- Hi, my name is Eileen Crispell. I am a storyteller, writer, wife, older mom, architect, and a shaman. I help people heal and empower their souls. I saved my own life by applying medical medium information and I've been applying this information in mind in my family's life since 2012. - Hi, I am Aimee Jones. I'm an autism mom, a home educator, a noted gardener, a near-death experiencer, living a plant-based lifestyle, and I help people heal their souls as a shaman. I've been following medical medium information ever since 2015, and mine in my family's life has changed dramatically since. - Hi, all, Aimee and Eileen here. And we have another suggestion from all of you about what we're gonna talk about today and we love your suggestions. So what we're gonna talk about is ADD, ADHD, and autism. And the reason we're gonna talk about it is because I think that with medical medium information, we understand these things from a very different perspective than most people. We can understand the genius in them, the hope that you don't often find out there in the world of diagnoses on these issues. And there seems to be a growing trend of people who are either diagnosing themselves or getting diagnosed with adult ADHD or adult autism. And I think that the behaviors and the issues that come under these umbrellas, it's important to understand because we're probably all dealing with them in some way, shape, or form if you understand that they come from heavy metals in the brain and that we all have heavy metals in our brains. So I am gonna turn it over to Amy who is our 22 of us, the expert in some of these issues and we'll just talk about what these things look like in our friends, in our family, in ourselves and try to find some compassion and some genius in it all. - Great, thanks, Eileen. Yeah, I mean, I'm only expert in so much as it's very much in my home that not that it's not something you're coming up against, but my kids have struggled to quite a degree because of autism and understanding autism has been the lifeline and a way back. Well, I say the lifeline. We're also doing the enormously important heavy metal detox removal and we're living the sort of medical medium lifestyle which is, you know, first and foremost, I have that in place. I have that in place. We would do it till we die and that's the hell I die on, I always say. - Absolutely. But, yeah, like getting to understand it more, getting empowered in it is really what has transformed things for us. So I don't know what workshops that sparked this question for us is because people have heard us, you and particular use terms like PDA and selective mutism and like, what does that mean? What does that look like, really? - Yeah. So there's a lot of people are recognizing themselves in it, aren't they? As we're speaking about it, as we have my daughter come on the podcast, both my kids are autistic. So my daughter, Mia, has a formal diagnosis because it just works very well when we were in school systems and my son, Albie, doesn't yet have the formal diagnosis. We don't need it so much now that he's being home educated because I haven't got to try and prove to anybody anything in particular, you know, one of the really key things that most people, it's very infuriating to be honest, being a parent of a kid with neurodiversities because people really, really misunderstand it and therefore they misunderstand your child because one of the really big things is that behavior is communication. And-- - Yeah, I just want to repeat that because it's so true for children but it's also true for adults. And I think it's a huge key for in relationships and with our children, with anybody who's got medals in their brain, behavior is communication. Like really, that's so important to understand. - Yeah, you know, like we, so many people get written off as over-sensitive, hysterical, you know, these kind of things, like overly emotional. And I've had a few of those, don't it, me? (laughs) - And as a parent, you're told to tough love, you know, if there's eating issues, well, if they get hungry enough, they'll eat, you know? It's like, hmm. - Yeah, or naughty step them. Oh my God, they just don't even get me started. Like, we're just so misunderstanding our kids. Like, anger issues, anger issues, where your world is just so, so very much and so overwhelming that all you can do is lose control. And that's actually a really scary place to be for a child. And then you have an adult shouting at your teacher, restricting, restraining you. And, you know, and then you get punished for your behavior. And you get, so then, what are we doing to people? We're shutting them down, we're pushing them towards addictions with it. Like, it's just a horrible, horrible mess, this whole misunderstanding of, you know, within neurodiversity, but just generally. - Well, before I really understood this, to the degree I do now, I was perplexed because this is a story I've told a lot, which is when my son was two, and going off to school, preschool, and one morning he'd get up and try to put his boots on and have a meltdown. And the next morning he'd get up and put his boots on just fine. And then the third morning he'd get up and have a meltdown, and he always blamed it on the boots. The boots are uncomfortable, they don't feel good, he can't wear the boots. And I just kept saying, it's not about the boots, 'cause some days the boots don't bother you. I didn't really understand neurological issues. That it kind of is about the boots, you know? On days that he's neurologically fatigued, those boots are really uncomfortable. He's not just having a hissy fit because he's misbehaving. He, at two year old, all he can tell me is, is the boots bother him? And I, as the adult in this situation, needed to understand what was really going on for him neurologically, and I didn't have this information yet. So I didn't know how to read it, and I didn't know how to handle the situation. And we as adults have the, we have our issues, our meltdowns, our tantrums, for the same reason. And if people around us, or if somebody around us