← The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 875: Feelings Are Welcome Anytime | Joy Stephenson-Laws, Secrets That Sparkle, Secrets That Sting
00:48:50
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- [00:01]
A
I don't know exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way, adulthood turned into having a folder full of things you hope you never actually need. Birth certificates, passports, warranties. You'll probably lose anyway. And life insurance. None of it is exciting. Nobody wakes up thinking, today's the day I'm finally going to shop for life insurance. But if you've got people depending on you, it's one of those things that feels really good to have crossed off the list. That's why I like what Ethos is doing. They make getting life insurance through their platform refreshingly simple. And it's all online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, and you may even get same day coverage. There's no medical exam, just answer a few simple health questions. You can get up to $3 million in coverage with some policies starting as low as $30 a month. And Ethos helps you find the lowest rate from their network of trusted carriers. So if this has been living on your mental I'll get to it someday list, today might be a good day to move it over to the done column. Take 10 minutes to get covered today with insurance through Ethos. Get your free', @ethos.com 1000hours that's ethos.com 1000hours. Application times may vary. RA welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Eric and the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. We're going to be talking about a critically important topic this morning, about helping our kids stay safe by being able to listen to their feelings, to their intuitions, and keeping it all the way throughout their life. And it is such an honor to have Joy Stevenson Laws here today.
- [01:21]
B
Welcome, Joy, and thank you so much for having me today. It's a pleasure to be here.
- [01:27]
A
You are so accomplished. Joy is the author of a new book. It's for kids. It's called Secrets that Sparkle and Secrets that Sting. A phenomenal book. That's what we're going to be talking about mainly today, but also a healthcare attorney, child wellness advocate, founder of a national nonprofit, PH Labs. And you're really helping kids to recognize when something feels off. These are words, and this is language that we may not ever consider using with our young kids. You've also written other books. There's one called From Chains to Wings, A Poetry Revolution for Healing that's all about your feelings as well. You have a book called your Labs are fine, you're Not. So when you know you feel like I'm off, but the doctor says, nope, you're okay and you're like, no, but I don't feel okay. You talk about. You have a book about minerals. So can you talk, can you give the audience a sense of how you learned it was so important to be in tune with our feelings? Because you're a lawyer, so you're doing all these law things, all of these rules, but this. These books are all related in the way that they prioritize and bring to light the importance of feelings.
- [02:30]
B
Yes. You know, sometimes the best teachers experience life experience, and we learn so much from our kids because. But for my child, I would not have been on this path. I reared my child in a way that I was taught. Meaning, you give them rules. Give him rules. And you hope that by being there that he would be coming to you if he felt a certain way or if anything went wrong in his life, he would come and talk to you. Because you're always there. You're home, you're playing with him. You're thinking that you lived your life in such a way where you could be the perfect mom. Right. And, you know, at 30, he told me a secret, and I was flabbergasted, and I'm going, we've spent so much time together. How is it that you never said anything when you were younger? And he said, I just didn't think that anybody would believe me or that anybody would want to hear. And that floored me. So I went on a path where I read a bunch of books, I spoke to a bunch of people, I did a ton of research, because it didn't really make sense because I literally lived my life. I structured my professional career around my child. So. So because you wanted to do things differently, and what surfaced was we were asking kids to do things that they were. Their brains weren't ready for yet. The first thing a kid does is feel. No explanations. The brain is. The brain accommodates that tummy. The tummy sinking, the heart fluttering. They things they can't regulate yet, but they feel. So, for example, if they come to you and say, mom, my tummy feels yuck sometimes when we're cooking in the kitchen, okay, go take something for it. Or here, we don't. We don't engage in the conversation to where we're trying to explore the feeling. We think it's. It's not that big of a deal. But the issue, the real thing is it is a big deal because that's how they communicate. And we need to validate those feelings and engage them and let them know that whenever you feel anything, let's talk about the feeling. And you can bring any feeling to me. And if we want to distinguish the feelings, as we did in the book, we can start telling them that a surprise party for dad, you know, that, that you're, that you're planning. That's a good feeling. And let's distinguish the feelings that make you feel happy and the feelings that make you feel yuck. And, and, and use it, you know, speak in their language. Yeah. And so when, when, if you ask them, did you have a tough day today? It. And you're asking, what kind of feelings did you experience? Did you experience any yucky feelings? Did you experience any, you know, whatever, talk to them in the way they feel? Because the prefrontal cortex, if we're, if we're talking about it, neuroscience