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The Animal's Voice - She May Not Speak, But She Has Something to Say I With Johanna, Keplyn, Eliana · The Animals Voice

0:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think a job as the telepath combined with this being a therapist, of course.
0:06
[SPEAKER_04]: But being the telepath is not only understanding Eliana, but becoming Eliana when I speak.
0:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And I remember in the very first encounters with Eliana.
0:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I have cried.
0:18
[SPEAKER_04]: I have been bawling my eyes out when I have spoken whatever was in there and shared the knowledge and it has been so profound and it's been so safe for me as the translator because you never judged whatever I came with because it actually resonated.
0:37
[SPEAKER_04]: In you and you welcomed whatever I spoke about through Ellie and I will share with the listeners.
0:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it was the second meeting with Ellie and you told me she was a non-speaker that I experienced her coming up to the screen and she said: HI DITTE! And I remember I cried when she did that. Do you remember that?,
1:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes, we remember when she came home from school and said your name randomly.
1:08
[SPEAKER_03]: So we were both shocked.
1:11
[SPEAKER_02]: What did she say?
1:15
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a difficult name and I know that Johanna sometimes when you know it's time.
1:19
[SPEAKER_04]: It's because your beautiful daughter starts saying my name.
1:24
[SPEAKER_00]: They come for us.
1:26
[SPEAKER_00]: They protect us, they change us.
1:30
[SPEAKER_00]: But one of them could also speak to us.
1:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Animal's Voice, hosted by Ditte Young, internationally renowned animal communicator, telepath, licensed therapist, intuitive coach, and best-selling author.
1:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Each week you'll hear extraordinary stories of connection, healing, love, loss, and transformation through the eyes of the animals who share our lives.
1:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Stories that challenge what we think we know, stories that open our hearts.
1:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Stories that remind us we may never have been as separate as we believed, because every animal has a voice, and every voice deserves to be heard.
2:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi and welcome to the Animals Voice.
2:16
[SPEAKER_04]: This is Ditte Young.
2:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Today it is my great honor to welcome some of my friends and long-term clients of mine.
2:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Will you be introducing the family?
2:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, hi, my name is Johanna and this is Keplyn and we are co-parenting an 18 year old daughter named Eliana and she comes to the world with complex needs and we're here to share a little bit of our journey with her as we've connected with Ditte and learned more about how to connect with our daughter.
2:49
[SPEAKER_03]: What diagnosis has Eliana received?
2:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Eliana was born with what we discovered to be a rare genetic disorder.
3:00
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a duplication on a chromosome.
3:02
[SPEAKER_03]: It has a no name and no one in the world has been identified to have this duplication.
3:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So when she was born, the doctor's really said we don't know.
3:12
[SPEAKER_03]: We really don't know what the path will be for her.
3:14
[SPEAKER_03]: There isn't a typical trajectory that we can tell you her life's journey will take.
3:22
[SPEAKER_03]: You all will really be informing us as she grows up.
3:25
[SPEAKER_03]: And we learn more about her, her medical needs, her mental health needs.
3:30
[SPEAKER_03]: you'll be telling us what this profile looks like in a human being.
3:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So we really have this path of unknown uncertainty and that gave us both freedom and fear at the same time.
3:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Freedom in the sense that when you don't know a path, then the path can be anything.
3:49
[SPEAKER_03]: You can create the bar to be however high you hope and want.
3:53
[SPEAKER_03]: And
3:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And without a path, you have fear because everything that's occurring, you're unsure what it could mean, what it could be connected to, how it could be a representation of an underlying issue that hasn't been discovered yet.
4:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So Eliana started her journey on on the planet with this profile.
4:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And
4:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, when she was born, we went through various tests to understand more about her body and and her system and she has a single horseshoe shape kidney, she has multiple brain anomalies.
4:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, the predominant one is a genesis of the corpus colosum, which means that she's missing the part of her brain.
4:33
[SPEAKER_03]: that connect the two to hemispheres.
4:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So this can manifest itself really differently in people.
4:40
[SPEAKER_03]: There are people that don't have a corpus close-up and they don't know it until they get into a car accident and God forbid and they need to get a brain scan and then all of a sudden it's discovered that they have a ACC is what we abbreviate it to or partial a partial corpus close-up.
4:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And then they're like, oh, that explains a bit more about why I have, you know, struggle balancing my checkbook or I need an extra time to process things.
5:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And then there are other individuals like Eliana who are more impacted and how you have higher needs as a result of their brain conditions.
5:13
[SPEAKER_03]: So, she also then has recently developed a blood disorder, not otherwise specified.
5:20
[SPEAKER_03]: She has difficulty clotting her blood, so we have precautions in place and she takes medication that assists her with that.
5:28
[SPEAKER_03]: She also has, um,
5:30
[SPEAKER_03]: some speech and language delays.
5:33
[SPEAKER_03]: She is a non-speaker for all intensive purposes.
5:35
[SPEAKER_03]: She is a total communicator.
5:36
[SPEAKER_03]: So she uses all different types of communication and we're on the lookout for what she's trying to say when her, when how you know where and and what she's trying to tell us and then she has an intellectual disability.
5:51
[SPEAKER_03]: So she is at a different developmental level than she is her chronological age.
