Hoorf! Radical Care in a Late-Capitalist Heckscape

whole family mindset magic, with occupational therapist Ivan Hardcastle

• Elle Billing • Season 3 • Episode 5

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On this episode of Hoorf, host Elle Billing welcomes Ivan Hardcastle, an occupational therapist whose 15-year journey led him to make a radical choice - stepping away from a high-stress, high-volume clinical partnership to create a private practice centered on quality care. These days, Ivan runs an innovative online coaching program helping parents and school staff support children with emotional regulation and sensory needs. The conversation takes a creative turn as Ivan shares his passions for theater and woodworking, essential elements of maintaining balance in life. His perspective on slowing down and building genuine connections resonates deeply. As an OT who prioritizes both practical skills and human connection, Ivan brings a refreshing approach to the care-based fields that emphasizes genuine understanding over quick fixes.

Links to Ivan’s website, as well as all other resource links, are in the full show notes at hoorfpodcast.com

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Elle Billing:

Hi. My name is Elle. Billing. I am a chronically ill queer femme, and I'm tired. I'm here this episode and every episode to dig at the roots of our collective fatigue, explore ways to direct our care in compassionate and sustainable ways, and to harness creative expression to heal ourselves and to heal our world. Welcome to Hoorf, Radical Care in the Late Capitalist Heckscape. My guest for this episode is Ivan Hardcastle. Ivan Hardcastle is a registered and licensed occupational therapist with experience since 2007 in parent and professional education and clinical outpatient pediatric settings. He specializes in education and treatment of emotional regulation, autism, sensory integration dysfunction, pediatric incontinence and a wide variety of additional pediatric diagnoses and disorders. Ivan has been a local and state presenter since 2008 for schools, behavioral specialists, Early Years Idaho Health and Welfare State Conference, PATH International-- that's the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship-- Idaho Conference, Idaho Occupational Therapy Association's annual conference, and varied other in-person and virtual presentations. Ivan helps families and professionals grow and succeed through high quality online coaching that transforms families and individuals. Ivan is also a talented thespian and a gifted woodworker. I'm excited to have him on the podcast today to talk about both his professional and creative pursuits. Welcome to Hoorf. Hello, Ivan. Welcome to Hoorf,

Ivan Hardcastle:

hey. I am so excited.

Elle Billing:

Oh gosh, I'm excited to have you here too. It's been, I was gonna say it's been a minute since we've seen each other, but it's been a few years.

Ivan Hardcastle:

It's been a couple years. Yeah,

Elle Billing:

it's so great to have you here. As happens with every time I invite one of my friends to be here on the podcast, we had some great material before I hit record, like we missed all the good stuff.

Ivan Hardcastle:

We talked about dinosaurs, we talked about chunky T Rex, we talked about piggies, everything. Yeah, we talked about all of the things that we used to talk about at lunch. Yeah? So it's great to see you. It's wonderful to catch up. You-- It got me out of bed on a Saturday morning. So what's not to love? Yeah, it's great. Yeah, once we figured out our headphones and microphones, and you have quite the setup over there today, it's working. It's working.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, I just had to change which which one mine was plugged into, and it was like, Oh, it works. So I'm just gonna jump right in and ask how you have received care this week.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Oh, man. So one of the cool things that has been happening is that in one of the schools I go out to, the principal of the elementary school has been fantastic, and if I'm having an off day or she's having an off day, we just are able to support each other and kind of lift each other up. And one of the things that we have focused on is just recognizing goodness in our in our lives, and then telling the other person and just sharing the the positives. And so that has been a consistent, consistent thing happening, and the thing from this week in particular, and we'll get into this later as we talk about some of the some of the things that I'm doing, is that I, I of my own nature, tend to downplay myself, and I'm learning to recognize that I don't give myself credit for the things that I do or the things that people people see me providing for them. It's, it's, it's still weird to talk about. But she, with with some of the new things that I'm trying to do, she says, Ivan, you you are not giving yourself enough credit, and you need to recognize and see the ways that you're helping others. And then she started listing off the ways that I help her, which I did not recognize. And she just went on and on and on and on and on and so what a boost to me and and still weird to think about, because I again, if my nature just like, yeah, like, I don't, I don't like, that feels weird to feels braggy. It feels, you know, I like, it feels weird. That's not my personality. But just to have somebody say, Hey, you really do make a difference in my life, and you make a difference in other people's lives. That is, that's incredible to hear and a great boost. So, yeah, that's I that that cared for me.