scientifically, does not really come on board when they're 3, 4. Yet the interesting thing is that people who abuse kids know that they're way more educated than we do. They know that kids aren't going to follow rules. And when you tell them, don't tell anyone, they will not tell anyone. So it's really important that we identify the critical role that feeling plays in a child's development. Rules are not the issue. We need to validate their feeling. Now, that led me on a whole different path, because for somebody who was mind base, meaning you can reframe, look on the bright side, you know, logic, that was, whoa. Maybe that's why I have hypertension, because I stuffed my feelings. You're walking on something, irritated. You know, I'm not gonna say anything about that. You know, it's like, let me just, Let me just keep myself calm. You know, you have to feel before you regulate. We, we normally go straight to the regulation. Whereas if you see something that irritates you, you keep the anger inside, or you don't say anything about it and you regulate and you, you bypass. You know, let me go work. Let me go work out, because I'm pissed. But the feeling has not been processed. Right? And, and, and that's. The feelings are data. Feelings is your signal. Feelings. I like to say feelings is one of the things that makes us human. We feel. Then we don't go straight to acting or responding or reacting. We don't. We pause. And between the feeling and the action is the pause, where we use our good judgment during that period and then we act from our values or the next best act that we need to take after we pause. The problem we're having is that we were, in fact, many of us were never taught that feelings and Actions were two different things. We feel upset and we go straight to the action. I want to, you feel upset and you want to slap someone, you just go, I'm upset and I'm going to slap you. So, so the feeling and the action runs into one, you know, go one thing, one continuous action. But there's a break. And that break is what the kids don't have or young kids don't have, that 3, 4, 5, 6 year olds, they're not there yet. So we have to work with what they have. And what they have are those feelings. And at that point, what we can do effectively as parents is validate the feelings for them and help them talk about those feelings more. They're not being emotional, as we were led to believe, especially when we had boys. And when, you know, they're walking, talking about how they feel and the dads might say, you know, Scotty, you're just too emotional, get over it. You know, no, they're not being emotional. That's their method of communication. And we shouldn't try to toughen them up. We should encourage them to feel. Because when something happens or if something does happen, what that allows them to do is to feel comfortable, to come to us as adults knowing full well that all their feelings are welcome and they're not doing anything bad by talking about their feelings. Right. And so what that did, after recognizing that, how the kids brains worked, then I turned to the adults, I had to turn the camera on myself, you know, to figure out, okay, am I doing this? You know, because obviously I stopped his feelings because I didn't know any better. It's like, you're upset about this. You know, look on the bright side, the glass is always full, you know, been there, done that. So what I had to do is look at myself. And so the book From Chains to Wings talks about how to be more self aware, how to be aware of your feelings, how to process them so that you can have peace or, you know, you can learn from that. You notice, you validate or invalidate the feelings and you act. But it's a critical part of who we are. Yeah, and then we had your lab certified. You're not. And what that did as well is isolate the medical profession and how that profession sometimes invalidate what we feel. We walk into the doctor and we are feeling a certain way and they run the labs and the labs come back normal and they say, well, we see nothing here and you know, you're feeling like crap. And you walk out of the doctor's office and you Walk into your car and you know, I'm still not feeling okay. But he said I'm okay, so I guess I'm okay. And you go home and two years later you end up having something when you knew full well that you had that early feeling way, you know, earlier on. And so it. These are all indicators that feelings are really important. We need to honor them. We need, we ourselves, not only for our kids. We need to validate our own feelings so that we can be healthier. So it applies in all aspects of life. You know, you feel, and that's the number one thing you feel. You pause and then you act. And don't let anybody gaslight you or invalidate your feelings. If you don't feel well, no matter how normal those laps labs appear, keep looking.
- [11:53]
A
Yeah.
- [11:54]
B
And that's the whole purpose of your labs are fine. You're not. Because there's so many things or so many instances where the labs appear normal and it's just that they didn't look in the right place. Right. But because we were told or I talk to my friends all the time. I said, when was the last time you got some lab work? I went to the doctor and I got something and they're all normal. So, you know, it's. I don't know what's wrong. It might be in my head. And we, and we blame the head for the things that go wrong with us. It's not in our sense, it's real. It's that we haven't gotten to the bottom of it yet. So that's my feelings trajectory. It started with my child. I learned a lot, didn't know any better at the time. And I figured if I didn't, if I had all this education and I didn't know all this stuff, I'm sure there are other people who are just like me. I would like to see what happened to him happen to anybody else. That was my motivation.
