The Episode Every Grandparent Raising Grandchildren Needs to Hear

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You've waited your whole life to retire and can't wait to begin checking off your bucket list. But now you feel like those opportunities are never going to happen because you've started all over again raising children. Do you feel lost, disoriented, angry, and even resentful that your goals and desires aren't clear anymore? Listen as life coaches John and Sylvie Weaver interview me about this life transforming process. Episode four is the episode every grandparent raising grandchildren needs to hear.

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Welcome to grandparents raising grandchildren nurturing through adversity in this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren as we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support. I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of childrearing for children who have experienced trauma, and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care.

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We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future, all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you.

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Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored.

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In this episode, four of grandparents raising grandchildren nurturing through adversity I'm thrilled to introduce my guests, John and Sylvie Weaver, the remarkable husband and wife team that serve as transition coaches.

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They have come from opposite sides of the globe, joined their lives and their practices, and now reside together in the stunning French Alps, catalysts for peace and harmony. John and Sylvie specialize in guiding individuals through significant life transitions, making them especially relevant for grandparents stepping into the role of primary caregivers.

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Their unique blend of expertise in career discovery, overcoming life's obstacles, and unveiling life's purpose positions them perfectly to inspire and support our audience in this transformative journey. In this episode, John and Sylvie will share their insights on managing life transitions, a topic that resonates deeply within myself and many other grandparents raising grandchildren.

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Before I began seeing the opportunities in my role as a caregiver, I felt like all my dreams of a fulfilling life had come to an end. John and Sylvie's collaborative approach not only defines personal values and goals, but also illuminates a path filled with vitality, meaning, and purpose. I understand that what you do is to help people understand that tragedy and trauma don't mean the end of life, but in fact, that these events can open up opportunities we've never dreamed of. Your story being one of them. That's very true.

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Very true, Laura. And I can only speak most of effectively from my own experience.

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In my case, I had to go back and find out. I finally got to the point in my life where I couldn't blame others anymore. I saw a pattern in my life. I saw a pattern of failures, and I saw a pattern of emotional triggers that would lead to certain behaviors.

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And I finally had to look in the mirror and say, look, you're responsible for what you do, and you're responsible for your own happiness. And so, in my case, that led to a number of different things. It led to a lot of introspection and research, which led me, finally, to coaching. Really, what happened is I wanted to take everything I learned about my own suffering and my own pain and be able to open the door for others to look at their own and find a path for themselves. And so coaching really was the. Was the transitional phase in my own life, because the part of the coaching process is digging deep into yourself and really taking a hard look at yourself. And, Sylvie, how is it that you became a coach? I realized that I wasn't surrounded by the right person. I didn't have the right job.

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I was always the last one. Every time, everyone was more important than I was.

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And I realized that I was responsible for that.

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So I began to try to understand how I could go out from that. I tried psychology. I tried some different methods, and I found the coaching at the end, because what is interesting in coaching is you look ahead and not behind you. And I was in a hurry to feel better. So I found what I think the right school for me, coaching. And it's all about what kind of vision you want for you and your life.

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And then I was ready to share all my learnings with people. That what makes me alive today is to share those learnings with people and to help them to go through all those difficulties with more positive thoughts and to have hope for their future.

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That's at this moment that we met, John and I.

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We were ready to meet each other. Before we met, we had both come to the realization that what we had been doing wasn't working. At least it wasn't giving us the results that we were hoping for. We had to make some changes, and we realized that those changes had to be in us. And so we did quite a bit of work on ourselves before we met.

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At some point, you have to say, it's not always someone. It's not someone else's fault all the time. Sure, there's two sides to every coin, and there's two sides to every story. We both realized that we had to take a look at ourselves, and we did that work before we met. What would you say are some of the particular techniques that helped you make this successful transition, and how do you use it with the clients that you work with? So people know exactly what they need, what they want? We are not advisors. We just ask the right questions that open new possibilities for them that they didn't think about before. Because we use always the same scheme or method. Yeah.

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That we have learned when we were young what we have learned from our parents, our teachers, and that limits our possibilities. So the coach is there to open others doors.

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What the big change in me was. I was able to stand back from the story that I told myself and look at it more from a distance rather than allowing it to dictate how I felt and what I did next, regardless of what the situation was. Don't you think we do that a lot? Don't you think that's a real block for us making progress?

