they will never get caught up, right, right? This is just a symptom of not realizing what our your soulful self can accomplish, and probably saying yes too much to the whims, desires and demands put before you. Unfettered courage can change this around permanently. So I'm going to ask you to kind of go a little deeper into what you mean by that. But I also want to say because maybe you can address this. Too many, too much. Saying yes to too many whims, desires and demands are part of what somebody is taking on when they're caring for somebody with living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementia. It's just goes with the territory, and I think a lot of caregivers would not argue that it's just part of their world, and you never know what you can expect. Things just come up out of nowhere, and you know different behaviors and different symptomology, and that's why it's overwhelming. So how do you how would you speak to to that piece of it that sometimes it's out of their control, the demands that are put on them. You say, unfettered courage can change this around for people, but I think their struggle is alright. How do you make that happen?
Ken D Foster (12:21):
So remember I said, Courage shows up when you walk into the unknown. So some of you are Go, go, go, go, do, do, do, do, do, and you don't take any time to slow down to succeed. So isolation is the is the i i want to say isolation and stillness are the prices that we pay to get out of overwhelm. And what I mean by that is that when you're feeling that sense of that's it's just too much. It's time to stop immediately. It's time to go find a place, to quiet your mind, to still yourself, even for five minutes, you'd be amazed at what five minutes of just stillness, where you take some deep breaths in, tense up your body, double exhale out, do that three to five times. Okay, tell your body, okay, to relax. Give your body a command, okay, the mind is over the body, okay, the body's not over the mind, but the mind can control the body. So you tell your body to relax, take some deep breaths, calm yourself. And there's a realization that we all need to know, okay? And that is, you know, in my little finger here, I have atoms, right? If you split the atoms in my little finger, there's enough power in there to light up New York City. So we all have to remember that, you know we we have the power. It's in us. What disempowers us is what we really have to look at, what takes away your energy, your your vitality, your your your power, right? Just your power. What takes it away? Well, what takes it away, of course, is thinking that it'll will this will never end, thinking that this is too much, thinking that I'm in overwhelm, thinking that this will never end. You know, how do you feel when they even say that to you? You're like, oh, okay, so our mind and what we focus on, we feel if you're focusing on what you don't have, if you're focusing on what you're what you're lacking, if you're focusing on this is too much. I guarantee you're going to feel it right. So if you were to, what if you would shift the mind and start to affirm, okay, everything is working out. It's if there's a great plan for me for this. I'm evolving. I'm growing. I'm getting better and better every day in every way. And listen, it's kind of silly, isn't it? But, you know. But when you start to say those things, you actually start to feel differently. So it it the mind. Can we can do a lot with our mind. Okay, that's first step. But remember, stillness is the price, and isolation is the price we pay. To get out of overwhelm, we gotta reconnect with that stillness, that peace inside of us, you know, people are always looking to buy peace of mind, right? Well, when I buy a new car, I have peace of mind. When I go out and I make more money, I have peace of mind. Well, when I get this new relationship about peace of mind, oh, you know, I'm a caregiver, when this goes away, off peace of mind, no, you won't. You won't. Okay, you'll just have something more to do. Peace of mind is something that we let go of thinking the pieces I just said, and we start to affirm the greatness that's within us. We live from a place of gratitude. I don't know about you, Lisa, but when I wake up in the morning, my eyes open up. First thing I think about is what I'm grateful for, because I've learned how I start the day is a lot of times how I end the day.
Lisa Skinner (16:10):
I do the exact same thing, and if I'm hearing what you're saying accurately, are you just kind of to just present this in a different way, because I think this is important for people to to be conscious of. Are you saying that being self aware plays a role in having the courage to change your life, because I have had eight family members who have lived with Alzheimer's disease and related. And I know, you know, I've walked in the shoes of caregivers. I've been a, you know, a surrogate caregiver, if you would. I've watched people do this for 30 years now, and I know what they go through. I know what we go through every single day in this world. And you can't help but become negative about the tremendous demands that are put on you. So I think what you're saying here is, if you're aware that you're looking at something with negativity, versus trying to turn it around and find the positive in it, that can make a huge difference. Am I? Am I? Here? You hear me, correct?