is having those adult tantrums, if we can understand with some compassion that there are some neurological issues going on, some stomach issues going on, even that we can handle those situations very differently. - Yeah, and you know, I have spent many mornings when my kids were little. It kind of makes me feel really sad to think about it, but like trying to go out the door and taking shoes on and off five times, changing pairs of socks, shaking out shoes, looking for dirt, looking for dust, like trying to just get the shoes comfortable. Because their anxiety is starting to build, because they're going to be six hours without you. And they've got to go from like half eight in the morning to three or whatever it is, or like nine to three, and just survive a really noisy, smelly, like high, highly charged, high energetic sort of environment, like it's going to trigger all your sensory stuff. And you've got to go and do all that. And yeah, it seems to me, I remember dropping him off at preschool too. And there's this idea that kids need sensory, which means they need an overload of sensory. So the preschool, the first one I sent him to, which was a disaster, had sensory tables, a sand table, a water table. And it was a 45 kids in the room, and you know, six teachers. And it was complete overload for me as an adult. And when I didn't understand that there were neurological issues going on. And so here's these kids on the edge, like melting down, 'cause their parents are trying to leave them. And they're being told, oh, he'll stop crying as soon as you leave. He'll be fine as soon as you leave. This is just what kids do. Well, this is what kids who are overwhelmed do. And the reason they stop crying is because they become selectively mute. They're literally in panic mode. And so they behave because they're in survival mode. - Yeah, and what the kids with neglects do, they don't speak, they don't cry. When children who are neglected get beaten, they don't cry, it's a classic, this is a classic thing. And so when you know that your communication isn't gonna be heard, your teacher is going to ignore you, then you don't do that behavior anymore. And you put up a mask. And yes, okay, let's be realistic. We're all masking to some degree in life. Like we're going around, we're, you know, there's a social norms and behavioral patterns that we all kind of fit into. And, but where's the empowerment in that? Sometimes it serves us. And sometimes we kind of adopt it for a little while. And then we step out of it. But we're the child, it's really, really hard because they're trying to find out who on earth they are. And you're at the mercy of everybody around them. - They have no safety. - They're so vulnerable. And they're with adults who understand very little about neuro-diversities. And you know, neuro-diversities are across a big spectrum. So you can have like some sensory issues and some things going on. You can have attention issues. But you might quite like the school environment. You might thrive quite well in that. You might like the structure that school provides you with that there's a snack and a break time here. And then in an hours time is a lunch or, you know, that might work well for you. But then there's a spectrum. And there's a lot of children that actually being made really unwell mentally. They're getting burnt out. There's a lot of burnout happening. I hear about it all the time. And there is this one particular woman. She's called Dr. Naomi Fisher. She's a British woman over here. And she's a psychologist. And I really liked her stuff because she talks about autism. She talks about something called PDA that I'm gonna get into. She talks a lot about schools and how our school systems are really failing kids with the way that they are learning. What I've noticed is that I took my kids out of school and I'm just learning quite how capable they are. Like we're learning without limits now because they haven't got to go in and put the mask on and then manage like not stim, you know, like the, if you don't know what stimming is, it's like flapping. My daughter will jump when she's excitable. She jumps and she, you know, she can't do those kinds of things. That's just how her energy needs to flow through her. Or like you've got, you've got to deal with everybody else's energy. And I know there's a misconception that people who are autistic are not empathic. But as medical medium points out in the books, you have actually advanced, highly advanced-- - Intuition and empathy, yeah. Yeah, like well, communication methods as well, like telepathy. - And he explains in his book, this is so brilliant, that you're actually getting more input than most people because you've created extra neurons to work around the metals that are creating blocks. And so you're actually like this highly tuned instrument that's getting more input than most people. - Yeah. And you know, you have these specialized ways of communication like telepathy and things like that. My son used to answer things that I hadn't spoken out loud when he was a very early talker. So when he was still a baby and he used to freak me out. But like they have these like really wonderful ways of their brains working, but it's just, it becomes a total overwhelm. So what do they do? We all recognize this in kids who are autistic as they get a hyper focus on something. So my son was on here talking about gardening and he talks that he knows everything about the method that he likes to do with his gardening. And prior to that, it's World War II and he could have like a very in-depth debate about, you know, particular battle strategies, the generals involved, the type of machinery involved and everything like that. You know, like they have this hyper focus and they tend to focus on themselves because it's an Anthony William talks about this in the book. - Because they're selfish or, you know, it's because that's their survival mechanism. It's how to cope, it's how to cope with the information overload that's coming through. So when you think you've got all that coming at you in a school