Nursing Home Lessons and Life Purpose

Описание: What does it actually mean to "flourish" as we age? For many of us in the “Sandwich Generation”, it feels like being squeezed between the needs of the past and the hopes of the future. Is this stage of life a trap, or a mission?

In this video, I share a reflection on the "tug-of-war" experience, living between two homes: my mission-driven life in the stunning mountains of Squamish, BC, and my family roots in Toronto, where my 95-year-old mother resides in a nursing home.

After hearing a resident cry out, “Help! Take me home,” I was confronted with a difficult question: How do we honor our aging parents and our family duties without losing our own sense of purpose?

As a PhD Grandma, I’ve spent my career studying meaning and simplicity but living it in the middle of “beautiful chaos” is where the real lessons are found. For the last 18 months, I’ve navigated a rhythm of "presence over proximity," flying 4,400 km every two months to balance my full-time professional work with the deep, sometimes busy, reality of being a wife, mother, and grandmother.

In this video, we discuss 6 life lessons to help you:
• Reclaim Your Agency: Why your power to choose has an expiration date.
• Prioritize Presence over Proximity: Why "showing up" with intention matters more than just being in the room.
• Heal the Inheritance of Distance: Turning family patterns into deliberate connections.
• Steward the "Middle Filling": Shifting from feeling "squeezed" to becoming the rich, flavorful center of your family's story.
• Choose Simplicity over Resentment: How to find the "stunning silence" you need to stay whole.
• Model the Future of Aging: Giving the next generation a vision of life that is sharp, engaged, and purposeful.

Whether you are navigating caregiving, feeling the guilt of distance, or looking for your own "second-act" or “third-act” purpose, I hope this reflection helps you see that you are the bridge, not the victim.
Let's Flourish Together: Which part of the "sandwich" feels the heaviest for you today? Let's talk about the trade-offs we make for our purpose in the comments.

Chapters:
0:00 - The cry for home: A nursing home lesson
1:07 - My 4,400 km life: Squamish to Ontario
1:46 – Lesson 1: Agency
3:59 – Lesson 2: Presence vs. Proximity
5:39 – Lesson 3: Gratitude
8:40 - Lesson 4: You are the Steward
10:27 – Lesson 5: Simplicity is the Secret Sauce
11:48 – Lesson 6: Modeling the Future of Aging
13:13 - Choosing to flourish: Making peace with the trade-offs

I’m the PhD Grandma—don’t forget to subscribe to join me on this journey of simplifying and flourishing. 🔔 SUBSCRIBE:
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