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Conscious Self-Care for Autism Parents: Insights from Kat Riojas · Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Inshones podcast. I have a second time guest with us here. Kat is here today live from Texas and I have followed Kat for a little bit now and our world's overlapped and we became a little part of this, you know, the unchosen non speaking autism moms with very different admissions. And one of the things as I've absorbed more of Kat's content is her showing so deeply how movement and how conscious self care and how keeping going really just making it very the word that keeps coming out, conscious choice to keep moving and to stay healthy as a way to become and continue to be the best mother for our children with profound autism. I'm so thankful for that. Kat and I get to talk here today. Kat also is a mental health professional herself and I think that that is so important to understand that you not only live this as a human, but you also are offering services to help others in a sense of retaining their own sense of self and keeping going and whatever life has handed to them. So Kat, thanks for being here today.
• 1:11
  Speaker B: I'm excited. Thanks for having me back. I'm a solo guest. I know, I know.
• 1:17
  Speaker A: So you know, you, you speak and, and present very boldly in the best of ways of movement and health and wellness and how these practices, I know you believe deeply really support you being the best mom to your son and his journey that he is on as and you as leading him. Can you talk a little bit about the why behind that?
• 1:38
  Speaker B: Absolutely. So a little bit of background. My husband and I have three children and our youngest, you know, sort of invited us to this autism community through his diagnosis. We, you know, in a lot of ways felt like really veteran parents and then with this experience feel like first timers all over again. It's, it's, in some ways there are a lot of similarities but then there are some distinctions that are just so unique to the autism experience. But I remember a couple of layers here. One just really coming to terms with the reality of, of having a child who has really high support needs and we would kind of joke, but not really like, oh my gosh, we have to live forever, we have to live forever. Like what's going to happen? Right? It's like that dreaded question of what's going to happen when we're no longer here. On top of that, I was hitting a milestone birthday. I was turning 40 a couple of years ago. I'm 42 now and I was starting just to sort of take inventory of my own life. And so there were Questions that as.
• 2:40
  Speaker A: One does, by the way. Yeah, we all be a big deal. Oh it is. Yes it is.
• 2:48
  Speaker B: You know, so there were quite a few kind of things kind of boiling all at the same time. And I remember thinking I need to take care. I need to kind of do the work that I challenge my clients to do. I want to live in alignment. Right. That you know, and I don't know if you've ever had this experience where I've gone to like a doctor and I'm thinking this doctor doesn't even look healthy, but they're telling me I need to go and be healthy. Right. And sort of that like really weird. Are you practicing? Are you just telling me to do it or do you practice what you're telling other people to do? And I really wanted to live in a lot. Right. I wanted for every client that I see to be like, you know, she's not just telling me like she's living too. And so I kind of on a whim was like, I'm going to start going to the gym. I never walked into a gym before in my life, Sarah. Never ever. I walked in, I had no idea what to do. But I was so excited about the opportunity to kind of learn to be a student at something again. It was way for me to sit in the discomfort of not being good at something. Like I, I had to go in not knowing, I didn't know what to do. Literally didn't know what to do. And here we are like two and a half years later. I move my body five to six times a week and I. It has been life giving, it has been so life giving for me to be able to prioritize me in ways that have like these residual effects that also benefit my family, I think, you.
• 4:26
  Speaker A: Know, so you were saying rewind a bit about how this inflection point for you of like being someone who's, who's you know, counseling others on the choices they can make. And I think what I hear you say is like embodiment of that directive, you know, as, as mothers who live sort of forward facing on social media. I think it's a, it's a, it's such a conscious choice to live out what you're showing. So be beautifully and know that it does take energy and work to even do that. So I think that's like, it's always like reflection and then embodiment of it which is energy and time and you know, that go. Obviously self care is such a buzzword and has been for a number of years. In the motherhood communities, but, like, the embodiment of it. Like, for me, it's inch zones. It's the small little win. So I. I have to. And I do. Like, I have to harness, like, okay, what did I do? What was one small thing that I made a choice of because I preach it, but I also, like, really know the benefit of it. And you're right. The energies that that creates. And then being the best mother for children who we are constantly trying to reorient to and to understand, it's never the wrong choice. Embodying what we're sharing is. Is not the wrong choice.
• 5:49
  Speaker B: That's right. Right. There is particular kind of intentionality that I think that I was really trying to find that was gonna fit me and my family well. And you're.
