... being mindful on top of that.

Yeah.

You know, I, I really, I think it's important to differentiate between meditation and mindfulness.

I consider meditation an activity, something we go and do, whereas mindfulness, it's really just a state of being or a state of mind.

So for the fidgeters, and there are many of them among us, um, I th- I would advise, you know, find a task that you already engage in.

Maybe it's, um, washing the dishes after a meal, uh, folding laundry, something like that, and just watch your mind as you try to give your full attention to the task at hand.

And, you know, start off by feeling, if you're washing dishes, you know, what does it feel like to have water running over your hands, you know? Or the suds from the soap, or the weight of the plate or the mug, right? What does that feel like in the body? And then as your mind gets distracted toward, well, what is this situation gonna look like a month from now, you know, a year from now, then, uh, come back.

... answer that, Roy, and then Stephanie, if you could answer what Roy says.

And do you find that sometimes mindfulness is the thing that falls by the wayside as we move into the role of caregiver and why it's so important to bring that concept, which is really what sort of drives this book, it feels like, is this concept of how to be mindful in the state of caregiving for others.

That's right.

You know, the book is titled Zen Caregiving.

It's not necessarily a book of Zen teachings.

It's really a book about how we can integrate mindfulness into our caregiving.

And I think this is a really important component because whether we're caregiving or not, when we become stressed in our life, when we're dealing with challenging circumstances, when we become physically, emotionally exhausted, that's when we can lose contact with present moment awareness.

So why is that important? Well, certainly it's healthier for a caregiver if they can maintain stability or calm or if they can cultivate the ability to self-regulate their emotions when they're providing care.

But can you talk a little bit about sort of these five stages of compassion and how you define compassion, particularly versus empathy? I think those two can get conflated.

Yeah, totally overused.

Really overused.

And if we see a caregiver who's struggling, it might be an easy thing to say, well, you know, maybe you could make more time for self-care, you know.

And as a caregiver, that's not really what we want to hear.

Because so many caregivers are so burdened and they are so stretched for time.

So how do they make time to, you know, keep their medical appointments or, you know, take a day off or a nice hike or, you know, get to the hairdresser or whatever.

So when I think of moment to moment self-care or mindful caregiving, I It's really about using the activities that we already engage in on a daily basis in our life and using those activities to cultivate mindful awareness or present moment awareness.

But to be able to say, this was my best this day.