Breaking Free from Caregiver Burnout: A Professional's Raw Truth - Laurie Kennedy

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Jack Heald: Hey, thanks for joining us folks. This is the Predictive Health Clinic Podcast. I am joined today by Laurie Kennedy, who was referred to me by a mutual friend. And I'm really interested in this conversation for not just professional, but also personal reasons, which we don't need to go into. So Laurie, welcome.

Laurie Kennedy: Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and being here with you.

Jack Heald: As you know, we keep it pretty tight here. The goal for the Predictive Health Clinic, every episode, we want to make sure that folks get information that they can actually use. So we want to focus on one particular health issue, something you can either help us recover from or prevent ever happening.

So what's your issue? What is it? The one, what's the one thing you want to talk about today?

Laurie Kennedy: Burnout. I want to talk about burnout in the caregivers that support everyone in the medical space.

Jack Heald: Wow. Okay. How did you get interested in this particular issue? I'll bet this is going to be a good story.

Laurie Kennedy: I am a caregiver myself. I've been a caregiver for well over 25 years in the disabled population, nonprofit sector, 24/7 care provider, working within the home health space in and out of doctor's clinics with my clients and over the years, I have learned to really put everyone else in front of myself and it's doing just the

Jack Heald:  It's kind of just the caregiver thing, isn't it?

Laurie Kennedy: It's 100 percent a caregiver thing, and especially people who are they're really, they really do love being a caregiver. They forget how much it affects them personally, and how much it affects them long term.

Jack Heald:  I'm gonna go off script just a little bit. I'm not gonna chase a rabbit down the hole, but we are going to look at where the rabbit went. How has this affected you personally?

Laurie Kennedy: After my dad passed away, I did his hospice care. I did not want anyone to touch my dad when he was in hospice. And so after I did his hospice care, I was pretty much 24/7, I think I had in about two weeks, I probably had about eight hours of sleep and after my dad passed, I really had to have a sit-down conversation with myself because I said, I'm done.

I do not want to do this anymore. But I kept going back to, but it's where my, it's what I enjoy. It's where I know I'm needed. It's no, I know that I'm good at this. And it really that year after my dad passed, it was a huge struggle to actually figure out how to start making sure that I still enjoyed what I did. And make sure that I was still giving care to my clients at my best ability, putting my best foot forward for them.

Jack Heald:  So I'm reading between the lines here. I'm guessing that what happened was a combination of emotional, mental and physical we call it burnout, exhaustion, failure to take care of the machine that is delivering the goods. Am I reading that right? Yeah, that's correct.

Laurie Kennedy: I was 100 percent pouring from a cup that had absolutely nothing left in it.

Jack Heald:  That's a better way to say it. Trying to pour from a cup that was empty.

Laurie Kennedy: It was completely empty.

Jack Heald:  How did that affect your life? Where did you see the effects and what, you know, some of the symptoms?

Laurie Kennedy: Sure. Great question. I'm trying to think back. Like, how did it all progress right after my dad passed? My concern then went to making sure that my mom was cared for. My mom has also been a caregiver her whole life and it's kind of been passed down. It's a family thing.

I actually just to preface, I have been a caregiver since I can remember in that meaning five years old, I have a disabled brother and so it was just kind of ingrained to us as we grew up, how to care for other people that couldn't care for themselves. So my brain immediately went to caring for my mom, not fully taking in what I needed to take care of for myself.

The grieving process, the burnout that I did, the lack of sleep, the everything else that I let go. And so it was almost like everything was just kind of imploding on itself after my dad passed. I then went through a divorce within the same year and then trying to figure out like where I was supposed to fit in and still trying to do my job to the best of my ability.

Everything just felt like it was falling to pieces. And I felt like I wasn't giving everything that I knew I could give because of all the outside things that I just had let go.

Jack Heald:  All right. So let's talk about normally what I ask here, what are some of the common misconceptions about this issue? That may be a good question. I'm not sure. What are some of the common misconceptions about caregiver?

Laurie Kennedy: Sure. I think the biggest misconception that everybody, and I think this goes for any profession, is that burnout's just part of the job. It's not.

