Exceptional Parents, Extraordinary Challenges
Being a parent is challenging enough - parenting a child with extraordinary challenges (non-neuro typical kiddos) can be overwhelming, debilitating and at times, downright depressing. Angie Shockley and Dave Gold bring their combined 70 years of real world experience - Angie as the founder of young adult transition programs and Certified Shamanic Practitioner; Dave as a successful attorney, business and spiritual mentor and father - to bring you practical, powerful solutions to your biggest parenting challenges Join us each week to discover how to navigate crisis, protect your own health and well-being, and create a family unit that is filled with love, creativity and deep, mutual respect no matter what life brings your way.
Exceptional Parents, Extraordinary Challenges
Episode 40-Unlocking the Power of Myofunctional Therapy: Holistic Healing with Erin Browning
Do you struggle with sleep apnea, bedwetting, or even a deviated septum? Discover how myofunctional therapy can improve your overall health by exercising your mouth and throat muscles for better airway function. We sat down with our dear friend, licensed speech pathologist, and Ayurvedic health counselor, Erin Browning, to explore the transformative power of this therapy.
Erin brings a wealth of knowledge and experience as she shares expertise in feeding therapy. Delving into the sensory and motor components of this holistic approach to health and healing, we discuss the importance of creating comfort and predictability while building relationships with clients. Plus, we tackle the challenges of telehealth for speech therapy during the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has impacted speech and language development.
Join us as Erin shares her journey of growth, self-discovery, and healing, as well as her experience in integrating Ayurvedic practices into his therapy work. From exploring the constitutional makeup of a person to finding balance and variety within a structured routine, Erin emphasizes the importance of embodying these practices for a more fulfilling and healthier life. Don't miss this insightful conversation with Erin Browning!
Exceptional Parents, Extraordinary Challenges:
Angie has helped young adults, adolescents, and their families through residential treatment centers, wilderness programs, and young adult transitional living programs where she has spent the majority of a 30 year career. She is also a Certified Shamanic Practitioner utilizing the traditional healing methods of indigenous cultures in her work with families and individuals. She has been instrumental in guiding Dave through the challenging journey with his own daughter. In the podcast, Angie and Dave provide unique advice and perspectives - Dave as a parent who has applied Angie's wisdom to his own journey as a father - to help you navigate our parenting challenges
While being a parent is an integral part of Dave’s journey, his deepest passion remains guiding others to the peace, freedom and love that find their way to us when we finally step fully into greater love and self-acceptance. And the heart and wisdom that is directly transmitted through this podcast will prove instructive, insightful and liberating, irrespective of your particular life journey, parental or otherwise,
About your hosts:
Angie Shockley is a Certified Shamanic Practitioner, Coach, and Owner of young adult transitional living programs. She brings 30+ years of experience working with teens, young adults and their families, as well as individuals. She has developed a strong intuitive ability to see the underlying issues and provide avenues for positive change and growth.
Angie has found that most people, regardless of age, lack the ability and vision to see past challenges in their lives. They operate from limiting beliefs which have formed through the
At Canaan Valley Spa and Wellness Center, our mission is to provide our clients with a serene and rejuvenating experience that promotes wellness of the mind, body, and spirit. We strive to create a welcoming and peaceful environment where our guests can escape from the stresses of daily life and find relaxation and balance.
www.canaanvalleyspawv.com
https//www.livingmindfullyaware.com
Canaan Valley Spa is a true destination space in Davis, West Virginia.
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Angie Shockley mindfulangie@gmail.com
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Dave Gold dave@davegold.com
Show Engineered and Produced by: Keith Bishop bishop.keith@gmail.com
Hi everybody, welcome to the exceptional parents extraordinary challenges podcast and I'm very happy to be hosting my guest this week and surprising Dave and, as those of you who are watching can see, dave's in a car moving. Good morning, dave. You want to share with us where you're headed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is the on the road edition. I am in a car with my two great friends and business partners in the on the cube, ryan McCray and Joe Clement. We are heading up to a foster care conference in Norfolk where we are presenting and showcasing what we're doing. So I just want to say I said I don't think I could do this, i'm in the car, and you said, no, you want to be on this one, and when I saw who our guest was, i realized this was. This was time well spent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So that's a great segue into me welcoming our guest. The guest this week is Aaron Browning. Good morning, aaron. Good morning. Thank you for having me on, thank you for taking the time to do it.
Speaker 1:So I really can't say enough wonderful things about Aaron. Aaron is a very dear friend of mine. We've done a lot of fun things together. We've done a lot of work things together. We've learned a lot about life and each other over the last several years together, and Aaron is currently living in Maine, about to move to Boston, so she's no longer my neighbor. She used to be close to me here in West Virginia, but we continue to stay connected and I'm very grateful for that connection and for all the gifts that Aaron has brought into my life.
Speaker 1:And I wanted to have Aaron on this morning because she has she's just a wealth of information and talent and she does so many things working with children and teenagers and young adults.
