#410 - TURNING LIFE'S HARDEST MOMENTS INTO HUMAN WISDOM, with Casey Beros

 

Caring for someone you love when they're going through a significant is one of the greatest privileges of a lifetime - and also one of the hardest seasons you will ever walk.

In this episode, I sit down with award winning health journalist and author, Casey Beros. Casey’s latest book, Next of Kin - What to Expect When You’re Expecting to Care for Someone You Love, was born from her deeply personal experience caring for her beloved dad through a terminal diagnosis of mesothelioma.

Our conversation is raw, honest, practical and full of heart.

We talk about what really happens behind the scenes when someone you love becomes seriously ill, and how to keep showing up with love without completely burning yourself out.

Here are just a few of the beautiful takeaways waiting for you:

  1. Why there is no “person with the clipboard” - and how to step into your role as an advocate in the medical, legal and emotional side of care, even if you feel totally unprepared.

  2. Simple ways to care for yourself when you have “no time” - including Casey’s brilliant micro habits approach that takes just one minute at a time.

  3. How to talk about death, grief and the “after” in a healthier way, including what Casey learned from death walker and educator Zenith Virago.

  4. A powerful reminder not to wait for “one day” to live your dream life, book the trip and enjoy the people you love while they are still here.

Whether you are currently a carer, you love someone who is, or you simply want to be better prepared for life’s inevitable seasons, this episode will hold your hand and gently nudge you into action.

Press play, and if you are ready for more support in designing a life you love - even in tough seasons - explore our Dream Life Coaching here: https://www.yourdreamlifestartshere.com/course

As always, I’d LOVE to hear what resonated most with you - so please share and let’s keep the conversation going in the Dream Life Podcast Facebook Group here.    

Have a wonderful weekend …and remember, it all starts with a dream 💛

Kristina x

Dream Life & kikki.K Founder

P.S. If you’re ready for guided support, explore Dream Life Coaching here: https://www.yourdreamlifestartshere.com/course 💛

SHOW NOTES:

RESOURCES:

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:01:23] Kristina: Hi there, and welcome back to another episode of Your Dream Live podcast. I'm Kristina Karlsson and I'm really thrilled you are here because this episode is one that goes straight to the heart. We are diving into a topic that touches every one of us at some point in life. Caring for someone we love when they're ill, aging or in need of support. My guest today is the most wonderful person, Casey Beros.

[00:01:55] She's an award-winning health journalist, author, and a keynote speaker, actually one of [00:02:00] my favorite keynote speakers and her new book Next of Kin is Is a compassionate and practical guide for anyone stepping into the world of care. Casey's book was born from her own deeply personal experience caring for her beloved father, and And it offers the clarity, reassurance, and warmth every carer deserves. Inside, she shares practical tools for navigating the healthcare system, having tough conversations, and finding strength and self-care in the midst of it all. this conversation is full of wisdom, heart and humanity.

[00:02:38] Whether you're already caring for someone, preparing to or supporting a friend who is, I know you will take something truly meaningful from this chat. So make yourself a cup of tea or a coffee, or go for a walk. take a deep breath, and let's dive right in. well, hello Casey and a very warm welcome to my podcast. I am really thrilled to have you here.

[00:03:10] Casey: Oh, I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for having me.

[00:03:13] Kristina: This feels like, um, having like a, you know, online date with one of your close friends. 'cause I feel like we've got so much to talk about and this is always the case before, um, I push record. It's like we can speak for like three hours and the podcasts haven't even started. So, yeah. So good. I'm, I'm sure we're gonna cover so many things, but before we do, I wanna ask you a question.

[00:03:35] Did you have a dream as a child, something you wanted to do or have or become?

[00:03:41] Casey: Yes, I think I wanted to be a vet. I had a million animals around me. You know, I had a dog and a cat, and I think we had a sheep for a while, which we were definitely not allowed to have in suburban old Perth. I had budy guards, I had quails, I had rabbits, I had horses, I had all of the animals that you could [00:04:00] possibly have.

[00:04:00] Dad called it my menagerie that we had at home. And I think I wanted to be a vet until I realized that bad things happened to animals. And I was gonna witness that and have to fix that. And that changed my mind very quickly. The reality was very different to the dream.

[00:04:17] Kristina: yeah. Yeah. It's interesting one because I actually, uh, when I was in my teenage year, I wanted to become an optometrist. So weird. And, uh, before, because it was so hard to get into that in Sweden, I'm not sure what it is, like worldwide, but it was really hard. I had to really, uh, if I was gonna get in there, I had to put some real effort in.

[00:04:38] And then, so I, what I did is I, I did some, um, some free work at an optometrist. Uh, after school. and that's when I realized like, I'm gonna have to deal with like, eyes that are not functioning. But it was such an, I dunno what it was, it was something that's really, I, I had glasses for my whole life and contact lenses, so it was something that I got really interested in understanding. So I think that's what it was. But then when I realized it's like this is not gonna be all the kind of glamor around it, it's gonna be difficult.

[00:05:08] So I decided not to go ahead with that. So it's a, it's an interesting one when reality hits when you, you have this kind of vision on one thing and then when, when you understand what it really means, it's always so good to do some free work. Sometimes I think.

[00:05:21] Casey: Totally. I couldn't agree more. I think that's so, so clever and I, I think about this quite a lot actually. Especially for young people who are really considering, you know, what, sort of field they might go into. And sometimes what I think people do and the narrative that's been given to us in more recent decades is do what you love.

[00:05:39] And that's a wonderful idea. But the truth is, is that as you and I know, even when you're doing what you love, there are bits that suck. And so, for example, I love food. Like I really love food. I love prepping it. I love shopping for it. I love looking at recipes. I love cooking. I love eating it. I love the whole thing.

[00:05:58] I love feeding my [00:06:00] family. But if I was to choose that as a profession, let's say I decided to pivot in my forties and go like I'm going into food. I don't know if I would love it as much. I really don't like, maybe it's my, it's my passion and it's my hobby and it's something. But if I was to put professional endeavor alongside it, I don't know if I'd love it as much as I do.

[00:06:21] It might actually take away some of the fun and some of the passion and some of the love. And so I don't know if that advice that we've been given over recent years is it's, I don't know if it still holds these days or at least it's like very worthy of consideration.

[00:06:36] Kristina: Oh, absolutely. But I think actually I, I do think we wouldn't be doing what we. We did if we didn't love it. So I think, I think we can love lots of different things, but certain, because I love food as well. Like I have someone stay with us the other day and she saw my cookbook and she's like, oh my God, you must be cooking all the time.

[00:06:55] And I'm like, I mean, I do cook all the time, but not from the cookbooks. For me, for me cookbooks and food is like a passion, but it's not something that I would like to work. Like I couldn't work in it. And uh, people often say, you should, consider master Chef. And I'm like, no way. I could never do it under that pressure.

[00:07:11] And I would, I would be, I said, no, absolutely not. So, so I think, I think it's valid I think you need to love what you do because I see so many people who study law and they don't. They go on this incredible journey of studying hard, and then I realize they don't even love it, like the thought of doing anything in law.

[00:07:31] So I think, um, we do need to love it, but maybe we need to look at all the things we love and then say what will we consider working in and what will we like to keep in as habits?

[00:07:41] Casey: Yeah, agree. Agree Words, words from the wise.

[00:07:46] Kristina: uh, yeah, we can, that could be like a whole podcast in its own, but, uh, we are here. To talk about you and your incredible book.