Jack Heald: That's actually really good.

Laurie Kennedy: It's not, burnout is not part of any job. And if you've reached a level of burnout it requires you to push through things and then you start to really, um, you start to not be the person that you like anymore. You start to just not care about the things around you, the people around you. You don't give how you know, you could give. When it comes to, it's just part of the job. Just get used to it. Just push through it. It's a misconception.

Jack Heald: I'll be frank with you, I had a partner for 13 years who was a caregiver and she was burnt out all the time. And I believed up until this moment that you said it, that burnout really was part of the job. I was one of those people that had the misconception.

Laurie Kennedy: Oh, I was too. I was part of the, it's part of my job.

Burnout is not a badge of honor that you wear around with pride. It's a signal that you're doing something wrong and you need to change. And it doesn't mean you need to change your profession. It just means that you need to change the way you are carrying your load.

Jack Heald: For me right now, that's a mic drop moment. And I wasn't the one who was experiencing the burnout. I was the one who was living with the person who lived with the burnout. And from my side, it was zero fun. And it had to have been worse for her.

Wow. I'm, it's so funny. I'm going to talk to our audience real quick. Laurie said before we started recording, gosh, I hope I'm a good fit for your show. And I said, I don't know, let's find out. And I will, I want to say to the audience, this has already been the single most revelatory interview I've had in this entire space because I personally had that misconception.

I have thought for a long time, gosh people who, who work in nursing, that's how I think of caregiving. I know it's a broader, it's a broader category than that but that category of people, gosh, I guess they're just burned out all the time. And I just kind of accepted that's what it was.

Okay. So the truth is that ain't a necessary part of the job. All right. So let's get to the meat of the subject now.

Laurie Kennedy: Sure.

Jack Heald:  What do we got to do? What do we do differently? And I think it's important to point out that you just said, no matter your profession, yes it's endemic with caregivers, but no matter your profession, if you're burnt out that's not a signal that you're a hero, that's a signal that something's got to be fixed. So let's talk about that.

Laurie Kennedy: So when it comes to, and I will say that if, and my mentor said this one time and I was like, that's great.

If you think I'm a great teacher, it's because I'm an amazing student. I am still learning ways to care for myself and allow myself to be active in my healing phase of burnout.

It doesn't happen. Like fixing your burnout does not happen overnight.

Jack Heald:  It's not a pill you take.

Laurie Kennedy: No, if it was a pill you would take, it would be prescribed or it'd be an over-the-counter. It'd be easy and it'd be fine. But you have to figure out what it is. And this I think is a challenge when it comes to most caregivers.

You have to figure out what it is that you enjoy doing for yourself.

And so many people who were thrown into caregiving have lost the ability to be like, oh, I enjoy doing puzzles. I enjoy reading. I enjoy sitting out on the porch with my cup of tea. You forget all those little things because everybody else comes first.

So the first step in your burnout is stopping and taking the time to try to remember what it was that you enjoyed doing before you were so active in your role as a caregiver.

And it's not easy. It's definitely not easy. And I think that the biggest thing to remember is it's okay to try to remember. And then if you start doing those things, be like, I don't enjoy this anymore. It's okay to be like, okay, cool. Let's find something new. And allowing yourself that space.

The next biggest thing that is, I think the next hardest thing, is creating boundaries around, you know what I said that I'm going to stop working at 7p.m. I'm going to stop working at 7 p.m. I said that I was going to take Sunday off. I'm turning my phone off. It's sitting on my nightstand. I do not have to touch it for the day. I am not, you know, I'm not here to be your emergency relief. I need my time. And take that time to stay in bed all day if you really want to. If that's what makes you happy, then do it. If you want to go outside and sit and do nothing or whatever. If you want to go shopping, if you, whatever it is that you enjoy doing, make sure that you take that time and not be worried about what's happening, where you are not needed. There are other people that are here to help.

And the third thing I think that is detrimental to that space is making sure that you have help and trusting that you have help that can do the job. So I know that sounds kind of backwards, but I mean, you need to find help to be able to create those things, but it's the third thing you have to still be able.