- [12:54]
A
Yeah.
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B
Wow.
- [12:56]
A
So all of the books have this thread through them about honoring our feelings and how that will help us with our life from childhood all the way through adulthood. So we're going to focus today on this kids book. It's called Secrets at Sparkle and Secrets at Sting. There's also a website that you can go to that has so many resources for kids and for adults. So the website is called secretsetsbarkle.com Some things that you'll find, find there are quizzes, you'll find, games that you can print out, coloring pages. All of these things are meant to foster conversation. There are conversation Starters, you know, you have a whole thing about just don't say how was your day at school? Have other ideas of ways to foster conversation. So there's a lot on the website that you can find that will help you to have these conversations with your kids. So this book is about, about learning courage and it's about recognizing safe and unsafe secrets. And I thought, Joy, what a great premise for a. This is a rhyming book that you would read to your child. It's a read aloud picture book and they get to start to learn that there's difference between a fun secret and a secret that might be harmful, unsafe. So I'm going to read just the first page so people can get a sense of of the rhyming.
- [14:09]
B
Okay.
- [14:09]
A
In the gist of the book, some secrets are sweet like a gift in a box, but some hide a feeling that squiggles and knocks. Let's learn which to keep and which we should share because safe. Because safe kids are strong and grown ups will care. So right on that first page you are saying to a child the grownup is going to care. Like when your son was saying, oh, I didn't know, you know, kids would say that. I don't know if a grown grown up would believe me. I didn't know if they would care. And so I would love to know how you even came up with this concept because it is true that in childhood you do have little secrets. This episode is sponsored by Active Skin Repair. And this is one of those products that has earned a permanent place in our house. We have used it for years because honestly, when you spend your life outside, bumps and scrapes just come with the territory. 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Go to woom.com and use code 1000hours at checkout for 10 off your new bike purchase, excluding the WOM. Wow, that's w.com use code 1000hours for 10% off for new customers only. We talk so much about the simple foundations of childhood, including the various elements required for health of the whole child good food, lots of movement, less screen time, plenty of time outside and good sleep. And after a full day outside, how we breathe at night is part of that picture. Too many parents don't realize their kids may be sleeping with their mouths open. Chronic mouth breathing in children can be associated with restless sleep, daytime Moodiness, dry mouth, oral health concerns, and even developmental concerns. That's why I was interested in Muzzle Kids Tape. It's a simple bedtime tool designed to gently encourage lip closure and support nasal breathing during sleep. And unlike solid strips that completely cover the lips, Muzzle has a patented Breathe Safe center opening, so there's still room to talk, cough, sneeze, or drink water if needed. They also make adult options in Medium and Stronghold. For moms and dads who deal with nighttime mouth breathing or waking up with a dry mouth, muzzle is doctor recommended. Designed in the USA and tested for things parents care about, including PFAS, BPA, and heavy metals. Go to muzzle sleep and use code 1000hours for 10% off. That's muzzlesleep.com promo code 1000hours. What did I get my mom for Mother's Day? You know, what did I get my friend for their birthday party that's coming in two weeks and they're going to ask me at school every day, what did you get me for my birthday present? It's a secret. And so I was really intrigued when you said those who prey on children often have a very deep understanding of the psychological underpinnings, the, the developmental milestones. You know, similarly to the tech Bros. Right. They have a really good understanding of, of how to basically hijack our biology in order to earn more money. So can you talk about where you that idea came from? I love the idea because some secrets are fun and good. Yes, but that can be twisted around to be unsafe for a child.
- [19:38]
B
Exactly. No, I, I don't know that I would have come up. In fact, I know that I would not have come up with the concept of this book if I did not have the experience that I did. I mean, because we had the birthday parties and I would reflect. Okay. It forced me to go deeper in an area that I ordinarily would not have to. And. And when I was writing, when I was trying to figure out how can I stop this? Because I know I took all this stuff. You know, when, when we're pregnant, there are certain books we get, you know, that we read to prepare for the pregnancy and to prepare for the kid, what to expect when you're expecting. You know, that that was one of the books I got. And there's some other ones, and we got books to read to our kids. I needed a book like this.
- [20:29]
A
Yeah.
