Dawn Renee, the co-founder of Traveling Caregivers, shares her advice for caregivers and offers insight into her own healing journey.
Prioritizing your own wellbeing while caregiving for someone else can feel nearly impossible. Whether you’re stepping in to care for an aging parent or any other loved one who needs support, it’s crucial to give yourself permission to honor your needs as well.
I’m joined by Dawn Renee, the co-founder of Traveling Caregivers, a support resource for caregivers and families. In our conversation, Dawn describes how her health journey inspired her to become a caregiver and eventually help others in a similar position.
Dawn shares her advice for caregivers, including tips for how to seek and accept help, which can often feel challenging. We discuss why it’s so important to let go of the ego and have faith in collective healing. Dawn also talks about the power of sound and music, which she knows intimately as a singer-songwriter.
Listen in to hear Dawn’s inspiring story and hopeful message for anyone who identifies as a caregiver.
If you are enjoying these conversations, please subscribe and spread the love by leaving a review and sharing it with your friends.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or on your favorite podcast platform.
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Dana Frost 00:07
Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host Dana Frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect conversations about vitality from the inside out with guest experts in the field of health, culture and spirituality, and solo episodes along the way from me where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy, medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger, while growing older, this is the place for you.
Dana Frost 00:52
Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Vitally You Podcast. I am Dana Frost, your host, and I have an invitation for you. Before we get started with this week's episode, on April 15, and 16th, I am going to be co hosting a spring retreat. And you can join us from the comfort of your home. This is going to be an opportunity really just to renew your mental emotional and physical health. We're going to be covering all three and a sacred time together. My vision is we're all going to be in a cocoon at home snuggled in, we're going to be together and community. And I'm really excited. I hope that you'll join us this this is what you can expect we're going to be five different healing practitioners who are going to be sharing their best tips and tools. I am going to be teaching from the functional nutrition model in a very practical way.
Dana Frost 01:48
If you've never had the opportunity to work with me or to look at your health from this functional lens, this is an excellent opportunity to create an inventory of your health through that functional lens. Rachel White who is the creator of this special time together, she was a guest on episode 40 The power of floral essences. She is considered the skeptical shaman, Rachel is going to facilitate a guided shamanic journeying meditation to connect attendees to their totem animals and learn how to integrate totem animal work into their spiritual practices. If you've never experienced a shamanic journey or work with a shaman, this is an excellent opportunity. I had my first shamanic journey, I think it was 2012 I had my first significant animal encounter when we lived in Brazil. And honestly, if you've never worked with a shaman, this is a great opportunity to learn more about what that is. We have another practitioner who's going to facilitate a session focused on the major astrological transits coming the spring and their impacts on our individual and collective energies as we emerge from hibernation.
Dana Frost 03:02
She's also going to provide key tips and tricks for the upcoming spring season. There's another practitioner who's going to be sharing how to harmonize the nervous system to nutrition, herbs and rituals connected to the spring season. I really hope that you're going to join us okay. The link to the retreat will be in the show notes. Now on this week's episode, I am joined by Don Renee. Don is a pioneer in holistic caregiving complemented by integrated practices utilizing herbal medicine, Ayurveda, energy work and emotional guidance. She has been a live in caregiver and health coach for over 15 years. After listening to Dawn share her story and her work supporting caregivers. You will see why she is the person you would want to guide you on the journey of caregiving. Now Dawn is also a singer and performs with her husband. Their duo name is Don loves Nash. Throughout their partnerships. They have witnessed music as the universal language of love and a true pathway to transformational healing. Please welcome me in joining Don to the show. John, welcome to the vital you podcast. I'm been really excited to have this conversation with you.
Dawn Renee 04:22
I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Dana Frost 04:25
Yeah, I've done I've listened to a few of your podcast where you've been a guest and so I've had the honor of getting to know a little bit about your story and I thought it would be really interesting for the listeners to get to know you. Do you mind just sharing how is it that you came to be in service to caregivers?