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Absolutely. As individuals? Absolutely. Over our lifetime, our stories are established. In my case, I was fatherless. The caretaker that I had for the first three years of my life left when my mother finally got married. And so I had the carpet pulled out from underneath me. That really started a story of being unlovable. I didn't know that. I mean, it wasn't a conscious thing, but that started where my story was. Then there was a series of events that happened to me, not one of which was a sexual assault when I was eight years old and some other things that compound that story, that just continue to reinforce that story of you're not lovable. And so when that story is running in the background, the things that we do and the things that we decide, maybe not consciously, but subconsciously, we make decisions to counteract that and to prove that I'm lovable and to do whatever I can to be lovable. It turned me into someone that was often defensive. I had a hard time accepting legitimate criticism. A lot of things and triggers were involved with that. But you're right. We go through with this story and stick to that story. And here's the thing. That's really the saddest part of that. Even when we learn that we're following a false narrative, we're afraid to make the changes, because change is more scary than dealing with the issues that are in front of us. And so, for me, I wanted to find a way to break that chain. I wanted to find a way to break that repetitive behavioral pattern. And so I found something that was extremely effective for me, and basically it was learning emotional flexibility.

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It's how not to fight against those gremlins. If we spend all day fighting those, thinking we're going to overcome these things have been set in our minds all our lives. It's just not realistic. But we can learn to bring ourselves back into the present moment. And while that issue still may be there, we can go on and appreciate what we're doing despite it being there. How would you, for instance, take a grandparent such as myself, who has suddenly become a caretaker for sometimes more than one child, who's also coping with trauma within the family, which is the reason that you have the children in the first place, dealing with the loss of personal time, with altered life plans and the stress. How would you begin working with a client such as myself? For me, the first thing is to establish where you're coming from.

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Where were you when all this happened? What was the situation, what were you doing, and what was your life like before? All of a sudden, the switch was flipped, and now you're in a different world. In my particular case, we'd been traveling for several years, spending time with both our families in different parts of the country. And then all of a sudden, we had to go pick up these children because their parents weren't able to care for them any longer. And for us, it was not only the stress of coping with children who had behavioral issues. ADHD, in my granddaughter's case, sensory processing disorder and a cognitive brain disorder, and I had never dealt with that before. We were newly married.

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We'd only been married a couple of years when we got the children and all of our plans disappeared. So we weren't traveling any longer. We were at one home base, taking kids to school every day, dealing with their medical issues. I had to stop doing my artwork, which was my therapy, and it was not a place we were prepared for at all. So the first thing you're faced with is crisis management, right?

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Once you're through that process, which you are now, you're through the process, things have stabilized pretty much. But clearly your life has changed. How has that changed? How has this event changed your personal values? I've changed a lot because it has forced me to take a look at a lot of my own personal issues because I had a traumatic childhood. I'm actually going to counseling for that. I've become more dependent on things I can't see. I see what it's doing for the children. I get a lot of pleasure out of that. My creativity has now become learning about how the brain can heal from trauma, which is very interesting. My creativity now is research and interviewing experts such as yourselves, and that's very interesting to me. I've gotten involved in my community, which I was very involved with when my children were young themselves. So, yes, positive things have come out of it. There's still issues we're dealing with, but I guess I could say I see things differently. So let me see if this sounds like an accurate statement. You're a creative, and I've known you for 30 years. I've known you a long time, very creative individual. But what I hear you saying is that you're doing much of the same things except rechanneled in a new direction. You've reached your strengths. You've reached what you do naturally into this new situation that you found. And so that's what it's all about. When people face transitions in their life, when they face transit. The biggest fear is that I'm going to lose my life.

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I've lost my identity. I've lost where I was headed. I've lost my dreams. I've lost where I thought I was going.

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But if we can get through that crisis moment and then really look at the situation and recapture some of those same strengths that we had going into the situation or before we were faced with the situation, we can reprogram our life and become happy despite the new situation that we didn't ask for. Would you agree with that, Sylvie?

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What are your thoughts on that? I would add that when the environment is changing like that so much, that's the time to go back to yourself, to take care of you, to be able to face all those changes, and to be available to your grandchildren to have this energy they need.

