The New Weed: The Power of Pause with Coach Amrit Singh

Amrit's personal journey from  being a weed-head to discovering yoga and meditation offers a compelling exploration of self-discovery and the transformative power of coaching. Imagine waking up just 30 minutes earlier than usual, embracing the quiet of the early morning to connect with yourself and the world. Sounds peaceful, doesn't it? In J Smiles' conversation with life coach and yoga teacher, Amrit Singh, we learned the immense value of such small moments of self-care, especially for those on the demanding journey of caregiving for a loved one with dementia or Alzheimer's. Amrit's unique blend of yoga, meditation, and coaching serves as a powerful stress-management tool, equipping caregivers to face their daily challenges head-on.

He emphasizes the importance of asking the right questions and reconnecting with one's true identity.

 As the world's best athletes and performers understand, you can't reach your peak without a little help. 

So join J, as we journey together in the pursuit of balance, personal growth, and the art of caring, with wisdom and insights from Amrit Singh.

Catch J's signature SNUGGLE UP ending for 3 provocative take aways.

TikTok: @amritsinghreinsch
Amrit's Website:
http://www.coachingnow.info

"Alzheimer's is heavy but we ain't gotta be!"
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TEXT 'PODCAST" to +1 404 737 1449 - to give J topic ideas, feedback, say hi!

Transcript

J Smiles: 0:01

As a teenager, all my cool older cousins smoked weed, but they wouldn't let me try because I had this million dollar signer surgery when I was around 14 or 15 and they were scared. I don't know if they wanted to make sure I didn't die or if they did not want to disappoint Zetty. Zetty has always been the fan favorite, but they were so freaking cool. They just walked like jazz musicians somewhere between, like smoking sex slurpees, just floating along in the air. I wanted to be that. Well, now, finally, I have someone willing to explain the mystery and the mystique of the coolness to me A recovering, reformed weedhead ready to tell caregivers how to get high and stay high without being intoxicated, or stress relief, of course. Say what Say words. Let's go.

J Smiles: 1:18

Parenting UP Caregiving Adventures with Comedian J Smiles is the intense journey of unexpectedly fully responsible for the well-being of my mama. For almost a decade I've been chipping away at the unknown, advocating for her and pushing Alzheimer's awareness on anyone and anything, with a heartbeat. Spoiler alert, I started comedy because this stuff is so heavy. Be ready for the jokes. Caregiver newbies, ogs, village members trying to just prop up a caregiver. You are in the right place. Hi, this is Zetty. I hope you enjoy my daughter's podcast, is that okay?

J Smiles: 2:01

Today's episode, the New Weed a conversation with Coach Amrit Singh. Our global community is expanding. I want your feedback. Let's snuggle up Send a purple heart the little emoji to plus one 4047371449. Parenting up family. You are in for something a little tingly. For some, it may be a little magical. For me, I'm thinking it's a sweet treat. The other thing is I've been watching him slurp down a delicious morning smoothie that he creates every day. He's going to teach us some things and share some things that will help us, as family caregivers, keep our everyday life in a greater alignment. Listen up and welcome Amrit Singh.

Amrit Singh: 3:20

Thanks for having me.

J Smiles: 3:21

Yes, thank you for sharing your time. I know that you are a life coach and a yoga teacher. Now, those don't always go together. Most people would think that one involves the mind and the other involves the body. Do you beg to differ?

Amrit Singh: 3:44

Yes, very much, because ultimately, we're all beings that not just have a mind and a body but also have a spirit. So we're these complex beings and, as you can address all three of those at the same time, we get closer to soul and closer to true identity, which is not so much on what we can see or what we can experience, but more on a broader scale of real being and real soul experience.

J Smiles: 4:22

That is what we need as family caregivers, because I'll tell you, Amrit, what we see is stressful and it's hard. We're often looking at our loved ones with what they say in dementia and Alzheimer's, we're experiencing the long goodbye and we're watching them very definitely, day by day, week by week, and they start to disintegrate before our very eyes. And so, when you're helping us craft tools or have these tools to get more back to our souls and ourselves and maybe drown out the noise of outside, I'm telling you I can't wait to hear everything else that comes out. You're coming to us from Mexico. For you, which came first? The life coach or the yoga?