Dawn Renee 04:44
Yeah, it's funny it all started 13 years ago when I had to caregiver for myself coming full circle through this whole journey that's that's where it all started was caregiving for myself knowing learning that I had to fill my cup up. I had gotten myself into such a physician that I was in a bed for 30 days, I was unable to move my husband had to carry me we had just gotten married. And I thought I was doing the right things for myself. But I was misaligned in so many areas that my body just basically shut down. And I ended up in a bed unable to move. And through that 30 days, I learned that I had to take care of myself, if I was going to take care of anybody else. Or if there was even going to be a tomorrow for me, I needed to take care of me.
Dana Frost 05:27
You know, Dawn, I think about myself, my own health journey, and I think about clients who have had health crises. And, you know, they're really that fork in the road where we have to decide, how do we want to move forward from here? And is it? Are we going to give ourselves the permission to take care of ourselves? And what does that even look like? And what does that mean?
Dawn Renee 05:55
Yeah, that was definitely what I was what I was left with, I was at a moment of if you don't make a change, right now, if you don't do something drastic and different, then you're going to either not be here tomorrow, or you're going to be in a bed for however long this is going to take. And literally I changed everything, my diet, my nutrition, the way I was speaking to myself, everything from the ground up, I changed everything I surrendered. To being in that bed, it gave myself permission to take a really big nap, a 30 day nap. And it's funny for me, that was the hardest thing because I'm a go go go, I have to take care of everything I have take care of people, people count on me. And here I am in a bed unable to take care of myself. And so really surrendering to that to myself and committing to saying, No, I am my best friend. If I can't be my best friend who's going to be my best friend.
Dawn Renee 06:51
And what would my best friend say to me right now she'd say, Dawn, you need to get your stuff together. And so I decided to surrender to that and take it out for 30 days, and let my husband care for me. And we were just newly married. So that was a whole other journey. But really just surrendering to being caregiving for and what it helped me was it helped me learn how to intuitively understand myself, and what things that I was needing so that I could see the triggers, and I could see the flags for myself. And then as I walked forward into my journey, I started working with other people and started helping them with their flags and trying to bring light to their situations and where they might be losing energy or power, so that they could get that back. And it just I kept walking into that. And the situations kept coming until I met the ultimate situation which was an and she was a friend that had had come down with ALS.
Dawn Renee 07:49
And I decided to embark on a journey with her went seven years it went from she's not going to make it a week to six months to going through it for seven years living with this ALS. And that journey and caregiving was eye opening, because I went from caregiving for myself to learning how to care give completely 24/7 for somebody else, but still remembering how to caregiver for myself, because that was the most important part.
Dana Frost 08:18
You really have a very unique situation I your life experience provided you the opportunity to really understand yourself first. And isn't it? You know, the episode that that's going to be on my podcast right before this one is a solo episode where I talk about fatigue, and how you know, what does the body need when we're tired? First and foremost, it needs rest. And I find even for myself when I was having my health crisis it was it took me a while to get to the point of giving myself permission to rest. And how did you like when you find when you were I would just want to go back to you dawn in bed right after she was newly married. How did you get like the strike of inspiration to was it your intuition that just guided you to say I really just need to surrender to this.
Dawn Renee 09:15
I really didn't have much of a choice, my intuition and my body was screaming at me i At first the first two days were really hard because I thought okay, I'm in a bed been trying to figure out what's been wrong with me for years because I've had multiple things my whole life autoimmune, endometriosis, diabetes, chronic fatigue, allergies, migraines, Lyme, Epstein Barr stones, and I found myself having to deal with all of them at once because I had let my mind my my physical body go I was so busy with what I was doing outside of me. I kind of abandoned myself and forgot that I needed to do those things for myself too. And so when I was in that bed I was left with, how are you going to get out of this bed? Okay, well, I could get the computer and I could start researching I've got, I'm going to be laying in this bed until I can't lay in this bed anymore. So I might as well research.