Ken D Foster (17:39):
And here's the thing, you know, I'm not saying there's no problems, there's no problems, there's no problems. And try to be so positive personally, you know, like, everything's fine, you know, everything's great. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that with, like you said, with mindfulness, looking and realizing that you are in charge of your thoughts. Okay, nobody else. One of the things I do with my coaching class is, you know, some sometimes we live in denial, okay? And some of you know, in other words, well, you know everything's going to work out. Well, maybe it won't work out, okay. But here's what I know, is that if you you tell yourself you know what, it's coming, yeah, it's coming the next the next surprises come in. The next doctors come in the next, you know, just prepare yourself. Okay, it's coming, right? And there's a place within us that only only we can create peaceful environments within ourselves, right? You know, life demands a lot life demand. You know, life is here to help us to grow, to learn, to evolve. And sometimes it takes a lot. Sometimes it takes more than you've ever imagined. And sometimes you look back and you go, Wow, where did I find that? The energy, the courage, the power to to move past that, what was already in you. You just stepped into it. Sometimes we play really, really small. Now, listen, I don't, you know. I can't imagine, you know, walking through what a lot of you walk through. Okay, it hasn't been my path to be able to take care of a mom or a dad or a friend or my wife with Alzheimer's. Hey, it may come. I may have, you know that may happen to me? Okay, here's what I know I will continue to do because I live my life this way. First of all, be very clear on creating a positive environment, a peaceful environment, soft music playing in the morning. For me when I wake up, I put on YouTube now, and they have I put on high energy frequency music on YouTube, right because there's a lot of science around it, there's certain megahertz that we can listen to that will uplift our minds and help our minds to stay healthy and vital. So, you know, music is very important piece here. You know. So I think journaling your journey sometimes helps to really just, you know, talk to you, let that journey, let that journal be your guide. Yeah, you know, journal everything in it, how difficult it is, what's happened, what's not happened. You know, where you found strength, where you didn't find strength? That helps us, and I think forgiveness on a daily basis. Every single day, we have to release and let go of what happened, right? Because otherwise we builds up. It's like if you go through something that's very difficult and you go, Oh my god, I can't believe this happened. And then you start anticipating it's going to happen again and again. You start building that up in your mind, and quite frankly, you're not going to feel good about what you're doing. So release is really important, by the way. On my website, if you For those who'd like this, there's a free release process there. You just go to Ken D foster.com scroll down on the page and look at the release process. It helps people release shame and guilt remorse. Shoulda, coulda. Woulda is, you know, trauma, drama. It's designed that way. It takes most people about three hours to do the first first round of that. Okay, but a lot of people tell me it's like taking a dark pair of sunglasses off they've never even knew they had on when, when they complete that. In other words, you release, you feel lighter, you feel better. Um, that's the formula for success.
Lisa Skinner (21:33):
So one of the things that I read that you talk about in the courage to change everything is the importance of becoming aware of your inner genius. What does that mean? What do you mean by that? Can you elaborate?