Amrit Singh: 5:27

That's a great question, because now, recently, I'm 100% focused on the life coaching and I'm using the yoga and meditation background I gained over the last 30 years as a supplement to help people in their journey, but I don't make it the center point of it. But what officially came first was the yoga and the meditation practice and then, when I'm looking back now in my life, I've really been coaching people since I'm 15. So it's a thing which was just always there, but the yoga and meditation really helped me to find that and to find that my true passion and my path.

J Smiles: 6:10

At 15,. Were you coaching kids, like on the playground or hey, hey, I don't eat that bug or did you find yourself talking to adults? Were people coming to you or did you just offer things?

Amrit Singh: 6:26

It was really something with my friends where they ultimately would end up with me talking stuff through, and one of the things which, as a coach, is so important is that you don't tell people don't eat that bug, it's bad for you. Because that's when people go like, ah, what have I? I know what I'm doing, I can eat bugs all day long. But when you go in there and you say like, okay, why do you eat that bug? What's in it for you? You know what's behind it and do you know what comes from eating the bug, and then you draw these answers out and people really answer all these questions for themselves in my coaching sessions and it's so much more powerful than if someone tells you what to do.

J Smiles: 7:14

You were doing that at 15?.

Amrit Singh: 7:16

Well, looking back, looking back, I can see how that was always, like you know, like a red line going through my whole life.

J Smiles: 7:26

Yeah well, you asked thoughtful questions of your friends when they were maybe in a predicament or trying to work their way out of problems, no matter if it was a bigger or a small problem.

Amrit Singh: 7:38

Yeah, exactly Because I found that just telling my friends to not do something never worked.

J Smiles: 7:46

You know what? It doesn't even work when I tell myself not to do something. To be quite honest, I say hey, J Smiles, don't eat the pizza. I am immediately ordering a pizza like that, and even eating the whole thing. Exactly. Now, What about yoga and meditation? What kind of what led you to it?

Amrit Singh: 8:09

Smoking lots of wheat. That's what got me inspired, because that was the first time I felt more outside in the world and I was like, oh my God, I found the magic path. You just have to smoke wheat all day. So I did that for a couple of years and then I realized shit. You know, I've been smoking wheat all day. Nothing changed. I'm just stoned morning till night, and that's when I found yoga. I found a new path to the same high without being stoned all day.

J Smiles: 8:43

Okay, one moment. This is where Cheers Whenever a guest is on and they hit a spot, that's great. They get immediate cheers. So you're talking about enlightenment. I got to give you all the claps. And you know, in poetry you get finger snaps when you hit your own personal enlightenment of knowing, okay, so you were high. Some people just keep getting high Like, hey, this is it -- I'm high, they don't. It doesn't matter that they may not be productive in a way that is, either generating income or creating relationships with other humans. They're like I'm high, this is cool, I'm on my couch, I'm fine. But you said I'm just getting high, I'm doing the same thing, whatever. Yoga allowed you to reach that some pinnacle of enlightenment or whatever. Your neurons are doing the some thing. You can get off the couch.

Amrit Singh: 10:03

Yeah, and getting shit done and my life was changing and improving, because that was for me, that was the biggest challenge with smoking so much weed, was that I looked back and I said, okay, what changed in the last month? And I was like nothing changed. I'm sitting here, the same, everything is the same. And I look back, okay, what happened in the last year? And I was like shit, nothing changed, everything is exactly the same. And that's not how I wanted to live my life in my early 20s. I wanted to grow, and so it was really a necessity for me to to recalibrate everything, and I ultimately just packed up and moved to India and I had this idea right from the, from the books how you go to India, you deepen your spiritual journey. So, again, with my six month visa and my idea of India which, of course, all got turned upside down right in the first couple of weeks and I ended up staying and lived in India for 20 years.

J Smiles: 11:05

Well, six months turned into 20 years.

Amrit Singh: 11:08

Six months turned into 20 years, yeah.

J Smiles: 11:10

Talking about just going with the flow. I love it.

Amrit Singh: 11:16

Yeah, it was a big flow, that's for sure.

J Smiles: 11:20

That's you know I? They say maybe flow with the river. I think you were flowing with the universe. That feels like a Milky Way kind of flow.

Amrit Singh: 11:32

That was, that was flow big time yeah.