My boundary is that I said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this because I need to do this. I need to figure out what I like doing. And I need to know that when I'm off work, when I am not caring for my brother, when I'm not caring for my mom, I trust that those people have my client's best interest at heart.

And I can take a step back so that I can come back tomorrow or two days from now and be like, okay, I'm good. What do we need to do? Cause you're not the only person that can care for someone. There are many other people that can do your job, too.

Jack Heald:  What's the if someone's sitting here listening to this thinking but I take time for myself. I go and I sit on my deck and I drink coffee and I like that.

But I'm still not sure that I'm,

Laurie Kennedy: I'm still burnt out.

Jack Heald: Yeah, I guess what I'm getting at is I have a suspicion, and I could be wrong, but I have a suspicion that the people who most need it are the least aware of it. I don't know. At least for a while.

Laurie Kennedy: I will raise my hand to that one.

Jack Heald: So what are some of the signs? Give us some of the signs that if you're, if you see this in yourself, you might be burnt out. I think it was Jeff Foxworthy who had the, you might be a redneck sign. Yeah. So we need,

Laurie Kennedy: Here's your sign.

Jack Heald: Might be burnt out sign.

Laurie Kennedy: Yes. So I think my biggest indicators were, I was done. I was like, you know what? Screw it. I don't care anymore. I was very apathetic. I did not care. I didn't have the care that I needed for my clients. I didn't have any cares for anything happening in my personal life. I just didn't care. I was done. And I think the biggest burnout is you can feel it inside of your body. Little things that happen, someone drops something and you're like you just start getting there's zero motion and it's just frustration, anger, anything that used to be like a brush off your shoulder. No big deal is now a big deal.

One of my biggest things that happened to me is when I was like, okay, you need to figure out something is, I had my purse sitting on a counter at our work. I work in a home space. So I was in the kitchen. I had my purse on the counter and I had taken some stuff out and I had my lunch sitting there and I had a drink in my, like a candy bar or something on the counter. And I walked up and I did something for a client and I came back and my client had eaten like my candy bar off the counter. It's just a candy bar.

I was furious over a Snickers bar. You guys, I was so mad. It's just a candy bar. It's not that big of a deal, but I was so angry over it. And I was like, okay, you need to like, take a step back. And I really had to take a look at what it wasn't the candy bar. What was it that I was so irritated about? And it was just the fact that I wasn't able to even process that it was just a candy bar. And that happened about four years ago and I look at it now and I'm like, wow, you flew up the handle for nothing in particular. So I think the biggest sign of burnout is how you react to things that are inconsequential; someone spilled some milk, you know, someone needs help getting on and off to use the bathroom, getting up in the middle of the night to walk around, inconsequential things that are part of your job, and you become so emotional and irritated, and You aren't able to process those things.

Jack Heald: I've learned from all the interviews I've done over the years with professionals in the metabolic health space that these emotions, particularly intense emotions like anger and fear take a tremendous toll on us physically, and metabolically. I was just talking with my wife about this last night.

Anger has a place. Anger is an important emotion.

Laurie Kennedy: Amen.

Jack Heald: There are times when anger is absolutely essential to survival. But metabolically chemically in our body, anger is driven by cortisol. And adrenaline absolutely necessary. But the effects of cortisol and adrenaline coursing around inside our bloodstream are, can actually be toxic over time. And if you're constantly experiencing anger physiologically, you're doing damage to your own body. So that's a, okay. I'm just kind of trying to put all the pieces together.

Laurie Kennedy: No. And you're a 100% right. To be completely transparent. I've lost over a hundred pounds since my dad passed away and since I got out of a toxic marriage and the, all those emotions that come into it plays a huge role in how your body holds on to things. And so I completely believe in releasing that allows your body to come back to baseline. And so I 100 percent agree with all of that.

Jack Heald: I noticed with this nurse. that almost all of her friends in the nursing profession, she was a critical care nurse, she was very unhealthy, and all of her friends were either also very unhealthy, by which I mean primarily, they were seriously overweight.