environment, non-stop, you just really hindered before you even start. And so getting my kids out of school, now I'm like, wow, you can really learn. You're learning way above your years and you can let them learn to their interests as well because they're not being told you have to be interested in this because everyone has their interests. And this is a great thing that Naomi Fisher has really spoken about is that we don't have to force children to learn. Like they teach themselves how to walk, they teach themselves how to talk, they're just there to facilitate them, but we suddenly go, now I have to teach you to read. - We put them in, we're gonna have no interest. - And then get upset that they're not doing well when all they really need is the right environment and they blossom. - Yeah, and they're like, everybody has to read by the time they're six years old, everybody. Everybody, there could be no other way around that. Like my daughter let me to use two, my, you know, my son, he learned it with school, but I'm the duress, but he loved fine, but like he might have needed another year on that to be quite honest. And he loves books and he's an avid reader, but like, so he'd have got there. But, you know, these are the things and I really like how Dr. Naomi Fisher talks about autism because she has a PhD in autism. - I don't know if you know what a PhD is actually doing. - That's what I mean, yes. - Okay, I was just, was like, is that a British thing? Yeah, so that's like advanced university levels and so she, and she specializes in trauma and she talks a lot about PDA. And she says that autism is only really a problem when the environment gets in the way. When the environment requires you to be a certain way that kind of goes against the grain. That's when you're seeing autistic symptoms kind of get out of control. So that's very much my life. We read, I read that book and I was like, okay, we're gonna change the whole environment. We're gonna do it their way and find out, you know, what's really going on with them and how brilliant they are in their own ways. - Because the getting the metals out takes time, the diet stuff takes time, particularly if one of the things that your child is reacting to is an overwhelm of food in food, if food is difficult 'cause that's also a pretty common system, symptom. So it's an important to check your environment or your children's environment as well because you have to come at this thing multifaceted to give your body time to dump those metals and or time for a child to mature or if you're ordering adult time for you to create better coping mechanisms and understand your own genius. So it takes time and your environment being an a less stressful environment is important to allowing yourself that time to do the healing. - And one of the biggest things about your environment is compassion. So you've got to have people around you willing to understand you. So compassion is understanding another struggle or understanding someone's struggle can be your own struggle as well. - You know, we need to do a whole show on support. - Yeah, because that's often the thing, you know, you can understand yourself really well, but you're as a child, you're very reliant on other people getting you and respond to you. - And if you're on Mattress Island, you need support and if the people around you don't understand what you're going through, then you're not gonna get the support you need. - Right. - But that's a whole other show. - That is a whole other show, but you know, that's definitely a factor here. - So tell us. - Explain to us, PDA. - So PDA stands for pathological demand avoidance. But I prefer the term that Naomi Fisher uses, which is pressure sensitive. 'Cause pathological demand avoidance makes you sound like you're deliberately not doing something. There's also another term, ODD, which is oppositional defiance disorder. I see this in kids. I know some kids that they're told to do something and they would do the opposite. It's a rebellion against the levels of control, put against them. It's, yeah, I think it's a little understood. It's not where my kids sit. So I don't speak with the first-hand experience of this, but I do know some kids that really deal with this. So pathological demand avoidance, at first glance, you might go, oh, kids just don't want to do as they're told. It's really not that. And it shows up in different ways, depending on the person. So I have two kids with PDA and it shows up very differently. So this is why our sort of approach of interest-led learning works so well, because they want to learn. They have all the ability to learn. You know, thankfully they don't have any learning issues or anything like that. So they've got the capacity to learn, but it has to come from there. If I start putting, particularly with my youngest, putting worksheets and books under his nose, saying, you've got to do these, that's not going to go down very well. - There's kind of an overall helmet that happens in a safety mechanism that keeps in, and they'll just say no for the sake of no, and they'll resist for the sake of resisting, because they're keeping themselves safe. And I think where this comes in in more the adult world and people who weren't diagnosed with autism or PDA is it intrigues me how invasive and little it can be, like with my son, he wouldn't take anything if you directly handed it to him. You had to put it down and then he would take it. - Yeah. - I thought this was OCD. And then I understood PDA. And again, he was old enough that I described this to him and he goes, oh yeah, that's exactly how that feels like. And just saying, like when a kid gets home from school, how is your day? That can feel aggressive to that child. So that's when the sort of selective mute comes in because they literally feel almost bullied 'cause you've asked them how their day is. And you're going, all I did is ask you how your day is, but that's not how they feel it. - Yeah, and then you get people to say like, you're so unreasonable, I just want to have a reasonable conversation about a