Speaker 1:She currently works with some of my young adults here in my programs at Q&A Associates and has worked with several of them in the past over the past several years, and I know how valuable that work is on many levels. And so I wanted to bring Aaron on because one of the things we like to do on this podcast is share different resources and sometimes out of the box ways to work with kids with challenges, young adults with challenges, and so that's one of the reasons that I wanted to have Aaron on, and another reason was I just Aaron. I just want you to share your energy and your wisdom and your thoughts and what's going on in your world and what you're about to jump into, because I think it's pretty incredible and it gives all of our listeners more information, more resources, more ideas of what might be out there to help with them and help their kids, regardless of the age that they are. So I'll just start by saying that Aaron is a licensed speech pathologist and that those are the letters behind your name, but that doesn't begin to talk about who you are and all the things that you do. So I'm going to ask you to just start by jumping into what it is you're doing right now and what Myo stands for.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I am a licensed speech pathologist. That is my education. I've been doing it 22 years. I've fought it hard. I've fought the profession. I have fought, i've led in the profession, been in many leadership positions but felt systemic problems in the profession. So I fought it for a very long time and then I went back to school to become an Ayurvedic health counselor. I worked in breath work and then I finally got out of my own way and realized like, oh, it doesn't all have to be separate. And in fact all these things that I was learning about food and health and very specifically breathing, led me to go right back to my roots and my education, because breathing is foundational for our health.
Speaker 3:But if your mouth and your tongue and your palate and your throat aren't positioned properly and if you don't have a good, patent airway, you can breathe all day long and it's a struggle and you have sleep struggles and you have eating struggles and you have talking struggles and health struggles. And so I decided, after 20 years of doing oral motor therapy, to dig into myofunctional or oral myofunctional therapy. There are many ways people talk about it. They might call it orofacial myology, but if you Google myo you will find this, and it goes hand in hand with speech therapy. So speech pathologists are the people who do this type of therapy, and also dentists will do this, or hygienists. Those are the professions that can actually get the certification to be a myofunctional therapist. But what myo is, it's a method of exercising your muscles to make sure that you are able to breathe adequately. So when we look at this with like babies babies who have bed wetting to a excessive age, oftentimes have sleep problems that are not diagnosed.
Speaker 3:When we look at people who don't have a closed mouth posture or breathe predominantly through the mouth, people with deviated septums, any kind of tonsil or adenoid issues how many people do you know have CPAP machines and sleep apnea, yet nobody's looking at where is the obstruction and how do we change functionally, change muscles to support airway function. So that's what I do is work with the muscles. But beyond that, the breath it matters so much, it supports all of our health and all the basic things that you think a speech pathologist does are not going to be effective. Therapy is not going to be effective. None of it's going to be effective if you're not breathing, eating and sleeping properly. It just doesn't.
Speaker 3:You have to have a system and a body that can sustain whatever therapies you're trying to employ. That is what I'm doing is I'm working. I don't necessarily know that I'm even your traditional myotherapist that does a set exercise program, but I'm certainly the myotherapist that's going to assess your breathing, that's going to help you get those muscles in intact and then work on the skills that you want to see your kids have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when I learned about this because I didn't know as long as I've known Erin I didn't know this part and myo is myo for anyone who's Googling right now It's myo, myo, functional but I didn't know that this and I have known you in the capacity of a coach. You've been an renovated coach and breathwork coach and teaching that process to a lot of people how to embody and be in that process and mindful and present and all those kinds of things and the breathwork piece of it. But when I heard you talk about this connection that you just mentioned, it just made so much sense to me.
Speaker 1:With the young adults that I see in my programings and the parents that I'm coaching in my practice and all of that, i find so many young people who are between the ages of maybe 18 and 30 who have struggled so hard with what someone may have called a speech issue, some kind of speech impediment or something like that, and then what we're learning is that it's tied more to what you're talking about, that when you correct the muscles and with the exercise that you teach that, you can correct the speech issues.
Speaker 1:And so for the young adults that I work with who have various levels of challenges. It's almost consistent across the board that they've experienced bullying at school, and sometimes that's because they don't say words correctly or they are mouth breathers and somebody makes fun of them for that sort of thing. But if you think about some of the maybe the young adult population that you're working with, what's your thought around how to intervene at that age? Because that's a little different than young, right, but people who are just now learning about this and maybe want to have that kind of intervention. What are your thoughts about that?
Speaker 3:Yeah. so I think it's never too late to try to improve our muscles. You're not going to influence the way the jaw grows by the time somebody's 30, like you would with a child, but you can certainly improve muscles. It's interesting there are a lot of speech pathologists who are absolutely against Mayo. There's a whole campaign of people who think it's ridiculous to exercise the muscles of the tongue and of the mouth and of the throat. Now here's and they say it works fine, they can talk, so you shouldn't have to work on these muscles. I can walk and I can lift a box, but I still go to the gym to optimize that muscle function. So I think that the thing is number one at a certain age. traditional articulation therapy isn't going to work. It's drill, it's repetition. You're going to have to add in something extra. And may I speak just like I'm not going to type names, but can I talk?