J Smiles: 11:42

As a caregiver, as a family caregiver specifically, because that what makes us unique is typically we aren't trained in anything medical, we're not CNAs, we're not nurses, you know, we don't even work in hospitals. We just have a loved one who all of a sudden I should say all of a sudden. For some of us it's been a slow roast, but we have our income coming from other sources and then we are responsible, very responsible, for this person we love and we have hands on responsibilities, and then maybe financial or we got to make decisions about their life and so in to an extent, we can look around and a month could have passed and we are wondering what the hell is different. I'm not growing, you know I, when you were talking, I was thinking like hell. That's happened to me and that's happened to so many family caregivers that I know of. We get so mixed up in the weeds of keeping the lights on and making sure that God is medicine and got to the doctor's appointment that nothing's changed.

J Smiles: 13:05

Six months have passed and nothing about the caregiver's life, nothing about Jay's smile's life has improved. I haven't grown, I haven't written, I haven't read a new book, I haven't gone for a hike, I haven't gone on vacation. I haven't been on a date, I'm just getting my mom's Eddie to all of her appointments and I'm barely getting some sleep and I'm looking around like this is not a good. I have to figure out how to continue to expand my soul, get better with my intuition and you knew you wanted differently and you went yoga. And then yoga got you to India, which I bet your meditation went through the roof. Huh, yes, big time. So when you were there, your meditation practice, did you become a meditation instructor?

Amrit Singh: 14:01

Yeah, I've been teaching for many years but really what for me was the most important was to have the depth of my practice. I was able to do stuff which would go five, six hours a day and I had the luxury to sit that long and I had the community to dive in that deep. Because you do need support. It's not something like you know. 2000 years ago you could just go in the mountains and sit in a cave for a couple of years. That's not it anymore today. So that was really for me the closest to go sit in a cave.

J Smiles: 14:40

I got you. I got you. What are earlier in your practice, what were some of the if you had any stumbling blocks or roadblocks into leaning into it or anything that, looking back on it now, may have been funny to you like oh my goodness, this, I thought I could never sit still for five minutes or two minutes, or you know. Hey, you know, because if you get stoned, you know you take a puff of the weed, you're automatically still.

J Smiles: 15:10

You don't have to try to be still you know, take a big pull and then now you're still, Whereas with meditation it's more trying to calm your mind down. Did you find that challenging?

Amrit Singh: 15:22

I still find that challenging today, every single day, when I sit down to meditate, because that never goes away. That's just part of our human identity, you know. That's just part of existing in this physical form, with this mind which is always busy, which you know I'm on my phone a lot, I have a family, that there's a lot going on in my life, and so when I finally sit, my mind goes like, oh wow, super, let me throw out all the shit which we didn't process over the last 24 hours and all comes up. And so what I learned, really what benefited me over my 30 years of practice, is that I'm able now to reduce the amount of time it takes me to become just as still as when you take that puff from the joint. You know, like that might have been half an hour in the beginning, but I can do it in minutes or sometimes in seconds, where I can become that still and really experience myself and experience my true identity at such a deep level that all the other things fall away.

J Smiles: 16:37

Woo, Sign me up. Sign me up for 20 years in India. I'm going tomorrow. I hope Daddy would like it, but my mom would not be in favor of that. But it sounds great.

Amrit Singh: 16:54

It sounds great she might have a blast in India. I never know.

J Smiles: 16:58

Yeah, yeah, she would. I think the spicier food would not agree her IB syndrome. But who knows, It could also correct it. You never know. There are so many times when I hear from Western society and they talk about I can't eat the food and they name a part of the world that they believe that the spices or the ingredients right Won't work and I'm thinking, yeah, but if you got those ingredients in their purest form, hell, those might rectify your whole body. Maybe you were supposed to have cumin and turmeric every day, mama, who knows? Maybe it's the lack of that, that messed up your colon in the first place. But anyway, I doubt it.

Amrit Singh: 17:50

Right. Or maybe it is all the processed food and the sugars and the dairy and the weed and the meat and everything right. We're just saying like, oh yeah, it tastes so good, but then it has all these side effects which comes with buying little food sealed up in plastic bags. [pause] Today's sponsor is J Smiles Comedy. Fresh, curated content for corporations, clubs or keynotes - live and virtual performances JSmilesComedycom.