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B
That would have prepared me to take care of my child, and I didn't have it. Right. So when I was looking back at when I realized that feelings were important, and it had to do with secrets because he didn't tell me the secret for like almost 20 years. And so I went back thinking, well, birth, in going through all this, kids might think all secrets are. You have to talk about all secrets. And no, there's some you want you can keep and then, you know, what are the good ones you can keep. I thought about the birthday parties and then I did some research. And so that's kind of the methodology that I use to figure out how to write the book using neuroscience and all that to let them know there's some secrets it's okay to keep. So you're not telling them that all secrets are bad. Right. And these are the fun, sparkly ones that you can keep. And everybody gets happy when the secret gets out. Now that is happy. The birthday cake. And you can go take a piece of the birthday cake and it's okay. That's a great secret. Now the secrets, there's some secrets that just don't feel right. It feels yuck, you know, it just makes your chest feels heavy. It doesn't feel okay. And those secrets, you don't have to keep them. Those are for us. Those are for us adults. And we are here to listen to them. It doesn't matter when it happens, it doesn't matter how it happens. You will never be blamed for any secret. Just come talk to us.
- [22:03]
A
Yeah.
- [22:04]
B
Or to a safe adult. Because remember, a lot of child abuse happens among family members.
- [22:12]
A
Yeah.
- [22:13]
B
So you have to add that one of the things we do on the website is have them identify safe adults that they can talk to about the, about the secret. So it, it, I, I, I wish I could. It's experience. Experience is a good teacher because it motivates you to, to distinguish things, to go look up things, to go find the answer. Because you're looking at yourself and you're wondering, what did I miss? What the heck did I miss?
- [22:40]
A
Yeah. What a book I love. I mean, it is really well done and it's a little rhyming book. All of these things that you're talking about finding a safe ad. How do you figure out so, so you write even someone you once held dear, an uncle, a coach or neighbor near. If words or touch feel wrong or unclear, tell a safe grown up. Your voice will be heard. You don't have to hide. You don't have to lie. You don't have to swallow your feelings and cry. You can whisper it softly or draw it in crayon. You can shout it out loudly like a brave roaring lion. Grown ups who love you will listen with care, they'll believe what you say and, and they'll always be there. You're not in trouble and you didn't do wrong. You're telling the truth and that makes you strong. So just a little part of the book in here. Going from these secrets that are fun like the birthday party, to the secrets that don't feel good and some are scary and they make you feel bad and figuring out who you should tell and that the grown ups do care and that you won't be in trouble. I thought the illustrations were fantastic, Joy, and I'm sure that you did this on purpose where you really are noticing through the facial expressions what the different feelings are. So this book kicks off with a little boy. You can, you can tell even from the COVID all the friends are kind of having carefree front out fun outside. They're flying a kite and you know, they're playing with a ball and they're playing in the yard. And the little boy, I mean, looks rather miserable. So that happens for quite a bit. You know, you can look at his eyebrows, you can look at, he's got a little tear here. There's a grown up who's telling him a secret. Now the grown up looks predatorial, happy, but you know, the grown up has got a very different facial expression than the little boy. So can you talk about that part of the book with the illustrations, how it really would foster a lot of conversations about how do you think this character might feel?
- [24:38]
B
Yes, yes, yes. And I was lucky enough to work with a really good person with respect to the illustration because he, he got my instructions down pat. You know, everything I asked him to do, he did. So it was wonderful that the illustrations could capture exactly what was going on. There's, there was, if I were to criticize myself and in, in one area is that the book actually had has the, the grown up or the potential predator, that person is a male and that it's not, it's not necessarily true, you know, and actually that's probably one of the things that I overlooked because I was, it was so personal to me that I just kind of used my experience. It was a male.
- [25:26]
A
Yeah.
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B
So that probably would be something. If I were to change something in the book, I would make it where it's clear that males are the only predators. You know, females are too. So it was really important in terms of, of, of illustrating the book that it, it was relatable to kids and kids look at faces, emotions and the, the, the, the illustrations had to capture that because it was being written. It was written for an adult to read to a child, but it needs to be engaging for the child. Right. And that was the view from which I, you know, had the book, you know, illustrated.