Dawn Renee 10:12
That didn't work. Because as soon as I started to read, I'd fall asleep because I was so exhausted. And finally, after the second day, I said, you know, I really have to stop trying to control what's happening here. I have to let go of the outcome. I have to have complete faith and trust that my body knows what it needs right now. And it's screaming at me to rest. Every every indication it's giving me is why are you trying to push so hard, you clearly need to take a nap. And so really, it was just me surrendering to that and saying, I have to there's no choice. If I'm going to see the other side of this bed, and I'm going to be able to walk again and hold myself up and take care of myself again. I have to at least try something different. Because sleep wasn't what I was doing, you know?
Dawn Renee 11:02
So it was kind of like, instead of abandoning myself, I decided to dive in completely and say, Okay, what are the things that could sustain me the best one, getting some good rest, you know, making sure that I'm getting my nutrition making sure that I'm drinking the right water. And at that time, even food was not appealing to me. I wasn't hungry. I wasn't, I was scared. I was legitimately afraid, thinking that this is how it's going to end. I'm in this bed. I just got married, and now it's over. And I laugh about it now. But back then it was very scary and very real. And it was a moment of you've got to be honest with yourself. Are you doing the things that are legitimately supplying you the energy you need to give what you're trying to put out? And no, I was my spirit was driving me. But my body was way behind trying to catch up.
Dawn Renee 11:57
And it just really, it was really committing to that and saying I am going to sit with this. And I'm going to let whatever happen happen. And I'm going to sleep. And I'm going to try not to think about the outcome at the moment, not going to try to think about what tomorrow looks like. I'm just going to think about where I'm at right now in this moment. And what do I have to expand with? And at that moment, the only thing I had to expand with was resting. And so I decided that was it? That's what I needed to do. I had no other choice.
Dana Frost 12:25
Yeah. Isn't it interesting? The answers are so often so simple, that we miss them. And we we miss them. We think it can't be that simple. I heard you say on one interview that Yeah, it really is rest and breathing and water. And I was like, Yes, I know that that is so true. It seems so simple. But if we don't have that basic level of the hydration and I you highlighted that hydration can be food that has hydration in it, you know, our fruits and our vegetables, you get a lot of hydration from that. And I'd love that. But it really can be so very simple, that we miss it because we want to go you mentioned instead of being outside of yourself going inside of yourself. And I think this is such an important aspect of the healing journey.
Dawn Renee 13:23
So far now that I look back at everything that I've just went through the last 13 years. I'm sitting here, and I've been having this conversation over and over and over again, all the answers that I was looking for outside of me. They weren't there. They're actually inside of me. They were inside of me the whole time, I was just denying what I already knew. Because other stories or things that I hear or you know, things that I should go look over there because it might be over there, you know, or I'll go talk to this doctor, they're going to have the answer for me. But what I discovered was that inside was the only place I was going to find it. And it had to do with going in and making all the little cells inside my body happy how can I make them all happy? What What were they lacking? What? Why am I not getting the charge that I need? To have the energy I need to have my functions the way that they should be functioning?
Dawn Renee 14:19
What is it that I'm missing? You know, is it water? Is it good water? Is it water with minerals and my mineral deficient? There's so much mineral deficiency these days because our food is just not loaded with minerals the way that the soils just aren't anymore the way that they farm it's completely different. So, you know, it's like looking at am I giving myself life? Am I giving myself water that has life? Am I giving myself food that has life so the shakes I had two shakes and three teas a day and in my shakes were foods that were very hydrated. So cucumber, grapefruit, green apple, a lemon of I'm some kale, some spinach and cilantro. That was one of the shakes, one of the main shakes that we would have. And then I started adding avocado to it. But it was all about getting my body more soluble water that it could actually take in. You can't just drink copious amounts of water and expect your body is going to take all that water in. Because your body is made of cells.