Ken D Foster (21:52):
I absolutely would love to elaborate on that so we are all born geniuses. And what I mean by that is that we come into this world, and of course, we're socialized into different systems, into uh family systems, into uh, school systems, into religious systems, and and on and on it goes. But at you know, and so we're programmed. We got a lot of programming. You listen in the news, that's programming you you're listening, you know, on one side of the political argument or the other. Now you're programmed into that. So we're all, we're all putting all of this into our mind. Where does it go? Well, it doesn't go away. It's, it's layered in what Carl young might call the collective unconscious of the subconscious mind, okay? And, you know, and then we have the conscious mind, everything we see, feel, taste and touch, right in this moment. And then there's something else. It's called the super conscious mind, okay? Some people call it the universal mind, because some people call it the Acacia records. There's a lot of names for this super consciousness. Somebody people call it, but it's that place within us where we can get quiet and still, that all of the answers to everything that we've ever wanted to know lie. It's not it's not an AI, it's not on. You know, you don't need more AI, you don't need more Google, you know, I mean, if you do you need more information, of course you're going to look in those areas. But what people fail, fail to lack or lack is what we would call gut instinct. A lot of people call that, right their God. They have a gut instinct. Or what is that? I call it intuition. There's an intuitive side of us that can tap into these higher realms of consciousness, we find that a thought is not individual. Thought is universal. We're tapping into these higher realms of consciousness. People that are meditators, people that are, I guess, have learned how to use their mind be in theta waves or gamma waves, because that's where the creativity starts to open up. The sciences neurosciences showed us that, so that we have the ability everybody has, the ability we're all born with this, to tap into our inner genius. That's what I call it. Okay, so
Unknown (24:17):
it takes,
Ken D Foster (24:19):
we all have it. It just takes development. We have to develop our intuition. We can develop it through walking in a forest and being mindful. We can develop it through meditation. We can develop it by by music, by staying in this, you know, beautiful, high frequency music, right? I have a story around that. I have one of my my nephews has, ADHD, ADD, you know, he's been diagnosed with a bunch of stuff, right? And he was in high school. He got beat up. When he got beat up in high school, he went completely in. Nobody could talk to him again. He stopped talking to everybody, and he had to drop out of. High School, I had a friend. His name is Mark Romero. Mark Romero was one of the first this is about 20 years ago, 25 years ago. He's one of the first musicians that they study this frequency of his music, and the scientists study this resonance that his music was giving out. And what they found out is this resonance of this music, and they didn't know why, at the time, had a the ability to help people to reconnect with their in their brain, heal themselves. So anyway, long story short, I'm driving with my nephew, and I said I thought I'm going to put on Mark's music. I want to see how it works for him. So I put on his CV at the time, and sure enough, Jordan starts talking to me, just as we are right now. I'm like, This is really weird. He's been in for a couple years at the time, right? So we and I went, wow. Okay, great. This, you know, this is a science that needs to be studied now, there's a lot of studies around music and and a lot of the mind diseases right now, and they're finding findings. You know, that people can improve, right? They can get better the economy, if you have can get better with certain frequencies. Does it apply to everybody? No, okay, why? I'm not a scientist, but I do know that a lot of studies going on in this area. Was
Lisa Skinner (26:27):
this particular music that you were playing for your nephew, by any chance, on the theta frequency, because I was just reading recently, I'm
Ken D Foster (26:36):
guessing it's theta and it's there's also rife, rife his they studied rife frequencies that 900 I forgot the hertz, but it's like 400 and something hurts. And 900 something hertz, and 1000 something hertz, they seem to put us into a theta gamma state. So yeah, meditators, long term meditators go into these states consistently, which I happen to be one of those.
Lisa Skinner (27:08):
Yeah, and I'm reading recently that if you can tap into the theta and some of the other frequencies, you can just really change your paradigm about about a lot of things, you know, changing your gut reaction of being a negative one, to turning it around and finding the positive in it. So, yeah, I think we need to maybe do a little bit more research.
Ken D Foster (27:37):
I think you know, Nicholas Tesla back in the 1920s you know. And Einstein basically repeated the same thing, but he said, If you want to understand the universe, understand energy, frequency and vibration, right, right? So, you know, we've got, we've come a long way in the last 10 years. There's a lot of research about energy, frequency of vibration to heal, everything from infrared, infrared healing to, you know, sound healing, light healing. There's, there's a lot going on in this field. And, you know, it's, it's interesting, because I found this in my own life, in life, a lot of clients, Lisa is that is healing is a journey, okay? And, you know, it's a quest, right? We get on this quest, and just because a doctor says, oh, you know what, you you're never going to heal, okay? That believe the doctor, because he doesn't know how to heal that. Okay? I've had several people come on my show that the doctors told them they'd never heal, and they healed and went on to become teachers, alright? But, but you have to get on a quest and start to realize that there are individuals out there that can improve your life that it can improve what's going on. We're not meant to be on the planet to go through continuous pain and suffering and misery. Those are warning signs that something needs to change. Right? We need to change, whether it's in our attitude, whether it's in our physical life, whether it's in our spiritual life, whether it's in our environment, right? You know, some people live in very toxic environments, alright, they have chemicals in their environments. They're under, you know, Wi Fi towers. They're under power lines. They're they've got any number of poisons in the environment, and they're not aware of it, okay? And the same