Elle Billing:

That's really nice, that you have that kind of big mutual relationship where you can support each other, especially like as you know, and people who've listened long enough know, I burned out really hard in the education field and being in a care field yourself, and working in schools and in a clinical setting, like, I'm sure you've seen it too, like it's not in it's getting harder and harder to be in those people- facing positions and caring for people day in and day out. And so it's really it gladdens my soul to hear that people in general, but like you specifically, because you're who I'm talking to, have like, a like, a mutually supportive relationship, in what can be a very stressful environment, and that you're taking that like, that you're learning to, like, accept compliments and take credit for the good you're doing. Because having worked with you, I know that you make a huge difference in children's lives. You worked with some of my students, and I saw them make incredible growth. And even for me, like, well, and we'll get into this later too, like, I benefited from my students working with you. And actually, I mentioned, actually, on the episode that just came out how the sensory therapy that you did with my students helped me. I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD yet, and I was like, you know, I kind of wonder if that therapist knew I had ADHD. I'm like, he probably did. I said I think I was the last one to know the other day. I was like, you know, interviewing him, I should ask if he had a hunch, or, like, more than a hunch, I bet he knew.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Oh, yeah, yeah, no, yeah.

Elle Billing:

Like, who didn't know? Me. I didn't know. But like, I'm glad that you're able to, like, allow others to speak into your life like that and say, Hey, really, you've made a huge difference to like, for all of these reasons. Because I think being able to hear that is like, kind of what keeps us going some days.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah, there's so two thoughts to back up a little bit. You talked about how hard it is to be in a caring position and in an education position. So for her, being out there, one of the blessings that I enjoy providing for her is to be able to lift her up, because she has hard days and it's students and it's staff. You know, she's in an administration, and sometimes there are challenges, but she is able to talk through them and overcome them. And I, I help her with that. And she's, she's helped me to see that I help her. And that's, that's good, but, yeah, later on, we're going to be talking about, again, some of the stuff that I'm that I'm doing, that I'm just starting. I am taking a look at not just the students and the families, but I'm, I'm taking a look at school staff and and there's some exciting stuff happening right now as I mean, we're right in the middle of it getting started, so we can talk about that later on as well.

Elle Billing:

I mean, do you want to jump into that now? We can flip flop questions. I have no problem

Ivan Hardcastle:

sure. Yeah.

Elle Billing:

I mean, you're like, jumping, like, you're leaning out of your chair a little bit like, we're gonna talk about that later, but like, this is exciting. Like, let's talk about it now. I'm I'm not tied to the order of the questions.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah, so, oh man, it has been just over a year and a half of that. I quit my job.

Elle Billing:

I didn't realize that when I asked you to be on the show, until I looked at you sent me your CV to do your bio. And I was like, Oh, you left. You left your job. I had no idea, you were like the boss,