5:56
[SPEAKER_03]: So we work hard to make sure we're differentiating
6:00
[SPEAKER_03]: The world is as accessible as possible for her.
6:03
[SPEAKER_03]: She also has a cortical vision impairment called CVI, and this is actually the leading cause of pediatric blindness and is becoming much more prominent in awareness across the world.
6:15
[SPEAKER_03]: And we feel really blast to be able to partner with some of the leading CVI experts in the world, helping us to understand this part of Lianna's learning and access to the world.
6:25
[SPEAKER_03]: And we recently discovered she has a central auditory processing disorder, which makes sense, kind of goes to hand in hand with some of her brain anomalies and brain structures.
6:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So she takes longer to process and she processes more efficiently and effectively out of her right ear than the left.
6:42
[SPEAKER_03]: She sees better and processes better out of her left ear.
6:45
[SPEAKER_03]: So we do a lot of juggling of presenting things on the left for revision and presenting things on the right for hearing
6:55
[SPEAKER_03]: She is really the most resilient person I know and she teaches me every day about resilience and what it means to show up in a world that's not always ready for you and not accessible in the ways that she might need and to move through it with ease.
7:12
[SPEAKER_03]: So we've become strong advocates and believers in people don't know what they don't know.
7:19
[SPEAKER_03]: until they know and so we consider ourselves vehicles of knowledge to educate the world about her her needs, people like her, really understanding what does it mean to live an anti-Avalist life.
7:33
[SPEAKER_03]: and that ableism is something that we all carry with us.
7:37
[SPEAKER_03]: It's part of our bias and that being aware of it and unpacking it is not a bad thing.
7:44
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a great thing.
7:44
[SPEAKER_03]: It opens us up to see people differently and put on a new set of lenses as we're looking at the world and the people around us.
7:50
[SPEAKER_03]: So we consider ourselves advocates but really more carriers of knowledge leading with love.
7:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
7:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I love that.
8:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And Keplyn do you, do you see Eliana as a teacher in your life as well?
8:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Eliana is my biggest teacher.
8:11
[SPEAKER_02]: She is my greatest teacher in life.
8:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, she teaches me every day about patients and resilience and persistence is another one.
8:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, she's a huge teacher for us.
8:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think for many other people as well.
8:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So you came across me a couple of years ago, right?
8:30
[SPEAKER_04]: You found me on the other side of the ocean.
8:33
[SPEAKER_04]: How did you find me back then?
8:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's a great question.
8:38
[SPEAKER_03]: So we just came across the telepathy tapes as a podcast and started listening to it.
8:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And we listened to the episode where you were working with horses.
8:53
[SPEAKER_03]: And we thought, like, oh, we just had a cat, two cats recently passed and we had a new dog and both of our dogs are service dogs and for Eliana and our family.
9:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I think we just were like, oh, it would be so great to be here.
9:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And we wanted to learn more about Elie and so we thought about all of those things and we thought, let's just do it.
9:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just see what it will be like.
9:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we initially thought about it more about the dogs first, because we really reached out to you specifically because of your animal connections and that being a primary passion in your work.
9:33
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's how we got to initially.
9:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So we reached out and we explored what it looks like to
9:43
[SPEAKER_03]: waves and really got to know you and your work and the depth and breath of knowledge that you provide not just on animals, right?
9:53
[SPEAKER_03]: And your work with their for parents, but with people.
9:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we came to learn a little bit more about that and then it really opened us up to think about like, hey, we would do this for our for babies, like what what's in the way for us around connecting
10:11
[SPEAKER_03]: with Eliana in some way through Ditte. So that's what brought us to you.
10:17
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the animal's voice with Ditte Young.
10:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you share what a session usually looks like to the listeners who are not in the sessions because it's so confidential and it's so private, of course.
10:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, absolutely.
10:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So when we started with our animal for babies,
10:39
[SPEAKER_03]: We shared pictures with you and sort of gave you time to connect with them in the ways that you do off camera, out of session, and then we set up a Zoom meeting with you and try to figure out the difference between the Danish time and the American time.
10:57
[SPEAKER_03]: learn more about that as well.
11:00
[SPEAKER_03]: And then when we hop on Zoom, we really were eager to hear more about our animals and your time with us was really about setting up psychological safety for us first.
11:12
[SPEAKER_03]: It really was about creating a safe place to build rapport between you and us.
11:17
[SPEAKER_03]: for you to feel confident that we feel trust and we feel non-judgment that we feel a connection to you and you a connection to us and that that become the foundation of our relationship together and then you know I think you do a really nice job of
11:46
[SPEAKER_03]: genuine and authentic.
11:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Someone who's truly interested in being present and be welcoming of whatever unfolds for us together.
11:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And that I think set the stage for us to just give ourselves more permission to be vulnerable.
12:03
[SPEAKER_03]: I think when we're talking about these types of connections that are often seen with a skeptical eye,
12:13
[SPEAKER_03]: or judged in ways that may make us a little more leery, right, or a little more question, questioning.
12:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think sometimes when that happens, there are these unconscious walls that kind of go up and can be barriers.
12:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I think you do a really nice job of recognizing that the world is not always ready, just like they're not ready for Eliana, right?
12:35
[SPEAKER_03]: The world is not always ready for
12:37
[SPEAKER_03]: things beyond what we have concrete and tangible in a scientific measure that we currently have.