Dawn Renee 15:26
And the water that's in our body is not like the water that we drink. It's more like, what's the word? Like gelatin? gelatin? Yes, gelatinous. That's it. That's the word. So yeah, we're more like that. So we need to give ourselves more of those things. So for those 30 days, I focused on that I focused on a tea that would help detox my body. And I focused on the smoothies, which helped detox my body, but also gave me a lot of nutrients. Because I put all the minerals in there, I added minerals. And then I also made sure that I had hydrating foods that were in the shake, so my body was getting completely hydrated and lots of minerals.
Dana Frost 16:06
Food really does heal us. Our body recognizes food, as the nutrition as what our body needs. To have its being in the world. It comes from food.
Dawn Renee 16:18
We absolutely, I would say that definitely food has been a major part of my healing. It's not that it was not the end all but it definitely was. I would say 50% 50% of my healing came from food. The rest came from mindset and movement, and meditation and breath work.
Dana Frost 16:39
Yeah, the full body full soul full mind. I appreciate that deeply because I I've, I've experienced that for myself as well. So tell us a little bit about how you move from your healing journey. And how did you move then to be inspired to work with other people to work with and your friend to to work with caregivers.
Dawn Renee 17:03
So when I was finally able to get back up on my own again, and I started slowly walking back in, I didn't rush back into a into a situation of schedules and trying to please everybody, I wanted to make sure that I was coming from a place of strength when I went when I came back. So 60 days, after my 30 days after my 30 Day episode. So 60 total days, I went back and started helping people. And at that time, I was working with a nutritional specialist at her health food shop. And we would have people come in and sit with us for an hour and a half. And we would run through all of the things that they were dealing with struggling with, or things that they just needed to put some light on. And we would help shed light on what they were going through and help them figure out their own recipe. Everybody has their own recipe. There's no one size fits all. There's there's averages, and then there's everybody has their own way.
Dawn Renee 17:57
And so I have the opportunity to meet other people learn their stories, help them through their things, work on my intuition work on, on how I could help them how I could see where they may be, we're missing something that's just right there that they just needed to hear somebody put a light on it, and then all of a sudden they're off to the races. So we did that. And in 2014 i We did the Ice Bucket Challenge and found out about ALS had no idea about it. And six months later, somebody came back into our lives and who I had known for three years prior, but we hadn't seen her for three years, ended up in the hospital to see her by happenstance. It was not I didn't know I was going there to see her. I was being brought there to see this person, but it didn't know it was her. And when I got there, I didn't recognize her because she had lost so much wait. And she recognized me right away. And she writes on our phone. I'm from Nova Scotia, she calls it back from this time that I saw her at one of our concerts at my husband and I we sing we're in a we're in a music duo. And she had come out to our concert. It clicked in my head that this is the woman.
Dawn Renee 19:13
And so right then and there, I don't know, I was standing there with her husband and I said I don't know how you're going to do this journey. But we work for ourselves. So maybe we can help. And so we kind of joined forces with her and her husband. And for the next seven years we went on a journey together with ALS and it was great it was it was a very incredible journey with caregiving and learning how to caregiver for somebody else 24/7 While caregiving for yourself at the same time and it was a very delicate balance you it's so easy to fall into the that person needs me. They need me they need me they need me because she did and it's also very easy to feel codependency and not to give yourself those not Give yourself permission again, to go do what you need for yourself. So we had to go through a series of things to help find balance between caregiving for each other. And that in itself was was a fun journey.
Dana Frost 20:15
Wow. And so what what are a few like golden nuggets that you walked away from that with?
Dawn Renee 20:23
So one thing was with caregiving, if you being a caregiver for somebody else, you're always expected to be the one to jump in, you're always expected to be that person. But you also are somebody who needs caregiving for whether you're giving it to yourself, or whether you're asking for help for some from somebody else. So getting yourself into a place of being okay with asking for, give yourself permission to ask for help. Look around you in your, in your immediate family and friends and see, is there somebody in your life that maybe could be somebody that could be your, your other person that could step in? So you could take a 30 minute break? Is there somebody in your life that you can do that with? And looking at your friends and family?