[00:07:54] Before we dive into your amazing book, can you just give us a little bit about your journey [00:08:00] so far, because we got listeners from all over the world and they might not all have heard of you yet. So just a little bit of an inspirational journey that you are on. Uh, and then we'll dive into your book.

[00:08:12] Casey: Absolutely. So look, I was a very, very curious child. I loved two things more than anything.

[00:08:18] I loved people and I loved medicine. Now, as I was growing up, I was too busy studying the art of being a delinquent at high school to ever get the grades that were required for medicine. But my curiosity for both people and medicine absolutely stayed with me. And I was the kid and still am the kid who had a million questions about everything.

[00:08:40] And so I became a journalist so that I could put all of those questions somewhere so that I had. Somewhere to ask them all. And I fell in love with journalism and particularly health journalism. I've always been really turned on by why do we do the things that we do to look after ourselves? And even more than that, why don't we do the things that we know that we should do in order to look after ourselves and the people that we love?

[00:09:04] So I spent the last 20 years carving out a career in health journalism. So the medium changes day to day, one day it's books. Next day it's tv. Next day it's podcasts. Next day it's digital platform articles. every day, it changes by medium. But the core mission, I suppose, is. The same, which is how do I help people get more time with the people that they love?

[00:09:26] I think that's why we're all here on this planet. I'm a mom to two little girls. Uh, I love to dance. I love music, I love, and my two most comfortable places are on stage in front of as many people as humanly possible, and behind my laptop completely by myself.

[00:09:44] Kristina: I can, I can relate to that one

[00:09:46] Casey: Yeah, I'm sure that you can.

[00:09:48] So yeah, that's, that's the mission is, you know, if somebody hears or reads something that I have created that tells them to check their breasts or have a difficult conversation with their parents [00:10:00] or whatever it might be, and that inspires them to take some action, that in some way betters their life or extends their time or helps 'em circumvent a problem that may have reared its ugly head, had they not heard that thing.

[00:10:13] That feels really purposeful and meaningful to me.

[00:10:16] Kristina: Yeah. Amazing. And can I just add that you have actually combined the two love of dancing and your love of speaking in front of people into one thing because you do actually dance on stage and uh, every time I hear that specific song, I think about you. And um,

[00:10:33] Casey: Yes.

[00:10:35] Kristina: and I also want to add that, you know, like you are one of the, my all time favorite.

[00:10:40] Female speakers I've ever seen. And, uh, I see a lot of speakers and while I was completely blown away when I saw you speak and now recommend you all the time, so, um, such a great, uh, keynote and also funny moving, All the things that we want you know, as speakers.

[00:10:57] You, you really nailed that, so um, well done. You,

[00:10:59] Casey: Oh, thank you. And right back at you. That's how we fell in love. We first met. I saw each other on stage and you know, I think who you are, well, I hope that who I am on stage is a slightly shinier version of who I am day in, day out. So you will catch me dancing in my kitchen with my children. Everything that I share are the things that I live by.

[00:11:20] I don't subscribe to the fact that there's kind of the stage version and the home version. I am exactly the same all the time. And, and interestingly, in recent years, I've lent more and more into that. I spent probably the first 15 years of my career really straddling this in my real life.

[00:11:39] I was this sort of funny, silly dancing, laughing, you know, little bit, occasionally in my life. a little bit off the rails to be completely honest. and I've managed to reign all of that in now. But on the professional side, I was trying to be this sort of suited and booted. Quite serious health journalist that really wanted to be taken seriously and [00:12:00] thought that I had to look and act and dress a certain way and was forever feeling like I didn't have enough qualifications.

[00:12:06] And actually in the last few years I've realized that my gosh, my uniqueness, what makes me me is actually my greatest strength. And yes, I could probably now go back and do a medical degree, and then I would be a doctor and I'd be bound by the code that the doctors are bound by. And I would have to communicate in a way that's different to the way that I'm able to communicate now.

[00:12:30] And so, you know, it's that kind of Dr. Seuss thing of today, UAU. That is true, truer than true. There is no one alive that is youer than you. I love that. I love, love, love that. And as soon as I leaned into that, I feel like the world started opening up for me.

[00:12:44] Kristina: yeah. I couldn't, I couldn't, uh, agree more and, um, I, I actually think when I look at speakers, 'cause I, I do, uh, see a lot of speakers. I always think the ones that are really themselves and the ones that often don't have all the qualification, there's absolutely amazing speakers that have. Incredible qualifications and depending on obviously what you're speaking about that may or uh, or may not be important, but, I do feel like the people who, are themselves and share their experience because there's no right and wrong way of doing that, versus if you are purely, purely just there.

[00:13:20] Therefore, the theory, it's like very black and white versus when you're on stage and you share your story and your journey and your way of looking at things, then, you know, that's what I find so inspiring because the theory are really rarely, properly done in, uh, real life. The theory is much easier to, look at, but much harder to live.

[00:13:41] Casey: I agree. And you can't out intellect the intellect, so you can't out intellect the person with multiple PhDs. You can't out intellect, ai. What makes you unique is your stories, the tapestry of who you are. And so I think in any setting, when we show up with that, [00:14:00] whether that's on a stage or at a barbecue, I think that's what makes us so special and so unique.

[00:14:07] And I, I suspect that there are a lot of people that are really worried right now about how do I kind of keep up with AI in particular, and I'm not an AI expert by any means, but, from where I sit, the pieces that it can't replicate, at least not yet, are human connection and touch and your story. It can never be you, it can only be versions of itself.

[00:14:33] And in, Some ways we're kind of similar. Like we're constantly going through these, these upgrades to our technology. Right? And I'm currently version 41.0 of myself. And my whole life has been based around, and I firmly believe this, is that you get to choose who you want to be today and again tomorrow.

[00:14:54] And I might choose again at two o'clock. You know? And so I love seeing other things and other women, and particularly older women who, you know, we're still making it in our forties and in our fifties and in our sixties, and reinventing ourselves in our seventies, like Arianna Huffington. And you know, that that is so inspiring to me.

[00:15:12] And I just refuse to, I refuse to believe anything other than that. And I think that that's the opportunity that is available to all of us.

[00:15:20] Kristina: Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more. So we are going to shift a little bit now and talk about your incredible book, next of Kin, what to Expect when you are expecting to care for someone you love. So, um, when. I got this book, I read it, and as I do with any books like this that made you really think. And I, and then I do an exercise every year.

[00:15:47] You know, how many weeks do I have left? if I believe I'm going to be, you know, 120 years old or a hundred or whatever. And also I do an exercise all the time, which, you know, I can do in my head really quickly, [00:16:00] but when you put it on paper, it's a different things. And when you put kids, uh, ages on paper, so I do this exercise, what, how old am I gonna be when I'm another 10 years older and how old my kid's going to be when 10 year?

[00:16:12] And for me it's like, yeah, my mine is gonna, doesn't feel a big difference, but my kids like I'm gonna have a 27-year-old in 10 years time and a 24-year-old. So it just makes you really think, and I always do this on a, on a workshop that I run a couple of times a year in my community just to kind of really help people wake up.

[00:16:33] And, uh, and you have certainly done this with the book in, in so many different ways and uh, and we are obviously gonna talk. A lot of different aspect, aspect of it, but I wanna just share what it made me do. so first. So every time I read something like this, I just, like, I relook at everything. I'm just like, am I doing the right thing here?