Speaker 1:about Yes.
Speaker 3:So the clients you serve often also have some executive function and cognitive challenges too. So you add that layer on the carryover of the sound. So even if you can get those speech sounds just right in session, the carryover is less. But if the muscles don't have those baseline functions, you're never going to get there. You have to address that. And if you don't work on breathing, to improve sleep and to improve eating, if you don't work on all these things which Mayo indirectly targets, they're not going to have a system that's ready to make the changes anyway. They're going to be stressed out and they're going to be in that fight-or-flight state. So I think that's why it's super important. What I would recommend many people go to school-based therapy, and school-based therapy is fabulous for what it is, but they have limited resources and huge caseloads.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's just actuality, yeah.
Speaker 3:And also schools have a very different criteria for who qualifies for therapy. You have to be pretty impaired before they will qualify you to get this service.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is one of the. It's hard, and I always say on here every parent is a perfect parent. There's no such thing as a bad parent. Every parent's doing the best they can, and so not having this information when your child is young, and even from when they're toddlers and starting to talk and all of that through middle school, all those ages where everything's developing not having this information doesn't mean that it's a lost cause. What it means is that there's a way to address it for the older teen, the young adult who is struggling, and it's one of the things that I see, and I have zero scientific information to back this up, but I'm curious about your thoughts about it. The young people that I work with that are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder seem to have more speech challenges than those who are not.
Speaker 3:For example. Well, it's part of the diagnosis. Communication is part of the diagnosis. So if you have a child that has not had a And I'm not talking your school thing Like if you were a speech pathologist that really loves that work on multiple levels not even just Maya right Like social pragmatics, cognitive linguistics. If you should really get a speech pathologist on board, because there's a lot, our scope is wide.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, very, and I've seen that, and I think about some of the young people who come to me that were labeled nonverbal before they got to me. And now that I know what I'm from working with you and hearing your perspective and all of this new approach that you have with evolved therapy, it's I wish I had known sooner, but again, every journey is perfect. But that nonverbal piece. I feel like having this kind of approach at an earlier age could really help with that nonverbal piece because consistently, without fail, the young people that I'm working with that have carried that label And that doesn't mean they never talk, it just means they don't talk much and they struggle saying what they mean. Like that's basically what that means.
Speaker 1:But all of them have eating issues, they're picky eaters, they all have sleep issues. They're up all hours of the night and they really have a hard time finding a positive sleep pattern And they have a lot of emotional anxiety because they can't express what they are feeling. And so my belief is, and one of the reasons that I choose to work with Erin, is being able to bring this modality in for that particular population. So could you talk a little bit about your experience and knowledge of the young people that you're working with or that you see and that you have seen through the years, and the picky eating piece How does the person who only eat mac and cheese relate to what you're training with the muscles? How does that connect?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so a traditional SLP is gonna tell you it were OT. whoever might be working on the feeding, you're gonna hear they're a picky eater. Okay, and there's almost always something underlying that. You will often hear there is sensory and behavioral feeding. Is it sensory, is it behavioral? But we're missing a piece. So I'm gonna say number one nothing is purely behavioral in this world. There's always something happening that is triggering a behavior, and so to only address it behaviorally, i feel that we're missing the boat.
Speaker 1:I agree. I'll just aim in over here.
Speaker 3:I'm not saying we don't do things to change behaviors, we are. Rewards are nice. I wouldn't go to work every day if I didn't get a paycheck. It's not saying we don't work in behavioral ways, but there's generally something underlying the behavior. So I don't believe that behavioral feeding is a thing. What I think happens is there's a sensory component and often a motor component.
Speaker 3:So when a child at age two doesn't develop the oral motor skills that they need because they have a sensitive system, they wanna eat applesauce, they wanna eat mac and cheese, they wanna eat mushy, processed food because it's predictable, it's same every bite, not like a blueberry.
Speaker 3:A blueberry might be sweet, it might be sour, it might be mushy, might be hard.
Speaker 3:So they eat the same predictable, processed, because processed is very predictable foods And they don't develop the jaw strength, the cheek strength, the tongue strength, and that changes the whole configuration of the airway in the mouth. So if we can work on the strength and range of motion and change that configuration of the mouth, there's more comfort with trying different foods and trying new foods. The challenging part, like with older clients, is that food is a primary reinforcer And so it does become very ingrained very quickly that these are the foods that are comfortable, and it takes a lot of work from. What I do as a feeding therapist is build a whole lot of relationship with clients first, so that they trust me that I'm not gonna force them to eat foods that they don't feel safe with, and but you can make gains. You absolutely can make gains, and even if it's just a few gains that you go from eating three foods to six foods, that's huge nutrition and it's huge for that airway development to start chewing, to start moving the mouth and gaining that muscle control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, aaron, i just wanna pop in for a second here. So, Aaron, first of all, it's just great to see you. It's great to see you find your just I don't wanna say find your calling, cause you've always found your calling, but this just suits you so well And I think, in addition to just everything you're bringing, it's just such a testament about landing on your feet when you just keep following whatever love takes you. Mazel tov, first of all, it's great to see you and great to hear that And I have a generic question, and then I might lose you here cause it's been spotty But there's a way that you see the whole.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you have a particular you. There's a way and I just know all the thing, the breath, work and everything else that you've done and I want to talk a little bit just that holistic piece where you can approach it from breath, you can approach it from food, you can Approach it from breathing, whatever. That is how give some idea of what it's like to see the whole person and how others can Move into that direction as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question. That's the whole reason I started evolved therapy, because in the world of therapy That is not the most common approach. We're very goal directed. We see one thing and we do one thing and I know from personal experience of Over the years and even even research backs this up That if we just silo the work we do into one little area, one silo, that, it doesn't, the gains don't carry over.