• 6:01
  Speaker A: You.
• 6:01
  Speaker B: You're using kind of this term, like, conscious. Right. And that's exactly what it is. It was like a decision to prioritize my health because we have a child who will need us in ways that our other two children. We don't anticipate. We don't anticipate that our other two children are going to need us in the same ways that our youngest son will. And that work starts now.
• 6:24
  Speaker A: Right.
• 6:25
  Speaker B: That work start starts in my late 30s, in my. While he's, you know, our youngest is eight years old. That I cannot arrive at that point in his life where, you know, maybe he's a young adult and I'm, you know, man, I had him at like, 35, 36. Right, right. That I don't. We can't start then to prioritize. My health starts now. This is a long game. So much of this kind of parenting is a marathon.
• 6:51
  Speaker A: Oh, it's a marathon. It's an ultra marathon. I mean, there is.
• 6:54
  Speaker B: There's.
• 6:54
  Speaker A: There's no downside to prioritizing it in a way that you are. And I think that that's what jumps off the page for me when you share about your own healthy choices and lifestyle and working out and getting into the gym and moving your body and however that looks, there's literally zero downside. And it's really hard. And I think that that's a tension that a lot of mothers in similar situations as us face, is that, God, we're doing so many hard things every single day. I don't want to do another hard thing. And what becomes the byproduct is this. It's an energetic force. It's a clarity of mind. It is a motivation to continue on that is not based in matter. It's just a feeling. And I think that it's hard you, it's hard to sell that. You can't sell that without someone actively doing it. And it takes doing another hard thing. And I think that, that sometimes in a community where we, there's burnout and there's this, you know, isolation that happens so much, it's hard to do another hard thing.
• 8:06
  Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, I, absolutely. And, and I think you get to a point at least my experience has taught me it's almost hard not to go now. That's the hard part. Right you there shift in this, right where maybe in the beginning I would, I, I, I've created some content. I've had conversations with people where I'm like the hardest part is just going in the beginning that, like literally just going right go, just go. Yeah. I've, I've worked with clients where I'm like just drive to the gym, just like, just practice driving. Like let's just get in the car, let's leave our house and let's just sit in the parking lot. If that's where you're at, that's where you're at, you know. But now there's been this shift right where now the hardest part is not going right now the hardest part is like, okay, I've got all of these things I need to do. I need to be here at this time. I, I need to drive this kid to this therapy. How are we going to make it work? Because I need to move my body. I feel so regulated. I feel much better, I feel stronger, I feel more empowered when I get to have that time to myself that now the hardest part is when I am having to kind of figure out okay, where is this going to go? Because now it's like a non negotiable for me.
• 9:23
  Speaker A: Yes, I agree. I'm a sauna yoga choice of movement from I'm, I'm a deep sweater. I love, I, I laugh that you know, if my partner and I ever do like you know, sauna and cold plunge, like, I mean I'm the one, I can do the cold plunge. He's the one freaking out, right?
• 9:40
  Speaker B: He's like, that's like not easy.
• 9:43
  Speaker A: But like I, I, this is like my thing, right? And I love that those, those real extremes. But when, when you, the word that I just heard rose from what you just said was about the, the regulation that it, that it gives you and I think that in a world where we are in taking so much content not only just online, but then about our children and all These changes we're always making and you know, and like the word also used, anticipating what their needs are going to be, that can create an environment within our bodies that creates really sharp reactions. So in choosing to do the hard of getting yourself to the gym, the workout, the 10,000 steps a day, the, you know, hundred pushups, whatever it is, it does end up creating a regulatory positive in your body to keep going. And I think I, I wish we could. I wish you and I and, and specifically for your platform, like hand this to everyone, like a little scoop. Right. And be like, it's all going to be this. Right. But we don't get. We can't do that. And that's the mystery that's in. That's in all of it.
• 10:42
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:44
  Speaker A: What, what would be one piece of advice that, you know, that you were, you shared, that you said this to your clients, like just getting to the gym. What would be something that you did when you got the diagnosis for your son that might have sort of been the springboard for now, what you're sharing about movement and taking back that, that part of yourself.