Laurie Kennedy: Yes.

Jack Heald: Or they were absolutely fanatical in the other direction about fitness. Ironman competitors, bodybuilders extreme distance runners, nothing in between. Is that common?

Laurie Kennedy: I feel like it is a very popular trend. In the caregiving space because at my highest point, I was almost 270 pounds. I'm five foot four. That was not a healthy weight.

Jack Heald: Oh, that's horrendously unhealthy.

Laurie Kennedy: Yes. And when you think about all I did is I covered up everything that I possibly could with food because I didn't know what else to do to take care of myself. And so I'd be like, I have a day off. I want to go eat. And don't get me wrong. I still love to do that, but it's, you don't do it as an enjoyment. You do it as a coping mechanism. And so your body then holds onto all that. And it's not an enjoyment factor of, I want to go out to eat because we're going out to eat with my family and it's quality time.

You go out to eat because I'm lazy. I don't want to cook anymore because I'm so tired. I just don't want to do it. I don't want to clean up. I don't want to think about it because there's a level of commitment to yourself when it comes to food and meal prepping and planning and then cooking and all that goes into it, which I enjoy a lot, I love feeding other people, and I've learned that's one of the things that actually helps my burnout; is spending that quality time doing what I love. I love cooking. I love eating. But I get to do that with other people and it's healthy, it's not a way of me going, let me go and do something, doing what I love eating in a very unhealthy manner.

Not saying that you have to give up the things you love, but you have to be able to release stuff. You have to make space to get space. And that's, I mean, like mentally, like you have to make space, like you have to give away things. You don't need to worry about that. Things like that to actually get space so that you can actually take care of you and who you are.

Jack Heald: From the moment or the day that you recognized, I have a significant problem. I have to change it. How long did it take before, once you took action, how long did it take before you could kind of turn around and look in your past and say, I really made progress?

You listed three things that, All kind of happened around the same time.

Laurie Kennedy: Sure.

Jack Heald: The death of your father, the end of your marriage, and then having, I've been feeling the need to be the primary caregiver for your mom.

Laurie Kennedy: So that all happened. My dad passed away on December 31st. My marriage ended in September and then my mom told me and my sister that she was contemplating suicide.

And so it was a. Excuse my, it was a shit show in my life for a while, and I would say about six months after that, I'm very much, and I will, I'm still owning this and learning how to deal with it, I'm very much a person that I don't usually do things on my own. I usually go with people to do things. When I decided that I needed to change, I said yes to letting myself go to an empowerment conference. And I also have a makeup business, which is completely a side note, but it was based for personal small business network marketing and so I went to this and that was really when I started to make small incremental, like super small changes in my daily life, and they needed to be sustainable.

My changes couldn't be all of a sudden everything changes and we're good. It had to be incremental. And I think that is so important when I have an, I have a business with my business partner, it's called the 1 percent society. And that's what we, that is what we push, small 1 percent changes that just slowly move the needle forward because just slow changes actually make a difference. The big changes are the things that maybe make a difference, but aren't sustainable. And that's the goal is to create sustainability and what you are doing so that you can keep going and doing the things you enjoy.

Jack Heald: I don't remember who it was who first, who I first heard it from. It's fairly common in the metabolic health space. The exercise program that works is the one you will do

Laurie Kennedy: 100%.

Jack Heald: You know, whether that's walking after dinner or two and a half hours in, in callisthenics and aerobics and weight work every single afternoon, as long as you will do it. It will work.

Laurie Kennedy: Consistency.

Jack Heald: So that's what I'm hearing here. All right. We're getting down to the part of the show that is my favorite, the billboard message. If you had one health message to deliver and you had no more than eight words to deliver that message, what would it be?

Laurie Kennedy: Caring for yourself makes you a better caregiver.

Jack Heald: Booyah! That's good.

Laurie Kennedy: It's all you need. Take care of you, and then you can do whatever you need to do for everybody else that relies on you. But you have to care for yourself first.