thing in our foods, you know, you know, I heard recently that, you know, you know, diabetes is, is, is sugar. In the liver. You know, Alzheimer's is sugar in the brain. You know, anyway, it went on and on. I thought, well, that's interesting. I'm sure that there's a cause there. This probably may not be the end all be all, but I think we need to look at, what are we putting in our bot mind? What are we putting in our body? What are we? What are we living in, in our environments? And when we can start to be open and aware, to be mindful of it, and you know, if it's not working again, based on the premise, we're not here to be in misery and suffering and pain all the time, if it's not working, then what is it that we need to do to change? There's a question that I ask myself, and I have my clients ask every night that is, what worked today, what didn't work today, and what can I do to improve tomorrow? If you were to ask that question for the next 365, days, little steps, little improvements. Okay, you know, the doctors don't have all the answers, the coaches don't have the answers. The therapists don't have your answers. You have your answers, but it takes a little work to get to them. And here's the thing, if disease, yeah, had a doctor describe this to me, he he said people are basically in four stages of health, okay, of disease, excuse me, stage one in the people can pretty much heal themselves in stage one of a disease. Stage Two, they may need a little help from a practitioner, possibly a MD, that could help em. Stage three and four, when doctors usually get a hold of people right, because they did not they haven't been a conscious of stage one or two. Stage three, they can still heal. Stage four, it's highly unlikely they'll heal. And a lot of people don't see a doctor for their pain in their back or their legs or their neck or their gut or their their their mind until they get to stage four and they go, Oh my gosh. You know, I'm in stage four. I didn't know it well. It's because somehow you were not paying attention. Hate to say it. You know, health is and people don't like me to say this, but when we take 100% responsibility for what happens in our world, then things start to change. So no more blame, no more shame, no more guilting yourself or anybody else, you just take responsibility. Okay, this isn't working. If you're an overwhelmed that's not working, okay. If you're over giving that's not working, okay. It's like we feel trapped. Because, wow, who else is going to help me? I don't know, but I do know this, I wrote a book. My first best selling book was called Ask and you will succeed and get it on Amazon. And it's filled with specific questions to empower people to ask the right questions in 35 different areas of life, whether it's in health or in business or in having quantum breakthroughs in your world. If we ask, and we keep asking, we stick at it, it's a quest, we will get the answers, and we can break out of overwhelm and stress and worry and concern as a permanent fixture in our lives. Well, you've
Lisa Skinner (33:23):
already given us some really valuable insight and tips on taking some baby steps to change this situation. And as we all know, and this is actually a fact, a lot of caregivers for people of who live with Alzheimer's disease and dementia become so overwhelmed and so stressed out, they die before the people they're caring for do because they don't know how to release they don't know how to let go. You've already given us some good advice on how to do that, but, and you know, we talk a lot about this on this show, to try to provide caregivers with tools to kind of retrain how they're going to respond to a lot of the behaviors and and things that we see that accompany these diseases. And I'll give you an example, because I want to break this down for our listeners so they actually can relate it to what this might look like in an everyday situation. So let's say you're caring for somebody with Alzheimer's disease, and we know that one of the behaviors and symptoms that is very common is that they can display signs of pain. Paranoia and suspiciousness. So it's not uncommon for a caregiver to be accused of stealing the person they're caring for, jewelry or something one of their possessions, that maybe the person that they're caring for actually put it someplace and can't remember. But because of the changing brain and the damage that the brain disease has done to the brain, they become suspicious, they become paranoid, and their first gut reaction when they can't find what they're looking for is to blame their caregiver. Now our gut reaction to that as a caregiver is usually defensiveness and arguing and saying, How can you possibly blame me for this? I care for you every single day, or I'm your daughter. I would never do that to you. And what we teach here is a different approach to that same scenario, to turn the whole situation around in just the words you say and how you handle it, but that takes changing your way of thinking, and it's going back to that self awareness and not just reacting on gut instinct. We have to recondition ourselves, because the gut instinct reaction is only going to further exacerbate the situation. Yeah, create more anxiety, create more anger to the person that is accusing you. So we have a whole formula for, you know, best practice approach versus the gut instinct approach. Yeah. So if that situation arises, because I want to break this down so people out there can actually relate it to something that commonly happens. And I think what I'm taking away from this entire discussion and conversation is the awareness, is the self awareness, and you have to stop yourself from, I don't like being accused of stealing her jewelry. I would never do something like that. How could she possibly accuse me of that? That's the gut reaction. But it's not the right approach to trying to de escalate the situation. It's turning it around by validating and acknowledging and the words do you choose, and this is all part of that self awareness that you're talking about, stopping yourself and go, Oh no, if I get angry because I'm being accused of something that I clearly know I would never do, which is the gut reaction, because you feel hurt that this person could possibly accuse you of stealing. But you have to stop yourself until it becomes second nature and tell yourself, don't react that way. I have the tools to turn the situation around, and then you pull that tool out of your tool belt and but it takes a very, very The point I'm trying to make here, it takes a very strong conscious effort to do that until it does become second nature. And that's not easy for any of us. And I think this is one of the things that caregivers and family members struggle with the most.