Dawn Renee 21:11
And if that doesn't work, then I you know, we had to also go and go to Craigslist and go to agencies and interview lots of caregivers. There's other ways of finding some help. But one of the greatest challenges I faced was, who's going to do it? I'm the only one here? How do I need I need 10 minutes, how do I do this. And so it became this balance of okay, I'm going to create this schedule. And on the schedule, I'm going to stick to it. So you know, when I'm coming in to do the things that you need for from me, and in between, I'm going to work myself in. So that way I make sure that I get myself taken care of too. While we're doing this caregiving journey together. The other thing was taking the time off that you need. So if you need to take time, take a vacation, do it because if you walk into a situation and you're, you're not feeling well, and you have a headache, and you're hungry, and all these things, if you're showing up from a place of not being complete and full of abundance, then you're not going to be of service to the person that's needing you anyway, you're just going to be faking your way through it. And doing your best and maybe even getting upset with yourself, because you're doing that to yourself knowing that you need a break.
Dawn Renee 22:29
So taking those breaks and finding somebody to help you with that and assist you with that is crucial. If you can't find that, then it's about working through the schedule. And then there's the other situation, if you're dealing with a patient like I was that had emergent issues. So emergencies can happen at any time. So I have a schedule. But emergencies can happen at any time. So the to my best ability, I would try to follow the schedule. So that way, if an emergency happened, I would still be able to be myself and be fully abundant with her. But if I had skipped a meal or skipped water, or didn't take my five minute breathwork break, or didn't like pause for a minute to even go to the bathroom. You're only doing yourself a disservice when those things happen. So the best thing to do is stick to the schedule, you best can and then when the emergencies happen, do what you can to get through it and be your be the best you can while you're in it, obviously. And then as soon as it's over. So figure out how to give yourself that relief because you need it. You need the relief too.
Dawn Renee 23:35
And I think that's just been the biggest challenge is helping caregivers find the permission, because it's this is the thing I hear all the time, I can't do that I can't leave them. I'm their only person. I'm the only one who knows how to do that. That might be the case. But here's the thing. And this is what I had to learn with an and is what she taught me was, she said, just because I'm over here in this bed, doesn't mean this is your journey. This is my journey. You have your journey. So you have permission to be on your journey. And if your journey needs you to take care of yourself, you should do that, please.
Dawn Renee 24:13
Otherwise, it's also making the patient feel like you are that like they might be a burden because that was another thing that would come up. You know, if you're not if you're coming in from a place of oh, man, I'm really tired and I need a nap. And you say that to them. It's only natural that they're going to feel that, you know, they're in your way of getting what you need. So try to give what your what you need to yourself first, as much as much as you can. And I know that's hard and even if you're a parent, you would know that because even parents deal with this all the time.
Dana Frost 24:45
Yeah, I was gonna say I raised five children and so I've been a caregiver of my family and I really do I had to learn the everything you're saying I had to learn as a mother and And, you know, I had to have my own health crisis to realize, I'm not really helping anybody by not taking care of myself. It's so
Dawn Renee 25:07
True and and, you know, there is a way to find that balance. And you shouldn't have to feel like, it's hard. Because when you are a caregiver, whether you're a caregiver of your of your children, or your parents or your friends or yourself, whatever level of caregiving you're doing, there is a caregiver inside there that needs to have what you're giving all the time to, you are worthy of that you, you deserve it, you belong here. And just because you're a caregiver doesn't mean that you're the strongest person in the room, and that therefore everything falls on you. You know, it really, there is a beautiful balance that can happen there. And actually a lot of healing because even with kids, especially with kids, it's great because you can go to them and say, Look, I need 10 minutes to do this thing.
Dawn Renee 25:56
And I need you to respect and honor that. And for you go find something else that you can be doing whatever give them guidance, if they need guidance, to put them on the path to doing something else. But the point is, is them seeing you come to them being strong with yourself knowing that you need to give yourself 510 minutes, that is power in itself that is releasing it to them saying, Oh, I can set those kinds of boundaries to I can take care of myself too. I have a couple of girlfriends that literally, I they'll be standing in front of me. And they'll disappear. They'll just they won't say a word, they just disappear. And then they'll come back like 1015 minutes later. I'm like what happened? Oh, I needed a timeout. I'm like, Okay, perfect. But then they came back to the room and they were fully there. Whereas before I could tell that something was bothering them and disturbing them.