• 11:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, I, you know, I think it's, it, it wasn't necessarily a message that I got post diagnosis. I, I think it's sort of been a parenting philosophy that I have existed with since my first. And I, you know, another layer to my lived experience is that I've been a single mom. I was also a teenage mom. I had my first daughter or only daughter when I was still in high school. I was a baby having a baby. And I, from the very beginning, my parenting philosophy was I knew that I didn't want to get lost in just being someone's mom from a really young age. And that, you know, most of us parent kind of from our own wounding. And so there's a whole story that maybe we can go into.
• 11:51
  Speaker A: Those are transformative. I call them like life inflection points. But when you have something in life really happen to you, like drastically change the potential trajectory of the conditioned expectations of life, it is transformative or it has the power to be transformative and not necessarily is for everyone. It has the power to be.
• 12:14
  Speaker B: Yes, Right. And that's where maybe intention, awareness, consciousness kind of play a role. One of my parenting philosophies from the very beginning, since 2000. I've been a parent since the year 2000. Our oldest will be 25.
• 12:27
  Speaker A: I was a junior in high school.
• 12:29
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Guess what? Me too, was that I, I knew that I didn't want to get Lost. I didn't want to get sucked into this vacuum where I would just lose every other part of who I was. So I've always been very protective of the other parts of me. So when autism entered our story, I even more so felt a fierce protect about me as a friend, me as a wife, me as a mom to, like, our other two kids who had our family, me as a professional, me as a. Right. Fill in the blank, right? Me as the person who likes to go to Swift concerts, right? Like that there was going to be a fierce protectiveness over those parts of me because I knew and I had lived enough parenting to know, like, this is what actually makes me a better mom. I truly believe that, hands down and all that.
• 13:19
  Speaker A: Where do you. Because you're saying, like, some. From a. From a time of having a child very young. Where do you. That you cat got that from? Where does that. That. That I love. That I love. I love childhood philosophy of mind, and I love what Carl Young says. He said, you know, our goal in life is to become who we were meant to be before the world told us who we were meant to be. And it's. What I'm hearing you say is like, almost you just got to be that through child.
• 13:52
  Speaker B: At 16, I. I think that I had. I had seen my own mom suffer tremendously from sort of this conditioning that I, you know, you were a mom. So here. Here's the box that you get to exist in as a result of that. There were so many negative outcomes in our childhood home because I think she was miserable as that. I think she had believed so strongly that she needed to be just this and right, this, like, martyr for her kids that abandoning all other parts of who she was. And as a result, we did not get a happy home. We got. I mean, we got a really, really cold childhood experience, right? And my wiring, right. Like, when you experience something as traumatic as I did, our wiring is to go opposite. So not that I did it perfectly right? So I went opposite. And I thought, this is not very good either. I can't not be a mom. Like, I still need to be a mom. And some of that is sacrificial, but not all of it. And so over the course of my 25 years of parenting, I've had to sort of figure out what is this, like, I call it, like, my range, right? What is this range of blending, right, all of the parts of who I am and also recognizing there are responsibilities in parenthood, there are demands, motherhood, right, that, that. That are important for me. To participate in. So it's been this constant fluctuation, and it changed. It changed when autism came into the story, but it didn't delete that entirely.
• 15:32
  Speaker A: That's what I'm hitting on, and I hear so deeply, is that in some ways, autism as part of your life's journey as a mother wasn't the first foundational shift of your conscious choice to live in a certain capacity, in a certain way. And I, you know, I. I've written about this. I believe that we are all on our own hero's journey. I believe we were all the hero of our own story. And I believe that there are these points in life where we get to take real ownership of which way this is going to go. And I think that, you know, as if those happen younger, they are more embedded into the story that happens in midlife. Right. I was sharing with my own dad, my. My dad. And it's not anything dramatic, but he really made a conscious choice to extrapolate from a family that was just ripe with anxiety and fear of the world and, you know, sort of this, like. Like, less than mentality. And I. And I don't think I realized how his hero's journey was about that, like, choosing to leave that mindset. And I think that before we pressed record, we were talking about what mindset is sold to autism mothers, when a diagnosis happened, how this condition of, like, when you have a child and you're sitting in the swell of, like, what if? Like, what's gonna happen next? And we think, and you're just bombarded, the therapy and everything at first is so intense. You know, I. I don't know about you, but right now I sit in such a different conductive space than I did eight years ago. That was much more physically intensive. Evaluations, observations, doctor's appointments, it's not the same. What I was told at first was that this was going to be forever and that this intensity was going to drag out and really wear me so thin that the thought of what was an autism mom was to be. I was like, yeah, burnt out, stressed, exhausted, no time for herself, frumpy, isolated, all these things. I guess I'd love to hear what your thoughts are, because I think you and I are trying to not, not, not as a way of a reaction, but we're just living so differently as a counter choice.