normal conversation and make you feel crazy and put it back on you. - Yeah, and until you understand it, you used to drive me really, I used to really struggle with getting out the door with my kids until I knew about PDA because I would be like, get your coat on, get your shoes on, go to the toilet, you know, get your coat on, get your shoes on, have your coat on, put your shoes on, why aren't your shoes on? Your shoes are there, it would just, it would take ages and ages and day after day. And if you're going out multiple times in a day, it's happening multiple times and it would take forever. And sometimes I would just be like, I can't take it. I just can't take it. I can't say put your shoes on one more time. But it was different, like if, you know, if their friends turned up, they would like shove their shoes on one out the door. And it was, but it was the demand of like, particularly this is when we were in school, like going to school. They don't want to get their shoes on and don't want to be on time. And I'm trying to be on time, but I can't. And I'm not trying to be on it. - I can't make my body do it. I feel unscathed. - And I'm scared to be late 'cause I'm not rebellious. I'm not trying to do that. So it's a really, really difficult place to be. And I find like with my daughter, like non-confrontational questions. So Naomi Fisher and someone called Eliza Fricker, they talk a lot about PDA and how to do like low demand, have low demand conversations. I was, I used this story as an example. I was watching my daughter at the athletics track and that she was sort of the guy says to her. It says to her and a couple of others, like, what's your favorite Olympics moment? And I'm like, oh, it's not gonna be able to answer that. Because there's this very direct question. And I give me a moment and I don't, she doesn't know this coach very well. She doesn't know the two other people that she's in. So like it's different to her if I said to her, what is it? And I'm her mum and she's at home. But I was thinking if he has said there's some really great moments in the Olympics, I really enjoyed this one. It's quite hard to pick a favorite though. And if she just said it like that, no question, there could have been an opportunity to say, did you see the, you know, the sprints? Did you see the relays? Did you see, you know, this or whatever? But it's, it's learning the arts of that, which can really transform your life. Really to someone. - I've had lots of adults tell me they just have a rebellion streak. And I think to myself, maybe you just have PDA and neurological overwhelm. Because they seem to be smart enough to say, I don't really wanna be rebellious, but something inside me just wants to resist anything that anybody tells me to do. And I'm like, that's classic PDA, right? 'Cause you're not making a choice of whether you actually want to answer a question or do it, and that's where like selective mutism too. Like it's a funny term, but you know, where in one environment, and this is what's difficult for other people to understand is because in one environment, a child or a person can have a perfectly what's considered normal conversation. But in a different environment, they can't. And so they think that person's just being stubborn. No, there's something about that other situation where they feel overwhelmed or not safe. And so their way to become safe is to not talk. - Yeah, yeah. And so this is my daughter. She has, you know, the word selective mutism got used, but then also selective non-speaking. But this was me as well. I didn't speak. I can remember starting my first job in London in advertising and really not being able to speak either. Like at first in my early twenties. And I'd grown up with this and I could, I could force it. I could force it if the wind was right. I could force it, but I can remember the feeling of just being so having the answer to the question. So desperate to like, I've got something I really want to contribute. And I can't say it. And I've watched my child like be silent. Really, really silent for, and she's not, she's not now. She's really coming out. And so when we, I don't know, sometimes we go for a dog walk and we meet someone else's dog. And she says, what's your dog called? I'm like, I'm so jumping up and down. So happy because this wasn't, this didn't used to be able to happen. And sometimes she whispers to me and I repeat it. And it's so normal for us that I don't even really register now that she's actually now taller than me. And I do the speaking for her sometimes in conversation. But she's taking on more of that for herself. And it's just always been the way that we, we are, but not at. So I think what we do in the normal world is that we, like, sorry, I'm saying normal, but you know what I mean? Is that what they call neurotypical world, but let's just call it, you know, inverted commas, normal world that we expect to be able to reason with people through speech. Not everybody works through speech. Like not every, you can't, I would say you got, you know, straight talk, mental illness, you don't straight talk to autism and try and bring them around. Like we just need to have a reasonable conversation. - Normal conversations with a drunk person, you know, it's like. (laughing) - Yeah. - You know, we joke a little bit about, you know, if somebody's got a lot of medals, are you talking to the medals or you're talking to the person? And, you know, it's not, it's funny, but it's not funny. And so yeah, some people are not really quite capable of always having what you could center, like you say, normal conversation. But what's amazing about your story, that you're telling about your daughter, is that she's changing, she's coming out of that, she's drinking heavy metal detox smoothies, she's gotten into an environment that works for her and she's overcoming that. And I think that often what we hear out in the, we'll call it normal world again, is that you need medications and this is never gonna change and you might need help your whole life. And that's not true. If you learn to have