Dawn Renee 26:48
So they went and they dealt with it and they came back and then they came back to a full, complete position. So I think it's great because it helps everybody in your world start to see that, hey, we can all do this. And if we're all stewards of this caregiver within, then there'll be a lot less need of a caregiver on the outside, because the caregiver in within will kind of take over and give you what you need.
Dana Frost 27:13
I really love everything that you just said, and I love the image of the caregiver within and the caregiver outside because the caregiver outside can be very driven by ego. And it has to be me and no one else can do it. And that's really ego driven. If we're taking care of the caregiver within, there's an understanding that there will be provision, if someone needs caregiving, we're not the only how could we ever be the only person to provide all the care that another person needs.
Dawn Renee 27:48
We were only born to our body. So this is another thing that comes up is if we're only born to our body than our bodies, what we are responsible for everything outside of us is an expansion. It's something we've created as an expansion outside of us either by accepting it, agreement, contracting with it, whatever, we are the ones who decided that we're going to go outside of ourselves and do these things. Whereas we didn't take care of ourselves first. And I don't know how it was for you. But for me growing up, we all have this vision of what this look like, you just gotta get up and run, you know, get up and you're going to run to school, and then you're going to run to work. And then you're going to run to, you know, a marriage and children and a house. And you know, that, you know, there's this story that you're you're built into, and it comes down to is writing your own story.
Dawn Renee 28:41
And it's funny you say about the ego. Just recently, I want to tell this little story because it's speaks to this meta man in a grocery store. And he was in front of me. And he had on Spider Man gloves. He's very conservative, but he had SpiderMan gloves on. And he had a big smile on his face. And he says, Oh my gosh, it's a great day. And I said, Yes, it is. It's a great day. And he said, I know. I know the secret. And I said, What's the secret? He goes, we have superpowers. And I said, we have superpowers. He goes, Yes, we do. And I said, Wow, this is I want to hear more. And he said, Well, five years ago, I had five brain tumors. And he said, I don't have them anymore. They were inoperable. They told me I wasn't going to last six months, five years ago. And I looked at him I said, Oh my gosh, how did this come to be? Really? And he said, he goes I'll tell you what the truth is. I let go of my ego. I said you let go of your ego.
Dawn Renee 29:45
He said yes. He says, let go of the ego let go of all thoughts. Let go of control of the outcome. Have faith in what's happening. And he goes I don't have any tumors anymore. I'm I haven't No more tumors. I just sat there and looked at the man like, oh my gosh, I never thought of ego that way before. Wow. So as a caregiver, letting go of my ego meant letting go of thinking that I have any control over the situation at all, the only thing I'm doing is I'm here to hold this person's hand. I can't go in the rabbit hole with them, because it's their journey. But I can stand here and hold their hand while they're going through it. And be here for them, whatever that looks like, while they're going through it. But I can't ultimately change anything for them. Only they can, with their decisions and their thoughts and their their reality.
Dana Frost 30:45
Yeah, it's a very powerful position to hold to have that sense of I have dominion over me and my body and my situation. And I actually do not have dominion over someone else the other person has, holds their own dominion. And I love that I'm here to hold a hand, I'm not here to be to be I say, be on, you know, stay on your own yoga mat, standing here on yoga mat. We don't need to be on other people's yoga mats, we need to just stay in, stay in our sphere of influence, we have influence over ourselves, it doesn't mean that we can't be a caregiver for someone else and provide love and assistance and hold a hand. But you know, it really comes back to what I love to refer to as beautiful boundaries, really understanding what are those boundaries that we are connected, right? Where and I feel that from you there is, as humans, we are connected with one another. And yet, there is there is a place where we have our you know, our beginning and end, you know, there's, there's that space between us, even though we are connected.
