When Caring for Everyone Means Losing Yourself | Amy Lokken

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Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast designed to inspire your greatness and thrive through life.
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Get ready to conquer your fears.
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Here's your host, psychotherapist, coach, and empowerment expert, Beverly Glazer.
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How do you keep showing up for everyone else without losing yourself in the process?
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Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion.
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I'm Beverly Glazer, a work and life transition coach and reinvention strategist for women over 50, helping you bridge the gap between the life you've built and the life you're ready to live next.
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And you can find me and this podcast on reInventimpossible.com.
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These conversations share personal stories from accomplished women who face their own challenges and found the courage to use their wisdom, strength, and lived experience to create a meaningful next chapter.
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We don't sugarcoat life here.
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We learn from it, grow through it, and discover what's possible on the other side.
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My guest today is Amy Loken, founder of the Amy Factor.
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Amy works with high-performing women, navigating caregiving, grief, health issues, leadership, and when life asks you more than you think that you can take.
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Amy cared for both parents until their final breath.
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Years later, when her husband was seriously ill, she found herself once again balancing caregiving, marriage, business, and her own identity.
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If you've been the one people count on and you lost who you are in the process, this conversation is for you.
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And stay with us till the end, and I'll share key takeaways and simple actions that you could use for yourself right away.
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And as you listen, if you hear yourself thinking, that's me, let's have a conversation to discover what's next for you.
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And that link is also in the show notes.
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And so, Amy, welcome.
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Oh, Beverly, thank you so much for having me and to have this conversation.
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And let's start with the backstory.
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Yeah.
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You grew up in a family of six.
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How did that shape you?
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Were you the oldest?
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You were the middle.
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Where were you?
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Well, I was the youngest of six, and with a significant age group, actually.
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There are 16 years between my oldest sibling and myself, and exactly six and a half years between me and my sibling before me.
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Oh, so I'd say you're the only child.
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Well, you know, I kind of um feel like I have two um my feet in separate areas.
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Sometimes I feel um like the only child, and sometimes I feel like the second generation of the oldest.
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Right.
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Right, right.
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I believe my um my oldest great, uh my oldest niece is about six and a half years younger than I am.
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So I'm kind of in that interesting um space.
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Yeah.
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And so let me ask you though, you came from a background in industrial design and psychology.
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I did.
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Okay.
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What did you do?
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I um I received my degree when in industrial design, industrial psychology from the Institute of Colorado in Denver.
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Um, I grew up in rural Wisconsin um on a dairy farm.
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My dad taught me how to weld at like I believe seven, eight years old.
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Um, so yeah, you know, but growing up in rural Wisconsin, it was really, you know, limited resources.
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And so I was blessed to grow up um being able to uh be the shadow behind my dad in um seeing him take something that was working uh completely fine of a piece of a um farming equipment and um take it apart and rebuild it to something that worked better for him.
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So I saw design from a very um young age and a very um intriguing age.
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So going into that, I received my degree, went into it for theatrical set design, um, ended up doing retail design and high-end interior design work for um almost uh 17 years, and then branched out and built my um first business, uh Mood Modular, which is um studio set design, and um replacing myself inside the shopping center industry and did that while I was caring for both my parents in my 30s and built that company and learned everything about the end of life and as yeah, so yeah, but everything changed.
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I mean, here you are busy running your life and in your 30s, yeah, you're taking care of both your parents, yes, and you are the youngest.
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I am, and that's pressure too now.
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It is, it is, especially having that age gap.
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So when I said I there's 16 years between me and my oldest sibling, um, ironically, we're all very close.
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Um, but you know, I was in my 30s and, you know, transitioning from, you know, working for a large corporation to, you know, stepping out on my own and building a product and a company and witnessing my dad's health decline and not being able to care for my mother.
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I was also in the position, unlike the rest of my siblings, to be able to be working from home, building a business.
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Um, my husband and I were fairly new in our marriage.
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We did, we don't have children.
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I like to say we adopted my parents and moved them in because it it was what it was the only thing I knew to do.
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It's what I witnessed my parents do for their parents and grandparents.
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So I remember my great-grandmother being in our home periodically when I was growing up, and I have no recollection of my oldest sibling during those years.
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So, how are you able to balance that?
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You're young, you have your own aspirations, your parents are not well, they're dependent on you, you have a business, you have the pressures of life.