Ivan Hardcastle:

yeah, yeah. So I was, I, yeah, I was, I was one of the owners, several owners, which, which adds its own complexity. I was in charge of all HR stuff of company of about 40, 40-plus employees, therapists, and I was a full time clinician and and then other owner duties on top of it. So just, just really heavy with all sorts of stuff going on, some things came up that have been kind of brewing in the back of my head, and we decided to hire an HR person for the company to help me with my load, because it was quite heavy. And she came in, and two weeks later she she came to me, I had some time off, and she came to me, and she's like, Ivan, we need to meet. And it's like, okay, so I went in on a on a Sunday afternoon, and nobody's in the office, and so we're just sitting there, and she says, Hey, I have, I have some concerns with this company. And she just and there's all these things that were in the back of my head that I didn't feel good about, but I wasn't recognizing to myself. And so they became very real. I'm just like, Okay, here's this new person, non biased, hasn't been here, and they can see all these things. And so I then tried to address them. And and was ignored. And I thought, Okay, well, this is this is not me. I'm not going to try to do something that isn't, isn't me and doesn't feel good to me. And so then I left, and I started my own company. And so that first summer was was a lot of learning and trial and hard emotions, of of worry that I was failing just all these new things and getting through the summer and then into the fall. Working with insurances can be quite challenging. I started getting paid, yeah, so last, last school year, was all about, hey, I'm surviving, and hey, I can take care of my family and learning that that things are going to be okay. And then this last summer hit, and I realized that I wasn't just surviving. I was doing okay. And and right towards the end of summer, a couple things happened. I started to feel like, Hey, Ivan, you you're still trapped by the old mindset of what you were doing and what you thought was possible. And then I have this--, I in my clinic. I really focus on quality care over quantity care, so I'm not trying to get everybody in town into my clinic, because then I don't help anybody that way, because they're just in and out, in and out. And so my clients, they come in, there's only two people who don't have an hour, and that's that's because they cut it down to 45 minutes with this transportation issues. Everybody gets an hour. People get more than one time a week. They get what they need, and they see progress, and it's amazing. So then, but of course, the opposite end of that is that we have such a growing community here in Twin Falls, and then everywhere, we have this growing need for services, for children and for families to help and to help people grow and develop and overcome obstacles in their lives. So I have this growing waiting list, and I-- what do I do with it? What do I do with it? It's just driving me crazy, because I I want to be helping and I want to be seeing people thrive and families grow. So I ran across this. This used to be occupational therapist. She now does coaching for occupational therapists to learn how to move businesses online. And so I started listening to her, and then I got on a phone call with her, and I started a program to learn how to help more people with a wider reach through online coaching program that I developed myself, but being being directed in the kind of little nitty gritty stuff. And I realized that even though I couldn't affect people in my clinic, I couldn't get everybody in, I could provide education and coaching and direction through my online, emotionally empowered parenting coaching program, which has been fantastic. And then the thing if we we jump forward a little bit now we're, we're three months after starting that, and I got a call from a charter school up in Boise, two hours away from where I'm at, and they were having challenges, number one, finding services for their kids in the school, and families having trouble with insurance, which, again, like same old story. Heard that before. So I talked with him, said, yeah, it's, it's kind of, it's a statewide problem, it's a regional problem. It's a there just are not enough service providers. There's not enough occupational therapists. And they said, well, it's really exciting to hear about this coaching program, so we want to be able to tell our families, and how can they contact you, and yada yada yada. And then a week later, they reach out to me again, and they said, Ivan, we're really excited about what you're doing, and we are wondering if you would consider, can we get you to work with our school somehow? And I said, Well, I don't have a lot of time because I'm so full, filled up. And they said, Well, what about your coaching program? Can you adapt your coaching program, not necessarily for the kids, but can you adapt it to teach our staff how to care for themselves and how to gain skills from occupational therapy that they can use in their classroom. And here you were talking about your experience of me working here with your students in class, and how you you benefited from them working and you being able to pick up techniques and to have this program where staff can get that directly. And so we're right in the middle of last a week ago, I was on, I was on a call with them, and and they were talking, hey, let's do this. And I said, Yes, let's do this. And they said, Well, how do we set this up? And I said, I have no idea,