compassion and patience and tools, it can turn itself into genius. - Yeah, you know, I had this quite heartfelt conversation with my mum again at the Athletics Track, watching Maya because she is a phenomenal sprinter. Look, she just is, I don't know how, but she's just as brilliant sprinter and she almost kind of couldn't do it for a while because the pressure became too great, she suffered burnout and we've kind of come back to it with this renewed energy. She's great at sprinting, she's great at long jump. And we're watching her and I was sort of saying to my mum, I was like, look what happens, when you just let someone be themselves, because this is our journey. This was like, we'll come out of school, come home, let's find out really who you are and you lead and I'll follow and I'll provide you with the things you need and you show me the way. And I was like, look at this, look. And she's thriving, she's doing, you know, in terms of learning and all areas of her life. She's now really, really thriving and we're seeing her blaze trails. And I said-- Literally. Yeah, quite literally, yeah. And I said to my mum, but just imagine if that was like that for all of us. Yeah, and my mum was like, yeah, because my life would be so different and I was sort of reflecting on that for myself and how my life would have been so different. Because like I said, I see a lot of these traits within me and I'm after a lot. And I've said before on this podcast, like, you know, drinking alcohol was one way of coping with social situations where you have to talk a lot and being at work and-- Alcohol and coffee for me was how I got through. Yeah, you know, so we get these like toxic props that just hold us up so that we can keep pretending for longer and longer and longer. But why have we just stopped pretending? And I think this is the thing. Like Anthony William, medical medium, says these kids, these autistic ADHD kids are the ones who are going to change the world. And I think, you know, if we just let them be and stop trying to engineer them into a world that's really lost its way anyway, because we tend to hit 30 and then just go, I'm in a job that I hate to pay for a mortgage that's really expensive and like, you just become entrapped in your life. But then if we can just-- And you form unhealthy addictions to make your way through it, which wind up killing you. Yeah, you go through it-- And you go through an education system that just deadens the senses. And I mean, I don't want to attack schools. But-- Well, we will, a little. But I will say, I always thought it kind of breeds a level of mediocrity because it takes you to this level. And let's just say that when we talk about the medical system or the school system, it's not any individual. There's beautiful, wonderful doctors, nurses, teachers, out there, professionals. It's about really systemic misunderstanding of what's really going on that gets steamrolled out there. Yeah, yeah, and particularly in the school systems, it's very little understood neurodiversity. And I don't know how. I honestly, I don't know how in schools, they can be so individualized for children like mine in the school system. So they're not burning out and getting mental health stuff and all of it because they're so under such extreme pressure. I don't know that there is a way. That's why I brought my child home. And I said, I'll do it because I'm her mom and his mom. And I know they just need their family. But that's under attack. The governments won't overhear. They want all kids in school. So that's something to really look at because I think if we are going to allow people to be themselves, if we did live in a world that was different, I think it really does start from people being themselves, ultimately, finding out who they are. Because that's where their brilliance comes through. I want to talk about some more of the ways that it manifests for people to see this in themselves and to have some compassion. Because one of the things I want to talk about is it affects your eating. So-called picky eaters could be PDA about food. They could have stomach issues that you don't know about food could-- Sensory. Sensory issues. And also, eating in front of other people can be a real issue. We went through this in my house. And to tell your story about the school calling about your daughter not eating. Oh, yeah. I had some really kind of senseless conversations at times with school. It's just both my kids struggled to eat at various points at school because sensory overload. It's smelly. Maybe you're worried about what you're doing in the afternoon or maybe you don't know what's coming up, which is scary ground for an autistic kid. Like, I don't know what we're doing later. Or maybe there's a friendship issue. It's loud. And then it's dirty. Like schools are dirty. There's people sneezing. And there's always children that are putting their hands up saying they don't feel well for something or other. It's not really a nice, relaxing environment to eat. And I remember getting a call from the well-being person saying, well, me is not eating her lunch. I'm like, I know it's coming back home with her. I'm aware of this. And she's sort of raising it like, is this an issue? Do we have an eating disorder? Dun, dun, dun. And I just think, and I say, have you ever tried swallowing when you're really feeling really anxious? Because it just won't go down. She's like, mmm, interesting. So you think this is anxiety, do you? I was like, what are we not getting here? And there's this woman, and as Maya she called her out, because she was going to see this woman who was so fascinated, a little bit overly fascinated by Maya and her brain. She was just loved everything, that kind of every word that she wrote and came out of her. But so she came from this good place. She thought Maya was really inspiring. But she was trying to help Maya contain her anxiety and the OCD that was coming out as a stress response, basically. And meanwhile, Maya was saying, this teacher, this well-being mentor, she would say that she can't say no to the cake