How a Home Care Nurse Broke Generational Curses

We repeat what we see, those same behaviors, generational curses,

“and I wanted to break those curses, and you can only do it when you come back home,”

to see them, to live them, and to just break it and grow. So. Keanu Wilkinson is a registered nurse entrepreneur in the president, and owner of synergy home care of Plainfield. She helps families navigate the transition from hospital to home,

by delivering compassionate, high-quality home care that promotes independence, dignity, and peace of mind. The sandwich generation, you know, we're part of millennials. Our parents are older, they're aging. You know, you need tools to equip yourselves, to help take care of them.

Whether it be, you know, sending them to a home, you know, long-term care, short-term care, assisted living, or you bring them into your home yourself. Nespers synergy coming. What would you say to someone out there about just the concept of resilience in it, up itself? I've gotten up more times than I fall in here. You just got to keep going.

This moment is just... [music playing] It spans the globe. Like a super high school. Can't you hear their elders?

[music playing] Today, Apple is going to reinvent the globe. It's not over! I'm telling how we're... The living your legacy podcast, for those who live, to leave a legacy.

[music playing] Oh, that is sensational. [music playing] Open. Check how the was the way you said, Paul.

In the boxes, not on the planet. You can live your dreams. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host for today, Jason Tyler, and today, I am joined by Keanu Wilkinson, welcome to the show, Keanu.

Hello. How are you doing? I'm doing really well. Now, we're about to go into filming your episode.

“What are some of the lessons that you want the audience to be able to take away from your story?”

That there is power in coming home. There is power in healing. There is power in just being surrounded by family. So, if you can, you know, whether the storm and learn the lessons you're meant to learn, you can grow.

And those lessons are out there. Yes. Because one thing that I'm going to do is he's going to teach you something. That part. That part.

We're going to work to you again. Clock it, clock it. So, give me a little bit of an introduction. Where does Keanu come from? How do we get the Keanu that we see in front of us today?

How do we get the Keanu? That's a great question. So, when I was younger, I felt like I didn't have a voice.

I was always trying to find my voice.

I guess find my place in home. And when I was at home, I didn't feel that. I had that place at home. So I searched it. I found that writing was a great avenue for me to find my voice.

And I've been writing since I was nine years old. The first poem I wrote run on aory mention. And from there, I just kept writing. And I feel like I just kept going through life. My parents fought a lot.

The environment was not the best. And I didn't want that to stop me. I didn't want to continue the generational curses. My father had ALS diagnosed now as 15 years old. And from there, that was my introduction to home care.

Having hospice come in the home, having just any health care, coming to the home setting. And that would change trajectory of my life forever. And went to college, went to nursing school, met my husband.

And I found someone else who shared a vision, who wanted a partnership, who wanted to grow with me. And that's a blessing. Because not everybody has that. So from there, I kept going, finished graduating nursing school,

had my family. And I lived down in central Illinois away from home, because of how my upbringing was. I didn't want to be around it. I didn't want to be associated with it.

But I felt like I was hindering my own growth by staying away from it.

So 13 years later, we had our first child Theo.

And we moved back home. And I was pregnant with my second child, Liam. So I've got two boys. And you need support as anyone knows and you have family. It takes a village.

It takes a village. I just said that to somebody the other day, because we were talking about a kid that was-- she was a teacher. And she was talking about a kid that was in her class

and was acting out of ton. And there's a quote that I really love. A child that doesn't feel warmth from the village, will burn the village down, the feel that's warmth. And it's such a true statement.

Because when you go back into the story of that child, who was acting out, there was no one caring for him. Not even in just the home, but in the community surrounding it. Exactly.

“It takes the entire community to raise a child, I think, properly.”

I agree. I agree. If you're not getting that positive attention, you're going to act that negatively to get that attention. So I can relate to that. Yeah, I love it. I'm telling-- and now, you guys don't know this.

But her husband is in the room with us. You guys just can't see that. So we're only allowed to speak about him positive.

I'm as thorough. Yeah, he's my buddy. He was my client, my buddy.

“Yeah, look, we are just-- yeah, we're partners.”

But we moved home. And we added discussion about that. And how that was shake up our foundation. We've built this life in bloom as a normal for 13 years. You know, there's traffic here with your family. You know, my father did die.

When I was 17 years old, we before I started my senior in high school.

And from there, I never came back home.

So this would be a homecoming. And I found that as much as the issues I saw with my family, there within me as well. We repeat what we see, those same behaviors, generational curses, as I've mentioned before.

And I wanted to break those curses. And you can only do it when you come back home to see them, to live them, to see how they manifest and your mother, and your siblings and your family, and to just break it and grow. So the power of coming home, I've been able to start a family business.

I've been able to just have a community for my boys. They just feel so much warmth. They have so many cousins.

“You know, it's just what it's meant to be.”

You have the family and you come home. That's just what I think. And I agree with you on that point as well because it's like, you don't understand what you're going through necessarily as in your early years. And then you go out, you become self-actualized.