12:45
[SPEAKER_03]: So our Zoom meeting is really an opportunity for us to feel like we have a safe place as parents to reflect, to consider,
12:56
[SPEAKER_03]: to take a step back and think about what we might be missing.
13:05
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think our sessions are really about you taking moments once we all feel settled and connected and say our hello is in
13:20
[SPEAKER_03]: find your center, your grounded spot, right, where you then can go into a plane of communication, a place inside yourself and in the world of consciousness that, you know, brings you closer to Eliana and reaching out for her and what she might be able to share and send your way and we
13:44
[SPEAKER_03]: give you stillness and quiet and space to allow you to do that work.
13:53
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not like you leave your body and you go into some trance or your, you know, your humanness is present and it really feels no different for us being in the Zoom room with you as it is us being in a room with her teacher at school or a conference, you know, around her health condition.
14:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Your somebody that's bringing expertise in a certain way and
14:19
[SPEAKER_03]: pondering and thinking and getting yourself in a space where you can draw that knowledge up for us, just like a neurologist might when they're sitting at the desk looking at the images on the computer of her brain, and pondering how to explain to us this is what this anomaly plays out in real life, right?
14:36
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think the only difference really in that initial just asking questions and
14:45
[SPEAKER_02]: is that really you take a moment to center yourself like Johanna said and you take a breath, you might close your eyes but it literally is like 30 seconds and then you know that might be the only difference I think than talking to other people about Eliana.
15:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So
15:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And frankly, I'm a therapist by trade.
15:06
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a psychotherapist and an art therapist by trade.
15:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And there are times in my sessions with clients, right?
15:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Where I say, let's just take a minute and get grounded.
15:14
[SPEAKER_03]: And let's like, I'm going to close my eyes for a minute.
15:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to bring myself fully present into this session with you.
15:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is your time.
15:22
[SPEAKER_03]: It's meant for you.
15:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And I need to be fully here for you to be able to receive what you're
15:31
[SPEAKER_03]: connection and relationship to what you're sharing is.
15:34
[SPEAKER_03]: So, um, yeah, I think sometimes we, we all do that in our professionals.
15:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we all need to do that more just to all of us, right?
15:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much.
15:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think my job as the telepath combined with this being a therapist, of course.
15:51
[SPEAKER_04]: but being the telepath is not only understanding Eliana but becoming Eliana when I speak.
15:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And I remember in the very first encounters with Elie, I have cried.
16:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I have been bawling my eyes out when I have spoken
16:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Whatever was in there and shared the knowledge and it has been so profound and it's been so safe for me as the translator because you never judged whatever I came with because it actually resonated in you and you welcomed whatever I spoke about through Ellie and I will share with the listeners I think it was the second meeting with Ellie
16:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And you told me she was a non-speaker that I experienced her coming up to the screen, and she said, hi, Ditte.
16:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And I remember I cried when she did that.
16:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you remember that?
16:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes.
16:50
[SPEAKER_03]: We remember when she came home from school and said your name randomly.
16:54
[SPEAKER_03]: So, we were both shocked.
16:56
[SPEAKER_03]: We were like, what?
16:57
[SPEAKER_02]: What did she say?
17:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a difficult name, and I know that Johanna, sometimes when you know it's time, is because your beautiful daughter starts saying my name, and then you are texting me on the email, I think it's time, I think it's time.
17:13
[SPEAKER_04]: So, she has an opinion.
17:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, this is true.
17:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Strong willed she is.
17:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you share, would you be comfortable about sharing what types of questions would you have as parents, not in details, but what kind of questions has your interest using a telepath?
17:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I think for me, I want to know things like her day-to-day, how is she feeling as she moves through the day?
17:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Those might be things that we sometimes guess at because we're watching her cry and we make assumptions that those are sad tears and in some cases it may not be, right?
17:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think I'd like to know more about how she feels in her body.
17:59
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, are things hurting her, which I think we did discover that her back was bothering her once, right?
18:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And her neck was bothering her, and although again, we might have thought those things we didn't really hear from her in the way that felt, you know, she
18:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure to us about it and and also I want to know more about school or whatever she's doing during the day How she's interacting with people.
18:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean those are conversations that we don't have with our daughter because we can't say we'll have a school Right, so yeah, you were that bridge for us and you are that bridge for us in those cases What about you Johanna and we were talking with you about Eliana one session and you said Eliana is just
18:45
[SPEAKER_03]: There's this anger, there's this around food, right?
18:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And this was very, very time-aligned with her experiencing what I would categorize as real raw rage.
18:59
[SPEAKER_03]: And like, really, like, we're not seeing her that angry before.
19:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was always around me all times.
19:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And we just felt like we couldn't, we didn't know
19:12
[SPEAKER_03]: how to address it.
19:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And when we were doing was we were staying stuck in the reaction phase of how do we manage the rage?
19:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Even though we were wanting to problem solve the antecedent or the trigger for the feeling, right?
19:28
[SPEAKER_03]: We'd just got caught up and like, oh my gosh, how do we help this human being?
19:31
[SPEAKER_03]: We love so much with this volume of rage.
