Design for Your Mind: Self-Reinvention and Aging Well with Annie Guest

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, hello to everyone joining us today. You're listening to the Living to 100 Club Podcast, and I'm your host, Joe Casciani. I'm passionate about helping people embrace psychologically healthy aging, staying positive, finding purpose, and making the most of all the years we're given, no matter what challenges come along. This podcast is part of a larger mission I call the Living to 100 Network, which brings together 3 powerful tools: 1, my podcasts and blogs; 2nd, A Better, Longer, and Happier Kardec series; And 3, the Living to 100 community, a place to connect, learn, and thrive together. To learn more, visit livingto100.club for my podcasts and blogs. Join our group forum at livingto100.community. And for the card decks, go to livingto100.solutions. Thanks for being part of the journey. Now let's dive into today's conversation. On today's program, I'm joined by Annie Guest, counselor, writer, and author of Design for Your Mind. Together, we explore how aging can become a journey of self-reinvention, resilience, and creative renewal. Annie shares personal stories from her transition to graduate school, which was when she was in her 50s, her equine-assisted counseling work, and the courageous steps she took to shift careers and challenge internal doubts. First, a little background. Annie Guest is a counselor, equine-assisted therapist, and author of Design for Your Mind, a book that blends personal narrative and mental health strategies to help readers pursue self-awareness, growth, and positive change. Her work invites us to challenge societal assumptions about aging and to embrace life's next chapters with courage and curiosity. Annie, welcome to our program.

Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

Yeah, I'm so glad you could join us. I'm looking forward to our conversation. I admire the steps you've taken to continue to open new doors and start new chapters.

Yeah, I would say the same about you.

Well, thank you, thank you. Well, let's jump right into our questions. First of all, your book, Design for Your Mind, talks about self-reinvention. What inspired you to write the book, and how did the process help you find your own voice?

Could I first state the subtitle of the book? Because that helps to—

oh, good.

Yeah, my orientation. Design for Your Mind: How a Family Caregiver and Mental Health Therapist Renovated Her Home to Recharge Her Life and Didn't Break the Bank.

Yeah, that's an important subtitle. I'm sorry I left that out, but I'm glad you added it.

It wasn't that I worked so hard to craft it, it's that it explain some of the context in which I found myself when I tackled this design project.

Sure.

I'm the oldest of 4 children. I'm the oldest daughter, of course, and I lived next door to my parents during their— the last few years of their lives. My dad had Parkinson's. My mom had struggled with spinal stenosis for many years prior to that. And eventually, eventually she developed dementia. So I was there to the end. Very happily, we were able to hire— finally, we were able to hire some good caregivers. Who were trustworthy and competent and loving. But my siblings and I would collaborate as best we could on our responsibilities to our parents. My two brothers lived out of state and my sister lived in the next town. So a lot of this was done by conference call. But I was the person there on the ground. Um, after my— my dad died first, my mom died 4 years later, and then my sister and I, um, being the only two living in the local area, um, did most of the work, just clean out the house. Um, and, um, that was a long, involved process that I suspect your, uh, your audience knows well.

Yes, of course.

It starts with the appraiser and all kinds of things, but we worked out a system for, for having the siblings select items, um, through process that we thought would minimize hard feelings and arguments. We were fairly successful with that, but eventually we ended up with a house full of things that were not chosen. Some went to the auctioneer and some, many, we had to donate. So a lot of my research went into finding the nonprofits that would, would accept certain categories of items like wheelchairs, upholstered furniture. When it was all finished, I had inherited the house and I could start the redesign process. But I was a little worn out and needed to find my spark again.

Uh-huh.

Um, what I did was try to combine my— what I understood about mental health and my lifelong passion for interior design to use colors, shapes, textures, design concepts that would help me feel free again, that could encourage me to breathe freely and deeply. And I wanted to be able to recapture my creativity and my sense of well-being and my focus. And all of this had been sort of depleted over time.

Sure, while you were a caregiver.

Uh-huh.

Yes. Yeah.

And a house sorter outer.

Yes. That's true.