J Smiles: 18:23

How do you go about in your own personal life managing balance like on any day of regular life? I have a thing where I say life keeps lifeing.

Amrit Singh: 18:37

Oh, yeah, it does.

J Smiles: 18:42

You have a car wreck or you're trying to walk and hike and stay healthy and then you get a knee injury or someone in your family dies. And they were young, maybe they were 20. We don't like it when our elders die, but the expectation is greater. But if someone's under 25 and you love them and they die, you're a little more not ready.

Amrit Singh: 19:05

Yeah.

J Smiles: 19:06

So those things can throw you off. And when we're as family caregivers which is the bulk of our audience here and we're all over the world we are constantly first and foremost, we are already stressed all day, every day, wondering if our loved one is going to choke or fall because they can't speak for themselves. So we're at work waiting for the call that says you know, your sister fell and hit her head and now you got to leave work and you're worried about getting fired because your boss keeps letting you off and they really shouldn't let you off. Your co-workers are kind of jealous or antsy that you're getting all this extra time off work. So there's all these the nuances of stress that undergird caregivers, even when nothing's wrong. Even when nothing's wrong, we're constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. So then, if a cousin that lives across country actually dies, that can smack us in the head a bit harder than many might believe, because we're already just one millimeter from unraveling.

Amrit Singh: 20:30

Yeah.

J Smiles: 20:31

So that is, we are constantly. You know how well I've never been. Were you ever in the military or anything? No, I wasn't. Okay, I wasn't either. But what I've been told by people who did serve is it doesn't matter if, when you are in a war zone, it doesn't matter if you hear shots. You know at any moment, just like that, you could be in full gunfire and that's how you feel as a caregiver.

Amrit Singh: 21:01

Exactly. And now imagine what that does to your hormonal system and what that does to your nervous system 24 seven, which your body can handle for a couple of days and can handle even for a couple of weeks, but the moment it becomes a couple of months or years, you start burning out. And it's a slow process. And that's exactly where yoga and meditation and coaching comes in. Because at this moment, if you can pick it up here and spend that 30 minutes a day just for yourself, just for your rebalancing, just for recalibrating your nervous system, your hormonal system, your mind, your body, now, suddenly, when you show up with your parent that needs your help, it's much easier to stay centered. Now, when you go to work, it's much easier to get your work done.

Amrit Singh: 22:02

Now, when you need to make some choices for yourself to not eat that pizza we talked about in the beginning, it's where you can say like, yeah, I don't have to eat the pizza, just to be okay. I can eat two pieces and just be as okay. And this is this super important point where a lot of people come to me and say, oh, my God, I'm so busy. I'm taking care of my parents, or I'm taking care of my family or I have to work 14-hour days or whatever it is. And I say, if you can prioritize that 30 minutes for yourself to just show up for yourself and do what will help you to come to more balance and just like you said in such a great way you said you're, like you know, less than an inch away from complete meltdown If you can put a little space in between that you know, and you have that buffer and then some shit happens, it's okay. Then you can drop a little deeper and you can have a bad day because you know you can get yourself back up.

J Smiles: 23:12

Put some space. I like that. Put some space because you can drop. It's like increasing your bumper or your buffer zone, whatever you want to call it, whatever. So I'm talking to everybody out there in the parenting up family and the parenting up community. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of you around the globe and that's our goal consistently here is to figure out how to put more space, because it's a marathon For most of us. It is years that we're doing this Right. It's very rare that it's less than five years. If there's an Alzheimer's diagnosis, it's very rare that it's less than five years. I am in like in two months I will be officially at my 12th year of caring for my mom. Currently she's still walking, talking, eating, swallowing, following conversations. Fairly well, when I say following the conversations, I mean her eyeballs are following you as you talk and she will say uh-uh.

Amrit Singh: 24:40

She's entertained by what you have to say you must know her.

J Smiles: 24:44

It feels like you know my mom.

Amrit Singh: 24:48

My mother-in-law is struggling and she's at the same exact point. I can relate to it very well because that is just what it is. She loves, and this is something that I found in dealing with Alzheimer's. She loves when she is loved and she loves when she doesn't feel like she did something wrong and she loves just being around and being with her grandkids and you know like, and shit happens left and right, but you know, if we can create a space for her where she can just feel loved, that's the biggest gift we can give to someone who's struggling with Alzheimer's.