[00:16:53] Am I, you know, for me, having moved to Sydney and you know how much I love Sydney, I'm like, yes, that one has gone, because that was something that came up for me all the time. I really wanna live in my favorite city. And then I, uh, it made me think about. you know, how do I wanna spend my time? How many more holidays will I like to have before the kids are kind of adults themself.

[00:17:13] And hopefully that will never change in terms of going on holidays together. But it just makes you think about all those things. And, uh, now I, so we were scheduled to do this when, um, your book just came out and then, our life got a bit, uh, hectic. And then, uh, we had to reschedule a couple of times and now here we are today, which was so good because it got me thinking about the book for the last couple of months.

[00:17:37] But also I reread it over the weekend and I actually got my will out or our will out, uh, this morning. and because there's few changes, because when you have teenagers and you have young kids, and, uh, things are changing so rapidly and it was such a good reminder. And last summer we'd, we did our, well where the kids were really, really little.

[00:17:58] It has been updated a couple of times [00:18:00] since, but the first time we'd added a wheel. We went for dinner, me and Paul, and I had a glass of wine and I was like, it was really disturbing thinking about all the things, what happened, especially when the kids are younger, I think. 'cause it's, you want them to have very similar experience and it's really hard to find, as we were speaking about off air earlier.

[00:18:20] But then I started to book mold dives every year. We just went to mold dives. I was like, I just want to, I wanna do all the things now. I don't wanna wait. And, um, we often wait and, uh, I'm sure you're gonna touch on these, we often wait when we have the perfect time, when, when we have enough money or enough whatever.

[00:18:40] and that might never come. We never, we, hopefully it will for most of us, but we never know that. So that's what this book really got me thinking again and really looking at my dreams, making sure I take action. And we are actually going to Sweden. As the time of recording this, we are about to go to Sweden about a month time.

[00:18:58] And I normally don't do that because I, um, love being in Australia when it's summer, but, uh, I'm there to celebrate a couple of things. And one, definitely be with mom, uh, for Christmas because she's 86 and, uh, and really healthy and well. So hopefully we'll have many more Christmases together, but you never know.

[00:19:17] And that's, um, that really made me think, so I just wanted to start with that. But first, let's get into what made you write this book.

[00:19:24] Casey: Absolutely. I just wanna pick up on something that you said, which is about mom math. And what I mean by that is my mom is 72, your mom is 86. In Australia right now. Women can expect to live to on average, about 85.

[00:19:41] Kristina: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:41] Casey: So your mom has already exceeded that. And maybe she'll be the anomaly and she'll get to a hundred.

[00:19:47] And wouldn't that be amazing? But on average, that's not even what's promised to us. That's just the average. So for me, with my mom, I went on a holiday with her a few weeks ago, and I thought, my goodness, [00:20:00] she's 72. I might get 13 more Christmases with her and we split Christmas up between my family, my husband's family, so West coast, east coast.

[00:20:09] So I might get six and a half Christmases left with her or six, six more holidays or whatever. Or like six more times of her being at my kids' merit certificate assembly. and that is shocking when you think about it like that. Which is why that exercise that you were explaining, the 10 year exercise is so beautiful.

[00:20:29] And so, you know, we know that time with the people that we love is a melting ice cube. We will never have more than we have right now. And that's why it's so nice to have opportunities to bring these sorts of ideas into focus. And we can't live every minute of every day feeling like it's our last.

[00:20:45] That's way too exhausting for anybody. But I think the more opportunities that we have to crystallize these concepts that are the truth, you know, birth, death and taxes, they're the things that are, that are guaranteed in life, right? And so I think it is opportunity, a good opportunity to as often as you can to start asking yourself these questions.

[00:21:05] You know, how old is my mom? How old is my dad? How much longer might I get with them? How old are my kids? how much more am I gonna get with them in the next 10 years? 'cause if you look at any graph on the amount of time that we spend with our family, with our friends, with the people that we love, with our children, with our parents, it is just a linear decline.

[00:21:22] And we start spending more and more time on our own. And so, you're right. You know, we do fall into this trap of tomorrow and tomorrow is never ever promised to us. All we have is this moment right now, and we know that. And so, you know, while everybody is well, we should grab those moments. by the wrists and say, let's book the trip.

[00:21:40] Let's do the thing. You know, that, that I think is, is the opportunity for all of us. But to answer your question about the book, was born from a phone call that I got in June, 2021, where my dad told me that he had been diagnosed with a terminal fatal, incurable. Very rapidly progressing cancer called [00:22:00] mesothelioma, which you get from exposure to asbestos and often the exposure comes much earlier in your life and then it sort of lives dormant in you.

[00:22:09] For a long, long time, for my dad, that was about 50 years that that disease lived dormant in him, uh, until it's sort of reared its ugly head, and when it does, it can be a very sharp and steep decline. you know, we were told that his, one of his first appointments that he had about a 50% chance of blowing out another set of birthday candles.

[00:22:29] And, but that with some sort of active treatment meaning, you know, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, that, that would increase his chances significantly. So, you know, I have always been. A lifelong capturer. I like having photographs and videos and more than that, notes about how I was feeling in any moment or something that someone said to me.

[00:22:52] And I think I probably got that from my dad and I've got a, a garage full of his journals to prove it because he was exactly the same. And so I'm, I'm grateful for that. And the book really, you know, for the first probably 18 months of my dad's illness. And, and for context we were given, he was given six to 12 months and we were very lucky in that we got about two and a half years.

[00:23:16] So we got a lot of extra time, a lot of extra tomorrows that weren't promised to us. And for the first part of that illness, he was very private. So I was capturing quietly and we were having these kind of deep analytical conversations after every, Interaction with a healthcare professional, with the healthcare system.

[00:23:34] When we would kind of meet a new milestone in his illness journey, we would analyze that and have deep, thoughtful conversations about what did we like about that interaction or that healthcare professional? What worked, what didn't? What surprised us? What challenged us? And and what made him feel better about the journey that he was on?

[00:23:56] What really confronted him, you know? 'cause I think the patient's perspective [00:24:00] is the most important one, but the carer's perspective, the next of Kin's perspective, the person walking beside them essentially has a PhD in the patient. And that is very, very different to the experience of the healthcare professional who might get 10, 12, 15, 20, maybe 30 minutes if you're really lucky.

[00:24:18] And they're trying to pull in so much information, so much data. In that appointment, whereas you have the context of who this person is as a person, not who they are, what illness or disability they might have, what's really important to them as a human being. And so we bring this kind of completely different lens.

[00:24:38] And so, you know, I was capturing for a lot longer than I was sharing. And people say in this space, you know, write from the wound but publish from the scar, which means give yourself a beat whilst you're going through something hard, whether it's divorce or uh, miscarriage or illness or grief or whatever it might be.

[00:24:59] Your emotions are so raw in the moment whilst you're going through them that it is kind of vulnerable to put your sharing out when it is still so raw. All of that said, I think it's kind of important to capture it while it is so that you can feel how that felt and then perhaps putting it on the shelf and giving it some time and then revisiting it when you are a little bit more robust.

[00:25:24] And so I was kind of grateful that I wasn't sharing in real time along the way that that certainly came later.

[00:25:31] Kristina: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I can, I can only imagine. So, you captured everything, did you capture it with the, the book in mind or more just to kind of see how you can process all this yourself?

[00:25:45] Casey: Both

[00:25:46] Kristina: Yeah.