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That's a great point. You know, you can't carry people to safety if you're unable to carry yourself. It brought me back to a lot of personal growth and self care issues. Just rediscovering my own identity, which I think I have a better sense of now than I did before. Would you say that when we make these transitions successfully, we become better human beings in the process? I think what I would say is that coming out of a situation like that successfully is because we have somehow created a new human being in ourselves. That doesn't mean we give up who we are, that we don't have to give up who we are to become a better person. But it does mean that we've had to really take a pretty in depth inventory of really what it is that's important to us. What have the things been that I've stumbled over in the past? And how do I change that? How do I change those things so I'm not continually falling over them? And now, in your situation, how do I do the best I can for these kids? Because now it's not just about me. Sometimes the process is about saying no and learning that when you make choices, you make a choice because it's really what you want to do. And if you don't want to do it. We choose not to be victims to circumstances. And we're taught that, Laura. We're taught as we grow up, many of us are taught to bottle up those feelings. You know, we hide them from others. We put on that strong look and, you know, that mask of happiness.

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You know, if we reveal any feelings of weakness or if we reveal any feelings at all, it means that we're weak or silly or somehow defective, and it's just not the case. What it does is it bottles those things up. And even though we're putting on this facade, it's impacting our lives. And we go through life suffering when really we don't need to. The thing is, we have this massive fear of being judged. We all do.

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It's who we are. And now in your situation, I can't imagine the feelings of judgment from all over the place. Former friends, family, you know, what are you doing? How? I just can't even imagine all that. And so to rise above that, we have to be able to let that go.

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I have to say now that I am better at not caring what other people think than I was before, which I like more about myself. Hooray.

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Bravo. Because. Because really, at the end of the day, that's what matters most, is when we look in the mirror and we can be transparent with ourselves and know that we are the best version of ourselves that we can be in that moment. I often tell my listeners that loving ourselves in our messiest of moments is one of the most self empowering feelings in the world. For me, you know, the message was, I'm unlovable. That was quite the struggle. And it doesn't go. I mean, it's not like suddenly I'm free of that. I never feel that way again. It's just the whole business of emotional, psychological flexibility is recognizing when those feelings come up, identifying them, naming them, and then going on about your business, allowing them to be on the sideline, but not allowing them to take over your thought process. I think one of the most beautiful things about this experience.

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I thought I was going to be some kind of saving grace for the children.

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And then you have these children who don't appreciate anything that you do. They don't like the fact that you're making them sit down to eat a meal or eat their vegetables, and you think they should be so grateful, when actually I feel like I'm the one that's been changed by the experience. Communication with others during the process of transition is so healing. And I've begun to understand through this process that these sorts of transitions happen throughout our whole life until we die. If we don't learn to do this now, when we finally leave this world, I think we've lost the point. Transition is something that I think we have to get good at dealing with, and the better we are at it, I think we're richer human beings. Well, isn't that wisdom? That's. I would say yes. Yeah. And then being able to take those experiences and use them now in a positive way is genuine wisdom. Here's what I was thinking and what your comments brought to mind. We go through transitions our whole life. You know, we start out in grade school, and then we have to retransition into junior high or middle school, and then we have to retransition into high school. And then some of us retransition into college. Others go into the military, whatever we do after high school, and then we retransition into a job, and then we retransition into marriage or whatever, and we get divorced. All these things are transitions in our lives. And when we're younger, I think from my own perspective, it didn't have the threat of a long term effect that it does now. Transitions now that I'm well past the 60 year mark now mean something much different than they did when I was younger. And not only that, some of the transitions we face as we get older have higher stakes. If we get a divorce later in life, suddenly we're faced with real isolation. And one of the fastest things that kills people, they've shown now in study after study, is separation from your tribe and not having a connection with other people. Our health begins to present us with transitional moments and life pivots. I mean, so the stakes are higher now as we get older. And so it's incredibly important to really have a strong set of personal values that we can lean on when we need to make important decisions related to life transitions. And that's the focus of what we do. And isn't that really joy? Doesn't that become true joy?

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I absolutely think it does. I think, for me, I didn't really understand the difference between pleasure and happiness. So I spent a lifetime searching and finding one pleasurable moment after the next, you know?