J Smiles: 25:35

I think you've met my mother. It may be not physically, but you know I believe in the spiritual realm and you know, just like the wind is moving all around the world, spirits are just doing their thing and it's the energy of light that keeps this world going. The way caregivers stay employed by J Smiles is loving on my mother. I don't care how many years you've been in the industry, how many butts you've wiped, how many certificates of excellence you've received at some facility. If my mother's eyes don't light up and she doesn't smile when she sees your face, you're out of here. That's your last shift. She has to have a visceral response of positivity when she sees you, or I don't care, I don't care. I need her to respond the way a kid responds when they walk onto Disneyland property. A three-year-old doesn't know what in the world Disneyland is. You can't explain it to them, but if you let them go the way, they run towards the Magic Kingdom and the castle, they don't know if it's good for them or bad. They don't know about heaven or hell. They don't know about sugar. It just makes them feel good. Exactly that's what I need people to do for my mom.

J Smiles: 27:14

If not, you're not allowed to be her caregiver. You can't visit. There are family members that can no longer visit because I'm like you know what. I'm not here to judge whether or not you actually love my mother. What I do know is the energy that you're exuding leaves her in a negative space once you depart.

J Smiles: 27:40

Maybe it's just because you're afraid of the disease and she's changed so much over the years and you haven't come to accept how this has progressed and you're in denial that she's not who she used to be. Either way, you can't come anymore. Love you so much. You can visit me you wanted me at the coffee shop or we can meet in the living room, but you can't see mom. Have you found there's a time of day where I should ask you, say, 30 minutes for someone who is newer to the practice of finding 30 minutes for themselves, yoga, meditation, stillness, anything like that, because that's for caregivers? Just assume that they've heard of these things but they have not become a serious practitioner. Is there a time of day that you suggest they try, or that maybe you get a little more bang for your buck?

Amrit Singh: 28:55

Yes, totally. The best time starts the night before, because the trick is to go to bed 30 minutes earlier than you would on a normal day. Then you go to bed and you sleep and it's good for you anyway, because you do need extra sleep. But now you wake up 30 minutes earlier than you would normally wake up. So if your normal alarm clock is set for 7am, you set it for 6.30 and your mind will go like oh my god, oh my god, so early on, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, why would I wake up all the time? You're half an hour early. But then you say to yourself I'm going to sleep 30 minutes earlier, so I'm really losing nothing here.

Amrit Singh: 29:38

What I'm sacrificing is Netflix time, that extra glass of wine which I probably don't need right before bed, the scrolling on the phone for half an hour while I'm lying in bed that's what you're sacrificing, right?

Amrit Singh: 29:53

So you go to sleep earlier, you wake up at 6.30 and I have nothing to do for 30 minutes, and you're looking at the world and you're thinking oh my god, what I'm going to do with myself now.

Amrit Singh: 30:07

And then you just sit down, you make yourself a nice cup of tea, or maybe even a coffee, whatever it is, and you just sit and you don't look at your phone, you don't try to clean your cupboard or do something in the kitchen or you just let it all be and you just sit.

Amrit Singh: 30:28

And ideally you sit somewhere where you can look out into nature and you can just be with yourself and you just connect with your breath and with your being and with the moment and witnessing the world wake up around you. That would be my first step for any beginner, and just to learn to love that time where nothing else happens. That can be 10 minutes. Honestly, it can be 5 minutes, but you need to be that honest with yourself that when you wake up 10 minutes earlier than on a normal day, you don't use that extra time to put on a wash or get something cleaned or get something else done which you never get to. You need to really prioritize yourself and if yourself is sitting there doing nothing, just staring, that's step one to develop a meditation practice.

J Smiles: 31:27

Wow, I had such a colorful vision as you were speaking. I literally saw myself waking up. I got a glass of water and then I did just like a few seconds of stretching to kind of just get the little sleepies out, and then I was sitting in front of a window, a very specific window in my home where I can see trees.