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How did you balance that, Amy?
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Oh, that is a really great question, Verley, because um currently I don't know.
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I think it was it was just resilience.
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It was um it was memory, it was uh a memory muscle of witnessing the resilience that my my mom had and my dad, and how you just again, you it's like life throws waves at you, and you either learn to surf them or they um completely um engulf you.
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And then you have the choice, and they do, and they did.
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Those waves did engulf me at times, and and you have that choice of when that tide goes back out and you're able to take that breath and stand up to either stand up or lay down.
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And you know, I was young, I was in my 30s, I was invincible, I couldn't wait for my 30s.
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Yeah, I was done with my 20s, so it was just this um interesting collaboration of life that all of a sudden I was very proud of separating my personal and my professional life.
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And in a blink of an eye, basically my worlds collided.
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And I I just did what I instinctively knew to do.
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And you nursed them to the very, very end?
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Yeah, they I had them here in my home until their um their very last breath.
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Right.
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And then after losing them, your husband's health changed.
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Yeah, I lost my dad first.
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My dad had cancer.
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My mom had Lewy body dementia.
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Um, and then during that time, I um started and um facilitated a caregiving support group for caregivers of um loved ones with Lewy body dementia for about 15 years.
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Um, I lost both my parents, and my mom passed um almost two months to the day before I turned 40.
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So it was um it was a um kind of a rebirth of um and another shockwave of here I am turning 40 with um neither of my parents.
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And I remember in my teens and 20s telling my siblings, well, you will always have them longer than me.
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So it was truly a blessing to be able to be with them and care for them through their final journey.
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Um, and then, you know, my 40s, and it was okay either make my business work and you know, get back on.
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And, you know, through that, you know, those that era of my 30s, there was business growth and there was business loss, and there were major contracts that, you know, I received and then maybe lost.
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And it was a roller coaster.
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And late, um, my late 40s, my um oldest, my middle sister, um you know, was diagnosed with stage four metastasized cancer, and I ended up losing her a few couple years ago.
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Um and then um within the last you know couple years, you know, my husband has been facing some health challenges.
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So it it's been a an interesting journey, and finally it's um it's all coming to fruition of you know, why I'm the one riding this wave.
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Right.
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But you also say that caregiving is the highest form of leadership.
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Talk about that.
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What do you mean by that?
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Absolutely.
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Well, you know, when we think about um leadership, we think about um the fact that we're navigating a lot of logistics.
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And when you're in the midst of caregiving, regardless of it's caregiving for um a child, maybe a child going through some challenges or has some challenges, whether it's um being in that sandwich generation of children and parents, or or maybe it's yourself and your loved one.
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You know, you we're navigating a lot of logistics in that, especially when we're navigating the business world at the same time or profession.
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Uh resilience, like you have to find that resilience.
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And it's the resilience that you find when the world isn't watching that becomes really strong leadership skills.
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You know, you need to be adaptable, you need to make decisions on the fly with discernment and grace at the same time.
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So I personally think that in the midst of caregiving, and it is really when the world isn't watching, that those leadership skills become extremely heightened.
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What was the point when you also started to realize you have to change your business and change your business model?
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Yeah, that really happened.
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I would say, you know, um during a particular day in July of um last year when my husband was hospitalized for eight post surgical blood infections.
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And, you know, here I am needing to re-schedule appointments and not really knowing um, you know, what the next day was looking like, he had more surgeries ahead of him and you know, a multitude of different things.
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It's like, okay, well, we've walked this road.
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We walked this road before, but it's different this time.
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You know, the the parent-daughter relationship is one thing, the sibling relationship is another.
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But when you are facing a challenging and a heavy season where it's your equal, the person you make decisions with that, you know, that's all the things, it's a different, it's a different journey.
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And I remember sitting there thinking, God, universe, whatever, what exactly are you are you handing me over and over that I maybe not be listening to quite so much?
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And it was really that pivotal moment of, I know I lost myself in my 30s.
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Like it took me a long time after my parents of how do you who am I?
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What do I do with this?
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You know, and then you know, losing my middle sister and going, okay, that's you know, really close to reality, especially since I'm her age today when she was diagnosed.
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And, you know, so it's all of those things of just these waves of things that came.
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And it it took me to find that silence in that hospital room to really sit and and ponder.