[00:25:47] Casey: I have forever, as you will remember, from, you know, 'cause we are a similar vintage, when we were growing up, going through our hard things, there was no. Podcasts, social [00:26:00] media accounts, we didn't have that. If you couldn't find it in a book in the library or a very rudimentary Google search or in a newspaper, it didn't exist.

[00:26:08] And so when I was going through my hard things, I thought I was the only one grappling with them. I thought everybody else walking around me knew exactly what they were doing, and that I was the only one sort of flailing around like an idiot. And I think there's so much comfort and comradery in being able to go through quite literally anything very nuanced, very obscure thing these days.

[00:26:31] And being able to go out and find a community of people who are going through the exact same thing, whether it's loss or grief, or uh, bankruptcy or whatever it might be. You know, you can find a community of people now who can help guide you and can help. You know, give you some guidance and expertise, and make you feel like you're less alone, which is really important.

[00:26:52] But we didn't have that when we were growing up. And so I started writing in order to have a place to put all of those thoughts and feelings and to try to make some sense out of them. I thought if I can make sense out of them by putting words around them, then that's a total win for me. And then I suppose as when I became a journalist and I had channels through which to publish these thoughts and feelings, which got progressively more real as I progressed on my career, and that I knew that other people could derive some value from that, that felt like a win-win to me.

[00:27:33] And so I suppose I was always capturing with the view to share, because I suppose growing up not having had those. Places to go to. Part of my purpose in my, in my career is to shine a light on the dark hard things. So there was always a book in there. I think I just was gathering as I go, as I went to try to be in the experience with dad [00:28:00] to try to not forget anything.

[00:28:02] You know, I've got a, a ream of notes in my phone, the notes app, and every time he said something to me that I really wanted to remember, not just what he said, but how he said it. It's in quotation marks so that I can remember and I will explain. Dad, and I was standing in the kitchen. He was chopping onions.

[00:28:21] I had just walked in from dropping the kids to school. He said to me, quotation marks, you know, I've really tried to spell it out for myself. Because anybody who has lost somebody that they love will know that if you don't have that stuff captured, you start to forget. Memory is a funny thing and it, and it shifts and changes over time and it's not always our friend.

[00:28:43] And so I really wanted to be able to not forget, you know, where were we standing, what were we wearing, how did he say it, what did he look like? And I suppose that way I feel like I've got this log, this data collection of this really transformative and powerful time in my life. But also if you are bottling some, somebody up, that's about as close as you can get

[00:29:07] Kristina: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's, uh, the book is just it's hard to read in so many ways, but it's also, it's such a good reminder for all the things that we, we spoke about earlier. But, um, I want to, so I'm gonna of course, encourage everyone to buy this book because, most of us will experience something like it, it might not be in this exact way that you experienced it, but I, I love that you've written a book about it, because.

[00:29:32] I find that there's nothing better because again, internet is like a source of so many different experiences that you capture in based on yours. And also knowing what kind of person you are. It's just great. And I always say that like there's nothing better than reading someone's journey about something that I put so much effort and lived it, not just a theory.

[00:29:55] So first, thank you for writing the book. There are so much I want to [00:30:00] talk about here. But do you wanna just give a little bit of a overview of the book? Because we won't have time to go through every single chapter, but we should because it's, there's so much and there's so many things that I didn't know, I didn't know about, a Death Doah, Or, um, a death walker. You, I think you call it.

[00:30:19] apologies, I'm not saying everything right. There was, there was,

[00:30:21] there was so many things like, so I just want you to maybe give it a bit of an overview and then we can perhaps go deeper on a couple of, a couple of things and then everyone should read it. I think this is a book that we should give to people who are going through something like this.

[00:30:35] And also for people who are not going through something like this, what a gift to read that with not the grief that you have. I can only, like, it will be so difficult to go through what you went through in the middle of all this grief and the confusion and the, and they're, and they're, you know, you also have two young kids and you, I can only imagine.

[00:30:55] But um, for anyone who are listening and are not going through that, this is a great book to kind of almost break us up to, appreciate. Uh, the life we have, but also put us, uh, in a really good way of, if that was to happen to you, to have something to go to, but also reading in a, less traumatic time.

[00:31:16] Casey: Yes. Uh, and thank you so much for your kind words. Look, I do wanna say about this book, I, I think I have written a book that no one wants to read and no one wants to think about nobody wants to think about losing somebody that they love. Nobody wants to think about the people that they love losing them.

[00:31:33] And what I always say to people about this book is, you know, when we fall pregnant, when there's new life, we pick up what to expect when you're expecting. We are so excited to be pregnant. You know, it's the first time we dunno what we're doing. So we read it cover to cover and then we put it on the shelf and, and we let it gather dust and then we have the baby and we go through our first sleep regression or mastitis bout or whatever it might be.

[00:31:59] [00:32:00] And we quickly pick up the book and we go back to that chapter. Chapter. This book is exactly the same. So it is, we call it the Barefoot Investor for care because it is, it is a roadmap through one of life's most difficult times. And I just wanna frame this up by saying my myth that I needed to bust for myself.

[00:32:20] And I didn't realize it was a myth going in, but even after 20, almost 20 years or 15 then of, of being a health journalist, reporting on it from the sidelines, loving it deeply, being a huge champion for our healthcare system, which is world class and beautiful. I genuinely thought that when somebody got really sick, when something went really wrong, that there would be somebody, one person in charge of that person's care.

[00:32:47] I knew that the healthcare system was siloed, bit discombobulated, bit broken up. You know, we've got primary care, so for example, general practice. We've got acute and tertiary care, so our hospitals, we've got the pre-hospital sector, so ambulances and what have you. We've got allied health, so we've got all these bits, right?

[00:33:04] I knew that they were quite separate. I knew that they weren't great at talking to each other, but there was probably quite a childlike belief in me that honestly believed that there would be somebody in charge. Now, I don't know who this person was. I don't know if it was some kind of God sitting up in the clouds with a clipboard, if it was a woman in a pencil skirt.

[00:33:25] Hospital with a clipboard. I don't know who this person was, but I genuinely believed that there would be somebody that would oversee, they would go, right, Jack, that's my dad's name. Jack is really ill, terminally ill, we are gonna oversee, we're gonna make sure that he gets the care that he needs and we are gonna bounce with him between these sectors that he needs.

[00:33:46] We're gonna design a plan, a strategy, and we're gonna get him the very best outcome through the healthcare system. Aged care system, death care system. And I realized very quickly there was no person with a clipboard. Nobody [00:34:00] was coming. The person with the clipboard was me and dad. And I think one of the things that I have tried really hard to do with this book is to teach people just that.

[00:34:13] You are in charge. The better you know the healthcare system, the better you can navigate it and the better an advocate you become, not just for the person that you love, but for yourself within the healthcare system. I genuinely believe that that leads to better outcomes. And I'll be really honest with you, navigating the system is really hard, even for somebody who knows what they're doing.

[00:34:36] And I have this conversation with doctors all the time. They know the healthcare system better than anybody. You would think that if there was anybody who was just gonna breeze through the system, it would be them. And they are constantly left scratching their heads. So this stuff is not easy. And there is no guide, there is no map.

[00:34:57] That's why I wrote one. Now everybody's situation is gonna be completely different. You know, my data had a terminal illness. Mesothelioma is a relatively rare disease. and. Our situation is going to be different. I was able, I work for myself. I have a very supportive husband. We had two small children who weren't yet in school.