• 17:52
  Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. Right. Like, I. If I. Any of us. If any of us can create a safe space for other autism moms to kind of exist, right, where we get to invite them into A different reality. I think that that has tremendous benefit and not just for the moment. Right. Because at least from my goal experience. Right. I cannot just think of one person in a family without considering the residual effects of the other. Right. So my brain is wired to operate from a systemic lens.
• 18:26
  Speaker A: Right.
• 18:26
  Speaker B: Like, we are there, this web that just I cannot separate. So when I. When I am really intentional on creating content that I think is beneficial to the caregiver, whether that's the mom, the grandma, the older sibling, the aunt, whoever it is, I also recognize that there is the potential for some tremendous benefit also to the child and to the partner.
• 18:52
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 18:53
  Speaker B: We don't. Cannot. Or at least I don't operate from this, like, very isolated perspective. Right. But I think that, like, it's an invitation to divorce.
• 19:03
  Speaker A: Like, you can divorce those choices from the family system. Yeah. I mean, that goes down. Down to modeling. I mean, the modeling behavior of our parents and what is. Is becomes embedded into what we see as a mom living and a mom living. And then it, you know, to rewind, like what you said about your own family and changing such a. Making such a stark different choice because of what your family was, and also knowing that that was gonna have a residual effect, too, in the family that we were building. And it's hard to name. It's hard to name the outcome as it's happening. Right. Like, we're.
• 19:39
  Speaker B: As.
• 19:39
  Speaker A: Systems are dynamic and there's. They're not static. Family systems are not static.
• 19:44
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 19:46
  Speaker A: Just because we age, just because time exists. Right. Like, things just keep growing and changing. And I think that that modeling and, like, the. The compounding nature of those choices that are healthy and have no downside to it only serves to benefit the system as a whole. Without a doubt.
• 20:03
  Speaker B: Absolutely. And so I think about, you know. Oh, the question I felt like I didn't answer the question that you just asked. Do you remember the question?
• 20:14
  Speaker A: I said one piece of advice is that. What one.
• 20:19
  Speaker B: Well, and I think we were talking about sort of this image. Right. Kind of this idea of what we're sold as an entrepreneur and really kind of challenged that.
• 20:26
  Speaker A: Right.
• 20:26
  Speaker B: That I really do. I think there is.
• 20:29
  Speaker A: That's what's so crazy. It's this unconditioned or this unconscious conditioning of what we think or what society says is a mother of a child with. With, you know, profound autism.
• 20:40
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I think in even, like, you know, like in my. When I'm operating as a therapist, one of the things that I'm trying to hone in on as I get to Listen to people's conversations are a lot of the times we operate from a place of good, right? And our intention is usually coming from a positive place.
• 21:00
  Speaker A: And.
• 21:00
  Speaker B: But there's this threshold where too much of a good thing no longer remains a good thing, right? There's this threshold line that we kind of this territory that we enter where all of a sudden this thing that, you know, could be really healthy now kind of becomes our Achilles heel if we don't manage it well. And so I about sort of the. Right again, going back to sort of this, like, variance, right. This range that I'm constantly trying to kind of operate from, where, you know, in kind of inviting other moms to consider that it. Me taking care of myself is not selfish. And I even hate saying that. I almost hesitate saying that because I don't think that selfish is even a bad word. Like, yeah, it can be selfish. That can still be a good thing. You know, think about sort of this like in we have an invitation, we have an opportunity to share a different kind of experience that other moms then get to decide for themselves, right. What they want.
• 21:59
  Speaker A: That is it like. And again, it's a modeling. I mean, we don't. Our. Our content online is modeling for whoever decides to take in our content, right? That's not our children. It's whoever decides to take in our content. And what that allows for is to speak as an example of a real life, of a real separate mother in a totally separate world who is actively showing what her choices are and how that embeds their family life. And you can do what you want with that. I think that that's something that gets lost sometimes in online keyboard warriors, is that we're just simply showing that this is one way to live as a very niche audience of children, of, you know, mothers of children with autism, full stop. It's no skin off my back or yours. If people decide they're. They're insane. I don't have a single second to even breathe, you know, must be nice. Like cool. Like great. And I. And I know that there are. What I think is so beautiful is there's so much overlapping of like, you know, Eastern and Western philosophy, unlike time and, And. And presence and mindfulness and, you know, obviously, you know, yoga and the movement practices of our country have come a long way in the past 20 years. So what that looks like for you, it's never one sticking point. It's. It's just a one example and another example, and then you sort of go, oh, maybe. Well, for me, that it looks like this and to not hang this like weight on like, okay, well so and so said to do it this way, I have to do it this way. No, it's, it's much more dynamic than that.