Ken D Foster (38:51):
Yeah, they get, you know, we all get caught up in the moment and, you know, and can react. But here, here's the thing, we have to shift at a kind of a global level of our consciousness, and this, hopefully, if you're listening to this, you may want to replay this show a couple times, because I'm giving a lot of tips here, and so is Lisa. So we have to shift from, first of all, you're not a victim here, okay. Now you might feel like a victim, okay, but you're at choice. All right, if you don't feel like you're at choice, I would stop and write out 10 different choices that you could make in this moment today. Great idea, 10 different choices you could make today, so you know you're at choice. You are not a victim, okay? And you know, there's, you know, you're volunteering for this, or you're choosing this at some level, okay? And you go, Well, I'm stuck. I can't do this. I mean, I don't have enough money to hire somebody. Well, you know, there's a lot of service organizations. There's a lot of people out there that are there to help. Have you reached out? Up to them. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not here to criticize you. I'm here to open your mind and open your thinking so that you can have people have more choice, right? So we get out of victimhood because we feel like a victim, we get angry, we we people react. Okay? We just do second of all, once you realize you're a choice, then you choose not to personalize it. Okay? It's not, it's impersonal. Somebody says something to you, okay, quite frankly, you know, when people say stuff to me all the time, I've been coaching forever, okay? But you know, I don't pour if I personalized it off, I took on that energy right then, man, I'd be reacting all day long. So it's an impersonal conversation you may be dealing you know, if, if somebody's accusing you and you're reacting, that's something going on inside of you. It looks like they're causing you to react, but it's inside of you, your reaction is there. So I'd ask myself, what else happens for me and replay it in your mind. Okay, somebody accusing you is taking something replay it. Well, how could I replay that differently next time? How can I do that a little different? And maybe there's some deep work inside of you, which I gave you the release process on my website for free. Okay, maybe you need to release some of your old ways of maybe somebody else accusing you or you not doing, feeling like you were enough, or what have you, okay, yeah, I'm just saying, okay. So the other part of this is, if you want to, if you want to take control of your mind, okay, you have to put a pause in. You have to put a pause between your reaction and and what you say, your response, right? It has to be a pause So somebody says, hey, you know what you You stole my you stole my watch. I can't believe you did that. Now, what I would say to myself is interesting point of view. Okay, interesting point of view. Oh, okay, you You're accusing me interested, because I need a pause there. I need a pause inside of me, so and not go to defensiveness, right? So I might just stop in in, you know, and I know you, Lisa has a lot of compassionate tools that she gives you also to deal with these, these, these situations like this. But I pause interesting point of view. Take some breaths, and you don't have to respond, by the way, nobody says you have to respond or say anything. A lot you're at choice again, right? You know, you might say, well, you know, let I'm not, I'm not prepared to talk to you about this right now. We'll have to talk about a little later. Is that okay? Or you can Lisa, you can give her some of them, some of your tools that you use with compassion, but reaction, okay, somebody says something to you, you want, don't want to react. You want to pause, take some breaths, and then you want to tune into a response coming from love, as opposed to anger, upsetness, anything else your ego, right? So you either come from your soul or you come from your ego, your choice. But it takes practice. That's what I want to say.