- [26:09]
A
Yes. My, my mom was so great at reading picture books. She would always talk about the pictures with me and you know, you might spend all, you know, several minutes on a page. How do you think this boy feels? How do you think this girl feels? What? Why do you think they feel that way? And so I did love that about the illustrations in this book. Secrets that sparkle and secrets that sing. It's written for five year olds in mind, but you talking about ages maybe like three to seven or eight. Really all kids though need this content. They need to understand about the feelings in their body. So these are conversations and it will support conversations around body autonomy, unsafe touch and emotional trust. It's ideal for parents, educators, therapists and school counselors with this lyrical narrative and these really engaging pictures with a lot of kids and an empowerment, you know, to speak up and to. And to understand yourself. And then it ends with a Dear Grown ups, Dear grown ups, children hold many secrets. Some sparkle with joy. Others weigh heavy with worry. This book shows which to keep close in which to share. Bravely telling a troubling secret is both safe and never their fault. Please offer a calm, caring space when your child can share anything that feels too big to carry alone. So let's talk about some of these resources then that you have on the website. One of the resources is How My Body Tells Me Things.
- [27:27]
B
Things.
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A
What incredible wording. Joy. You know, I never thought about that. You know, what a, what a great set of conversations to have all the way through childhood. What is your body telling you? So can you talk about how we could have conversations with our kids about how their bodies will send them clues when something doesn't feel right?
- [27:45]
B
Sure, sure. And I think what it allows us to do when we're aware of that is have the kid be aware of how important the body is from a super early age. As opposed to discounting the body, we it kind of make them more present with their body. What a great way to teach presence, by the way, as opposed to escaping or wanting to escape our body, to tune into our bodies. How do we feel? Where does it feel tight? Where do you feel tension? Where does it feel like there are stones in your tummy? Where does it, you know, have that conversation? Just a casual dinner conversation. You're eating all that food, your stomach feels full. How does it feel. Just incorporate it in day to day conversation while you're cooking in the kitchen and the kids are around. You ate 10 cookies. How does it feel when you eat that? Not have them escape their body, Force them back into their body, make their body safe at that age. Because as we know, it's so easy for us to escape our bodies. And as we get older, the kids get to do it. They want to escape the body because they don't want to address the feelings that come with the body.
- [29:01]
A
Yeah.
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B
And the reason, obviously, one of the reasons they do drugs is because they don't want to deal with the feelings. You know, they're having all these feelings that they don't know how to process.
- [29:11]
A
Right.
- [29:12]
B
We weren't told how to process our feelings by feeling them. We were told how to escape our feelings, how to numb them. So it's really important that at an early age we embrace feelings and let the kids know that it's okay to feel, though, when you feel like you have a knot in your tummy. Let's talk about it. It's trying to send a signal. Don't try. Not as adults. We escape. We try to escape it. We go take a drink. The first thing, we come home in the evening, things. That is such a tough day. I'm gonna go take a drink, you know, because we don't want. We want to get rid of that feeling.
- [29:50]
A
Yeah.
- [29:51]
B
And what a. What better way to engage our kids than to have them be aware that, yeah, we're gonna have lots of feelings in life. We're gonna have happy ones, we're gonna have sad ones. We're gonna have, you know, all sorts of emotions. Now let's talk about them when you feel them. Not, let's get rid of them. And I think that first step is really important because it carries through adulthood. Yeah. And they know that they're in a safe space where all feelings are welcome or not just the happy ones, as we were taught. Sure. Because I remember growing up and I loved my mom dearly when she was alive and. But I know those were not discussions that I could have with her. If I walk into walking and talk to her about something, she said, if I say, oh, my, I'm feeling. I'm feeling scared, or I'm feeling whatever it is. And she would say, joy, go do something. Go, go read a book, or I'll give you something to cry about, or, you know, I understand that in survival mode. I get it. That's. That was how she coped.
- [31:09]
A
Yeah.
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B
And she. She Wasn't trained any differently, but in feelings were never welcome in my household. If you have an issue, look on the bright side. You know, they're start. They're starving kids in Africa.
- [31:24]
A
Sure, yeah,
- [31:27]
B
yeah. This all you have to complain about that? You. You. You hit your foot against the door, and it kind of hurts. Come on. There are people with worse problems, you know, So I think there's certain things that we need to leave behind generationally, you know, and this is. This is one of those things where we evolve and we need to be aware because the damage is huge, and it affects all kids. And it's up to us as adults to learn and do better because, you know, or prior generation obviously did the best they could, and it's up to us to do the best that we can do.