Dawn Renee 32:04
I know it's so beautiful. It's a miracle. It's actually a miracle. We're all here. It's a miracle. I'm talking to you right now. I think about it every single second and thinking myself, I just became new right now, again, I'm new again. I'm new again. I'm new again, every day, I'm new again. You know, every moment, we're new again. And so there's so much freedom in that thought and there's so much freedom. And truthfully, that's where my healing has come from now is this place of freedom, of having complete peace, knowing that this body is just here, housing, this spirit, and I am just here expressing myself the best way I know how. And that's it. It's really simple.
Dana Frost 32:50
It's very simple when it and it takes the pressure off. You know, I think that when we hook into whatever, you know the narrative outside of ourselves, we can begin to feel, you know, pressure for to perform pressure to meet other people's expectations, pressure to meet expectations in our head. And when we can just appreciate all we have is this moment right now.
Dawn Renee 33:16
This is it's funny. We have a song called now now now. And it's all about there is no past. There's no future there is only right now it's all of a lot of our music is about this caregiving journey that we've been on. And so a lot of the stuff that you've been saying, it makes me laugh because I'm like, Oh my gosh, yeah, we write about all this stuff. It's it's the truth. All we have is now.
Dana Frost 33:41
Yeah, and I did actually reading through your information I came, you know, I was made aware that you are a singer with your husband. And the I probably I think it's been six years ago, I had the privilege of being introduced to the idea of sound healing. And I there's a sound healer in Milwaukee who I've had the privilege of having her healing sound over me over my marriage. And it's so powerful this it's a powerful healing agent that I don't know, could you just say, I know, we're kind of nearing the end. But could you say a little something I want to put in the show notes where people can find your music as well. But could you just give us a little bit I've never had a sound you know, somebody who's actively involved in sound healing on the podcast. So maybe you could say a little something about that.
Dawn Renee 34:36
The beautiful thing about music is that it touches us inside and the frequencies that are we're made up of were made up of energy frequency. So harmonic sound waves, they naturally penetrate our bodies and touch our hearts and touch all the nervous system and they they bring in this and even if you want to talk about chakras and all of that the spiritual aspect of all of it, it just really opens up the channel to why we're here. We're all here in harmonious, we're all trying to be harmonious, we just have a really interesting way about going about finding harmony sometimes. But we're all trying to be harmonious organisms, I guess as you as we all walk this earth, but the music, it goes in, and it touches us in the brain, and it touches us in our heart.
Dawn Renee 35:27
And it opens up places inside of us that remind us of where we came from. And the source that we're all part of the same source. You know, they, they say that if you play music while you're pregnant, the baby, they know, they'll have all kinds of stimulation, it stimulates their brain activity, with mathematics and science, and just all of that creates more neural pathways. So the more neural pathways that are connected, the more connectivity that you have, and the more functionality that you have in the body, if you want to go that way with it. But I think, from a soul level, which is where my husband and I sing, we sing and do music from a soul level. So all of our music is, is real life music, real life stories with an element of soul. So it's our, we're channeling the sound coming out of our body, the frequency is coming out of us. And that frequency is going out and touching other people's hearts and souls.
Dawn Renee 36:28
And sometimes just one little note might be all that it's needed to, like reconnect a neural pathway that refires up some kind of creativity in somebody's brain, and gets them going, Oh, my gosh, I want to go make something. I want to go create something, I want to go do art, I want to play music, I want to dance, I want to feel the earth I want to go, you know, down to the river. There's it just it sparks something inside of us that gets that life force just charged up. And that energetic being that's inside of us just it becomes a light being it helps recharge the light that's inside of us. And I witness it. Every time we sing. I witnessed people physically in front of me, I watched them change. And it could be in a restaurant. And it could be at a festival, it could be at a house concert. It's just amazing to watch somebody go from where they were at, to where they go to when the music hits their soul. It's beautiful. It's really beautiful. I feel like it really connects us it brings us to a much deeper place. And it brings us to a place of oh my gosh, we all came from the same place. And there's the answer. It's in those muse. It's in that music in the notes.