19:35
[SPEAKER_03]: and i think after we met and you shared with us like she is so hungry and this is how like she is describing her stomach feeling this way her body feeling this way um like we immediately moved away from how do we manage the rage too
19:54
[SPEAKER_03]: this proactive stance of what do we need to do to make her connection to eating less intense, um, less hangry, you know.
20:07
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the animal's voice with Ditte Young.
20:10
[SPEAKER_03]: So we were, you know, adding in foods, new foods, uh, sort of, uh, in a paste way, and I think she probably was like, give me some more of those chips.
20:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
20:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, but for Eliana, if you think about this, I mean, she was
20:25
[SPEAKER_03]: a keto diet since she was very little.
20:28
[SPEAKER_03]: So now she's 18.
20:29
[SPEAKER_03]: So maybe a decade on keto, this is someone who didn't have ice cream like we have ice cream or sweets or carbs.
20:38
[SPEAKER_03]: So she wasn't even taught what those foods necessarily were.
20:42
[SPEAKER_03]: And so for her to have struggles with expressing herself and being a non-speaker, but also not knowing what the names are of things that she may have tasted that we maybe didn't do a good enough job teaching her about the food and explicit ways with the salient features of the item and helping her compare and contrast, you know.
21:05
[SPEAKER_03]: what she's tasting and learning.
21:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think for her it became like a traffic jam in her brain, you know, a body of not just what she's thinking, but what she's sensing, what she's feeling, people who have her particular cortical vision impairment and other neural divergent individuals,
21:22
[SPEAKER_03]: have challenges with their interception, which is like the inside of ourselves and how do we recognize what's going on in our bodies?
21:29
[SPEAKER_03]: So you and I might know I need to go to the bathroom because my bladder feels full.
21:33
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel pressure there and or I'm hungry because my stomach is rumbling or I'm getting a headache.
21:38
[SPEAKER_03]: I better drink some water.
21:39
[SPEAKER_03]: I might be dehydrated.
21:41
[SPEAKER_03]: She doesn't have the the attunement to her inside self like like typically cited people do.
21:50
[SPEAKER_03]: and people who have, who don't have like a dual sensory disability or who are neurotypical.
21:56
[SPEAKER_03]: So knowing this about her, she even would struggle if she had the words, I think, to be able to make those connections, you know, right off the bat, I know, oh, this is my stomach's growling, please feed me.
22:11
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think we got these concrete steps on how can we show up?
22:15
[SPEAKER_03]: in different ways for her and I think it just helped us feel like more confident parents it helped us feel more confident that we knew how we could support her more at least give it a try givey something new a try.
22:29
[SPEAKER_02]: He didn't really like the types of foods that I was preparing her just because of what you were telling me that she was telling you right?
22:37
[SPEAKER_02]: like she really prefers these other types of foods.
22:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So I mean that that really changed a lot of things for us.
22:45
[SPEAKER_03]: It did it made me the primary chef in the house, right?
22:48
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not sure I really embraced that role, Ditte, so I am not sure that is a thank you.
22:54
[SPEAKER_03]: but I'll take it.
22:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll take it.
22:57
[SPEAKER_03]: We get microgreens from our local farm to put in her sandwiches and we, you know, try to give her a pallets of culinary.
23:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's important to share that we have cried a lot but we have laughed a lot during these sessions and I think we meet every third month's
23:18
[SPEAKER_04]: To the listeners out there, I'm a mother to an autistic son and he was born with a minor brain damage and has optical nerve dysfunction as well and of course it is different because parenthood for me is different but one question I've been asked many many times with friends, family members, people who do not know about parenting,
23:44
[SPEAKER_04]: when it comes to a neurodivergent child, often asked, often time asked me, is it just hard being a parent to a child, a neurodivergent child?
23:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And my answer is always, no.
23:58
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not my child.
23:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I have difficulties with.
24:01
[SPEAKER_04]: It is all the help and to find the right help to help my son.
24:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you recognize that as well in your life?
24:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
24:10
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that
24:13
[SPEAKER_03]: There's so much unknown about like when we're gone.
24:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's the scariest part for us to thinking about like the plan for when we are no longer on this planet.
24:25
[SPEAKER_03]: How the systems will be in place, you know, we can see how things change based on, you know, who's running the government or what programs are funded or not funded or, you know, there's so much
24:37
[SPEAKER_03]: that changes, that there isn't anything that's static, that you can believe will be true forever in the systems around the person with disabilities.
24:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that brings this concern about, okay, how do we set it up where, when we're gone, there's always somebody who knows Eliana,
25:00
[SPEAKER_03]: who can make sure she's getting the just right supports and services.
25:03
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's something that's, you know, on our mind often.
25:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's that Eliana is not the tough part.
25:09
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like you said, it's all the things that kind of wrap around Eliana.
25:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And getting the right services or, you know, making choices about
25:19
[SPEAKER_02]: school or whatever it may be.
25:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are like the harder pieces.
25:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So when I think about and we have three kids, I don't necessarily think about her being the hardest one, right?
25:31
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, yeah, it's all, it's the world providing for Ellie.
25:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I think and thank you for sharing that both of you and I think when I find peace when I have to because I have the same anxiety I have the same thoughts and the same worried
25:52
[SPEAKER_04]: thought that can drive me nuts and into a depression when I think about the fact that I will no longer be there for my son Philip forever and who's gonna help him out.
26:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And even though people have said, oh, we'll be there when they are not showing up in his everyday life.
26:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not trusting that they will show up to be honest when I'm not there.
26:14
[SPEAKER_04]: But in my opinion, I think I can see a paradigm shift.
26:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And I can only hope for a better world eventually when people are more empathetic, when people have more focus on neurodiversity in general and how to treat them and my luck, our luck in this country.
26:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's both a plus and a minus with this generation that is coming out.
26:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Generation Z, they're so sensitive, they're so unfiltered and they're so honest.
26:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And I do hope it's going to be my son's luck that we have a generation of people that are way more sensitive and way more empathetic because they are going to help my son and Ellie in the future.
27:03
[SPEAKER_03]: The first thing that jumps out of my mind when you're talking is about not just
27:08
[SPEAKER_03]: around the younger generations changing their mindsets and how they practice daily living, but really also to what's happening in our world with AI, with all sorts of changes, the uncertainty ahead, and when we really look at the pathway for employment,
27:24
[SPEAKER_03]: It's clear AI is going to be replacing many professions that have relied on human need.
27:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And when I think about, and we think about kind of what's left over, direct care support, and being a direct care professional, working with people, supporting people, is a huge need already, right?
27:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And so maybe if we could do a really good job,
27:52
[SPEAKER_03]: As AI moves in the pace it is that we don't have much control over, that we can start lifting up the role of direct service providers and direct service professionals, those people that are here every day caring for Eliana providing for her now and when we're gone.
28:11
[SPEAKER_03]: If we can elevate those careers to be paid a professionally reasonable wage, have insurance benefits, make that more of a profession where there's a hierarchy of moving up, right?
28:25
[SPEAKER_03]: You can become a house manager, you can become other types of things that I think
28:32
[SPEAKER_03]: That would be really fantastic.
28:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that is the energy I'm putting out into the world.
28:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Is when when I feel anxiety about AI, I just keep putting out in the world like, May the Ying and Yang of that be that direct service work becomes a treasured job that people want to do that people find value in that they just didn't know that was a path for them because they were
28:57
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, a job in a field that now is not needed as much because of AI.
29:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So I do, yeah, I do feel like there's a lot more awareness around disability, just in general, right, which I'm so thankful for and.
29:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they're just the telepathy tapes, right?
29:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Have created a lot of exposure.
29:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you have also shows on Netflix or whatever it may be where they're love on the spectrum, right?
29:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's a lot more awareness, and I think all of that is so helpful.
29:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I think I saw a spiritual worker as well.
29:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I always find the meaning in whenever things happen and we have children coming into the world in every single country with an increased amount of diagnostic children and we can always figure out or smart people or scientists people can always dive more into what's the reason for that but energetically I can see that they are here to change the world.
30:02
[SPEAKER_04]: They're already changing us as human beings, us as parents, us in society, in the community, in our families.
30:10
[SPEAKER_04]: They are forcing us to change something.
30:15
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think that's the gain of it.
30:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I watch Eliana on a daily basis force people to take a moment with her and look her in the eyes and hold her hand.
30:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
30:30
[SPEAKER_02]: She kind of forces you to just take a moment and take a look in her eyes.
30:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And I watch that change happening in people.
30:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I watch people that are so caught up in their day and then Eliana reaches her hand out and she looks at them, I, and I see them soften and live and themselves up, right?
30:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's, yeah, so you're right.
30:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I think all of our kids are here to change how we view many things in life.
30:59
[SPEAKER_04]: If you have a magic wand, and you could change something globally for our children, what would you start?
31:09
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the animal's voice with Ditte young.
31:12
[SPEAKER_03]: I would really grant the power to everybody on the planet to recognize your initial feeling and your initial thought when you are around somebody neurodivergent and somebody with disabilities.
31:30
[SPEAKER_03]: as a moment to remind you that you have some pre-set assumptions and knowledge about human beings that has been built and rooted in you since your arrival on the planet.
31:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And that that is not true.
31:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Our thoughts and our feelings are not always true or facts.
31:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And that when you have that initial thought or feeling that we all would have this magical power to immediately step back and say, that's my history of assumptions reacting first.
32:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's triggered maybe by my fear or being uncomfortable or right that initial meeting of that person or in that space and that that is not true or to ask myself is that true?
32:31
[SPEAKER_03]: So is it true that you know this person who's neurodivergent
32:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, is someone I can't have a conversation with because they're non-speaker is that true.
32:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And it isn't about being woke and it isn't about touchy feeling and it isn't about, it isn't about, you know, I mean, if all of that has a result, great, but like it really is about not moving through the world with just one set of lenses in your glasses.
33:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Because you're going to miss out all the different shades of light around you.
33:10
[SPEAKER_03]: That is a beautiful wish.
33:11
[SPEAKER_04]: What about you, Keplyn?
33:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Have you digested?
33:14
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so much there that she said that my first thought initially was, and it's very similar to what she's saying, but just that people have in compassion.
33:26
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I do think we all have these ideas in our mind and we're very in our minds all the time and not necessarily in our hearts and in our body.
33:37
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think if we could all have a bit of compassion, just in the moment, just having this, like you said, a pause button or just a flood of compassion right in that moment to just kind of jolt you into the moment.
33:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that would be wonderful.
33:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I really love that flood of compassion.
33:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, that would be great.
33:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we all need it, right?
33:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we do, we get caught up in our day, we get caught up in our minds, and we're like, things should be this way.
34:03
[SPEAKER_02]: She shouldn't be coming at me that quickly.
34:06
[SPEAKER_02]: She also shouldn't be in my space.
34:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there are things, right, that we all believe should be.
34:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, and I think we have to practice that too.
34:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's the other piece.
34:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we were at a show recently with Eliana.
34:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Eliana loves music.
34:19
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we were at a show and we were really happy because our local venue here made a show that was flexible audience participation.
34:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is really different than sensory friendly.
34:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
34:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so sensory friendly to me is code for like,
34:34
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a place for people who are in our divergent and disabled, but it might also be a little othering at the same time.
34:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And this mindset was a bit like, this is flexible audience etiquette.
34:47
[SPEAKER_03]: You may be neurotypical, but you want to put your feet up.
34:49
[SPEAKER_03]: You may be neurodivergent, and you need to get up and walk around in circles while you're listening to music.
34:54
[SPEAKER_03]: That is all welcome here.
34:55
[SPEAKER_03]: The musicians performing are aware.
34:57
[SPEAKER_03]: The audience that's here is aware.
35:01
[SPEAKER_03]: And your job is to just show up and enjoy this as you see fit for yourself, right?
35:04
[SPEAKER_03]: So,
35:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So we were at the show, and at the end, there was a woman, Eliana is very interested in people, like people are her magnets, right?
35:16
[SPEAKER_03]: So like, she's right up with you, and she wants to hold your hands.
35:21
[SPEAKER_03]: She wants to look you in the eye and stare for a moment, right?
35:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, she wants to even assess what you're wearing, because she's a fashionista.
35:29
[SPEAKER_02]: She'll look you up and down.
35:30
[SPEAKER_03]: So she wants to know what she was wearing, she wants to know what you're doing, right?
35:35
[SPEAKER_03]: right, but she's not saying all this.
35:37
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no, he's just approaching you physically.
35:40
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we do a lot of work with her on personal space and then asking and consent and all that jazz.
35:45
[SPEAKER_03]: But at this show, she found there was a group of a man and two women together and they I could assume their neurotypical.
35:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I could assume that they might be part of the friends of the musicians.
36:01
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I'm saying?
36:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Or
36:03
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, not there for the flexible audience.
36:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And so she wanted she went up to one of the women and she like looked down at her shiny loafers and was like, I have hit the jackpot here and she then did express the command she knows, which is tap dancing or marching or dancing.
36:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And so she said to this woman,
36:26
[SPEAKER_03]: she said shoes and she said march and so the woman said, oh, you want me to march?
36:30
[SPEAKER_03]: I can march so she was marching her shoes and Eliana thought this was like a welcome invitation for a full-on dance party.
36:37
[SPEAKER_03]: So she grabbed her hands and this woman was very kind and like engaged in her in this way and then we left and we moved on to the next pot of people she wanted to connect with and then we circled back around at the end and she was going to the other woman
36:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And this woman really had a visceral reaction to her, and literally grabbed herself into herself, away from Eliana, and it was this moment, and Eliana's care providers that was with us at this event too, was like, whoa, what was that about?
37:14
[SPEAKER_03]: and we walked out and I remember walking out being like who does she think she is like treating my daughter like that and say that no you were feeling I was speaking and feeling that and then I thought to myself like when you talk about flood of compassion I remember thinking to myself wait a minute Johanna
37:33
[SPEAKER_03]: What the heck are you doing?
37:35
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't know that woman's story.
37:37
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't know what her trauma has been.
37:40
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't know what her sensory needs are.
37:45
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, this world is not just for your daughter.
37:47
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, like, and you're making a assumption that this person based on how she looks and how she's dressed and how she's carrying herself.
37:54
[SPEAKER_03]: That she's neurotypical or that she has, you know,
37:59
[SPEAKER_03]: because she should be a certain way, right?
38:01
[SPEAKER_03]: She should be open, right?
38:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Or in that moment, you know, be able to handle whatever Eliana's offering.
38:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Remember saying to myself, gee, I'm sorry, I put that energy out towards the air.
38:13
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I'm sorry, I judged her.
38:16
[SPEAKER_03]: with that assumption.
38:17
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it kind of goes both ways, right?
38:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we as parents, when we're going into an IEP meeting or we're going into a point where we have to be put on that hat of advocate, which is not always comfortable.
38:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it's not always part of, it's not a part of my character that I want to mature all the time is learning how to be an advocate.
38:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And when we go in there, right, we try to have this mantra before we go in around, we try to coach one another.
38:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we have this moment of, okay, let's lead with love.
38:52
[SPEAKER_02]: We definitely have fears, but let's do not lead with any of that.
38:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's try really hard to put that in the background and love these people.
39:01
[SPEAKER_02]: and know that everybody's doing their best, at least I say that to myself.
39:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't always believe it, but I do say it quite often, that everybody's doing their best, and I think alienism has taught me that too.
39:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Did everybody's coming with their best in that moment for that day?
39:17
[SPEAKER_04]: That is absolutely wonderful because we don't know.
39:20
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't know.
39:21
[SPEAKER_04]: They don't know, and we don't know.
39:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I think too, like somebody's best.
39:26
[SPEAKER_03]: in those situations.
39:26
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't know the factors that are at play for them.
39:28
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we don't know what they're charged with doing and how uncomfortable they may be in that room with what they're charged to do, right?
39:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that there's a
39:40
[SPEAKER_04]: A lot of people who feel uncomfortable around neurodiversed people in general, because they become insecure, how do I act around this person, how can I be appropriate here, what to do, and what am I going to do?
39:58
[SPEAKER_04]: primarily because they don't know and thanks to you we'll share more knowledge today and this radio show and podcast about how to approach or not approach and of course our children are different.
40:13
[SPEAKER_04]: They're not one individual person that should be treated the same way, but what is your best tip for other people?
40:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Are there who are insecure about how to approach or
40:29
[SPEAKER_01]: this is the animal's voice with Ditte Young.
40:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that's a great question.
40:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I always just tell people just say hi and just, you know, if you're feeling open to that, just say hello and just see what happens, right?
40:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do think there's a lot of people, including myself many years ago, I would have maybe moved on in another direction because I was uncomfortable with myself and my thoughts.
40:57
[SPEAKER_02]: right, but I would suggest that someone just say hello.
41:01
[SPEAKER_02]: How are you?
41:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And just see what happens.
41:03
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what?
41:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I've heard when people have family members who passed or get to diagnose for example cancer, like severe diagnostic illnesses that they might not survive.
41:20
[SPEAKER_04]: People act the same way. They don't ask. I am sorry your father passed
41:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Or I am so sorry your sister died the other day, but they just, you know, avoid the contact and that feels so lonely for the people who are not being welcomed or approached.
41:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you recognize this as well?
41:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I recognize it because I used to do it to be honest.
41:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I would be more avoidant if I saw someone sad or crying.
41:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
41:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I might kind of, let me get out of that.
41:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to be a part
41:54
[SPEAKER_04]: that had nothing to do with anyone else that had to do with me and what I was feeling inside of me and I mean it's taken a long time to figure that out but and and you know what if you should if you should uh rewind time before you became a parent to Ellie what would be your best tip kept in to yourself back then before you knew the story and how life would evolve
42:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I think what I'm saying to answer the question around, just have a moment and say hello and just see what happens next.
42:30
[SPEAKER_04]: What about you, Johanna, if you could rewind time, what would be the best tip to yourself back then?
42:38
[SPEAKER_03]: I think these unsaid expectations that we have in relationships and in our roles in our lives.
42:45
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think before I came a parent, I didn't really understand the unconscious unsaid expectations that I have of myself as a parent and of my children and my partner, right?
42:59
[SPEAKER_03]: And so those expectations can really
43:03
[SPEAKER_03]: be quite detrimental to relationships because they're often unsaid.
43:11
[SPEAKER_03]: They're often even unconscious and they're also reinforced by society and by culture and community.
43:20
[SPEAKER_03]: So my understanding of what it means to be the best parent ever comes from my own experience being parent.
43:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Did movies, articles, television, religion, right, all of these things?
43:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I'm kind of meeting the role
43:36
[SPEAKER_03]: with those expectations in myself embedded.
43:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I'm projecting onto my children, right?
43:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Expectations I have on of them based on, you know, what does it mean to be a boy?
43:49
[SPEAKER_03]: What does it mean to be a girl?
43:50
[SPEAKER_03]: What does it mean to be successful?
43:53
[SPEAKER_03]: What does it mean to be 20?
43:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, I mean, things like that, right, we interrupt you, but yeah, just so many things along the way that you're saying that resonate with me.
44:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
44:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
44:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I think that, um, you know, I think I would just tell myself, you know, the greatest, the greatest skill that you could learn is to understand.
44:20
[SPEAKER_03]: What is an expectation that you're unaware of and how is that taking you away from being present in the here and now and being able to see the person in front of you.
44:32
[SPEAKER_03]: In a more objective.
44:38
[SPEAKER_02]: mindful way.
44:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just thinking that it kind of goes back to what you were saying, Johanna, is question your beliefs, right?
44:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think it's so important, everything you're telling people here, I think it's important and I think it's also a slippery slope that other skeptic people might think that more the more alternative or a holistic part of helping people,
45:06
[SPEAKER_04]: or the wild wild west and there we have a lot of frauds in our businesses because it is not as protected as in the more academic world.
45:17
[SPEAKER_04]: So what advice would you pass on to families who might dive more into alternative practitioners or helpers?
45:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think for me,
45:30
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I've also, I've also had, in our family, I've also had health challenges, really serious health challenges, right?
45:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So we've had to negotiate, like, when you're facing a life-threatening challenge, you know, you have this traditional path of care and then you have, like, this slew of additional options, and I think that what matters most is what works for each individual person.
45:54
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the animal's voice with Ditte Young.
45:57
[SPEAKER_03]: when I think about people wanting to cure autism, or in that mindset of curing somebody from a neurodivergent profile.
46:06
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, that scares me a bit too, right?
46:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Cause it's sort of saying like that, that we're going back to a certain standard of this is how you have to be, this is normal.
46:16
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I think that really what it comes down to is that everybody has to weigh out the checks and balances of their decisions in their own life.