Yes. Some of these ideas involve color, which I could— and I could tell you about anything you're specifically interested in, But a lot of this, these ideas involved the color I chose for walls. Light colors to make the rooms appear to, the walls appear to recede rather than advance as they would register on the eye with a dark color. So the rooms could feel larger, I could feel freer. I would use the diagonal line as I stood at the entrance to a room. I would put something large and interesting and arresting in the corner of the diagonal line that I would see from that entrance to draw the eye and then position interesting shapes and textures that the eye would sweep up on its way to that corner. When I would have a choice between a wooden coffee table and a glass coffee table, I would choose a glass coffee table because it— because glass is transparent, it reflects light, but it also allows the eye to travel through it, and it wouldn't block the eye on the way to the diagonal corner.

What's below it?

All of these things made an enormous difference to my sense of well-being and feeling that I was losing a sense of constriction. But one of the most important things was tackling the clutter in the house. That is clutter that accumulates over time for any, with any person. But it can, that accumulation of clutter can accelerate as one's parents age and it becomes more difficult for them to sort through their own items. Um, so my parents weren't hoarders, but there were layers of things that they hadn't used in years and no longer needed, but they hadn't culled from their, um, repertoire. Um, but that was much of what my sister and I, um, tackled, and that took—

yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah.

The problem in a— I will continue, please stop me if—

well, um, it sounds like you're, you know, as you talked about getting your spark back and allowing some of your own spirit and drive and energy and creativity to surface again and put into action, that allowed you to re- kind of redesign the house to apply your talents to it, but it also was very freeing for you to do that.

Yeah, absolutely.

And then you wrote the book about the process.

Yes, because, because, um, it, it, during the process, um, certainly of researching the The laborious research into nonprofits that would accept hospital beds and wheelchairs, shower chairs, books, not so challenging books, upholstered furniture, believe it or not, the auctioneer wouldn't take it no matter how nice it was and whatever condition it was in. The idea is that upholstered furniture just doesn't tend to sell.

No.

Um, but the process of, of researching, finding these, these sources, um, to take these items, um, inspired me to capture them in the hopes that other people going through the same situation, um, which is often the same person who's been the caregiver for for years, or the primary sibling caring for parents, is also the person sorting through the house, which might take many more months.

Sure.

And if I could spare other people any of that effort, it would help to vindicate my efforts. But I would, I would, I would know that other people could go on with their lives a little sooner than they might.

Yeah, yeah. I was just at a relative's. My brother-in-law, uh, was caring for his wife, and she passed away a couple of weeks ago. And of course, in those last couple of years, there's so much— just a lot of activity with doctors and hospitals, and a lot of things get— I won't say neglected, but don't get addressed in the home. And now he's faced with exactly the process that you went through with your sister, and how to deal with a lot of the accumulations, belongings, the personal treasures, the clothes, the jewelry, all of that, the books, the, you know, the paintings, and trying to deal with all of that. So your book was a way to um, kind of lighten the, lighten the burden for other people going through that process.

Has he— he hasn't seen the book?

What's that?

Has he seen the book?

No, no, I just recall I, I should send him a copy. I think I will send him a copy. You kindly send me a copy and I'll send one him.

Oh, I, I would be glad. I would be glad to send him a copy. Um, I'm very sorry about his loss. Just a kind of a larger benefit to the book, I hope, is that people don't feel so alone in these circumstances. That they can hold something in their hand that says that other people who've been through this had to go through the same process, had to think, ask the same questions.

Yeah.

And one of the most pernicious features of caregiving and this after, after departure process, um, is isolation, um, is feeling alone, um, and, um, that's not good for you.

Sure, sure. Yeah, some of it is, um, is protective, of course, and, uh, let me wall off too much of the external world because I can't process all of that. But you're right, that can become a, um, an ineffective coping mechanism.

Maladaptive. Yes, yes, yes. I mean, and that's a, that's a wonderful insight. So it, I mean, it can, it can serve— self-isolation can serve some, some useful functions.

Sure, sure.

But it can also become a trap.

Yeah.

And when it, when it contributes to kind of a rumination because you don't have other thoughts, other brains, um, participating in your thought process, um, it can lead to depression.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, um, I said that to him when we were saying goodbye, and I said, be careful you don't get pulled into that. It's like a vacuum sometimes. It just sucks you into that hole.

Yeah.

And while you're flooded with the negative thoughts, and yes, you got to fight it, and you got to fight it very hard. And, um, You know, allow the whole world to come in, not just the negativity. So yes, yeah, you're, you're right. So, um, you talk about comfort zone. I know we, we discussed this too, and how it's, um, it's that cozy, familiar, predictable place, and it's safe. And, you know, we all like those comfort zones, but it's also restricting, right? How do you, how do you describe that process?