Speaker 3:So I tend to work with Clients and I'm working to try to figure out like a really clear-cut method so that I can teach other therapists that I hire to do It the same way I do it. But But I look at where are they foundationally, what is the daily routine like? What is and what are the basic functions that we need? food and sleep are two big ones. Communication is another big one and SLPs work on at all. So to look at that whole perspective, what does the family look like, what is the daily routine look like and where can we just make the tweaks that fit into that person's life to make, to make these recommendations work, to make the breathing work, because, because you're not gonna have a Client, all clients are not gonna lie down on a table and breathe for 30 minutes not happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah and, it's funny, even your clients, angie, that I see they will say to me because they've all been Indoctrinated in speech, right, young adults, they've done this and they will say this is the weirdest speech I've ever had.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's so funny because every once in a while you'll see when I'm like let's just work on your r sound right now And you'll get there like, yes, I'm comfortable with this. Yeah, because that it's been drill work but it hasn't worked. When you're a young adult and you've had speech your whole life And you still can't say your r sound, we got to try something new. So I say let's build from the ground up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. No, that was a great question, dave, and I love that whole idea of seeing the whole person. And that leads me into My next question and opportunity for you to comment, because I know this about you. I know you're an incredibly intuitive person and the life coach That's not what you bill yourself, but you very much are a life coach and your own life journey, which we're gonna dive into a little bit later, but some of your own life journey has You look at that dread That's really. It's given you so much Awareness and insight into what other people are experiencing.
Speaker 1:And I know, for the clients that I work with, like they don't just talk to you about How hard it is to swallow where they can't say there are sounds like they're talking to you about what their goals are, what their plans are for next week, all of that.
Speaker 1:So I want you to just talk a little bit. You mentioned earlier that you have to gain relationship with your clients So that they feel safe, so they know you're gonna have to have spinach down their throat. So I want you to just talk a little bit about that aspect of what you do, because I don't even know. That's something that SLPs are trained in Traditionally, but it is definitely a part of the work that you do. Aaron has even worked with my grandson early on her little boyfriend, that's who he is and so I know how you gain that rapport from a two-year-old all the way to a 22 year old. But would you talk a little bit about that, what that looks like from your perspective, and especially with the evolved therapy Company that you've started, and how you're moving forward like how do you weave that in?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is just off the cuff, but the phrase that comes to my mind is that I listen and I listen well, like I try to read between the lines and I listen. And us speech ease are really good at talking. That's why we are speech therapists, right, but I think the key is to show up, to be right there with that person, wherever they are, wherever that client is and that family is, and listen well. And I know that seems abstract, but that's probably the best thing I have to say about it. And you're right, i do know I know when your clients are gonna, what their job goals are. We rehearse Interview routines. We rehearse what it would be like to call and ask if they received an application And they tell me I'm terrified about this, but that is communication and it's easy. It's a billable goal For them to work on what they need to work on with their executive function, with their occasion. So it only makes sense to me, to me, to go where what with what they need and it's integrated.
Speaker 1:Everything that you do is very integrated into their overall plan.
Speaker 1:And the truth is, we don't often speak about my clients, you don't know, just to give everybody this full picture, like when we refer a client to Erin, we don't send her their file, we don't send the diagnosis, we don't give that information, we just allow that process to happen organically and then if Erin has an issue or a question or something, then she'll reach out and we'll have a conversation about whatever is happening with that client and we'll get updates as we need them.
Speaker 1:She's an amazing member of our team, but we don't give her a ton of information to create some preconceived idea or notion of who she's going to be working with. And that's, i think, one of the beautiful things that you do is you meet the person and you said it wherever they are, wherever they are on their process. You meet your client there and allow them to share who they are, whether that's in a very direct way or a very indirect way, and I think that's really important. That does build that trust, that rapport that you have to have in order for them to trust you to be able to do things differently. And boy is it different building rapport with a two-year-old versus a 22 year old. You want to talk about that just a little bit, like how you reach out to different ages.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so honestly, the little ones are my favorite. I'm worth them.