Jack Heald: All right. I'm going to say at this point, if you would like to turn off the podcast now, feel free to, we have done everything I wanted to do, but I want to ask Laurie one more question. We're going to call this bonus. Is it pretty common for caregivers to, I don't know any other way to say this.

Laurie Kennedy: Just say it.

Jack Heald: You all do. Is it common for them to be giving, be become caregivers out of a sense that they're not worth caring for themselves?

Laurie Kennedy: What you're asking me is do they care for others because they don't feel like they're worthy of caring for themselves, is what you're asking me?

Jack Heald: I think maybe, yeah, I just saw, I saw a lot of dysfunction expressed both physically and emotionally and, you know, not being able to be inside other people's minds. It was just like.

Laurie Kennedy: Personally, in the space that I've been in, a lot of the caregivers that I have worked with and in professionally and in, you know, being an advocate for them and coaching them through their caregiving, they have actually come into caregiving by necessity more than they don't feel like they can, they, care for themselves.

And like I said, I've been more in a home health space. Caregiving was kind of dropped into my lap as well because of like my brother and then family things so that is another story. But so with that being said, I don't know if it's because they don't feel like they need to care, like that they don't feel valued or worthy of the care that they deserve. I think that a lot of times caregiving gets thrown at people and we become caregivers. And in that process, it's, these people need so much right now that we forget that we also need things. And then we were so concentrated on making sure that this person that we are required to care for that needs our help ,that can't do it without us, we forget that we also can't do it without us too. So, I don't know if that's there. There is a lot of. I mean, a lot of people go into nursing because they're like, I want to be a nurse. And I think a lot of people, and this is not in every space, but a lot of people go, nurses make good money and they only have to work four 12-hour shifts and they get three days off and they've got rotations.

And I think a lot of things happen like that with like teachers and things like that too, but they don't realize what isn't what's required of that time and again, this is just me personally speaking. When it came to caregiving, it didn't feel like I wasn't valued, but it didn't feel like, I might jumble this up a little bit.

When having cared for, my parents started a group home for the disabled population when I was young in 1988 and I was typical functioning, I didn't need care. I was self-sufficient guys. I was like five, six, seven. But I didn't need the care they needed. So it got passed off to me that you don't need as much and you can give more because you're able-bodied. And so I grew up with the mindset of, I can do it myself and I don't need to worry about it because don't be, you know, don't feel bad, or you have nothing to feel like you have nothing to worry about because you're able-bodied. And that gets put on you and put on you and it doesn't feel like you need care then.

So it's not that I didn't feel I was worthy of it. I didn't feel that I needed it. And then when it came to a point where it was like, my world is exploding. I do not know what to do. I didn't know how to take care of myself. I knew I'd take care of everyone else, but I didn't know what I was supposed to do with me. And I feel like that's how my very short story, very, you know, that's how my caregiver journey began/came to fruition. But it also led me to believe. And for the longest time, I believed that burnout is just part of the job. This is just part of the job. Get used to it. And it took me a very it took me a while to get to the point where it's no, it's not.

And I'm really trying to. Teach people that it's not part of the job and you can still love your job and you can still be a caregiver and still be able to care for yourself and give yourself the things you need.

Jack Heald: You can still be a caregiver and give care to yourself. What a concept.

Laurie Kennedy: It is, it's, believe it or not, it is a new concept. Believe it or not.

Jack Heald: Wow. I'm really glad we had this conversation. I really am.

Laurie, I think you have that you have expanded your work to actually help folks in the caregiving professions. How do folks contact you if they want more information?

Laurie Kennedy: I am available on all social media platforms. I shouldn't say all. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. And also my website.

It's all under @TheRealLoriKennedy and you can find me there. You can DM me. I am easily gotten a hold of on social media. And I am, there's also availability on my website to get to email me and stuff like that. So very easy to get a hold of and I'm very responsive because I know how important the work is.

Jack Heald:  I can imagine. So Laurie, thanks for being with us today. I appreciate the real Kennedy, the real lori kennedy.com and you can get to all the other things that way. Thanks for joining us. I'll remind the audience all this contact information will be available in the show notes. We're glad you were with us and we'll talk to you next time.

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