[00:35:17] We moved from Sydney back to Perth. We have a lot going for us in order to be able to care for him. Not everybody's situation is gonna be like that. However, what I have tried to do with this book is infuse it with so much narrative that you lose yourself in the story and realize that along the way, I've actually been teaching you some of these tools, and so I've broken it into four kind of concrete parts.

[00:35:39] The first is medical care, so understanding who are these people that we're working with? What would it look like to be part of a care team? How might I get the most out of those relationships with these people? Who are people? They have studied long and hard to get where they have. They're under a lot of pressure, and we, as the next of kin can help get these people that we love [00:36:00] a much, much better result.

[00:36:01] So I'm trying to teach people how to do that. The second part is physical care. The truth is that care is incredibly physical and it is hard yaka. It is hard yakka, emotionally, physically, spiritually, socially, financially, in every single way. And so trying to prepare somebody to be able to look after themselves while looking after somebody else, I think is critical, particularly in this climate where it's only going to become more and more important.

[00:36:29] Third part, and it was probably the hardest part to write, was the legal and financial section. And so we do not talk about this enough. These are uncomfortable, difficult conversations about money and love and care and equality and equity and these huge themes. You know, this is really powerful, really difficult stuff and we, nobody teaches us to have those types of difficult conversations and without them we are flying blind.

[00:37:00] And so I'm trying to teach people how to have those conversations, what sort of documentation they need in place, and trying to do it in a way that doesn't feel like you're reading a terribly boring textbook. 'cause I don't know anybody who would actively choose to spend their Sunday morning engaging with myGov or, you know, just having some fun wading through the backend of the a TO that is not how we like to spend our leisure time. And I totally get that. So this is like entry level. Here is how you raise the conversation. Here's why it's uncomfortable. Here's what we do about making it uncomfortable. Here are the things that you absolutely have to have in place that are a gift to your future self and a gift to the people that you love moving forward.

[00:37:45] And the last part is probably my favorite part. Uh, and it was emotionally the hardest part. And it is about emotional care, and that is about death and dying, grief and grieving, and ceremony and aftermath and finding meaning and purpose in this [00:38:00] journey. And whilst not everybody is there yet. The truth is that that is the way that all of us are going.

[00:38:08] And, and you know, I, once I did some work, and I interviewed her for the book actually with this beautiful woman by the name of Zenith Virago, she's Australia's most famous death walker, death educator. And death walkers are just like birth doers. People might be more familiar with them in the context of birth.

[00:38:25] And they're essential, essentially a nonclinical support person to the family, to the mother. So they're there to advocate, they're there to support, they're there to make soup, them are there to be an extra set of hands and help. And in death, they are largely the same, but they tend to focus on two core, uh, objectives, one of which is administrative.

[00:38:45] So they're helping you wade through the admin. 'cause there is no magical death administration theory that flutters down and tells you what to do. But the other side is spiritual. So if they're working with the person who's dying, they might work with them on what would a good death look like? Who would be there?

[00:39:01] Would you be at home? Would you be at hospital? What music would be playing? What, where might you go? In your mind, what might be some tools that you, you know, so they, they're sort of. Trying to get them to, I suppose, become a little bit more comfortable with this concept of death and make theirs as good as it can possibly be.

[00:39:21] And you know, so I think that there are some tools that are available to us. And Zenith, Virago, the death walker that I mentioned, she always taught me, you always set a place for death at the table. You just don't feed it. Because death is a reality for all of us. And it's not about being morbid or morose, it's about knowing that it's always a possibility for all of us, whether we're five or 50 or a hundred, whether we're well or whether we're ill.

[00:39:52] And so setting a place for it at the table, we just don't feed it. And, but you always acknowledge it, you know, I think we, [00:40:00] in our culture especially, we tend to put our head in the sand and we run, we run hard and fast away from the reality. And I can't tell you how many people. Have said to me, oh, I really wanna read your book, but I just can't 'cause I can't go there yet.

[00:40:16] And what I can say to you as somebody who didn't have it and then got there, is once you are in crisis, you are like, what does the world need for me in the next two hours so if you are already in crisis, hear me when I say this book will be an absolute lifeline, but if you are not there yet, this is the smartest time to read it.

[00:40:38] And I know that most people listening to this will have a stack of books on their bedside table that they haven't read. They have probably got like me, a raging Netflix addiction that they are very keen to continue because it is our escape. So what I can say to you is, and you can probably back me up here, is that what I have tried to give you is a story that is.

[00:41:04] As enthralling as it is educational in that I hope that you can lose yourself in the story and pick up a few tips along the way.

[00:41:12] Kristina: Oh my oh, it was such an emotional read. But also I, there was so many things that I didn't know and, uh, yeah. Really, really, there's so much information, but I, and I'm gonna get everyone here that listening to by the book, read a book and get all the kind of more practical tips.

[00:41:29] But I, I wanted to ask you, what was the hardest conversation? Obviously it's in the book, so I know it, but what was the hardest conversation that you had to have? Yeah.

[00:41:40] Casey: Oh, there were many, many, many, uh, one that I, one that kind of springs to mind when you ask me that is, and it's a long story, so I'll try and give you the Twitter version or the ex version. Uh, otherwise we'll be here for hours. But my dad had signed up for voluntary assisted dying. So voluntary assisted dying, uh, is available to people [00:42:00] in this country.

[00:42:00] Depends state by state, but typically, if you have it. Diagnosis of a life exec expectancy of six months or less, or 12 months or less if you have a neurodegenerative condition like motor neuron disease. So something that is expected or that you expect to have suffering at the end that cannot be managed by good palliative care.

[00:42:23] That's in a nutshell, the sort of the thought experiment. or the litmus test rather. Uh, so my dad had signed up for voluntary assisted dying. Mesothelioma is a cruel disease. He had it in his pleura, so the lining of his lungs. So basically you slowly lose your lung capacity or quickly lose your lung capacity over time, meaning that you don't, you aren't able to breathe.

[00:42:45] Which, you know, for anybody listening to this, they probably just did a big deep inhale into their belly because we kind of take for granted having full lung capacity. Right. And, uh, so he signed up for voluntary assisted dying pretty early in the piece. and it felt like, I think to him. Not a get out of jail free card, but some did deliver some comfort in that he could hit the out button at any time if he chose to, if it just got too hard.

[00:43:13] And what a lot of people don't realize about voluntary assisted dying is that in this country anyway, there are two forms of delivery. One is self delivered, so you have to be able to mix and then drink a concoction, a liquid, and nobody is able to help you. Uh, so that's self delivered. Or you can have practitioner administered, which they will put in an IV line and inject it into your vein.

[00:43:38] and that will pretty swiftly kind of end your life. so he had signed up for that. He had signed up for, self-administered. And I believe, please don't quote me on this, I believe it's about a hundred mls of liquid. So it's not like a teeny, tiny amount of liquid. It's not like a shot glass. It's a bit more than that.

[00:43:55] And I remember the pharmacist coming over to our house and they bring with them a [00:44:00] kit, two kits, dummy kit, and the real kit. And they make the person who is doing the dying mix and then drink a dummy liquid at the exact same amount of what the other one. So it's a, the probably the strangest dress rehearsal of anybody's life.

[00:44:17] And dad did that. But then in the weeks following, he started to lose his swallow reflex. And that's something that happens to us for a lot of us towards the end of our life is that, you know, our body starts forgetting how to do the things that it needs to do to keep us alive. And so he started losing his swallow reflex and every time he would take a sip of water, it would make him cough.