Elle Billing:

yeah, but, like, it obviously needs to happen.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah. And I said, How would you set it up? And they said, I have no idea. So, so I spent this week putting the, putting the program together, and then we're continuing to talk, and I've, I've started to reach out to other school districts, and other people are excited and they're reaching out to school districts for me, and it's, it's exciting. if I can help people in a greater degree and see people grow and see people learn, and have families have greater peace and greater success, if I can have teachers who are not overwhelmed and know how to manage anxiety and pressure and have tools that they can use to help students in the classroom, so that the kids aren't overwhelmed, and the kids can focus and develop skills, and know how to help with pencil grips and know how to help if they're having troubles making friends, or even even kids who are, you know, younger grades and they're having wetting accidents at school. What do I do? What I do? Hey, you know that's that's all built into the program, and there's stuff that I've already recorded, there's a lot of stuff that I've already recorded, and I just have this huge list of things that I'm still going to add. And it's just, it's just exciting. It just bubbles with excitement for me.

Elle Billing:

That is really exciting. I remember when you first came to the school where I worked, and you were teaching us about sensory integration, and I had learned a little bit in college, but not a ton. And you were explaining the bus depot, how all of our sensory information is like all the busses coming into the depot, and if there's if the depot gets too crowded, like everybody crashes, there's nobody there to organize the busses if they don't follow the schedule. And that was like, Oh, that makes so much sense to me. And then after we built our sensory therapy room at the school, so many cool things rippled out from that, like students were able, not just with during therapy time, but like during the rest of the, during the rest of the week, students and teachers and paraprofessionals and stuff could could go and utilize that for various reasons. And I just love the idea of it being also, like in classrooms, like teachers getting coaching, and then being able-- that's just a really cool... especially like having been an educator in Idaho, it's really tough there, yeah, and so I just love that, like administrators are going, Yeah, we know it's tough. We're gonna we're trying to figure out a way to make this livable.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah, I was getting, I was getting feedback from some of the other schools that I'm in, and I said, Hey, what do you think about this program, and how should I structure it, and what type of help should I offer, and what type of pricing Should I put on it even that much? And and then

consistently, it's, been:

this is amazing. Hey, I know that you come out here, but you're only out here with this amount per week. We might want this program too, even though we have access to you, but this would give us more access to you, and it'd be worth it. And then this went back into that conversation I was talking about with that administrator who this was the conversation that she's like, I have a new you affect people more than you think that you do, and this is worth more than you think that it is worth, which is, again, goes back to like feels, feels weird, but I need to, I need to recognize it, because recognizing that I do make a difference in other people's lives, and recognizing that I can help others grow helps me to have the confidence to reach out to a greater number of people and say, this is going to change your life, and this is going to change your staff, and this is going to change your students, this is going to change your family, because I recognize it, and that's that's the consistent feedback that I

Elle Billing:

and I think being part of a community is being get, able to recognize, this is what I contribute to my community. These are my strengths. This is what I have to offer. This is how I can participate and lift up the community. Here am I. Here I am. And I think Twin Falls is going to be much, it already is, has been much better for having you around to therapize our kids. (laugh) On a serious note, like, I'm really glad that that's working out. So in addition to, like, starting a private practice, starting a virtual coaching business, working in schools, you also, you also have a couple creative practices that you you know balance, like, integrate into your life for some balance as well. Do you want to talk about those a little bit?

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah, so we'll start with, we'll start with woodworking, and then we're going to talk about theater. Those are, those are the two biggest ones. Music's in there too,

Elle Billing:

yeah, because that's how we actually, like, really, like, WAH connected initially, like you were in the school, but it wasn't until you said, Hey, do you like theater? that I was like, Are we best friends?

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah, everybody likes theater. Sometimes they just don't know it yet.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, they don't know it. It turns out some people really don't like musical theater,

Ivan Hardcastle:

see, and I still come back, you just haven't you? They just haven't been to the right musical.

Elle Billing:

That's fair. That's fair.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah, that's, I still come back with that, even if they're adamant, I'm just like you, you just haven't been to the right one for you yet.