and the star from him, and that she's trying to control what she's eating. But she can't say no to the cake. And she came home, and she's like, I'm not supposed to be anxious. And she was using your daughter of having an eating disorder as a professional. Yeah, and I'm not supposed to be anxious and take advice from someone who can't even not eat the cake. This is the hypocrisy all day long, yes. You've got it right. And I will say my experience of autistic kids is to have an enormous amount of integrity. Teach me about integrity. Don't say something, and then do something else. God knows. Well, that's another one of those things that they talk about out there, is autistic people take everything literally. I would actually say that they actually have a great deal of integrity. I would put a different filter on that. And I think people are just-- so many people are putting on masks and behaving in ways that they believe are normal, or that other people want them to believe, are there people pleasers? And an autistic person will call you out. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of funny when it happens. And I also always like to give hope. I think that we dealt with a lot of those food issues. And I think anybody who's healing with medical medium can understand this, too, is because if you're eating differently than other people, and whether it's aggressively coming at you or possibly just kind of siding what you're eating, it's hard to eat in front of other people when you feel like you're the weird one. And to add all of the sensory overload that happens in school, it can be a very difficult thing to do. But my son, who had all kinds of food issues that we have worked on his whole life, he's gotten to the point where he's got a group of friends at school, but he prefers to eat by himself. So he'll find either a place outside or some place in the school to eat on his own. And then he'll go join his friends. And his friends will say, why don't you eat with us? And he just says, I prefer to eat alone. And he doesn't need to go and explain its sensory issues, or I'm eating weird, and I don't want anybody talking about my food or any of that stuff. He's come to this place because he's older and because he's had to deal with this whole life where he can advocate for himself. But a five-year-old, a six-year-old, a seven-year-old is very difficult for them to advocate for themselves. It's very difficult for most adults to be comfortable with advocating for themselves. But I think part of what's genius about understanding this stuff is because it's that thing that you can grasp onto to understand yourself and then learn to advocate for yourself so that you can set up that life for yourself that is less stressful, so that you can do that healing that you need to do in your neurological system. - Yeah, and if you have something like selective metism where you can't say that to your friends, then you need to find someone who can advocate for you. And that comes back to you need the compassion in the support system around you. You need that in your environment because you can't always do everything for yourself. And that's one of the things with autism is you're gonna need, so for children, you're just gonna need to hold them a little longer. And in some ways, they're so profound and advanced and talking about all kinds of amazing things. In other ways, they're so little and young. - They're like little absent-minded professors. Is that a challenge you might have used? - No, but I think that's really good. - Yeah, they're really, really smart, but they can't necessarily take good care of themselves and the little things. - Yeah, it's interesting for us because we're going into the teenage years and I'm watching all the peers have boyfriends and all that kind of stuff and be concerned about what they look like. And I see my daughter really not care less about any of that stuff. And she still wants to play yet her conversation is more grown up than her peers because she wants to talk about, I don't know, like all the cloud names that she's learned, or 50 plus or whatever it was. She told me, I can't remember of cloud names that she's learned and talk about weather patterns and all of this kind. She wants to talk about this thing that she's learned. - They're little old schools, right? - Yeah, I do not over it. - I've dealt with this issue recently too, like why aren't your kids interested in dating? They're interested in more important things and actually I'll say something that may be controversial to some people, but most children these days because what they're exposed to are overly sexualized and abused in that manner. It's subtle, but it starts when they're very, very little. And so they become overly obsessed with it at an age when it looks normal 'cause that's the way everybody is, but it's actually not normal. It's not the way it's supposed to be. And at 11 and 12 years old, kids shouldn't be worrying about dating and obsessed over how they look. That's not actually what's meant to be at that age, but that's what our culture is turning them into. And so then if your kids different, they're strange. And I'm like, no, they're actually normal. This is normal development. This is what normal development looks like. Yeah, and that's another level of pressure, isn't it, for a child in school where they've got to mask? And if you're at school and it's all like, well, who's going out with who? And yeah, it just becomes, it's just a melting pot. It's a recipe for disaster sometimes when we're having to put that mask up. And I think the moral of the story here certainly with the journey that we've been on is about the radical level of knowing yourself is the secret to your empowerment and your brilliance. And, you know, like, if you have a diagnosis of autism or anything, like finding the empowerment within that so that you use it so that you can stay strong in it. And, you know, there is a bit of a circus at the moment about neurodiversity is being super power because it's trying to normalize just the ridiculous numbers of people