- [32:08]
A
Especially if you have this knowledge that feelings, like you say, feelings, are a superpower. They are something that helps our children to feel safe. It's there long before they have words and logic and understanding that there are unsafe adults and things like that. So our bodies send us clues when something doesn't feel right. Our oldest daughter is doing a little internship coming up next week, and it's for some music. She's into music, so it's at this music place in Tennessee, and she's like, I'm so nervous, you know, of course,
- [32:44]
B
of course, of course. And that's great. That is. I don't know if you watch. I like watching music shows like America Got Talent and that kind of stuff. Okay. So if you notice when the singers come on stage or if all the performers come on stage, sometimes Simon or one of the judges will look at them and say, would you like some water? I know you're very nervous. You're really nervous. And then they say, yeah, I'm really nervous. And they start shaking. And salmon will say something. That's a good thing. It means you care. And they don't realize how emotionally aware they are by saying that. Or maybe they do, because it struck me. But whereas many people would be trying to hide the nervousness by smoking weed or doing whatever it is or taking whatever you do to calm your nerves, you know, they welcome it. You know, embrace the nervousness. It means that you care about what you do and perhaps breathe through it. And those are things that we need as adults to be aware of, embrace our emotions. If there's grief. Many times we have people who die who are close to us, and we never grieve. We evade the grieving process because it's too tough. At some point, in time, we should. It's healthy. It's healthy to feel sadness. It's healthy to feel grief. And then you pause and process it. But it's not something you skip over. And with kids, it's the same. There are many emotions that they will feel. We need to help them identify those within their body. Talk about it. Where do you feel it? How do you feel it? You know, how do you experience it? Let's talk about it. Encourage the conversation about feelings. Don't communicate it to them in a way where they think they need to get rid of it fast.
- [34:37]
A
Right?
- [34:37]
B
That they need to, okay, let's go to the park. You're feeling grandpa died. Let's go to Disneyland to avoid the feeling. It's not about avoiding it. It's about going through it. And if we teach them that early, they become a lot better and stronger adults. And that's something that I've had. I had to reteach my child as an adult, and he had to go back through all that stuff, the PTSD and everything, go back through all that stuff in order to be the person that he is today. And that's what motivated me to do what I'm doing. Nothing else. But I, I thought I would be, you know, just doing my attorney stuff, and I'm not really interested in this stuff right now. I did my best as a, as a mom, have a great child, you know, until reality hit. Because it's not what you see on the outside that that determines how well you are to what goes on on the, on the inside.
- [35:38]
A
It's so interesting that you bring up that, you know, it's like you both had to grow because you said you, you're. You grew up in an era. And I think a lot of us do, like, I'll give you something to cry about, or that you're also pushing your own feelings aside or, you know, just trying to reframe and get perspective instead of actually feeling it. And so what a journey for the both of you. I love it. The resources that are on the website, there's a free parent conversation guide, and there's a sorting game. So, you know, you, you sort like, which, which secret is one that sparkles and which secret might be one that stings, that feels uncomfortable or unsafe? So all of these resources that are wonderful to use in your home alongside the book. One of the things that you talk about is conversation, you know, and all these resources foster conversation, but also you give ideas for after, like, after school type conversations that are not just, how was your Day today. Fine.
- [36:37]
B
Yeah.
- [36:38]
A
What did you learn today? Nothing. Can you talk about what might be a better approach or, or a approach that's more in tune with feelings?
- [36:47]
B
Yeah. So if you. Using the book as a guideline, for example, did anything sparkly happen today? Did anything stingy happen today? Any secret stinging happen today? You just talk about it in descriptive terms that they can relate to, not how was your teacher, how was your day? Was she a sparkly teacher or was she a stingy teacher? You know, just put yourself knowing if you're aware at the outset that your kids can relate to feelings and you're encouraging them to talk about how they feel, then once you put yourself in that feeling mindset, you will find the right words. And it doesn't have to be at the right place. It can be anywhere. It can be on the way to the bathroom when you're giving them a bath. It could be when you're cooking in the kitchen and you're multitasking and they come up to, you know, you know, you're peeling the potatoes and oh mom, guess what? I just saw it look so weird. It made me feel so icky or whatever. Welcome the conversation. Stop peeling the potatoes and say oh really? You know, talk about the feelings. Encourage them to talk. There's no special place. Just make them heard. Just make them know that feelings are welcome and any time. And there should be nothing more important than your kids feelings, especially at that age. That's what we have to gauge their health by how they feel. And it's up to us as parents to ensure that they have a safe space to talk about all their feelings and not feel as though they're going to be criticized for not being, you know, big boys don't cry kind of stuff. You know, they will not be criticized or you're just emotional, you need not to be so emotional. You know, you need to grow up and suck it up and look on the bright side and you know, you know, there, there are more serious things in life. Why are you, why are you ruminating over this? Don't you have anything better to do? Kind of stuff. We need to kind of get that stuff out of our vocabulary and focus more in being tuned with the kids bodies because that's how they communicate.