Amrit Singh: 32:05

Yeah, exactly, and here ties it all together. It's a little bit like you would imagine taking that one puff from a joint, which probably wouldn't do you any good at 6.30 in the morning. But to have that quiet and that calm, consciously created for yourself, without the influence of the drug, has such a calming and recalibrating effect for those few minutes in the day on your nervous system, on your hormonal system, that you take that into your day and this can last you the entire day, until you go to bed again half an hour earlier than on a normal day and wake up the next day and repeat it.

J Smiles: 32:51

I love it, I love it, I love it. You also are offering what I think is a continuation of love and happiness every day. Let the parenting family know the gift that you are offering. Once a day, every single day, you're giving a gift, like it's somebody's birthday or whatever. It's Kwanzaa, it's Hanukkah, it's Easter, it's Ramadan. Every day, tell them about it.

Amrit Singh: 33:40

Yeah Well, what I love to do because I do have the luxury of time to do that right now is I want to serve one new person in my world every single day with a free 90-minute coaching session. Sometimes we even go for two hours, whatever how long it takes to allow people to have a deep experience of what coaching is About the whole. Oh, this costs money, oh, I don't have time, blah, blah, blah all these excuses with our mind loves to make up. I'm saying everybody who's serious about your personal growth, about your inner expression of what needs to be expressed, and where there's never time and there's never a moment. If you're willing to dive into that and dive into your growth, come sign up with me for a free 90-minute session and you wouldn't believe how little people take me up on this.

Amrit Singh: 34:48

I've done around 50 podcasts over the last year and I make this offer every single time and I've had less than 10 people who took me up on it. So it is a little bit of one of those weird things in our human minds. We're like, oh, that guy, he must be wanting something for me. He wants my money, he wants my inheritance, he wants my whatever. I'm going to put on a turban and want to grow a beard after I sit with him. Whatever people make up as excuses not to invest time in their own personal growth.

J Smiles: 35:27

Well, you're going to have at least 51 because J Smiles is going to sign up for it.

Amrit Singh: 35:31

Bam. I'll send you the link right at the end of the session.

J Smiles: 35:35

Yes, so how do they sign up?

Amrit Singh: 35:39

Probably the best way is to just contact me, because I'm a little apprehensive to just put my calendar link out on the internet. You know what's going to happen. But if you write me a personal message and you say hey, I listened to your podcast with J Smiles and you said you're doing this free thing, I want it. I don't know what it is, but I want it and it's free, send me a message, either on my website, through Instagram, through TikTok, whatever way you can reach me. It's 2023. It's so easy to reach anyone in this world. And, yeah, tell me you're ready and we'll make it work.

J Smiles: 36:17

And what are those contacts?

Amrit Singh: 36:22

You can find me on the website, which is coachingnowinfo. It's just a simple landing page and then, of course, you can just look for my name on Instagram. That's an easy way to connect with me. But my most favorite way is TikTok, because I'm one of the people in the I love TikTok camp. There's only two types of people People love TikTok and people who hate TikTok. So if you hate TikTok, get me on my website or my Instagram. But if you're one of the people who love TikTok, come check me out, because I try to post something every day and it's such a fun platform. What I like about TikTok? It's so authentic. It's so real. You don't have to put on the whole show of how cool you are. You can just say everything you want to say. You can make mistakes and amazing community on TikTok.

J Smiles: 37:15

In my opinion, Mistakes are so fun, aren't they so much fun?

Amrit Singh: 37:19

especially when it's your own.

J Smiles: 37:23

Mistakes are the spice of life. So on TikTok, is it your name?

Amrit Singh: 37:29

Yeah, just Amrit Singh. It's big enough the account that you'll find me right away. Okay, and spell that for our guest so that it's A-M-R-I-T and then sing is like sing, but with an H, so S-I-N-G and then an H Fantastic.

J Smiles: 37:48

Fantastic Question. How would you describe the difference between a life coach and a counselor or a therapist?

Amrit Singh: 38:08

It's a big difference. The job of a counselor and a therapist is, I mean, more of the counselor is to give advice and to give feedback and to really like show you a path right. The difference of a therapist is to just being able to be listened to. To be listened to is for us human beings so, so important and that's why therapy is so important. But I had more than one client who came back to me and said, oh my God, this first session with you was more profound for me than 10 years of therapy. And so that kind of puts it into perspective. Because what a coach does is he or she picks you up where you're at and then allows you to find your own way, without putting in their personal stuff, but without also being very passive. You know I will challenge my clients to take action, which, for example, a therapist will not do as much, for a therapist is more like hey, come back and let's process, and let's process and go deeper and talk about it, and so you can go into therapy for years and years and years.