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Yeah. Outside of myself. Exactly, Sylvie. And finding things. And for a moment, you're in that pleasurable moment. It's happiness, but it's very short lived. And before you know it, you have to recharge that. And so that's when things like alcoholism and all kinds of other activities become involved, when we try to maintain happiness through pleasurable moments.

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And that's really not what happiness is.

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Happiness is more related to the person that you are and the values that you keep. And living a valued center life, which is, in my view, and in my experience, what creates a rich, full, and meaningful life. And that's living by the values that you've identified for yourself. One of the things that happened for myself was. Was because I thought that life sort of ended.

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Or that the opportunities for traveling, for instance, which were important to both my husband and I, had ended. I thought by the time the children were raised and we were in our eighties, that we would be too old to travel. And I began envisioning opportunities to do that with my grandchildren again, through some relationships that I made with Rhodes scholar and other organizations, providing financial aid for them to be able to do that again.

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Rediscovering personal identity was important, and one of cultural opportunities for me are important. And I see that being an important part of my grandchildren's future, because the paradigms that they've been born into are so strong. We think that we can't do certain things.

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And I try and encourage people to think beyond that.

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Can you talk about some ways that grandparents can maintain or rediscover their personal identity amidst these intense caregiving?

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One of the things that comes to mind is, particularly in the moment of change, is that our neural pathways in our mind are wired for one thing, and that's to keep us alive. And so when we go into crisis mode, we go into a process of self preservation. Okay, what that means is when we're faced with challenges, we tend to focus on those things that.

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That are out of our control. Those are the scary things, when, really, we would be much more successful with whatever it is we're trying to navigate in the moment if we focused on those things that we can control. And so that's what I've seen you do, Laura. I've seen you focus on those things that you can do and what it's taken you to is a way of not only serving those children, but now you're developing a community of people that are looking to you for ways of getting through this process that they find themselves in now. And so you've developed an entirely new sense of purpose through this than you'd ever imagined. I suppose focusing on what we can control leads us then to the purpose that we can serve despite the change in environment that we find ourselves and. What is important for us and what we want and not what we don't want. That's the key. Good point.

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Very good point. Very interesting. I think it's very important for people to seek and find support in our particular situation. You spoke about isolation. Isolation in our roles is a huge part of our struggle. We've lost our friends because old friends don't want to be around noisy young children. We are surrounded by younger parents that we can't relate to. As you mentioned, there are a lot of taboos and the things that are going on in our family lives that are not very pleasant to talk about. Kids that have become incarcerated, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, death.

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In many situations it's difficult to share with other people. And I think that it's important to have a community is accepting of you and that there isn't a lot of pressure on being a perfect parent because this is a new role. It's not the same as the one we had raising our own children. So I think that these connections and this community is very valuable. Getting help from professionals, important. And not being afraid to seek that with someone you trust. Well, and that's a great point, Laura. And what I was thinking, as you were saying, that is what you're describing is the coaching environment.

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That's what the coaching environment is. It's a non judgmental, safe space to be able to express who and what you are and your challenges, and then to work out those values. And from those values develop a new set of life goals in a space where there's no one there to criticize. The only thing that is there is someone to continue to guide you through what we call generative questioning. I call it curious inquiry and asking those questions to maybe open up a new perspective for our clients.

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And oftentimes I've been in coaching sessions where I don't say much at all because what the person needs on the other side of the table is someone simply. That's really listening, that's keyed in as a listener, not just someone hearing what I'm saying, someone listening to what I'm saying. And then helping me formulate a perspective that matches where I want to be. And that's incredible. I talk about the importance of staying present in the moment, but how important do you think it is to have a future vision?

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I think the key of happiness is to be in the moment present, because we don't have control of the future. We have to exactly understand who we are, what are our values, what is important for us, what makes us alive, etcetera, and to put the right action that match with that, so that the future corresponds to us. But most of the time it's about to leave the present moment.

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Because our brain spends his time regretting the past or being afraid of the future.

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It doesn't allow us to be very free to see the real vision for the future.

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So, for example, to use method to like the breath or to be in the nature, all the techniques to be in the present moment for me are the most important.

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That allows then the right vision for the future. Do you talk about personal health with your clients?

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That's up to them. If that's a matter that's important to them, then we absolutely will talk about health. If that's a value of theirs, then we'll absolutely talk about that. But a coach doesn't establish the itinerary.