- [39:09]
A
Right? Right. Okay. So you are a lawyer. So very logical. The ma. You know, the mind, the mind helps figure. Helps you figure out which way to go. Founding and managing partner of Stevenson. I might say this wrong.
- [39:24]
B
Acquisto Coleman.
- [39:26]
A
Coleman, okay. Widely regarded as the healthcare industry's premier litigation firm. You have a multidisciplinary team of over 100 professionals. Attorneys, physicians, nurses, healthcare operations specialists and technology experts. What did your colleagues think when you decided to write a book like this?
- [39:46]
B
You know, it's interesting how relatable this was to everyone because at the end of the day, we all have the same issues.
- [39:57]
A
True.
- [39:57]
B
You know, is that crazy? Because when you, when you open up when something happens and you open up and realize and start talking about it, you get so, oh, that same thing happened here. And it happened in my, with my, with my son or my grandson or my daughter or whoever. We're all carrying the same issue. So it, it was surprising that how relatable the book was and the experience was because we all have the same issues. Same similar generation, same issues. It wasn't one of those things where they were shocked, oh, this is what happened. This is why they never told me. And I guess that's what, in going through life I found it's really important to be your quote, unquote, authentic self. Crap happens. It's not one of those things that you're going to say, I'm never going to talk about it because that's my secret. Nobody needs to hear what, what happened to me or what happened to my child. You know, if something happens, learn from it. If it happened to your child, it can happen to anybody.
- [41:02]
A
Right?
- [41:02]
B
So having, having noticed what happened and once I started talking about, became apparent that this was something that was happening on a large scale to many other people, and that made me so happy to bring it up where you don't feel so isolated. Well, you know, it happened to me. I must have been a bad mom, you know? No, I wanted to know. I was trying to be a good mom. What did I miss? And that's what everybody's trying to do. We're trying to be better parents. What did we miss? I need to know what we missed and so we can do better. It's more than what to expect when you're expecting. It's more than the time. Typical books that they give us to reach stranger danger and giving the kids all the rules. You could give them 50 million rules. It's not going to make them come to you when something that, you know, something happens in that way because the predators are way more prepared than we are. So we need to have our own form of brainwashing earlier on and we have that opportunity. You brainwash them when it comes to feelings. You can brainwash them when they're 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and they it's relatable. The neuroscience supports it. That's right. So while they're developing, while their brains are developing, we work with their developing brains and that's how the kids brains develop. They react faster than they think.
- [42:37]
A
Yes.
- [42:38]
B
They go straight from feeling to action. They don't know how to regulate. So, you know, they feel something and they start crying. There's no pause. We put in the pause as adults. We regulate them by having them download their feelings to us and then reinsert the pause. And then we take, we act from a place of value or whatever. The next step we need to take to protect them, we do that. That's our role as an adult. That's not their role. They should be worried about the consequences of what they tell us. Right. You know, it's up to us to act in a way to protect them. That's all responsibility. That's what we do as parents.
- [43:24]
A
Talking about the adults. So you've got all these resources for children and for parents working with children, educators working with children. You also are the founder and executive director of Proactive Health Labs, a national nonprofit dedicated to evidence based health literacy and helping people make informed decisions about their care. So that sounds important as well. Can you give us a little background on that?