Lisa Skinner (43:19):
Okay, wow, you've given us some really, really great tools, ideas, resources. I'm going to ask you one more question, because we are running out of time. What do you believe, or what do you feel that you are most aware of that people are not that could help them generate courageous success. And I you probably already mentioned it, but to wrap things up, can you just really whittle it down to maybe one main point that you you know that maybe you've learned through your path down the yellow brick road to where you are today, that maybe you wished you had known in the very beginning, that could help Our audience today.
Ken D Foster (44:19):
Well, I'd say this. I woke up and I came out of the delusions of life in 1992 and I heard this little voice inside me saying, You got to feel the pain to make the change. And I took it to my therapist at the time, and seen him for a year, and I said, Doc, what's this voice of hearing God, feel the pain, to make the change. And he looked at me, and he said, Ken, I can't help you anymore. Said, you have to go follow that voice. And as I walked out of his office, wondering, didn't he like me anymore? Or why would he say this? You know, I realized that that was the voice of courage. Was the voice of truth. And I needed to start to listen to listen to those symptoms of what was not working in my life, the areas that I was suffering in, in relationship at the time, in physical health at the time, and and in financially at the time, I needed to look at what I didn't want to look at, and then I need to, needed to create a plan around that okay, to to not stay stuck, you know, and sanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. And I was doing that. So I needed to go, to go there. I need to learn that. What that taught me the most important thing that we I shared with you earlier, as I learned to meditate, I learned to find out. What was that voice, feel the pain, make the change. What is that little inner voice that I called intuition today, and many people call it, but that intuitive, that understanding that little silent voice that speaks to me. So I figured that out. But then the hardest part was to have to start to
(46:08):
listen to that voice and trust that voice, and have faith in that voice, and
have have a understanding, a real a real understanding of that voice, that voice is learned, is is the voice of wisdom. So it's the voice of truth. And when you can hear it within you, when you stop going 90 miles an hour and you take breaks throughout the day, five minute, 10 minute, connect to yourself longer periods of stillness and contemplation in the morning, in the evening, when you can do that, life changes and it gets better, it'll get better for you. It's a universal principle that I'm teaching you here. So if you have
Lisa Skinner (46:51):
given us probably the most powerful takeaway of of for all of us, I don't think there's a whole lot more to say that was a very, very powerful takeaway for all of us to, you know, just really digest and try to implement into our daily lives. Thank you so much. Did you want to No,
Ken D Foster (47:16):
I think, I think that that's right. Come. I hope people will come and visit me. Visit my website, Ken D foster com, on that home page too. If you'd like to connect with me, you'd like to talk to me a little bit about how I might be able to support you. I love, love to invite you to do that and
Lisa Skinner (47:38):
also find the the release resource,
Ken D Foster (47:42):
yeah, they can find the release process right at Ken D foster.com Ken D foster.com you can find that and you can get in touch with me. There. Too. Awesome.
Lisa Skinner (47:51):
Wow. This has been just an incredible discussion. I appreciate you being here so much, and I really hope that it resonated with a lot of people who will be listening to this, because it's such a just important part of the world, of their world, when they're caring or have a family member who's living with Alzheimer's and dementia. So every little bit helps that we can, you know, help relieve some of the overwhelm that we've been talking about during this episode, and hopefully make their worlds a little easier to cope with,
Ken D Foster (48:34):
as I would just my final thought on that would just be, you know, trust The process. You know, dying is part of living. You know, though it's painful, you know, it can also be a time of deep love, reflection, forgiveness and and even beauty, if we, you know, if we put on the eyes to see that beauty, alright?
Lisa Skinner (48:57):
Thanks again for being here, Ken, appreciate it very, very much. You're an amazing human being that'll conclude this episode of the truth lies and Alzheimer's show. I'm Lisa Skinner, your host, and we, of course, will be back with another new episode next week. And I hope everybody out there listening to this today enjoys a very happy and healthy rest of your week. Thanks again for being here and spending part of your day with us, and we'll be back next week. So hope to see you then. Bye, bye. You.
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