Dana Frost 37:51
I feel like it's what you just shared is was so beautiful. John, and I feel that there's this very sacred bubble right now happening. It feels like energy. And I feel this is very, very strong. I love what you share. Thank you so much for sharing. Thank you from your heart. And I know that when I love music, I go to music often and it can be a song will distract me. And I know it's not even the words in the song. But it's a it's a it's a beat. It's a resonance. It's it's a vibration. It's like I have to listen to it over and over and over again. I may not even know why. But it's like, Whoa, there's something it's touching me. And I may not have words for it, but I feel it.
Dawn Renee 38:44
That's the truth right there. I say that one all the time. There's no words, there's actually no, I, it's hard for me to really describe it. I do know that there are some beats that are very reminiscent of a heartbeat. So being in the womb, and having that that beat might make you feel like you're back in the womb because you're you're hearing that sound again, there's a lot of tribal beats that make us feel you know, our ancestors, there's, you know, music is got so much encoded in it. It's information that's coming to us and our bodies just soak it up because it's, I really feel like it's just a part of us. It's just an expression of us. That's coming back to us. Kind of as like a little reminder of who you are.
Dana Frost 39:34
That's really beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing. Do you have any final words you would like to share to the caregivers?
Dawn Renee 39:42
If you need an advocate if you need somebody to vent to. If you are afraid of talking to doctors and you need somebody to give you a pep talk I am I'm here for you. All you got to do is reach out to me contact me and let me know your story. I'm happy to talk to just about anybody As long as they want to talk to me about caregiving, I love that and I want to help people with it. If you feel that you're not getting the help that you need at the hospital, speak up, don't, because this was another thing that happens a lot was you go into the hospital, and the doctors, they know what they know, but they don't know what you know. And you have a very special relationship with the person that you're with. So therefore, your information is very important. And so being able to share that information and finding somebody to hear your words, don't be afraid to speak up, and don't be afraid to stop and how to tell somebody actually listens to you, because your knowledge about the situation is worth hearing.
Dana Frost 40:46
That's really beautiful. Thank you so much. Okay, so I have a question, Don, that I asked all of my guests as a closing question. And it is, this podcast is vital to you feeling younger, growing older, and it's not about the external. It's about everything internally. And but so what does that mean to you that phrase feeling younger, while growing older.
Dawn Renee 41:08
So it's funny, I love it. I don't even I don't register age, I think age is a number. And that space time is a continuum, which means it continuance, which means you can't really measure it, but we still try. So I don't know, for me, I just have adopted that. Hold on to that. That child that's so deep inside of you that five year old, that that five year old spirit that's still there, go in there, reach in there, grab that, that little girl or little boy's hand and say I got to, I'm your best friend, we're going to do this together, and bring that child back out and ask that child what that child wants to do today. Because that child is waiting for you to have fun. That child is waiting for you to take it on an adventure. While you're still here. Able to go on an adventure. It's just waiting for you. So for me, it's all about just holding on to that inner child and not losing sight of it.
Dana Frost 42:11
Thank you. Amen. To everything that you shared. Really, really, I'm almost like I don't have words right now. You've left me speechless. But I want to thank you for being a guest because it's a very, very, you're very special person. John, you're very special. And I want to thank you for taking the time to be with us this week.
Dawn Renee 42:32
Thank you so much. I feel the same about you. I feel like we're great reflections of each other. I love that you're using this platform to speak about this because there's anything that if I was gonna say it would just be on the end of what I just said about the inner child. The inner child is not gone. Still there? She are here. They're still there. They're still there.
Dana Frost 43:00
Go Thank you. And so many blessings from my heart to yours back to you. Thank you for joining us this week on the Vitally You podcast. I hope you'll join me for the spring retreat. details can be found to the link in the show notes. If you're enjoying these episodes, be sure to hit subscribe, download and give me the gift of a review. Until next week. I am streaming love from my heart to yours