Amrit Singh: 39:25

With the coaching it's very defined. You know, I take on my client's minimum of six months, but mostly not longer than a year, because we really want to get from point A to point B. And when you get to point B, there's no need to continue working with your coach because you have reached your goal. You have achieved what you want to do. They might come back a couple of years later and say I have this amazing new project. I'm freaked out, I'm scared out of my mind. I really need to do this, this thing, and I know having an accountability partner in this who will help me find my way will allow me to do that. And those are the people who come back into it again.

J Smiles: 40:10

A sprinkle of magic, I know as a caregiver newbie, which is here at the Parenting Up podcast, is what we define as someone who is within their first year of being a family caregiver. For those of you listening, I did not have a life coach when I was a new caregiver. No one suggested it, it wasn't on my radar. I think it would have been helpful. I believe it would have been helpful.

J Smiles: 40:53

Becoming a family caregiver is such a nuanced additive to your life. It's not anything you can't. There's no way to get training for it, you don't go to college for it, you can't have an apprenticeship, so to speak, and so you're adding this massive amount of intellectual and emotional tasks and responsibility. Therefore, having a professional pull apart. How does this fit into what you already do and how are you going to get from point A to point B? I've seen caregiving greatly impact marriages. Some marriages don't make it through the caregiving. Some family relationships don't make it through the caregiving. Therapy is very beneficial and after speaking with you, I can see how a life coach can also be added to the list, or to the toolbox, as I like to say, especially when you, if you're a caregiver who is still involved in the community, or working, or if you have a business or, like myself, if you're an entrepreneur and you are doing things in addition to being a caregiver, if you have something that's income producing or you have ideas.

Amrit Singh: 42:44

Yeah Well, which is so essential. And this is really why the help of a life coach in this transition period is so important. Because when you can prioritize your own well-being by saying I am first and foremost, before I do anything else, I invest in myself, in my own balance, in my recalibration of my nervous system, in my recalibration of my hormonal system, in how I show up every time I'm with my parent who needs me and who needs me to show up at 100%. That's when you're really doing them a service. Because when you are well which we all know from how it is to raise kids right when we are well, our kids are just okay, right. Everything just falls into place.

Amrit Singh: 43:49

When we are off and we are all over the place, guess what happens to our kids? They get into trouble, they do stupid stuff, they don't want to go to school, all kinds of shit happens, and so it's the same thing when your Alzheimer affected parent sees you struggling, sees you being only at 30% of energy, they might not process it up here, they process it in their hearts. They know you're their child, they want the best for you, they want you to be fine, they want you to be happy and they have no agenda in their eyes either, because they just want that love and that happiness. And if they see that their presence puts a strain on you as a human being, they are trying to calibrate what they do and how they behave, and that puts a huge strain on them. So, ultimately, the best way to serve them is to first take care of yourself, and if you can do that by yourself amazing.

Amrit Singh: 44:55

Most of us can't. You know, I've been practicing this for 30 years. I still have two coaches I work with and who I meet with every single week because I need that recalibration for myself. And so that's where, really, it becomes such a powerful tool where you can say I've tried doing this by myself. I know I, for some reason I always keep falling off the wagon. I can't prioritize myself. I need help with that. That's all it is.

J Smiles: 45:29

My grandmother would say Waterford Crystal, when things were that clear to her, when you nailed it, and then she would do this. Those of you who aren't able to watch the video, I'm pointing at Amrit and I'm my other pointer finger is touching my nose and she said on the nose, because you know that the top of the line athletes, whether it's in golf or tennis, basketball, baseball, they have coaches. The best home run hitters have hitting coaches. The Bron James still has a basketball coach, a fitness coach, a nutrition coach. So, to your point, there's never an instance where your, your growth hits a ceiling. There's always room for improvement. I know some of the world's greatest speakers are the speakers who have great fame. I should say that they still have writing coaches, or singers have vocal coaches. So thank you for the minding of that. This is.