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And what kind of strengths kept you going?
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You know, I think this um it's the quiet strengths.
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It's it's the moments that no one sees of understanding that I'm not the same person.
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I'm not the same person when prior to my parents moving in, I'm not the same person that I was when um that journey ended.
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You know, from the beginning of my 30s to the end of my 30s, it changed me.
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And I um didn't realize that I was supposed to allow it to change me.
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I wasn't meant to go back to who I was before.
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There were many lessons that I learned through that process, and it took me a good decade plus to really hone in and understand that.
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Right.
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And so tell us about the Amy factor.
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How did that come about and what is that all about?
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Yeah, the Amy Factor really is private counsel, it is a confidential relationship for high-performing professionals, primarily women, who are just navigating the heaviness of life.
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You know, whether it be caregiving or, you know, major transitions, but they're realizing that they are the ones that everyone is counting on, regardless of what season they're in.
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And they're feeling something shifting inside of them.
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And it's hard to maybe necessarily share that with your best friend or your neighbor or your colleague.
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So that weight continues on adding up.
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And oftentimes it's not recognizing fully that reflection in the mirror and thinking, I don't know how much more I can take.
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Where what is, you know, what is that breaking point?
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And realizing that you keep on making small concessions on your own needs.
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And at the in the moment, they seem um realistic and they they're meant to be just slightly pushed back for a time being because when this wave ends, I'll be able to get back to this.
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And it's understanding that that wave will change again and having that confidential person to come with, and it's not meant to be dependent.
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Like I'm here to help you through that and to give you those skill sets to arrive on the other side and allow the change to happen.
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So to someone that's listening right now and they're feeling overwhelmed and they just don't know what to do, they're that person.
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There was you in the time of need.
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What would you tell them, Amy?
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To pause.
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To to literally stop for for a moment.
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And I know time is the enemy, but if we just if you just stop and and think of one area in your life, not every area, just just one particular area that maybe you have allowed your standard, your ability to that you would normally have done to respect yourself and let it slide.
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Just recognize it for that moment.
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Don't necessarily need to do anything.
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And you, and by the way, you don't need to be fixed.
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You're not broken.
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But we do need to pause and recognize in one area, sit with it for a while and then take note of what you can do with just one thing that could get you one step closer to regaining that again.
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Thank you.
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Thank you, Amy.
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Amy Loken is the founder of the Amy Factor, where she works with high-performing women navigating the heavy times in life.
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With a background in industrial design, psychology, spatial intelligence, and decades of experience helping people understand how to move through life.
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Amy brings a grounded, practical, and deeply human perspective to what it means to lead yourself through radical change.
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Here are a few takeaways from this episode.
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Small daily concessions can lead to your own overwhelm, so set boundaries.
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Self-respect is not selfish, it keeps you grounded.
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And there's no need to do everything or to do it alone.
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If you've been relating to this episode, here are a few things you could do for yourself right now.
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Replace one act of sacrifice with another act of self-respect.
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Ask for help before you're completely exhausted.
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And share the burden.
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You do not have to shoulder this difficult time alone.
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For similar episodes to help you further, check out voice episode number 154 and success, burnout, and what really matters, episode 184.
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And if you're going through difficult times, the Dementia Decoded Podcast with Jennifer Fink is a masterclass for working family caregivers.
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That's podcast.show fading memories.
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And so, Amy, where can people find you?
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Please share all your links.
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Absolutely.
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Well, the AmyFactor.com is a great place to explore my quiet strengths, my private counsel, my sophisticated caregiver.
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I have a couple downloads in there free in a couple um little bundles.
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And then LinkedIn is a great place to find me as Amy Loken there and um Instagram as well.
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Perfect.
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And all of Amy's links are in the show notes and on my site too.
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That's reinventimpossible.com.
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And so, my friends, what's next for you?
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If you're identifying with this conversation and you're looking for what's next, let's map that out together.
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You can schedule that in the show notes and also on reInventimpossible.com.
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And if you like this episode, please add us to your playlist, share it with a friend, and remember, you only have one life.
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So live it with purpose and passion.
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Thank you for joining us.
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You can connect with Bev on her website, reinventimpossible.com.
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And while you're there, join our newsletter.
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Subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
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Until next time, keep aging with purpose and passion.
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And celebrate life.