Speaker 3:They're super fun. You make huge gains very quickly. So that is that's what my love is seeing the little kids, and again that it. But it is the same thing. It's what do they want to play? You know what? and I'll use your grandson as an example. It wasn't me trying to get him to say words, it was me just watching him Interacting with him. If he was pushing a dump truck, we pushed a dump truck. If he was standing in his little chair thing at the kitchen. Make him food. That's what we did, and and I think that's the critical piece is no matter the age. Really, it does boil down to that same thing and it does look different.
Speaker 3:It does look different with teenagers. They often don't open up very well, so there's a bit more guarding there and I I actually think one of the great things about working with programs like yours, angie, and not being an Employee. It gives me a whole different relationship with the kids. They don't think I'm like part of their team necessarily. Yeah, they don't quite. It's, there's a separation that I think works well. I think yes why not to have a different level of trust Just in the whole process?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that it I agree with you 100% and I think that it gives them the opportunity to speak freely Versus speaking within the structure of the program model, where there's an expectation All the time around what their goals are and what they're trying to accomplish and blah, blah, blah. And the other side of that is sometimes I get some information from Erin Which is quite helpful To us, what somebody might be thinking that they're not willing to share in our group setting or whatever. So, yeah, i I think having you as an external or what we consider a community-based Practitioner supporting our clients is really helpful and I highly recommend that for for other programs that are looking for this kind of service Or this kind of treatment option for their especially young adult clients. You have a ton of experience with mine, so I'd be happy to recommend you to someone else that don't take her all the time, but I would be happy to recommend her to anybody else. So that's just the side note and I one thing that came to mind when you're talking about My grandson is he was born right at coven and Well, it was a little before coven, but as he was starting to talk it was coven and so he was only around adults, so he didn't talk for a long time because he didn't have to.
Speaker 1:And when I was talking with Erin about my daughter's concerns and You know about him not talking, she said he doesn't have to. And it was so true, like he didn't have to talk and there were all of us adults doing everything for him all the time And he didn't have to talk. And I, what I've seen with some of his little friends who are now four and five years old, is That definitely was an impact for them. Covid was definitely an impact for them, and I'm also seeing it with the young adults who are coming into my program now. Covid was a very hard process for young adults, especially those who tend to isolate anyway and who did, do, did and do, struggle with all of these things that we're talking about, whether it's the breathing or it's the whole process, the muscles, and then not being able to Speak and not being able to express themselves, and so then, okay, let's be completely isolated for a whole year Without peer interactions other than on a device. So is that something in your work that you're seeing the effects of COVID now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, i definitely think so on two ends. So I'll give you the negative end is exactly what we just spoke to and I will say when. So I had a huge relief when I actually met Your grandson, because normally the speech pathologist is the first one to suspect autism. The kids not talking.
Speaker 3:That's the first you have to figure out How do I have this conversation with this mother and say I suspect this, i can't diagnose this, but we need to get it checked out. So it was a huge relief for me that he just had so many loving adults that he had no needs to express Because you had your parents. Like he, i'd come over there and there'd be five grandparents. I'm like, oh, no wonder he doesn't Talk. He has all his grandmas and grandpas and doting all over him. Yeah, or he finished one activity, he had another one ready to go. Yeah, yeah, i. So that's a relief on that end. But COVID, yes, so there's this isolation that I think happened. I think that almost it like stunted development in people.
Speaker 1:It's 100% Yeah.
Speaker 3:Just last night I went to an event at an orthodontist office and it was the first event they've been able to have without masks.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Because that is like the law, right. Yeah, medical facility, and this was the first. So there were 25 of us Mayo geeks talking to this orthodontist and learning about her role in Mayo. So there was this isolation. There's a negative effect with interacting. Also, interestingly, i think that the masks and I wear a mask. I've worn a mask all along But it changes the way we read facial expression. It changes speech development because kids watch mouth. That's how they learn through that visual feedback. So that has been an impact which, early on, as speech pathologists, we got clearance and we figured out how do we do this without wearing a mask? Yeah, now the positive impact is that telehealth was not available. Speech pathologists were not. It couldn't bill for tele. Doctors could do it And I know there are some clients that are absolutely not appropriate for virtual services, but many are. It's talking, what are we doing? right?
Speaker 2:here Breathing.
Speaker 3:All of this can be done virtually with the right support in place, and so COVID opened that up And I've actually seen some kids on the spectrum that respond Even there's like and we talked about that layer of separation where they feel like more relaxed and more comfortable. Yeah, yeah, i've actually had good results with telehealth, better than I ever thought I would. The carryover of skills has been better oftentimes because I'm seeing clients in the home, where their family is present and it's in their environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is great Because they do feel more calm. And I know from working with the ASD population that sometimes that is so uncomfortable to be in a physical place with another person that it limits your ability until you have that relationship And that can take a long time. So I think you probably get it quicker over telehealth. Yeah, would you think?