Elle Billing:

Yeah,

Ivan Hardcastle:

yeah. I get a lot of people to come to musicals that way. You should try this one.

Elle Billing:

Have you seen this one?

Ivan Hardcastle:

This is how this goes. Yeah, well, I guess maybe we're talking about musical theater first. So yeah, my my introduction to musical theater was when I was six or seven years old, and we had just moved from Hagerman, this tiny, tiny town, over to Rupert, another small town, but bigger than that, and we had as part of our church group, they decided to put on a musical and do Music Man. And I was just one of the kids in the ensembles, just in the band. And I remember watching the guy playing Harold Hill the lead, and going, Wow, this is a cool story. This is so much fun. And he is like, he is great. He's having a fantastic job. And I love, I love the character, and I loved what he was doing, and it just entranced me. So I did some other stuff. And in high school I did some theater, but I was, I was so shy, and I would not sing for auditions. And we did Seven Brides for Seven Brothers my junior year in high school. And after the show, after some of the shows, I got feedback, it's like, yeah, the leads were good, but we liked watching you. You had so much character, you had so much this, you know, so much that I went, what? Like, okay. And that was kind of like, okay, hey, I've maybe I have a talent here. And then I went to college and and then we, I graduated from college, and we moved out here to Twin Falls, and we were here for a couple years, and theater just kind of went out of my head. And my wife grew up, her mom did musical theater up in Boise, so we both have theater backgrounds. And somebody invited us to a show that was going on in town. Somebody was doing Beauty and the Beast. And we went there, and I'm sitting in the audience going, this is a fantastic show. And I turned to my wife and says, You know what, when the kids are older and when things are a little less crazy, I would love to get back on stage. And she talked me into auditioning that fall, and I got the lead in a show called Curtains. And then it was, I was in a show once a year for several years. And then I started doing a little bit more, breaking my rule of once a year and doing a couple times a year. And then I started directing and still doing shows. And I learned that, man, I love being on stage, and I my favorite part of being on stage is, yes, there's a story, yes, there's a fun element of bonding with the cast and and producing something in that cohesion of team. But I love what it does to the audience. I love feeling the energy from the audience, and I love being able to feed them. And the greatest joy that I get as an actor is realizing that many people go to see musical theater to escape reality, because the world is tough. And if I can get on stage and if I can help other people feel emotions that they they normally don't feel, or maybe that they hide, or to let out some stress, to laugh, to smile to cry, that brings me joy, because then I've improved somebody else's life through my acting and presenting myself in a different way, and then directing is is a different type of joy. I get to sit in the audience and I get to hear their reactions, and so I come in from different directions, but it's almost like I have my own little monster that here's here's the story and here's the script. But as a director, you still have a lot of license, and how you present that story, and the details of how it's all the little nitty bits of it, the lighting, the costumes, the the blocking, how people move across the stage and how they how their lines are said and and bantered back and forth. The most directing I've done is, is for some youth groups. I did one for a school one time, and that was more work than I thought, because there was, there wasn't this pre existing theater culture there. I had to teach the culture as well.

Elle Billing:

Was that Peter Pan,

Ivan Hardcastle:

that was James and the Giant Peach.

Elle Billing:

Oh, okay, because I'm just, I'm remembering the big alligator you had to build

Ivan Hardcastle:

the giant crocodile, yeah.