[00:44:36] And I said to him, dad, I am really worried you coughing when you have a sip of water is one thing. If you drink that liquid and you cough, I don't know what the outcome of that will be. If you only drink a quarter or a third or a half of a liquid that is designed to end your life, I can't imagine that that is something that you want to go wrong.

[00:45:01] So it started exploring whether or not we just switch to practitioner administered so that he still had the opportunity to bow out on his own terms when he wanted to. But it wasn't. Pertinent that he had his swallow reflex in place and you would think that that would be quite an easy switch to make.

[00:45:19] We wanna switch from self-administered to practitioner administered. Turns out you kind of have to go back to about halfway through the process and it's a lengthy process and not all prescribing doctors agree with practitioner administered. Some of them only agree with self-administered. So there are these kind of nuts and bolts and nuances of re-going through part of the process to switch to patient administered.

[00:45:45] Now, I am really grateful that the universe took that out of our hands. I was pro-choice all the way. Would've been happy. Of course, it was his rodeo. I was just there for the ride. But one of the hardest [00:46:00] conversations that I ever had to have with him was saying to him that. I was nervous that his choice, his autonomy was being taken away.

[00:46:11] Because what that was saying to him was that, I'm looking at you and I think you're getting worse, and I am really scared that this thing that you have clearly articulated to me is very important to you. I am really nervous that your choice is going to be taken away. Now, I don't want to have this conversation with you.

[00:46:30] I'd much rather just let it play out, however it's gonna play out. But I love you and you've told me that having this choice that going out your way is really important to you. And I have to be the one to bring it to you and say, dad, I think you need to set a date if that's what you want to do. And so Dad reluctantly set a date.

[00:46:52] And we went to see his GP and he told her, she asked him, have you set a date? And he told her his date that he had in mind, which from memory was about two weeks away from that day that we were at. And I will never forget her saying to him, I don't think you're going to make it. And seeing that land on him was one of the hardest moments.

[00:47:17] I mean, I was, I was sort of professionally in awe of the poise of the person who just had to deliver that information and absolutely gut wrenchingly heartbroken watching that land on my father, even though it was what I had been telling him. I don't, I didn't wanna be right. There was not a moment of me that wanted to be right about that and watching that land on him.

[00:47:44] Was awful. And I remember when I, when I was saying to him about setting the date, and anybody who has been through this sort of experience with somebody end of life may know that they can push away the people that are [00:48:00] closest to them, that they're angry, that they're not ready to go, that they don't want to be in this situation.

[00:48:06] And you know, in some ways they can be short and snappy and sometimes even a little bit cruel. And we don't talk about that enough. And I will never forget him saying to me, I feel like you are rushing me toward my grave. And that hit me like a dagger through the heart because I had just moved my family from Sydney back to Perth to deliver every additional minute that I could to him.

[00:48:34] And I was just a girl losing her dad, but I'd had to be the one to have this really terribly tough conversation with him. And. That is not fair, and that's the reality. And none of this is fun or comfortable, but that's the truth of these very difficult moments in walking somebody through the life that they're living into, whatever comes next.

[00:49:00] And I have to say, because I don't want anybody listening to this to be like, my God, that sounds awful. I never wanna be in that position, and I hope that you're not. But the truth is that you will find yourself in some version of that situation, whether it's a legal conversation, a financial conversation, an emotional conversation, whatever it might be, you'll find yourself being the receiver of bad news and the deliverer of bad news.

[00:49:27] And all I can say is that there is no way. But through and on the other side, you will never get more bang for your buck. In terms of personal growth and transformation, and in some ways you have to be cruel to be kind. and that's what I was doing in that moment. It felt terribly cruel, but I was trying to deliver the ultimate act of kindness to him.

[00:49:54] And on the other side of that, I was forever changed from having had that experience. Like I [00:50:00] just don't believe that there is any greater experience in our lives that delivers more personal growth and transformation. And it is the ultimate love letter to the person that you love most, because it is easy to show up when things are great and everyone is well, and lines of communication are open and people are living expansively in love and happiness.

[00:50:23] But it is a completely different thing to show up in the mud. To get into the mud with them and say, this sucks,

[00:50:32] and I'm here.

[00:50:34] Kristina: Wow. You're amazing. Unbelievable. It's, uh, and Yeah, for anyone listening at least, it's like the whole book is like these kind of stories, so everyone needs to get it. But I want to, Finish talking about this book in because there was also humor in your book and your dad had a, a wicked sense of humor, which I really loved that, that quite much because I think, I think this is something that I often talk about and when I talk on stage, I talk about losing a business and I always, I get so many people think thinking I'm so positive, and I'm like, oh gosh, there's so many much, there's so much worse.

[00:51:08] Like a business is like, it's, it's not a living person. It's something you can create again and like, versus this, it's just, this is where the hard things, but even in the hard times, regardless of. What people are dealing with. If it's, you know, a divorce or a depression or, there's always good times in the hard times.

[00:51:26] And that's something that I think we can all get a little bit better at because I don't think there's, it's not that black and white. And when I read, the end of your book, uh, it was about, Jack in the Box, which I, I thought was so funny because I think that's just really, because obviously it was super hard for him, but also super hard for you and his friends and family.

[00:51:48] And I think just what you guys did was, such a hard thing to do. It's easy to say this, like this, but the, the after party. I'd love for you just to, talk a little bit about that.

[00:51:59] Casey: Yeah, [00:52:00] sure. So dad had said to me that he wanted an eco-friendly coffin. A cardboard coffin. And he had toyed with this idea of having what some people might be familiar with the term, a living wake, meaning that they basically have a party before they've died with everybody that they love, and people get the chance to say what they wanna say and uh, have some time with that person.

[00:52:25] And he wanted to, and then he didn't want to, and then he kind of came back around to the idea. And decided that yes, he wanted to have a living wake. And so he and I, I don't even know how this came about. He and I went and picked up his eco-friendly coffin. These women were looking at us like, this is the strangest experience of our lives.

[00:52:43] We've never had somebody come to pick up their own coffin before. And we stuck it in the back of dad's truck and it wouldn't fit properly. So it was like hanging out the back of dad's truck and we drove it back to my house and we put it in my garage, which was super fun to walk past every day for weeks with my small children, all of theirs, papa's coffin, very strange experience.

[00:53:03] But we organized to have what we called the party before the after party. Dad knew that for his party after he had passed, he wanted that to be called the after party. So he came up with the idea that this party would be called the party before the after party. And we had 30 of his nearest and dearest come around to my house.

[00:53:21] We had a potluck dinner, meaning everybody brought a plate of something that they know how to make and we ate and we had dad's. Coffin, his cardboard coffin set up and we had paints and glitter and shells and stones, and everybody was invited to come and decorate the coffin to write him a message. Uh, it was such a beautiful experience, but before we had everybody over, he had said to me, do you know what would be really funny is if on the top of my coffin it said, and my dad's name is Jack, he said, it said, Jack in the box in big writing.[00:54:00]

[00:54:00] And then down the bottom I could have a stamp that said, return to sender. And I am like the magical death wish fairy at this point. Right? Whatever dad wants, dad gets. So I hopped to it and a girlfriend of mine, sort of moon lit as a signwriter, and I contacted her and said, this is a really weird request, but is there any chance that you would.