that are getting diagnosed and displaying sort of-- It is trying to normalize it, yeah. It is, but there is, but the great thing about it-- It's also creating a little bit of victimhood. Well, I can't do that 'cause I'm now neurodivergent. You know, like-- Yeah. It's twisting it in kind of this off way. It is. It's a little bit offered. It's staying empowered in it and staying along for the ride of finding the gold in it because, as I've said before, Anthony said, these are the people that are viewing the world differently. And don't we need a fresh set of eyes on this crazy little world about now, about 10 years ago? Or, like, I think we do, you know? I saw this person a little video and they were clearly a motivational speaker. I have no idea who they were. I apologize, I can't tell you what they were talking about, but he started out by saying, he's dyslexic. And he said, and I'm dyslexic, so that's why I was listening to it. And he said, what that means is that I have an incredibly creative brain because I can see, taste, smell, and know things that other people don't. And he goes, it's just my skill. And it makes me-- It gives me the upper hand. It makes me creative. It makes me-- he was listing all these things. And he goes, it also means that I misspell things. And that has been my whole life. It took me a long time to come to terms with that. And the way I think about it is, you know, if I had not been born with metals in my brain, would I be dyslexic? Probably not, right? It's the metals causing that. But at the same time, I would have lost some of my genius. And I had this experience early on because I'm old enough that when I got diagnosed with dyslexia, it was a brand new thing that most of the people in the school system had never heard of before. And so they-- I tell the story a lot. I got the diagnosis. So my parents set up a meeting with my high school guidance counselor. I was in high school. And I walked into the room. My parents were already in the room. And the guidance counselor draw a drop. And she looked at me and she goes, you're not retarded. That was the ignorance. And I was like, no, I'm not. And, you know, what that was what I was up against. And, you know, people thought I was going to have to-- I was going to be a so-called special needs person my whole life. Well, it's probably one of the reasons that motivated me. I have a master's degree. I'm an entrepreneur. I've started to know multiple businesses. Kind of, in a small respect, proving to the world, yeah, I'm dyslexic. But that doesn't mean I don't have a place in this world and I'm not smart and I can't be successful. And I think that's-- but I can't tell you how many people still-- I'm almost 60 years old. And people still talk to me about-- because they see it on my post. But I misspell words. And I make typos. And I use improper grammar. And I'm like, get over it. I know for some people they can't not see it. I literally don't see it. This drives my husband crazy because he's an editor. He goes, you don't see the mistake. I'm like, I literally don't see it. Otherwise, I would fix it. It's not just me being stubborn about this stuff or lazy about this stuff. I literally don't see it. But I see things that you don't see. And so can we all be in this world together? And this is if you've got ADD, ADHD, autism, or if you've got PDA, or you're selectively mute, or whatever is going on for you, anxiety around eating, it's not a hopeless situation. There's medical medium information that's slowly going to take those metals out. And what I also love about what he says in the book is you get the metals out, but you don't lose your genius along the way. Yeah. Yeah. And what I would add to that is, I think the reason why we talk about it-- and I feel so passionate about the conversation, because don't miss what's in there. So when we feel to have a conversation with my daughter, she will not be snappy responses. Eileen and I are here. We're talking back and forth. You've got to wait. You've got to pause. You've got to wait for her to find a way into that conversation. And sometimes at home, I'm like, she's going to speak. Yeah, yeah. And it has to be-- hang on, hang on, hang on. She's going to speak. And because when she does speak, my god, do you know it? And it's really profound. And this is what I say, behavior is communication. Don't miss it. Don't miss what every single person-- And what's promoted in our culture these days is to be quick-witted. This is what everyone loves and snappy. And sometimes we just need to actually allow that silence in the conversation for that quieter person to feel comfortable speaking up, because there's genius in there. But here's the irony. She's actually really, really funny. She is very quick-witted. Because there's genius in there, but she can't. She disarms us. Yes. And she just has me in stitches, because she says things, and she's observing people's behavior all the time, including mine. And she throws it back at me. It's hilarious. But sometimes when there's something else. And sometimes when there's something important to say, it needs a little run up first. And I just think every single person, of course, every single person should be heard. And this is why we have this conversation. Every single person should be listened to, should have their voice. And this is what is relevant to everyone in this podcast today is that you can think about that if you had a doover and you could live your life from that unmasked point of view. And you see that potential in yourself, because you know that you were so stifled and you were misunderstood. To understand for yourself that you were misunderstood is powerful, because it brings compassion to that. And your voice and your brilliance, not necessarily doesn't necessarily come across as a voice. It could come across as actions and other ways. It's necessary. It's what's supposed-- the part of you that is supposed to be out there in the world. And so Eileen and I are these really feisty fierce mums. And I'm just clearing the way for my kids to go and do their thing at