Speaker 3:Yeah, And actually what I'm doing currently. So my practice is in Boston, massachusetts. It's a little suburb called Melrose, but what I'm currently doing is I'm basically requiring families, even if they do face-to-face visits, to do a telehealth visit once a month, because I think that gives just a different outlook on it all. It's a different layer of accountability for the family, a different layer of them Me coaching. Part of it has been that I stepped out of the actual doer of the therapy and backed off and said now I'm going to teach you how to do the therapy.
Speaker 1:Wow, Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:The magic doesn't happen in 30 minutes on a week.
Speaker 1:That's a great point. So that's something we probably should talk about a little bit. So parents who are listening to this and do want to reach out because they're like, oh, this could be my kid, this is maybe something, so what would you say? the process is for parents, let's go with a younger child.
Speaker 3:If it's so many years For my business in particular.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the requirement for parents and their involvement, and how much are they coaching the kids throughout the week?
Speaker 3:So if I'm seeing a kid in person, we could do a combination that the parents can be in the session if they want or not, But I would at least once a month require a family to and their facilitator. So basically we do a 30-minute visit.
Speaker 3:Even with young adults, I don't think they have the attention ability to sit for more than 30 minutes in front of a screen and participate immediately, so 30 minutes once a month, that the parent becomes the facilitator And they bring up the app on their phone, on their computer, and I come into the home virtually. That's awesome Yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's actually an app process that you can use for this telehealth. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all of my everything is set up through a HIPAA-compliant system where the families can log on and they get an email with a link And it's a unique link every week And then I arrive on their screen Right in their home.
Speaker 1:Yay, now you're in my home, i've been yours. You're right, this is. I agree with you. I think that telehealth has been one of the great gifts of COVID, of that whole experience, and I'm very hopeful. I know in some areas telehealth is going away And some organizations are going back to know that's not a viable option And I am very hopeful that's not the case because I've seen incredible gifts and gains and opportunities for my clients and the families that I work with through telehealth. I'm really hoping that everybody can continue with telehealth. It just opens up opportunities for all levels of therapy and coaching and help to families that didn't have it before.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it allows expert access to people who are already marginalized.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately. So I did see that for speech that the federal government, like the Medicare system, has been going to extend through December of 2024. So they were good on that, but they've left it up to states to decide what services they're covering and not. So, unfortunately, a lot of it's just payment driven, it's not clinic driven that we haven't seen results. That's not what's happening. What's happening is people they're not paying, right Yeah, and they haven't decided not to pay, which is unfortunate. That payment dictates.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is, but that is the world in which we live And I think most parents listening would agree with us And we could all get on that soapbox. Let me cover this really quickly with you, just to help parents understand. So this is a billable service, so can you talk a little bit about how you interact with people's insurance payments versus private pay?
Speaker 3:So I am a concierge private pay service, but at the end of every month you get a super bill. So I'm an out of network provider. Most private insurances reimburse 60% to 70% of that, and so then you have the super bill that you have access to. The system that I use, you would have a client portal that you have access to even in the middle of the month. But what families do is they submit this to their insurance And the insurance reimburses them a percentage of, and some insurances will reimburse all of it. But I just allow the family to handle that end of the insurance.
Speaker 1:But you're providing everything they need to be able to take care of that on their own And easy access. So that sounds great. I want to shift gears just a little bit. And, aaron, what you've shared is just incredible, and I'm sure everybody's. Yes, this is someone who's an expert in her field And you are, and I'm so grateful for that. And I also know you're an incredible artist, an incredible author, an incredible speaker, and you've been on a journey that's been tough, to say the least, since 2020.
Speaker 1:And Aaron had somebody very dear to her pass away suddenly, and he was also a friend of mine, and I have watched you navigate such a difficult journey with such incredible grace And I just can't say enough about that, and we're both going to get emotional. But I bring this up because I think it's so important for people who are going through grief and whatever level it is, to know that they're not alone, to know that there are resources, to know that, no matter what they're feeling, it's OK, and that it's everything from anger to sadness, to joy, to confusion, to curiosity, to all of it. And we could do an entire three hour podcast just on that journey that you've been on. But what I want to ask, and Aaron didn't know I was going to do this. What I want to ask is for you to just speak a little bit about what you've learned on this journey, not so much about the journey We don't need to talk about what happened. It's more important to talk about what you've learned, how you've grown the self-awareness that you have, which you had incredible self-awareness before this event occurred, and now your self-awareness is even more.
Speaker 1:And I have to tell you she shared some of her most recent art with me And it is just incredible. I would absolutely pay for the paintings that you're creating. They're beautiful. She's going to have a book of poetry come out soon, and that is also. I've seen some of that and it's amazing, and so I just want you to have the opportunity to share with the listeners. One of the things that parents go through is grief On so many levels, and it's grieving everything from having the child that you thought in your mind you were going to have And then realizing you have this incredible child. That's totally different, but you almost have to grieve the loss of the child. You thought you had to really step in 100% with a child that you do have, and so that grief process is real, no matter what the incident, event or life journey is. So I'm just going to that's vague, but I'm going to leave it up to you to talk a little bit about this grief journey, what you've learned and any thoughts or advice that you may have for folks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I will just say so that there's a bit of context is that the person that I lost was my partner. We were not married because I did not want to be married And that once before it didn't end well, but it was my partner And it was sudden, it was unexpected, and my life changed in the blink of an eye. So it's almost as if the foundation of my reality was gone overnight.