[00:54:21] You know, do this for me. We'll pay you, what have you. She was like, absolutely. And you're not paying me a cent. And so she did up the design, sent it over for approval. Dad approved, approved the design, and then she got to work in my garage and she, did this beautiful design. And then we all decorated around the outside.

[00:54:38] And I remember after everybody had left my house that night, I flipped the lid over and I took photographs. I had photographs of all of his favorite people, and I stuck them on the inside of the coffin in like a, a collage. Uh, so that when they put him inside, he would have something nice to look at of his whole family.

[00:54:57] And I'll never forget people saying to me that night, gosh, you've really inspired me, not me. Dad had really inspired them to think about what was available to them. You know, that we don't have to just walk this really well trodden path from death to funeral in a stuffy funeral home. Hosted by somebody that they've never met.

[00:55:20] and everybody wears black. It's the bit that we see in the movies and then everybody goes to the wake and drinks too much alcohol and says, and does silly things and feels terrible. we don't have to do it that way. We can do it however we want and, and I genuinely believe that the death piece should be as unique.

[00:55:38] As the person doing the dying. Like I couldn't even imagine dad going to a funeral, let alone having a funeral. Like that would be really weird to see him in that setting. So once dad had passed, we had what we called the after party. So it was just at the local Bowls club. I got a heap of sausages, we put them on the barbecue and like a nice big cheese board.

[00:55:56] A colleague of dad's came and played the, did do, [00:56:00] welcomed us all to country and we sat around in circle and we talked about Dad and there was probably 150 people there. My children were there. and one of the things that we had done was dad, dad lived in a rental. He didn't own a home. So one of the crap jobs that I had to do after he had passed away was pack up his whole life out of this apartment and give it back to a rental agent.

[00:56:23] You know, we didn't have the luxury of him. Living in a home that where his partner or his children or other people lived, that would give us some time to sort of let the dust settle. We kind of had to snap into action immediately. and what we were left with was some stuff that each of his children took, some stuff that his friends took, uh, his girlfriend, his parents, you know, people took the things that were meaningful to him.

[00:56:47] But we were left with so much stuff that nobody really wanted, but we really didn't wanna take to, you know, good Sammy's or some Vincent DePaul. We didn't wanna just take all of these books, you know, these, these are moments in people's lives that you know, that they have sat there reading that book or using that knife or whatever it might've been.

[00:57:07] So we took everything to dad's after party and we laid it all out on big trestle tables and hung things on hangers, and we let people take whatever they wanted. We said to people, if you feel called to take something, take a book, take his UGG boots, take that jumper, take that knickknack from his shelf.

[00:57:25] We had his cutlery, we had his kitchen utensils. We had everything laid out for people to be able to take, and every single piece went. And I cannot tell you how much it thrills me to know that dad's tongs are sitting in somebody's kitchen drawer right now. And they may not remember in five years time that they were dad's tongs, but I know that there are these like little pieces of dad all around, well, Perth, uh, where we're based.

[00:57:57] You know, I love knowing that these, these [00:58:00] aren't are knickknacks. They're, but they're also evidence of a life well lived and they're sitting in other people's houses. And I love that. and so many people have stolen that idea and they message me to let me know, which I love. and so, you know, I think we can think about it differently and do things differently and, and there's no rules here.

[00:58:18] We just need to make it feel like the person that we're saying goodbye to.

[00:58:23] Kristina: Yeah. I love that. And I think it's so nice to do things before they pass but it's a hard one because it's kind of, it feels odd, but I think that's where, you know, you should celebrate. It could be a life celebration instead of, um, calling it something that. Be harder for people, I don't know.

[00:58:40] But yeah, that was so inspiring to read, so thank you for sharing that. I've got, I'm very conscious of time, but I need to ask you a quick question. How did you look after yourself during this time?

[00:58:52] Casey: Uh, I didn't,

[00:58:53] Kristina: Oh,

[00:58:54] Casey: I didn't, I wish I did. I wish I could tell you that I did a much better job of that than I did. but I didn't. And, it's very easy for me to sit on the other side of that experience now and say, oh, these are all of the things that I should have done.

[00:59:07] But I, deeply remember in my bones how impossible self-care felt in those moments, particularly when, when things were really hard.

[00:59:18] Kristina: yeah.

[00:59:18] Casey: I guess my two pieces of advice there are. The only antidote to burnout is respite. So that can be, and respite just means time away from your caring duties. Can be a few hours, can be a day, can be an overnight, whatever it might be. And it is critical, vital, especially for people you know, some people will have a short and sharp decline other for other people.

[00:59:42] You're dealing with a chronic disease for years, decades even. And so you have to have respite, and that means time with your friends. Time to go and throw a rug out with a book at. The local park, you need time for yourself. And I probably was a bit of a martyr about that. It felt, you know, part of the, the [01:00:00] conundrum or the paradox of care is that you've never been more depleted and you feel completely lit up and on purpose.

[01:00:07] And so that adrenaline, particularly if you're kind of young and otherwise healthy, it will propel you for quite a while. Like we're pretty, our bodies are pretty amazing and it certainly did for me and I was almost completely fallen apart by the end of it. And I stupidly when I would get respite. That could be from a professional service, so an institution or an at-home service or whatever.

[01:00:30] but it can also just be from well-meaning family and friends. And I had it, people would come over and sit with dad and hang out with him to give me some time for myself. And I would stupidly use it to go and try to catch up on the mountain of life admin that had been accumulating in my absence. And I should not have done that.

[01:00:45] I should have put on my bathers and gone to the beach for a swim, or, you know, taken myself for a 15 minute foot massage at the local shopping center or just poured something back into myself. Uh, but I probably felt so guilty about having two small children and a husband that I wasn't spending any time with, and all of this, these things that are important to me that I wasn't getting to.

[01:01:07] And so I think knowing that you can't do it all and knowing that you're showing up as best you can and then being really kind to yourself about that. And then the second piece is, and this applies to everything that I do and everything that I teach. That we are way too macro about behavior change, particularly when it comes to our health.

[01:01:26] So we think that in order to make a change, let's use the example of exercise that we have to sign up for a new program, join a new gym, get to the gym for an hour to do a full workout, and that that is the only way to tick the box and the science just fundamentally disagrees.

[01:01:43] Kristina: What

[01:01:44] Casey: I could pull on my sneakers and run to the letterbox and back.

[01:01:47] And if that's all I did today, that's all I did today. But it gives me a bit of momentum. If I can't do that, I could do 10 star jumps while I'm waiting for my toast to toast. If I can't do that, I could lay on the floor while I'm watching [01:02:00] TV at night and do 10 sit-ups, teeny, teeny, tiny bits of momentum. I could have done that.

[01:02:07] I could have done that. I could have taken one minute to do some exercise. I could have taken one minute to take three deep breaths. I could have taken one minute to message my friends and say, I miss you. Can we please catch up soon? I could have taken one minute to write down three things that I was grateful for and I didn't.

[01:02:24] I didn't do a good enough job of that. And so I think for anybody listening to this, whether you are a carer or whether you are not, that is one of the key messages that I try to land on. Everybody that I see and speak and teach is. Go really, really micro, like so small that you can't fail. I think that's the way to win moving

[01:02:43] Kristina: Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more. I think that's the, that's the best way of kind of getting into to exercise. Even, even if you do wanna do longer sessions, like starting when it's kind of laughable simple, then um, I think it's so much easier. 'cause it's, it's really about consistency more than anything when it comes to exercise in, in my experience, this has been so inspiring.