Amrit Singh: 46:50

And also I want to take it a step further Like this is a big thing in European soccer right, where every soccer team has their coach and when they do well, then everybody says, oh, the team is amazing and they scored so many goals. And guess what happens? When they don't do well and when they start losing to their fire the team? Do they fire their forward? No, they fire the coach because they do understand that only a great coach can make a great team.

J Smiles: 47:21

That's it and each of us in the parenting up community. We are a team To. You might be a team of one, but I'm the team of J Smiles, and if this team doesn't work well, daddy's not OK, my family is not OK. Nothing that's happening rolls out well and truthfully. My reason for starting this podcast was to help people be better Along the way. It has made me better. It's allowed me to engage and meet individuals like you, and this has been a pleasure. This has been an amazing conversation. I appreciate it so much. Is your? Is your mother-in-law still alive?

Amrit Singh: 48:24

Yeah, She's about at the same level as your mom is at, and so, you know, we're learning and we're expanding and we're coming together as a family and it's a beautiful thing to learn about and it's really, you know, for me the biggest learning lesson has been like she couldn't care less about what we do and what we organize and trips and blah blah and all these kinds of things. What she cares about is that she gets a big hug, that she, you know she will very quickly check out your face to see if that's real or not and what you're doing. Because she knows and she enjoys just love and presence and she enjoys being useful. And if she thinks it's useful to wash the dishes three times, let her wash the dishes three times and she comes back and she's so happy she gave something back.

J Smiles: 49:19

I have noticed that with Zetty too. She will look up at me and say is that right, is that good? And maybe she just turned the page of the magazine. Or if we're folding clothes I learned this a few years back Just put the clothes in front of her. If she's watching television, just put them in front of her on the ottoman or beside her on the sofa, and she will just pick up something and she'll start folding something. Sometimes it looks like a properly folded towel, sometimes it's balled up. Who cares?

Amrit Singh: 50:00

But she does something she touches, something she feels great about it.

J Smiles: 50:06

And she looks and she says, is that right? And then she just kind of pats and smooths whatever she did. And then she pats her own thighs and I look and I say of course that's great. And I say, and I ask her to give me a high five. Say high five, mom. And she gives me such an energetic high five. You would think she just wanted a world cup, like, oh, I mean, my hand sometimes has a little bit of a zing to it. I'm like, ok, that's, that's a lot of pressure. And if she's happy I'm elated. So I hear what you're saying and blessings and grace and light to you and your family with the care of your mother-in-law, and you're welcome back anytime.

Amrit Singh: 51:02

Yeah, let's definitely do it again. This was so much fun, absolutely.

J Smiles: 51:06

Thank you so very much THE SNUGGLE UP. Number ONE Living a life on the edge, is not healthy, period. It puts our hormonal system out of balance. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. If you find yourself drinking alcohol every day, take the edge off or needing to increase your medication just so you can sleep, your hormonal system is out of balance. Try yoga, try meditation, try that stillness at the top of the day. Number TWO show up for you.

J Smiles: 52:06

I know you're a caregiver. That is hard A lot of energy, a lot of responsibility. It sucks up a great percentage of your everything. But within that part of your life, carve out a slice. What do you want to do for you? You want to learn gardening, a new language? You want to learn how to spell words better. I suck at spelling.

J Smiles: 52:38

What is it that can make you continue to grow, make you blossom? Don't have the ostrich syndrome. Stick your head in the sand and say I'm a caregiver, got to do this, and then go to work, slap back home, do this again and woe is me. I'm just stuck in this until my LO dies and then maybe I can have a life again. Okay, we're caregivers and we're superhuman and we're going to figure it out. I can't wait for you to figure it out and then text me what it is you are doing for you.

J Smiles: 53:27

Number THREE we're going to breathe in and breathe out five times together. I got to stop watching. I'm going to breathe in Now, breathe out Now. Breathe in Now. Breathe out Now. Breathe in Now. Breathe out Now. Breathe in Now. Breathe out In, out, in, out. That was only 50 seconds. I know my shoulders feel less tense. We're caregivers with a parenting up community and we do not lose. I love y'all. That's it for now. Thank you for listening. Please subscribe for continuous caregiving tips, tricks, trends and truth. Pretty pretty please, with sugar on top. Share and review it too. I'm a comedian, Alzheimer's is heavy, but we ain't got to be.