• 23:37
  Speaker B: I want no responsibility in telling another mom how she should live her life. Yes, that, that is not at all what I want anybody to take away from my content. You know, I prefer to go to the gym, I prefer to lift weights. But really invitation is just to move your body and it's just an invitation. People can decline that. And there might have been seasons in my life, right where I'm like, I cannot do that. And I, no judgment from me about it, but I think like it can look a lot of different ways and I really want moms to feel really empowered to figure out if they want to accept this invitation from me to figure out what can it look like in their world.
• 24:21
  Speaker A: Well, you're offering a change in perspective and that's what I think is part of my platform as well. I'm offering a invitation to reshape your orientation to what you might have had a condition response tooth think and then say to yourself, what do I really want to do with what life has given to me and what it has, has afforded for me? And it's again I, I believe at like the 40 year old age for women especially like that deep intuition, that deep knowledge, that deep inner knowing does start to rise and I think it only really comes and rears or maybe comes above ground at around 40, especially when things in life don't maybe happen as planned. Right. And the decades of that stewing and then you're almost like given the chance to where how are you going to rise? What now? You know, we're not, we're not 16, 17 anymore. You know, you're in our 30s, you're having more children. Like the inflection points happen and we're not babies anymore. You know, we can make these, have deep agency on our choices and know have this inner knowing also rise with it.
• 25:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'm telling you that was probably the biggest like propeller to reevaluating lots of things in my. It literally took me back to therapy, right. So I'm a therapist who has a therapist and I haven't always therapist but like that season of my life was like, oh my gosh, I, I need to go back to therapy. Like there was a lot of like interactions, action, a lot of existential stuff was I was like taking inventory of my life and I was finding myself operating from like lenses that I don't typically operate from, you know, that could have easily, you know, maybe created some chaos, some unnecessary chaos in my life. So I think about like that, that on top of the autism diagnosis we had already. We were already navigating the autism diagnosis because we got one so, so young for him. Like my kid was a baby in therapy. He would literally like we got a diagnosis at 15 months and so kind of been walking this journey for a while. But there was something about just that for me it was an invitation to really kind of just take, take a. Take stock, take inventory. Like, is this. Am I liking what I'm. What I'm doing and do I want to keep doing this? Right. So it was like moving my body. But there was a second component to. To that and that was my relationship with Alco, you know, where I really reevaluated that. And I just celebrated a year of no alcohol at the end of. Yeah, it's first time and. And I don't have a particularly like, I don't have a dependent relationship with alcohol very much a social drinker. My husband has actually been alcohol free for like 12 years. I'm more of a medical. He has a compromised liver. So, you know, it's just like something that. It doesn't feel good for him. So he just doesn't do. I think about how much that has also. Right. Kind of thinking about in terms of layers, that layer of abstaining from alcohol also impacts like my ability to wake up and go move my body every day.
• 27:40
  Speaker A: As someone who definitely abused alcohol in a. In a way in which to sort of numb this internal stirring of mine. I've been alcohol free for almost two years now as well, and I can't. Again, there's no downside to going alcohol.
• 27:57
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:58
  Speaker A: Like I tell people, zero downside.
• 28:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. Who. I don't know if it's my bank account or my liver that appreciates both.
• 28:07
  Speaker A: It's a just like everything, it's complex and nuanced. Everything is complex and nuanced.
• 28:11
  Speaker B: But it's true.
• 28:12
  Speaker A: It's like layered and you're like, there is no downside to it.
• 28:17
  Speaker B: Now I will say their alcohol is incredibly effective. It is incredibly effective in numbing your feelings. It is a solution.
• 28:26
  Speaker A: It's an incredibly. It's a wonderful solution. I always say, like any vice, it's a damn good solution.
• 28:33
  Speaker B: And it's pretty accessible. Right.