Um, it's, it's a— well, it's very related to what we were just talking about. It's seductive. Your comfort zone is seductive. You, you know you're safe, you won't get hurt, and yet, um, it can lead to the isolation that we're talking about.

Yeah.

Um, the And then we have, if you've had a long period of caregiving and then, then the, the executor of the will responsibilities, there are habits that build up. And isolation become, can become a habit.

Sure.

So it's useful to start to think, to become conscious of those habits and ask ourselves if they're actually conducive to our health.

Yeah, sure.

Um, there are easy ways to kind of jar ourselves out of the habit of isolation. It might be setting up a kind of a routine with a particular friend where once a month you go to a movie, or you go to your favorite lunch place and then stop off at Trader Joe's for groceries. Because, because the systems that you set up don't require rethinking the idea to reach out, that they can become— yeah, they remind you, they, they're their own reminder.

Sure. It's not an effort each time you do.

It's not an effort.

Yeah.

But it's important.

Yeah. And that, you know, that brings to mind this whole notion that people kind of look for reassurance and support to help them with their depression and loss. And that's valuable. I don't want to minimize that. But at some point, I think we need to engage in the behavior, like stepping out to the movies with a friend, rather than waiting for the depression to lift. I think it's, it's the behavior that helps to reduce that weight, that emotional weight.. And we get out of our head and we, we get out of our thinking process and we just go out. That it's— I think it's the behavioral activation theory that allows us to— don't wait for the emotions to lift, but the actions, the behavior changes the emotions.

I mean, I, I, I am still trying to teach that lesson to myself still.

Yeah.

Um, these, um, it's so I mean, you and I have never discussed this before, and so I may be a little inarticulate because it's occurring to me now. It is so easy to think that feeling blue is just something that happened and not step back and ask yourself what might have contributed to it. Sure. Such as, you know, you're falling in the habit of watching Netflix till 2 in the morning, or the triggers, things that you're eating or drinking, that you can, or have you forgotten to swim your laps for 3 days in a row? It's so easy to kind of become captured by that state of mind and think that it it exists, um, as its own entity, and you have no power against it. You may have— you may have been engaging in some behavior that led to it.

Yeah, there are triggers, of course. Yeah. So you were, um, you know, when we talked, you, you described your process of going back to school and you're going back to graduate school in your 50s, and Maybe you stepped out of your comfort zone of sorts and started this really ambitious undertaking to get your graduate degree. So what do you say to people who say, oh, it's too late for me to, um, do something like that? I'm too old. I'm— I don't have it in me. What do you— what do you say?

Well, I mean, that actually— that actually Harkens back to what we just talked about. That's a, that's a, that's a pattern of thinking, um, that one can convince oneself of. Um, and certainly there are all kinds of messages coming from the culture that, that you would, would love to have you believe that. Um, but the fact is, if you've lived a full life, and particularly if you've spent years caregiving, um, you've accumulated some skills that you may not be giving yourself credit for. And such as the ability to organize, ability to manage time, and/or manage people, perhaps. But also the value of the life experience is that you have earned is actually comprises a type of intelligence called crystallized intelligence, which can help equip you to learn new skills and absorb and process new information.

Mhm.

So if you, if your challenge is, you know, if you've always wanted to write a short story but you don't think anybody wants to hear your voice, you probably have more insights, more writing experience, a finer command of language. You've read more than you did when you were 25.

Yeah, we, we tend to equate our age sometimes with a lack rather than an abundance, and there really is an abundance. And we lose touch with that because we say, oh, I can't do this anymore, I can't do that. Well, there's a thousand things we still can do, and let's not lose sight of that. And let's not—

yeah, I didn't mean to interrupt. Um, which, by the way, may include technical skills, um, which, um, which people may have convinced themselves are beyond the reach of anybody past the age of 6.

Yeah.

Um, it's It's, it's, I would argue that it's nonsense.

Yeah. So we're still seeing some of that negative stereotyping about aging, right? And our society still is not seeing all the upsides, or it's not touting, it's not promoting the benefits, the good things. And What are your thoughts on that? How do we reshape that vision of aging as loss to aging as gain?