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The coach responds to the wishes of the client and where they want to go. And that's one of the big differences between therapy and coaching, will engage a specific process, which oftentimes goes back in time.

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And a coach may do that given the situation. But it's only for a brief moment in order for clarity for the present moment. As a coach, we look in the now. Part of living in the now is definitely having a feel for where we want to be in the future. But the clear message is that we need to be able to function fully and be fully alive in this moment we're in. And that's where happiness is found.

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Happiness is found right now. We can't find happiness in the future because we're not there yet. We can't go back in time and try to mine out some happiness that was in the past. It doesn't work that way. All we have is this moment right now. And whatever that is, whatever life has dealt with us, there's a way of being at peace with that. And that's linked to the health, in fact, because when your mind is healthy, so you are unable to take care of you, to, I don't know, to run, to walk or do whatever, to have the energy to do that.

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So first of all, the mind. That's a good point.

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Well, I think that was a good conversation. Is there anything else you all want to add? No. I'm really pleased that we could join you.

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Laura, what you're doing is incredible. I had no idea of the. The need and the number of grandparents that are faced with your situation until we begin talking about your project and what you're doing.

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Well, I always say it's like when you buy a new car, all of a sudden you see all the other green cars on the road.

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Although I would never buy a green car.

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Yeah. I think that your grandchildren are very lucky to have you.

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I would love to be more with my grandparents, to enjoy their wisdom, because my parents were so young and they made a lot of mistakes. I love them, but.

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So that's the good part for them. So often we miss opportunities in the present because of the plans that we make in our minds for the future. We have this created story in there, which, by the way, is mostly not true, but we hang on to it and cling on to it, which keeps us captive in this world that if we could just break out of it, we could be free and really understand the freedom that life has to offer us. You know, talking about leaving a legacy for your grandchildren, I feel like my greatest purpose, which might never have happened if I hadn't taken on two children that had gone through this trauma and come from such tragedy that those chains in our families can be broken.

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That's an opportunity that we have as grandparents raising children whose parents have died or were incarcerated or are drug addicts, or there's so much judgment about families that are coping with that. Yet what greater opportunities do we have to make the world a better place by teaching the children to recover from the trauma and realize that there's a different way? Because we all really have to do that to an extent, not talking about the things we need to talk about. And then we have grandchildren and families who repeat that in a different cycle, and then it's the end and we just die and it's over.

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What have we done? Pretty exciting. It's fabulous. It's helping the person that can't read and count past 20 become successful. And you know what's interesting, John? I've enjoyed everything I've done in my life. I have done some amazing things. I've had many opportunities, and I'm more excited about this than I am about anything I've ever done in my life. There's so much opportunity for learning and healing. What I just heard you say, Laura, is that your life values were transformed through this process. When I was a baby, I can remember being three years old. I can remember seeing the pattern of the plaid fabric through the glass windows of the bookshelf across from my crib, sitting in my crib and thinking that I wanted to change the world someday. And I always wondered how I would get to be that person. How am I going to get from here to there? Because somehow they don't connect. And now it all makes sense. Just interesting the way life works. Tragedy doesn't have to mean the end of life. In fact, they can open up opportunities that we never dreamed of. I hope that you enjoyed this episode, and I want to invite you to share your own stories and experiences related to this topic, along with your vision for your future, including your hopes and your aspirations in your roles as grandparents raising grandchildren.

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Thanks for joining us today for another episode of grandparents raising grandchildren. Nurturing through adversity if you're needing support in taking the next step in navigating this significant change in your life, you can reach John and Sylvie Weaver at the contact information or on today's show.

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Notes@coachewoomer.net dot if you enjoyed this episode, please share on social media. I look forward to your comments.

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Thank you for tuning in to grandparents raising grandchildren nurturing through adversity remember, you are not alone. Together we can find strength and hope in the face of adversity.

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Peace be with you, and I pray that you find some time this week to listen to your inner wisdom amongst the noise and the pandemonium of this world on next week's episode. Did you know that if you've adopted your grandchildren, that you're now eligible for Social Security benefits even if the parents are still living?

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Did you know that there are scholarships available for grandparents to travel with grandchildren? This and more on episode five. Three financial resources you might not know about.