all costs. And that took me a while to really step into that. But we each should have that. And I think that our world has lost touch with that. And as adults, we can do that for ourselves. Right. I think that what so many of us can do is look back and see exactly what you're saying, where you would not listen to, where you're misunderstood, and where you perhaps developed some ways of being in the world that helped you feel safe. But they also exhausted you and made you sick. And so now what you can do is you can remind yourself that I'm the adult now. I'm in charge of my own life. I'm not the mercy of anybody else anymore. So I can actually be empowered to make my life the way it works for me so that my brilliance can come out. And when you make that flip, that's a flip I did for myself. So suddenly I can use my empathic intuitive skills in ways that are helpful to other people and empowering to other people and don't exhaust me. And where, as I spent my whole life, having those skills exhaust. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's really important to know that in the realm of compassion, you're not misunderstood, you know? In that place, whatever you might think of it as, but there is a space, somewhere divine, where you're not misunderstood, where your soul is really known to be, who it is. And I really hope that there are people or animals, animals are brilliant for this, who really know who you are. Like that's one thing I did. Yeah, that's one thing I did for my kids, well, for my daughter specifically, was get her a dog. And because dogs know you and animals, they know you, there's no sort of facade with them. And often, fine with neurodiverse people, is that animals just make a lot more sense than humans. Humans are so weird and traumatized and meadowed out and all of that kind of stuff. Whereas animals, they just make sense. And ultimately, too, this is, I said this jokingly on the last podcast that I figured out, one person I know is an asshole, he's just autistic, right? And it just, so instead of fighting with our loved ones, our boyfriends or our significant others or our brothers and our sisters and our parents, some people won't ever really understand, but I can have now a whole lot more compassion and a whole lot more knowledge about where to put up a boundary and where to just have patience with somebody. Rather than thinking, oh, they don't hear me. No, they hear me. I've stressed them out. As Amy and I talk about, we're little mama bulldogs here, mama bears, right? I can very quickly stress a person out who's neurodegenerate, urgent, not feeling safe because I'm very direct. And so that's something I've had to learn in myself is I can't always ask that direct question. Sometimes I just have to be patient and understand that somebody's actually going to get me the information in the best way they can. - Yeah, the PDA conversation, I've had that with many people over the past, I don't know, say six months or so, I don't know exactly, but that's the one that a lot of people have gone, "Ah, it's been a missing piece." And I did a lot of learning, and it was for me as well, and for my kids, so it was a real missing piece for us as well. But it's little known, so that's another aim for this podcast, is to bring that compassion, that sort of understanding out there. - I want to bring it back to last week's podcast of checking out of your body. Like I said this all the time, I didn't have trauma, but I was probably neurodivergent to whatever degree overwhelmed, and so when people were too direct with me or I didn't know them or they felt icky to me, I was checking out of my body. That was my way of handling it. I learned to have conversations that I was completely checked out of, so I looked like I was having a normal conversations, but I wouldn't remember the conversation 'cause I was out of body. And this is how these things start to intertwine with each other and why it's interesting, fascinating, and good to get into the nitty-gritty of what are these things look like so that we can actually be more empowered in our life. - Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So we scratched the surface today, I think, of a huge, huge, huge topic with the intention of helping people to sort of find themselves somewhere in that or find their relationships in that and find where we are. I would also say find where we are as a human species right now and what's going on with us because this is everywhere. And yeah, it's a big one, and needs recognizing. We have some things coming up that we're really excited to talk to you about, and if you want to be kept informed of what those are, then please make sure you sign up to our newsletter. You can find us at vwildrenew.com and you can sign up there. You can always drop either of us a message as well, directly, we're always very happy to know who's listening, but we'll be talking about more things that you'll be able to get involved with coming up in the short term. So stay tuned. - Yeah, we get you a little sneak peek of it in last podcast where we talked about our programs, which we're gonna be putting one out in January, but also if you go to either of our Instagram pages and go into our link tree, you will find it really easy to sign up for our newsletter where you'll get all the information. - And if you are interested in the program we have coming up, then reach out and let us know as well. We've had some reach outs from just off the back of that last podcast. So we can make sure that you're kept up to date with information. So yes, feel free to keep this a two-way conversation and get in touch with us as and when. - All right, everybody, have a great day. And remember, as we always say, remember just how powerful your soul is today. And see you on the next podcast. We started rewildrenew as a way to coach and empower others to heal and connect with their souls. The views and opinions you will hear on the rewildrenew podcast are ours and are not meant to be medical advice. Please seek professional assistance if you feel you need it. [BLANK_AUDIO]
