Talk Nation Spring 2017 Featuring Dr. Kamal Woods

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Recently, she did a series of interviews
with nationally syndicated talk-show host,
Frank MacKay, and discussed a range of
ideas about caring for loved ones and one’s
self – notions described in more depth in
Cheryl’s new book, It Takes Courage to Be
a Caregiver: Answers & Tips for Parents,
Special Needs and Others.
“Life gives us many opportunities to share what we know,
what we have learned, and how we accept the struggles. I
have learned that God has been there all the time helping me
through things. He never lets us down. If we can accept that
life will be hard, it will not be quite so hard. Do not take the
struggles away from your children, but help them to understand
how the small decisions surrounding difficulties in life
prepare us for harder struggles later in life.”
– Cheryl Ginnings
Frank: I’d like to welcome
everyone to Breaking It Down. Frank
McKay here but much more importantly,
the author of Courage to
Overcome, and a life coach, a radio
show host, she is wonderful and she
is giving hope to caregivers around
the world -- Cheryl Ginnings is our
very special guest. Cheryl, how are
you?
Cheryl: Oh, I’m just wonderful.
Thank you for asking, Frank.
Frank: We were speaking
off-mic about the subject of caregiving
around the holiday season.
I think people that are caregiving
probably need to plan different, or
at least think differently around the
holidays. It can be a very lonely time
for folks that are in need of care and
it could be a very sad time if it’s not
handled properly. Let’s start with
this. What’s different about caregiving
around the holidays?
Cheryl: Well, a lot of things
happen for families when they have
holidays. We all have traditions that
we enjoy throughout our lives. If we
get married we celebrate new traditions
within the family, but when you
lose someone, you’ll often see people
that are frozen in time. They’ve just
not been able to work though the
sad memories to be able to enjoy
the fact that they had someone with
them that is now gone or someone
that is still with them but doesn’t
really understand maybe who they
are anymore, like someone with
Alzheimer’s or dementia. If you’ve
got a child that has special needs
and you’re really concerned all the
time about their health issues, you
realize you may not have them with
you for very long.
Then, our hearts
ache a little bit more because we
focus on the saddest parts. We focus
on the missing of that person, we
focus on the memories of past, and
we’re not really present with those
that are still here. For those that are
going through holidays it’s good for
you to just plan ahead for some of
these emotions to happen and first
of all accept the fact that emotions
are just what they are, they’re only
emotions. They’re how you feel and
there’s nothing right or wrong about
our feelings. There’s just something
about being stuck in a time zone that
we don’t move forward and we can’t
forget those things to go ahead and
go celebrate with people who are
around us or could be around us.
TALK NATION |ISSUE VIII