46:24
[SPEAKER_03]: And that,
46:25
[SPEAKER_03]: having our own freedom as human beings to make that choice, that that is part of what being human is.
46:32
[SPEAKER_03]: And if we take away that by constantly not being open to explore new things or find ways to meet the science approach, to open up to say, how do we look at studying these things that have
46:54
[SPEAKER_03]: and sometimes stuck as comfortable.
46:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes stuck is easier.
46:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes stuck is profitable.
47:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Could we say that it always started out as the standard or it was outside the standard realm and then it was researched and studied and learned about and and became more clearly valuable statistically and scientifically.
47:19
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think I would just encourage people to
47:23
[SPEAKER_03]: to really think about the experts you're working with, take people's opinions and perspectives and expertise all into consideration.
47:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And then really think about like, what is it that you're needing and you're wanting for yourself?
47:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And feeling,
47:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Feeling trapped in a certain approach is unhealthy too, right?
47:43
[SPEAKER_03]: So you could live in a point a place of anxiety and stress.
47:48
[SPEAKER_03]: If you thought, oh, you wanted to go this homeopathic path, and then you took this more traditional path.
47:54
[SPEAKER_03]: your mental health could be compromised because you felt like you didn't manifest what you really wanted for yourself.
47:59
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's all these different factors.
48:01
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no one great right answer and that's the part of being human is that we have to figure out these complexities in mindful ways and
48:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's okay to say you know what I'm turning it over to someone else and if this expert is telling me I need to do this path with chemotherapy and that's what's gonna save my life like I'm gonna trust that and I'm gonna lean into that and I'm gonna do that I'm gonna see how it works and feels somebody else might say no, you know I'm not doing that that feels toxic.
48:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm doing this pathway and That's that's what works for them and I think just being able to be your authentic self Is the core of it all?
48:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, and you don't have to put all your eggs in one basket, right?
48:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's good to kind of, you don't have to say, well, I'm going to do...
48:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to spend all of this time using this spiritual method or this.
48:52
[SPEAKER_02]: You can just tip toe into it, take a peek and experience it.
48:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And Eliana would say, take a moment and listen to your heart.
49:02
[SPEAKER_02]: What is your heart telling you?
49:04
[SPEAKER_02]: that is so true.
49:05
[SPEAKER_03]: That is so true.
49:07
[SPEAKER_03]: She's a teacher for us in this again, too.
49:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
49:09
[SPEAKER_03]: In the sense of, if we listened to some of the experts, oh, yeah, around the experts, right?
49:19
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, around her capacity, which and even I wouldn't even put you know, I mean, I mean, I think they are for their time, right?
49:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
49:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And they're knowledgeable and they're giving us everything that they
49:33
[SPEAKER_03]: I think if we, if we listen to just that, we would have surrendered some of the possibilities that could have been for Eliana, right?
49:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I think she teaches us again to think about yes and yes, that experts valuable, correct?
49:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Like look at all that great information.
49:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, it's rooted in facts.
49:59
[SPEAKER_03]: and what else might be missing, you know what?
50:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I am so honored that you wanted to share your story and Eliana's story on the animal's voice.
50:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, and we're just so grateful for you and for your vulnerability, it's not easy to be a provider and a practitioner of a service that is challenged in questions.
50:22
[SPEAKER_03]: That takes a lot of courage.
50:23
[SPEAKER_03]: It takes a lot of belief in yourself and the
50:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And so for every moment of criticism or skepticism that comes your way, you really deserve to have moments of affirmation and appreciation and value.
50:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Which I know you get just from your work because when you're sitting with Eliana and you feel her an experience her in the way that you do, that's affirmation that all, that's all the affirmation you need.
50:49
[SPEAKER_03]: But it is nice to have that extra layer of confirmation that what you bring to the world and what you bring to those who seek you out or listen to you on the radio or hear your, hear your YouTube work, um, that you are, um, that what you're sharing is really valuable and that we're all in more enriched.
51:12
[SPEAKER_03]: and we're all able to learn a little bit more about ourselves and new interesting and dynamic ways.
51:18
[SPEAKER_03]: So thank you for everything you're bringing.
51:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
51:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much.
51:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
51:24
[SPEAKER_04]: If you have been listening to the animal's voice, you know that I believe having a voice is about so much more than being able to speak.
51:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And sometimes my guests in the studio aren't here because they need help understanding their animals.
51:40
[SPEAKER_04]: They're here because they have a non-speaking child, a child who has a voice, a child who has opinions, feelings, worries, dreams, and so much they want to share with the people they love.
51:54
[SPEAKER_04]: But sometimes, putting all of that into spoken words simply isn't possible.
52:01
[SPEAKER_04]: This is very close to my own heart, because I'm also the mother of a non-speaking, nor divergent son.
52:08
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why I have created my telepathy master classes.
52:12
[SPEAKER_04]: It's for parents and caregivers who want to explore another way to listen and connect beyond spoken language.
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[SPEAKER_04]: But it's also for anyone curious about telepathy who believes we can create a more understanding and compassionate world.
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[SPEAKER_04]: when we learn to listen beyond words, because a person who doesn't speak is not a person without nothing to say, an entire world may be inside, waiting to be heard.
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[SPEAKER_04]: You can learn more about my telepathy master classes at ditteyoung.com
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is the animal's voice with Ditte Young.