[01:03:06] I could speak to you forever. I wanna ask two quick questions. One, have you got a morning ritual?

[01:03:13] Casey: Yes, yes. I wake up and I have a cup of hot water. Otherwise I drink coffee straight away, which is not. What I should be doing for

[01:03:23] my little nervous system. So on my best days I have a cup of hot water. I go and sit outside for a couple of minutes to get some sunlight and I don't pick up my phone immediately.

[01:03:35] And on my worst days, I wake up, I pick up my phone immediately, and then I walk out and make a cup of coffee. So both of those exist for me. Uh, but the number one thing that I do is I've got one little girl who sleeps on a couch in my bedroom. Uh, and so I usually am waking up, checking that she's cool, and then I walk straight down the hallway to the other one, the littlest one who stayed in her bed the whole night.

[01:03:59] And [01:04:00] I just check to see is she a still there, B still breathing, and C still got her blankets on. So that is typically my morning routine. It's full of love. And look, on my very, very best days, my husband walks in with a cup of tea and places beside my bed. And that is the greatest act of love in my experience.

[01:04:18] If you bring me a cup of tea, I'm all yours.

[01:04:22] Kristina: I love that. I love that. And have you got a favorite book, a book that had, um, a big impact apart from your own, obviously

[01:04:31] Casey: Mm, so, so many that I, when I knew that you were gonna ask me that question, I pulled one and it would probably be this one.

[01:04:38] It's called The Good Life and How to Live It. Lessons from the World's longest study on Happiness, and it is by a guy, a couple of guys called, uh, Robert Waldinger and Mark Schultz.

[01:04:50] And I actually interviewed Mark for next of Kin. He is a professor of psychology at, uh, Brin Moore, uh, university, I believe in Philadelphia. And, uh, he. Just so beautifully articulates the human experience and the study that they're referring to, the study that they write about is the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

[01:05:12] It's our longest running study on what makes for a long, happy, healthy, good life. They've got millions and millions of pieces of data. Now, thousands of people who are part of this study, and not only have they captured when we do kind of health investigation, health study, it's usually a snapshot of a moment in time.

[01:05:30] Whereas what they've done is they started interviewing and, and collecting health data on these people like 80 plus years ago, and they're still collecting it now. And so we just don't have. Any really other studies that are so long and so in depth, they gather all of their health data and they sit down and do really in depth interviews with them about what makes for a long, happy, healthy life.

[01:05:53] And they say, you know, if they had to boil it all down into one thing, it would be the quality and depth of our [01:06:00] relationships, and that you only need a very small number of them. And I think that's so powerful. You know, it really sums up why I do the work that I do in that, you know, I'm forever trying to teach people to take better care of themselves, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, spiritually.

[01:06:15] And the reason that we do that. Is so that we get more time with the people that we love, and so that the people that we love get as much time with us as humanly possible. So I loved that book. I devoured it, I reference it all the time. And now having spoken to Mark and seeing what a beautiful person he was and uh, is, and how, you know, well-intentioned, the whole thing is he's like living, breathing, proof of all of the principles that are in there.

[01:06:41] And, um, I feel really privileged actually to have had the chance to chat to him. And I try to weave those principles into my life on the daily.

[01:06:49] Kristina: Yeah, I love, I love that book as well, so thank you so much for sharing. This has been so amazing. The last one is, knowing what you know now, what kind of advice would you give to your younger self?

[01:07:05] Casey: number one. I got two. Number one, quit drinking alcohol. Now. Don't wait until you are 40. I needed to quit drinking alcohol a lot earlier than I did. I gave up almost two years ago, and I can hand on heart say it's probably the greatest gift I have ever given myself. That's not for everyone, but that's what was right for me.

[01:07:28] And I really wish, I wonder how my life would've been different had I given it up much, much earlier. So that would be number one. And the other one would be, and it would be quiet word in her ear. And I would say it gets better, heaps better, better and better and better and better. You know, I, I love getting older.

[01:07:50] I love, I feel so lucky and so privileged to be in my forties. Like he couldn't pay me to go back to my twenties. I [01:08:00] think midlife. We all hate that term and we don't wanna identify as being midlife. I think midlife is this like incredible opportunity. I don't think about it as a crisis at all. You've never had more wisdom behind you and more road in front of you than you do right now.

[01:08:19] And I just, I love getting older. and I kind of can love all of the previous versions of myself now, whereas for such a long time I was really ashamed of them. I carried a lot of shame and regret and disappointment and, you know, anger towards myself for my own actions and. I show up with a lot more self-compassion now, and I am starting to really like myself in my forties, and I, I didn't, I don't think I would've ever been able to say that to you.

[01:08:49] No way. Not in my twenties or my thirties. Like now, just now in my forties, I'm starting to really like myself. I watch my mom who's in her seventies and is, you know, looks amazing, is amazing. And I, I really believe that the, that the goal has shifted. You know, we're not dowdy retirees in our sixties or in our seventies.

[01:09:10] We can live the very best lives that are available to us, and that's what I wanna inspire people to do moving forward.

[01:09:16] Kristina: Wow, what a beautiful way of ending this unbelievably inspiring conversation. Thank you so much for, uh, first writing a book that no one wants to read, which is never easy for and what that, but saying that I am not worried one little bit because, uh, it will definitely be read for, for decades to come because it's a book that we all need.

[01:09:38] So even though you might not get the spike that you, we all want as authors, but, uh, it's a long, it's a long game, this book, and I have no doubt it will be a book that will be read for, many generations to come. So first, thank you for that. And also thank you so much for, um. Coming on the podcast, it's such a pleasure.

[01:09:57] Every time I've been here, I just get so [01:10:00] excited and, uh, I'm excited about, uh, hopefully coming to Perth and speak next year and, uh, you know, keeping in touch. So thank you

[01:10:07] Casey: Yes, you must. You must. Thank you so much for having me and for the chance to share, you know, what is a difficult topic, but a really important topic with your audience. I adore you.

[01:10:17] Kristina: Oh, thank you. I think it's a perfect topic for creating your dream life, because that will get people into action. So this, this podcast is about helping people to create their dream life, but, uh, but in all sorts of different ways. And this book has just really, uh, reinforced and I'm, I'm pretty good at looking at that, but it just got me to another level.

[01:10:37] So yeah, we linked it all. And, um, I have no doubt that you'll back on this podcast for another topic. So I look forward to that.

[01:10:44] Casey: Me too. Me too. Thanks for having me.

[01:10:46] Kristina: Thank you. Wow. What a beautiful and grounding conversation with a wonderful Casey Biros. I really hope you are walking away today feeling comforted, seen and supported, especially if you are in a season of caring for someone you love. Cases, reminder that you can't pour from an empty cup is something I'll be holding close. Something else that I really got out of this conversation also by reading her book, is to really think about all my own affairs for my children, and also realizing that we need to live life now and really create a dream life and not wait, If you'd like to dive deeper, I will link to Casey's book In the show notes. It's a book that, is hard to read, but absolutely a must read for everyone. And if this episode touched your heart, please share it with someone Who might need it today. that small act could make a big difference to someone.

[01:11:52] As always, thank you so much for being here and for being part of our beautiful dream life community. Remember, caring [01:12:00] for others starts with caring for yourself. As always, I'll be back on Monday with another Monday morning motivation episode. I'll see you then.

 

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