You realize you do the inner work and you learn who you are. And then you can go back into that environment and approach it. It's the same concept of doing inner work, right? The your inner child that has this wound, and you're not going to be able to heal that wound unless you're able to go back

and deal with the same thing that you're inner child dealt with from the new perspective of the self-actualized self. Yes, face to a fire. You got to face it? There's no other way around it.

I agree. Now, I want to talk a little bit. You know, our audience here on the show, they're very entrepreneurial. They're very business-minded. I want to talk about how that homecoming manifested itself

into your family business and just kind of the ethos behind that. Yes, my father had a business. He wanted to grow us to on the South Side of Chicago. And he manifested that and it did fail unfortunately.

But his vision and his dream never died.

My mother is a business owner as well. She's developmental therapist. Jazz family support services. And just having that entrepreneurial spirit in the home, always talking about being creative and do it yourself.

And you see a problem, what can you do about it? So we never saw problems that we couldn't solve, I feel. And home care, in 2013, my trek into nursing school, I was a home carry for synergy home care, and Bloomington Normal. And the owners there were inspirational.

They had a piece of the pie. And they just cared because they had family members. They were taken care of. So it was just them helping themselves, helping their families of family business. And they helped us as home care.

It's I feel like they were supportive of us. It's not a career that a lot of people I would say respect. But it's highly trained, highly skilled. And they take care of you in your home. I learned this when I took care of my father.

I learned this on the professional side. When I was home carry and going to nursing school. And then singing down the professional side is, it's the home coming. It's like full circle.

So being entrepreneur was always in our home.

What can we do? We see a problem to solve it. The sandwich generation, we're part of millennials. Our parents are older. They're aging.

Gen X as well. And you need tools to equip yourselves. To help take care of them. You know, whether it be something to a home, long-term care, short-term care, assisted living, or you bring them into your home yourself.

And that's where synergy comes in. Good play. And that resonates that hits home for me. Also, I see what you did there with the narrative thread of the home coming. Not only in your own story, but in the business.

It hits home for me because I have a similar story in that my mom was recently died. Well, in 2020, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And so my dad and I made a decision that my mom does a work anymore. She's functioning and retired. And she lives now in the house with me and my brother.

You know, so I have that experience with home care and kind of dealing with that world.

“And so I have so much respect for that profession, right?”

It's not often that people have to deal with that. Up until they've reached a point where they are able to. But to have to deal with that at an earlier age, you know, in your late teens or maybe even early 20s, there's a lot of resilience that needs to come with that.

What would you say to someone out there about just the concept of resilience in it? So you just gotta keep going.

It feels like it's mounting. It feels like it's going to last forever.

This moment is just never going to end, but it does.

And you've overcome past hurts and past traumas and past things that have, you know, just may have felt like the end of the world. And here we are. So I think it's just you keep going and it's a lesson. I think if the change of perspective on it,

“on these experiences, you have to see it as a lesson.”

It's building me up. And I've gotten up more times than I've fallen down. So I can do this. Look at your track record. Yes.

Not one of those things that you're upset about killed you yet. Exactly. You may have lost for my little bit. A little bit. A little bit.

All right. But that's still here. I get that one. I get that one. I was a bubbling mess on the floor.

I used a couple of times, but it had to cry out, let me up and move forward, yeah.

So as we kind of, you know, as we get into, first of all, if you're still tuned in at this

point in the pod, I want to make sure that you guys keep an eye out for Kianna's episode, which will be coming out shortly after this podcast episode drops. But for the people out there who are, you know, they're curious about what you have going on. They want to know more about your story.

“First, where can they find you on social media, the internet, the worldwide web?”

Yes. I have a be vulnerable page on Facebook where I do my writing helps you to be, you know, it's a creative space for self-expression to be vulnerable. I feel like a lot of people ignore their feelings, push 'em down, so find me there to help you process your healing, talk about it, and just, you know, sanctuary for a safe space.

And, um, synergy home care, we are opening soon in the spring, we're very excited in the playing field area. And, um, yeah, I say, all right. And then secondly, if you could give a message to all of our viewers out there, let's pretend that this message is going out to the entire world at large, what would that message?

Believe in yourself, even if no one believes in you. Even if no one believes in you, make sure to hear that part and embody that because the hardest thing I think often to do is to see that you're not getting validation from anyone and still be able to internalize that, you know, the devil works hard, but scam like the works infinitely harder.

I, eight times, they never fail, they never fail.

“They're really less, you know, you have to, you have to, you have to drive me, that is,”

that is the lesson for today, ladies and gentlemen, you have to be relentless like scam likely is, but again, this has been, uh, uh, uh, I want to say thank you so much for being on the show. It's been a pleasure to have you, and I'm very excited to check out your episode again guys.

Make sure you stay tuned for that. It'll be coming out shortly after this podcast episode drops, but again, this has been another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host Jason Tyler. I will catch you guys in the next one.