- [43:51]
B
I started about, I guess, 13 years ago. And growing up there were certain how that whole thing came about. There were certain illnesses that I noticed that was pretty popular in my family. And the people I grew up around, things like diabetes, hypertension. My dad died from complications of diabetes and hypertension. My mom died from complications of heart disease and diabetes. And it's just all around you, high blood pressure is the thing and stuff. So being in healthcare and looking through a bunch of medical records every day, there were certain patterns that I saw. And I always wanted to figure out how I could become more educated so that I would not follow the same path. And what occurred to me was we weren't educated as consumers as to how to take care of ourselves. My mom grew up believing in doctors. I mean, my brother was a doctor. Whatever pills they gave her to take, she would take. In fact, she would take them without even asking questions or bring me the pills that the doctor gave me. And she was having side effects like crazy. She was faint and the ambulance would come and take her to the hospital. We would, we wouldn't know at that point that it was the side effects of the medication that was causing some of those issues. And so after watching all that and looking through medical records and seeing cause and effect, it occurred to Me earlier on that we as consumers need to be educated better than we are and doctors are critical to our health, but we need to be educated partners with them so that they can learn better about who we are and how we operate and who better. We know about this better than the doctors do. So if we know our bodies better than they do, then it's up to us to understand it, understand our feelings so that we can communicate clearly to them so that they can help us better. So what PH Labs does, Proactive Health Labs does is it educates consumers about how to better care for themselves and how to communicate with their doctors. So we have a whole section, a learning section site on, on the, on the, on. On the website we have a bunch of articles about cholest mental physical wellness, about cholesterol. What, what you know, stuff like little things that people would not understand normally when they go to the doctor and they tell them their tests are normal, which is why the book your final labs or not came about things like that. What it also does it pro. We have a location or two where you get things like red light if you want to chill out, red light therapy and things like that. Where the doctors. We have a doctor on site that will also do blood work that will ex. Dr. Jose was also the editor of UN05. You're not and and Minerals the nutrients. The first book we wrote with the doctors and what she does is she just doesn't look at the normal heads. She goes beyond that and find out what the issues really are. She works with you to find that out. And I've been working with her for like what, 13 years when we started. So that's. It allows you to honor your feelings but in a different kind of way with the help of a doctor. So that's what Proactive Health Labs is all about.
- [47:25]
A
I love how everything that you do has common threads throughout it. Right. This is about education. So you talk about for, you know, sometimes we just don't know or you read a lot of books, but you don't necessarily read the right ones. You don't read the ones about feelings. And so people can go to phlabs.org to learn more. I'll make sure I put the links in the show notes and then Secrets at Sparkle is the website for the book where people can get the book anywhere that they buy their book. Secrets at Sparkle and. And Secrets at Sting, this rhyming picture book for. For your children so that you can help to educate them in a way that's not scary. But in a way to inform them that there are unsafe people there. And, and so they need to be listening to their bodies. And here's how to listen to their bodies. And in doing so you'll learn more about listening to your own bodies and also how to parent your kids through these feelings that they have. So this has been an honor to get a chance to talk with you. This is such important work. Work. It's a type of resource that I haven't seen before. And so I was very thankful to come across it and very honored to be able to share it with those who are listening. So Joy, thank you so much. Thanks for putting this out into the world. People can also check out. Your labs are fine. You're not understanding the mineral deficiencies your doctor can't see. That's your newest book, a 300 page evidence based guide for people's whose standards lab for people whose standard labs come back normal but who continue to feel terrible. And then you also have a book called Minerals the forgotten nutrient, your secret weapon for getting and staying healthy, co authored by with physician contributors. And then From Chains to Wings, which is a poetry book. So lots there. I'll put the link so that people can find them whatever sort of standing out for them. But this picture book, to have this, to start to have these conversations with your kids to remind yourself on a somewhat regular basis that we can do a lot to help our kids to be safe and, and even just, just letting them know that they're not in trouble and that the grown. There are grown ups that love them and that will help them. So I, I so appreciate your time. We always end our show with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood? That was outside.
- [49:30]
B
That was. Oh my goodness. I grew up outside. I grew up on a farm milking the cows. That's easy. Yeah, well, yeah, I love the outdoors and, and my. One of my favorite. It was initially a scary memory. I mean scary thing to do. It was a scary memory. It was a scary thing to do that I wanted to do that my mom taught me to do that I thought was so much fun because I couldn't figure out how the milk was coming out. Supposed to come out.
- [50:03]
A
There's a whole skill to it. There's a whole skill. We had a goat for a little while and we milked it. And you think it would be the easiest thing ever, but it's not.
- [50:12]
B
No, no. There's a skill because you could pull on that teeth until you're blue in the face. Nothing will come you have to do it a certain way, right?
- [50:19]
A
That's right. I didn't know that.
- [50:23]
B
Yeah.
- [50:23]
A
And then you got to teach someone that's like, I want to come over and milk your goat. I'm like, oh, no one has ever said milking a cow before, Joy, you are the first. So I love that answer. And it's a lot to learn. Goes back to education, right? There's a lot that you learn out there on the farm. Joy, thank you. Thank you so much for this book that you created to help parents, to help educators, and then ultimately to help children. It's been an honor. Thanks for being here.
- [50:50]
B
Thank you for having me. Have a wonderful day. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it
- [51:07]
A
turns out that's very illegal.
- [51:11]
B
So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan.
- [51:19]
A
Required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy. See terms.