Well, if we're talking about boomers, members of the baby boom generation, this is a huge cohort. Huge. If we decide that we want to speak up about this, we will have, you impact. Um, it might be a good idea to— for us to take stock of our own power, um, the power of numbers, um, in addition to the power of our accumulated life experience. Um, but the pressures, these messages that are coming from the culture, um, would like very much to convince us that we have nothing more to say and we're no longer useful. If we say, I would disagree, and so would millions and millions of people, I think the membership of the AARP is— am I correct? You please correct me if I'm wrong. I think it's 37 million.

Oh yeah, I'm not sure. I've heard numbers like that in the millions for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, if we decide to take a stand, if we decide to push back on aging as individuals and as collective and, and as a collective, um, we will have an impact Of course, we will have an impact. There are too many of us not to have an impact. But if I would encourage all of us to speak up when we see instances of ageism, say, in a comment section of The New York Times. Yeah, because these things are just thrown around casually because it's, it's all right to talk like this. And say, hey, wait a minute.

Yeah, yeah, we still see those stereotypes on television and commercials and ads.

I didn't even— I didn't like these things when my parents were old, or even before my— I was offended then. I didn't have to reach any kind of age to myself to find the infantilizing offensive, to be really offended when I would walk into a restaurant with my mom in her wheelchair and the person at the front desk would ask me if my mother wanted to sit next to a window. Um, her mind was sharp. She was a brilliant woman. Um, and, um, I, I, I thought it was, it was absolutely foolish.

Yeah.

Um, it's, I think it's foolish to talk to adults as if they're children. Um, sure, it's insulting.

Yeah, I, I used to see that all the time in nursing homes when I worked in as a psychologist, and we'd see that infantilizing all the time, and it was really unfortunate. So yeah, you have to point it out when you see it and offer another alternative, offer a different take on that, different perspective.

And you can do it without embarrassing the person in the restaurant.

That's important.

You simply turn to your mom and say, um, where would you like to sit, Mom?

Yeah.

And she can answer.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, addressing the individual himself or herself rather than the caregiver or the person accompanying them. So tell us about the equine-assisted therapy. How, how does that play into this big panorama of Annie Guest?

Um, I practice traditional therapy. I mean, my, my, the, the, the, I use traditional counseling theater theories with a particular emphasis on dialectical behavior therapy. Um, and your audience may know what that is, but if they don't, it's a, it's a sub group of cognitive behavior therapy, which, which is used— dialectical behavior therapy is used primarily or often to treat people with borderline personality disorder, people whose, whose thoughts are particularly distorted, whose sense of reality is particularly distorted and experience tremendous suffering as a result. So I don't operate under some, some free-floating equine-assisted theory and wouldn't do that. I don't consider that responsible. So this is evidence-based. But what I found, what I had suspected, was that horses and ponies provide such immediate feedback for learning that when a client is practicing, say, emotional regulation, the and is riding a little pony and is learning to breathe deeply and relax his or her legs, the pony responds immediately with a longer, more relaxed stride, um, because legs aren't cramping, clamping around the pony, um, and maybe snuffles. You know, there's a particular sound that horses and ponies make when they're just completely relaxed. It's kind of a, it sounds like a, it's a loud snuffle. So you listen for those during a session, and then you commend your client for having brought that about.

Okay, here's the feedback.

Good job. Immediate feedback.

Yeah. Yeah.

And A lot of kids love to come out and they're having their therapy session, but what they are telling their friends is, look, I know how to ride, or I'm taking riding lessons. So they're— and they're building new equine-related skills that help boost their confidence.

Mhm.

Mhm.

Yeah, I coincidentally, I had a guest on just last week who started War Horses for Veterans, and they use horses as therapy for, uh, military veterans who have PTSD and have some trauma-related, uh, events in their lives related to their military. And he's, he's doing something very similar and as powerful as you are with his group. The veterans come to his ranch and they're in Kentucky, and they're there for maybe a week or so and spend the whole time learning how to connect with their horses, with the animal, and kind of just work through a lot of that pain and trauma that's been locked up. You might want to contact him, Andy Brown. Ward Horses for Veterans, wardhorsesforveterans.org. Yeah.

Um, thank you. Um, what, what may be useful in that program is that veterans are able to identify when they're becoming anxious because the horse they're riding is teaching them that. The horse they're riding is responding to their emotional state, and they might be able to monitor themselves before, before a panic takes over.