• 28:35
  Speaker A: I mean, we're around it. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I wanted to go back to what we were saying about the internal intuition around 40 something that has really risen and I think is also example of the platforms that we have that women, I think, specifically do. And I. And I hope that I do it for you. And I. And I. And I know that you do it for me is just witnessing and not offering up anything more than I see you. I believe you. I love what you're standing for and exemplifying, and I'm here for it. And I think that witnessing specifically in groups of women and specifically in these niche sort of smaller pockets and very specialized communities like ours, it's even more important to just go, I see you. I know you're struggling, or I'm so thankful that you're. That you've risen from a struggle that you shared just to witness and believe someone. It has risen for me as a theme in my own life. I've been blessed with friends that I've had for. Since I was 7 years old and deep college friends and pockets of women. And the common thread is just witnessing each other's lives and our evolution.
• 29:54
  Speaker B: And I think about kind of the power of being able to sit with, like, the otherness aspect, you know, like, allows for me to be in relationship with other women whether they're autism moms or not. Right. Is recognizing, like, this is. This can look incredibly different for all of us, that we can all be looking at the same thing, but see it incredibly, incredibly different. Right. And I think about what I hope people get from my content is and. And. And more than just the content that, you know, if we get an opportunity to engage in person or virtually in. In a more intimate setting. Right. Is that man, like, there is not one way to do this, and everybody's journey is different. Right. Like, I think about some of the moms who maybe are just entering sort of this autism experience. Like, do not compare your year one to my year. Like, oh, gosh.
• 30:48
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 30:50
  Speaker B: Right. I think about, like, right. Autism moms have been doing this, like, so much longer than me. Right. Like, I think about Kate Cooper's mom, you know?
• 30:59
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 31:00
  Speaker B: Like, she has been like, Cooper's, like, a teenager. Right. Like, I think about how.
• 31:06
  Speaker A: Her son is so much. He's, like, in his 20s now, and she's been. I just had Rob Gorski on to record an episode that podcast his. His story. Like, when you talk about, like, where he is now, I think he'll love us. We say in this, like, he'd. He. He happened to have a live journal. He didn't realize that people were it.
• 31:28
  Speaker B: So he's like, I didn't Know, he was emailing me, you know, like, I just thought, you know, you had to plug in.
• 31:36
  Speaker A: And so people have been doing this and sharing in authentic ways for a lot longer than you and I have. This is, like you said, this is a marathon. This is an ultra marathon. This is, this is whatever the opposite of a 500 meter dash is, whatever that is.
• 31:52
  Speaker B: It's like never stare, right? That's sort of the analogy that I give clients. It's one step at a time, one step at a time, Right. And so I think that, you know, in addition to building, you know, in addition to kind of like caring for myself, there has to be this layer where people recognize that I can do this because of where I'm at in my journey and you're not there yet. That's okay. That, that's totally fine, right? That there's no shame or judgment. Have to be shame or judgment. And you being the mom right now, that feels like I cannot, I, I Every, every minute of every waking hour is, has to be dedicated to someone else. If that's where you're at. My only hope is that that is not where it stays forever. That's my only hope.
• 32:41
  Speaker A: That's right. That's right. And that's what we get to model, is that it will evolve and it will change in the journey. The beautiful parts of it are going to come out of nowhere and they're also going to plateau and there's going to be stagnant points and it, but it is always going to keep moving. And I just, I, I guess I want to end with. I'm just so thankful that as this, the, the beautiful part of social media, I deeply, deeply believe lands with the individuals who are willing to share what has only been a positive benefit to a situation or a life hurdle or a fork in the road, that maybe society has conditioned us to believe it's only going to result in a sadder existence, but that you can rise from it and it can flourish in a way that you never anticipated it benefiting your life in a multiple fractals of different ways. I am so thankful for what you do, for the autism mom community, for how you share the boldness of which you do it. And really, just like it goes to show that like the global village that we live in has such pockets of deep authenticity. And when you find that, hold onto it, man. So thank you for all that you share and what you. It is, it really is.
• 33:57
  Speaker B: It's a privilege.
• 33:58
  Speaker A: Thank you. All right, well, we will put all of Kat's information at the bottom of the episode summary once we go live. And, Kat, thank you again for today.
• 34:07
  Speaker B: I loved it. I loved chatting with you. Thanks for having me. Same, same.
• 34:10
  Speaker A: All right, well, until next time on the Inch Jones podcast.