The Special Needs Mom Podcast

Think of this podcast as your very own special needs mom support group--except it's helpful and fun! You will leave with the hope that you can have a super happy life even when your life includes parenting a medically complex child or a child with something like autism and ADHD.

You likely didn't ask to be the parent of a disabled child or to live portions of your life in the hospital NICU or PICU. Your story is unique; it’s hard to find a place where you belong or where you don't feel so isolated and alone. Your child might have a rare disease, be undiagnosed or experience something that almost everybody has heard of like Downs syndrome yet the weird thing is that whether your child has an intellectual disability or physical disability, the experience as a mother is so similar. So regardless of your child’s disability, we can all find a home in this community.

You find yourself managing everybody else's needs; your child, their siblings, and all the guilt that you have about that. All this has you feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and dizzy---not knowing who to turn to or what to do next for help. This podcast is your lifeline, you’ll find encouragement and inspiration as we connect to other moms’ journeys. We’ll get practical and look at what it takes to stop feeling so stuck in your life.

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The Special Needs Mom Podcast

Digging Deep

February 19, 2025 • Kara Ryska • Episode 238

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Last night, as I was putting Levi to bed—exhausted and overwhelmed—I realized I had a choice: shrink back or dig deep.

I take you back to my water polo days and a phrase my coach drilled into us—"Dig Deep." It’s stuck with me ever since, and last night, it surfaced again as a reminder that even in the toughest moments, we can choose to keep going.

I hope this message encourages you to dig deep when things feel hard.

Connect with Kara, host of The Special Needs Mom Podcast:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespecialneedsmompodcast/
Website: https://www.kararyska.com/

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Speaker: 0:05

Hi, I'm Kara, life coach, wife and mom to four incredible and unique children. It wasn't all that long ago that my son received a diagnosis that had my world come crashing down. I lacked the ability to see past the circumstances, which felt impossible and the dreams I once had for my life and family felt destroyed. Fast forward past many years of surviving and not at all thriving, and you'll see a mom who trusts that she can handle anything that comes her way and has access to the power and confidence that once felt so lacking. I created the Special Needs Mom podcast to create connection and community with moms who find themselves feeling trapped and with no one who really understands. My intention is to spark the flair of possibility. In your own life and rekindle your ability to dream. This isn't a podcast about your special needs child. This is a podcast about you. If you are a mom who feels anxious, alone, or stuck, then you are in the right place. Welcome.

1:14

Hello and welcome. Today's episode is going to be short and simple. I'm sure you could tell that by the length of this episode. it was actually, I met with a friend yesterday, we met for lunch and it was so much fun. she's a friend I met through this podcast and she was asking something about the podcast and I said, quite honestly, I have no idea, zero idea what I'll be recording the next episode on, but I also said. But it comes to me. And so, yay, this came to me last night. It's a very simple concept, but I thought it was worthwhile to share with this community because it's It was helpful for me as I was experiencing it. All right, so I'll set the scene a little bit. Last night I was putting Levi to bed and I was struggling. I was tired and I don't know. I'm not doing so great with this whole winter situation. It's cold. It's dark. And my husband works a lot of nights during this season. So I'm often on my own. And They're long days, you know, I'm saying I know I know you know what I'm saying and between my youngest three kids Their needs were just relentless and I was tired of giving I was like, okay I would love to clock out here and Just exhausted from being pulled in so many different directions But I think mostly tired with being faced with challenges with Levi that I just don't have an answer to and before I put him to bed, we were talking about some challenges and having some hard conversations and really facing some topics that require me as his mom to really, push past barriers and kind of go to the next level of creativity and, generation. And that felt hard. And it felt a little, I think the energy, like I would say, the mood was down. Discouragement, I think, is maybe a good word for it. So right as I was walking out of his room, I just kind of saw myself with this choice point. One, where I could kind of retreat, maybe stay as is, but probably even shrink back and just kind of go with whatever was the easiest thing, the quickest, easiest thing. Which, I mean, in the moment, quite honestly, that, that sounded pretty great. Or the other path I saw is that I could dig deep. And let me give you a little backstory into these particular words and why they're specifically meaningful to me. But then I want to. have them be meaningful to this community as well. So if you met me in real life, you would quickly see that I'm relatively tall. I, most people say, Oh, you five, nine, I don't know, they always make a guess. And I took the opportunity to measure myself at Levi's, a recent endocrinology appointment and I am only five, eight and a quarter. So I feel, I feel a little like fraudulent, rounding up to five, nine at this point in my life. I think at some point I was. So a lot of people ask me like, Oh, did you play sports and like volleyball? And I say, no, I did not, but I'd say I played water polo. And there was something about this sport that I loved. I think it was the rigor. It's not known to be an easy sport. And I actually played all the way through my first two years of college. And we had a different team coach my freshman year, his name was Slinky, which I just love. He had this like really long curly hair. So Slinky cute, right? Okay. Second year, our coach was this guy named Johnny Walker and Johnny believed in being able to out swim the other team by having more endurance. And so we swam like 5, 000 yards twice a week in morning practices. And if you're not a swimmer. That's a lot. If you are a swimmer, you already know, that's a lot for a water polo player. I wasn't a swimmer, I was a water polo player. There's a distinction. And he had this saying, and he said it all the time. He had two actually, but I'm going to save the other one for another episode. His saying, and it comes to me all the time, was dig deep. He said it over and over again. And it fit, because during a game of water polo, you very quickly become physically exhausted. And you yet have to keep going and keep going at a very high level. It really is more of a mental game and relating to ourselves as being able to keep going even when it felt hard or like we wanted to stop. So let's turn back to my little reflection last night. So I metaphorically, it was like, I just want to stop, I want to give up. And these words came to me with the option of dig deep. Maybe it wasn't an option. Maybe it was like a tree. like a call forth, like my, inner coach was saying, dig deep. And that's a matter of choice. And I wanted to highlight this because I think it's these small, maybe even micro choices that add up to be the totality of our life. And I think the shift from, So, wherever we are to digging deep is the small shift from I can't to I can, or maybe even I will. And it's doing that over and over and over again. So, when I look at these aspects. of my life as Levi's mom. Some of the things were trying to come up with better solutions for seem really tricky, maybe even impossible, probably even better said, like, I just can't see the way ahead. And yet I'm taking the path of one small step after another, and I'm going to be really clearly. Choosing every step of the way to dig deep. And this episode is about inviting you to do the same. Alright ladies, that's what I have for you today. We'll see you in the next episode.