Yeah, that's a good point. Sure. Yeah, the sensation of release and relief without the anxiety buildup before it snowballs. Yeah.

And I believe that, that dogs, service dogs who work with veterans with PTSD, are able to do the same thing. They, they might, they might waken the, waken the veteran up as from a nightmare.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They can sense that, right? Yeah. When the individual is experiencing that. So in the couple of minutes left, tell me, what do you think about this whole world of resilience that, you know, we talk a lot about and how it allows us to overcome setbacks when we get knocked down and we have a loss or we have a medical event or we have to move, we have something unpleasant in our life? How do you How do you see resilience as coming into the picture?

I think, I mean, I'm, I'm having to work on that myself, but I think that it, for me, it has to start with accepting what is, um, and my My work with my— as I was caring for my parents helped me to understand or appreciate the duality of sadness and joy in the same moment. And not to, not to run away from something that caused me pain, because there was joy within it. Yeah, that is, that is what we call radical acceptance in the, in the Dialectical Behavior Therapy world.

Sure.

But I have found, I found when I started working on the design for the house, that if I, when I took that same, that same orientation I would look at design elements that were 100 years old and unique and accept them rather than feel any impulse to tear them apart. And I would design so that I could celebrate them and enhance them. It might be the frieze in the atrium. But I think what it comes back to for me is that only, only once I accept what is, am I able to create from it.

Yeah.

Yeah. If, if I can't accept what is, I'm just procrastinating, I'm running away, I'm denying. If I accept what is, And this is not saying accept things that are intolerable that you can change, but if there's something that you can't change, there may be a creative way to address it.

Well, you're— I think— thank you for that. You're talking about recognizing the emotions, right? The grief, the sadness, kind of sense of longing or emptiness, and it's hard to move beyond that until we allow ourselves to process it, right? And once we do, it might take days or months or maybe years, but we can't— we can't bounce back until we let go of that.

Yes, and you're going to be— you're going to be all right. Um, I mean, you say we, we have only a couple of minutes. The benefit of cleaning out the house is that you're pulling yourself, rather than hiring a service to come and do those things, is that you're pulling out a lot of memories that you may be able to reprocess and make peace with.

Oh yeah.

And that is, for me, that has been part of the healing.

Yeah. That's a good point. Otherwise they can be stored away and we don't know they're still there, physically and emotionally. Yeah, yeah, right. Well, what a great conversation. Um, thank you so much to talk about. What is your website, or where can people learn more about your work?

Um, my book is— my limited edition of my book is available on my website. It's www.anneguestdesignforyourmind.com. The regular edition of my book in paperback and hardback and ebook is available on Amazon, on Barnes Noble website online, and, um, bookshop.org.

Great. So on your website, Annie Guest Design for Your Mind, designsforyourmind.com.

Just one design, just single, singular.

Okay, design.

Um, but now I'm on, um, Instagram, Pinterest, and Substack.

Good, good work. I'm making the rounds too. Nice. We'll see you over there sometime.

We can— I don't know what you call it on Instagram. Maybe we can We can friend each other.

Yeah, yeah. I've just started TikTok and I, I'm really enjoying TikTok.

Really?

Yeah, doing short videos, little clips.

Really?

I never liked, uh, Facebook. I shouldn't— oh well, I never got—

no, believe me, I, I mean, that's a, that's another conversation. I agree with you already. Yes, but I'm finding Instagram Maybe because its focus is so visual and less text dense. Yeah, it has a happier feel.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we can talk more about that sometime, but it looks like we're out of time for today though. Before we wrap up, Dani, I just want to remind my listeners to visit my website for my blogs and podcast library. That's livingto100.club. Be sure to visit my new community for connection and experiences. That's livingto100.community. And if you're part of a senior living setting, don't miss my Better, Longer, and Happier card deck series. That's at livingto100.solutions. With 12 engaging modules, it's a powerful tool for promoting wellness, Personal growth and meaningful conversation. Annie, thank you again for joining us today. I really appreciate your insights and your words of connectivity to the human experience. I think that was wonderful. So thank you.

Thank you, Joseph Casciani. It was a privilege, and thank you for everything that you are doing.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Till next time, stay positive, stay inspired, and keep thriving.