Speaker 3:I had a family, i had a stepson who had his own sets of challenges, and I had a good fight with him and for him, and actually he's getting ready to graduate high school next week which is amazing with a certification in robotics, and it wasn't how we expected it would be, but it is what it is and it's been good. So I think the key thing that I've learned. I wanted to rush through. I just I wanted to go to the next part and I kept thinking This next thing is going to be the thing. This is going to be the thing that fixes it, this is going to be the thing that makes this all better. This is going to be the thing that is salved to the wound.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you are on Instagram or TikTok or anything, but there was this reel that went around forever and there was a song that said can we skip to the good part? I would watch that stupid reel over and, oh my God, why can't this just be real? Why can't we just skip to the good part? I had advice from day one from people that I trusted like spiritual people in my world that were like there's a bigger picture, blah, blah, bullshit, bullshit. Excuse my language.
Speaker 1:You're okay.
Speaker 3:It is true that there is something here that's new and wonderful and amazing, and it is true that this was horrible. Sometimes there are just bad things and they're crappy and you have to accept that this is bad and it's crap and you're going to have to move through it. I think for me, the ability to not try to embrace all that was wrong, even just being in it, was helpful. Once I finally got to a point and it took a while to get to that point I rambled all over the country for a year and a half and I kept thinking the next city I moved to is going to be the city where everything is magic and not until I got to Portland, maine, and laid in the ground and said I can't do it anymore.
Speaker 3:And it wasn't magic, it was the opposite. Did I finally settle enough to say, okay, i'll stay here a year because the city is not going to fix it, the ocean is not going to fix it, the river is not going to fix it. All those things are helpful. Walking six miles a day and cooking elaborate meals and jumping in ice water all feels good and is completely necessary. And we got to have those little joy bubbles along the way. There is something relevant and new and exciting and there's a tremendous amount of love. I said that from the beginning.
Speaker 3:Right after Dave died, there was a three-month window of the veils being thinned and I was in this love bubble and I was like it's real, but love and blah, blah, blah, blah, he's right there. And then reality came again and I was like, oh God, I have to work because I didn't have life insurance, so there was nothing happening and I've got to try to figure this out. But really I'm about a two-and-a-half year mark now, about two-and-a-half years, and I've just gotten back to where I'm able, like I have capacity again and then I have a drive again.
Speaker 3:So even just yesterday I was in a meeting about a contract with Evolve Therapy and I thought this is old Erin, where's she coming? How's she coming back in here? She's kind of new, but definitely I had that spark of. I forgot that part about myself so I think for families it's important to have patience with that process and acceptance for those feelings, because the feelings are hard and it's all about, like with every joy there's loss. I've often thought is there ever just like joy, like just pure woohoo again, without recognizing what wasn't?
Speaker 2:Yeah, i wanted to, because there's a phrase that you use that I never forgot, because I'd used the phrase anguishment with you. Remember just the beauty of this? Do you remember the phrase that you threw back at me that just brought me to my knees? No, it was Brutiful, brutiful. Could you just, could you speak to that? Yeah?
Speaker 3:you met me in that three month window where things were like were brutal and then they got real brutal, or I had to work hard to get to Brutiful yeah and I can't clean that phrase. I think it's actually glen and oil. But That's okay, i'm giving it to you.
Speaker 2:You got it.
Speaker 3:The first person I heard it from.
Speaker 1:I think it was the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just something, but I just want to speak to it for a second. And then we just actually arrived here and I'm gonna leave you to in a second. But it was just that that the beauty of life and the anguish of life are just so close together And as much as we want to be able to separate. And I just watched you, just I watched your soul grow through this process, it's true, and I just wished it could have been easier for you. I just thought, oh my God, could we just take the pill or get to the good part, as you say? Yeah, but I just want everyone to know that you have paid such a beautiful price and such a brutal price for who you are And acknowledge that and just the gift that you give. I don't care whether it's breathing or speed, pathology or die, it doesn't matter to me, but to me it's just you're the gift.
Speaker 2:And Angie, i just thank you for bringing her into my life and everyone's life, and just recognizing who you are and seeing how beautifully you've turned out This place, this brings me such joy. So I'm going to leave on that note, because that's not the last word. It's the last word I'm going to say And, erin, i'm going to make sure I have your contact, angie, make sure I have a contact information And, erin, when I'm not getting ready to go on stage and do something, i will get back to you and we can continue this. But Thank you.
Speaker 3:Good luck, that's it.
Speaker 2:All right, thanks to both of you Two beautiful women, two beautiful people on the same screen. So I'll leave you two together, thank you.
Speaker 1:See you, dave. So Dave's leaving our podcast today and we're going to spend the last few minutes just bringing everything to a culmination. Thank you for diving into the hard part of your life and bearing that, because I know that wound. It can be just as raw as the day it happened, and then it can also be brutal. I do like that term. It can be brutal And that's, i think, where a lot of your incredible art and the writing that you've done has come from that place, because that's how you've expressed yourself. And the things that Erin's talked about with the myofunctional therapy and her business evolved therapy, with the breathing, the breath work, the practicing with her, the muscles, all the exercises those are things that you do as a human for yourself. Yeah, so talk a little bit about that, about how you have integrated those things into your own life.
Speaker 3:I don't do anything. I mean, obviously I don't have an articulation disorder, but I don't recommend anything to a client that I haven't done. If it, especially if it comes to a daily routine recommendation or breathing recommendation or something to that effect, i will experiment for lack of a better word with a particular breathing recommendation for at least I don't know, two or three months before I throw that at the world. And really I learned in Ayurvedic Health School a lot about just embodiment and all of these things we've been talking about. But it wasn't until I actually hit crisis mode that I realized they work and they had been ingrained in my life. So those are the things that I started to go to, without even really thinking too much about it. But it's just practice. It's literally just practice over and showing up for the hard stuff, even when it's hard, forgiving yourself when you don't show up for the hard stuff, because that's going to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I do. I want to ask this question and you brought it up again And this is where I wanted to go for our last little segment was to talk about the Ayurvedic part of your practice, because I will tell our listeners and watchers I've had some incredible meals that Erin has prepared, which I still use those recipes in my own life. But will you talk a little bit about Ayurvedic practice, what that means and maybe how you're taking all that you learned there and integrating that into evolved therapy?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So with feeding therapy, i will look at what. Let me back up With Ayurveda. Everybody has what's called a dosha, so that's like your constitutional makeup as a human, and I'm not going to get into Sanskrit words. I think it's ridiculous to do that right now. But basically, some of us are a little more scattered, some of us are a little more grounded and earthy and tend to hold on to extra weight. Some of us are fiery, wild and need that calming, need that cooling, and so Ayurveda, as the most ancient documented medical system in our world, is thousands of years old and it came from India. It's more preventative and it's looking at where is your body within the five elements.
Speaker 3:Really, do you have more earth? Do you have more wind going on right now and need a little more earth? Do you have a little fire too much fire happening right now and you need to add some water? And then how do you eat? Like literally, how do you eat? How do you exercise to balance that out? So my dosha I'm very pitta, which is fire By nature. I'm pitta kafa, so fire and earth, and I have to work really hard to keep that pitta under control. So that means I, as much as I love spicy food like love, love spicy food I try to limit it. I don't have massive acid reflux and just eat the spicy food anyway.
Speaker 1:There's that forgiveness of self.
Speaker 3:So I will talk to families about this and like how do we incorporate those principles, not even just into their kids lives that I'm seeing for feeding therapy but into the whole home? If we don't make changes that the whole home can sustain, it's not going to work. So I think therapists often come up with these elaborate plans that are going to make the person that we're seeing fit into some weird box and we that it's not real. It's not real. What we need to be doing is looking at what is the whole. It's not a box. What's the whole structure? Yeah, what's the whole structure. And how do we pull from here and pull from here and pull from here and create a routine and some predictability? Our bodies love predictability, thrive in predictability. We embody when we have that predictability and many of us don't like it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm one of those. I'm. I also have a lot of the earth. I've done this work a little bit to see what I am, but I am someone who loves different. Something different every day. That's what my logical brain says. My body says I want the same foods for breakfast every day. I want it at the same time, and I know when I do that.
Speaker 3:Even timing is a thing. Yeah, Even timing. You get variety with type of food, but have, yeah, and it doesn't have to be consistent. It's like where do you find the variety to feed that part of you and where do you find the consistency to settle that part of you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So, as our folks listening in can tell, this could be a very long conversation and we may have to schedule you to come back and talk about this aspect of your practice a little bit more, but we're coming to the end of our hour, so I'm going to bring us to a close and I have such incredible love for you that and I'm so grateful that you took the time to be on this podcast. It's been just an amazing conversation and the information that you shared is invaluable. If folks who are listening and watching would like to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
Speaker 3:Evolved-therapycom. Okay, and come to my website and send an email. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And we will include that in the show notes so folks can just click on it and get to you, and I just would recommend, if there's anything that you've heard that has struck a chord with you as a parent or for your child, do reach out to Erin, because I could go for another hour and probably not highlight all of her incredible talents and that, honestly, like I've had the joy to be able to work with you and everything from we've served together on a local autism board to co-presenting at conferences, to being that person that cried with you when that's what was needed and watching you in the brutal phase of your life, and so I just really recommend folks to reach out. If there was something that struck a chord, please do reach out. Erin's an incredible resource. So thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time. It's great to see your beautiful face.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Same, same. All right, thanks everybody. See you in the next episode.