Elle Billing:

Oh, crocodile, sorry,

Ivan Hardcastle:

yeah, yeah. My, my wife, she loves me. So Peter Pan was the second show that I directed for Jump Company, which is, which is the youth group, yeah, yeah. I built, I ,the summer before I was directing-- I directed in the in January and February--and so the summer before I spent building this crocodile for Peter Pan and I went with a steampunk mode. So everything the pirates were steampunked. And this crocodile had gears all over him and whatnot, but he was 16 feet long, living in our living room all summer long. Finally, my wife was just like, we need to get this out of the living room. So we actually took him up, actually took him up to our bedroom, and kind of stuck(laughter) So he lived up there all winter long. My wife was --

Elle Billing:

she is so patient. She

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah, we ended up taking out one of the sections because it was just a little too complex. I had it in different sections that were. Built around so kids could be in the crocodile. One was the head turning and opening up to the jaw, and they would sit on these chairs, and ripped apart the chair so they had somewhere to sit. And then they their the crocodile's feet were their legs, and they'd have to paddle along with their with their legs to make the crocodile move. And there was a middle section, and I took that out, so then it just went from the front section to the back section, to the back legs, and then this tail that went behind and it was, it fit the the stage just fine. We couldn't have done a bigger crocodile. It was too big to start with, but I wanted a huge crocodile. And it, it was fantastic.

Elle Billing:

I love that.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah. And then I've, since then, I've gone into I've directed some adult shows, and then this last summer, I did a re adaptation of Treasure Island. I wrote it with a friend of mine. I did most of the most of the heavy lifting of the writing, and now I'm in the middle of writing a second show. So this was, this was Treasure Island that I did this last summer. And it was that, again, was another, just big burst of creativity and enjoyment. And I learned so much from writing and developing characters and taking taking a story and then warping it. And I already have, now, I have inklings of, well, here's how to do my own story and get my own story out there. So it's exciting and and then I just got off stage last weekend in Once the musical, and I was asked to be in there last minute right before rehearsal started, because somebody else had to drop and they said, Ivan, we need, we need this one character, will you do it, and we know that you have some other stuff going on, but where you do it. And everybody played live instruments. And so I learned to play guitar for this show, and it's super fun. And now I play guitar, and it's, it's marvelous. I you know, music, art, creating things is, yeah, brings me joy.

Elle Billing:

I had a professor in the education department who was adamant that people who work with children should stay high on the learning curve all the time throughout our careers, because we-- It helps us retain the empathy of doing hard things,

Ivan Hardcastle:

yeah

Elle Billing:

especially if we work with students who have disabilities or developmental delays. Because for those of us who grew up non disabled or typically developing or without, you know, any unique challenges, things came easy to us when we were growing up, or presumably, came easy to us,

Ivan Hardcastle:

presumably, yep,

Elle Billing:

as we were growing up. And then, if we're working with kids, it can be, we can forget what it's like to be learning something for the first time, and so to always be learning something new, like guitar or a new show or memorizing lines, or any other new skill, artistic skill or technical skill, or whatever.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah. Now we're gonna, we're gonna, this is gonna lead us into talking about woodworking, but keep going, yeah, yeah.

Elle Billing:

Like it having that, like, high on the learning curve, edge, like little edge of frustration can help keep us empathetic when our students are struggling. Like, no, it's not easy. I get it. My that professor actually was learning the harp. when she, like, when she was our professor, so,

Ivan Hardcastle:

Oh, wow, like she was, you know, a college professor, she'd been teaching for decades. She's like, Yeah, I'm learning the harp right now. Like, do I need to learn the harp? No, thought it'd be cool, and it keeps me high on the learning curve. So I have, like, this compassion for like, people who are struggling with learning something new. So, like, I've learned ukulele, I've completely forgotten it. It it would be, if I pick it up again, I'll definitely be on the learning curve again. But I'm like You, I like to have different creative things going on. And it's funny that I ended up painting because the first time I painted, I hated it because I wasn't good at it. So it's definitely been one of those like struggle through because I want to be good at this thing, type of hobbies, and it's not a hobby anymore. It's like my job, yeah, well, and I enjoy the style that you've developed because it's, it's unique, and it's, I love being able to see it as an expression of yourself. I can see, I can see you in it when I look at your artwork and it's,

Elle Billing:

oh, I really appreciate that. Thank you.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah, I love being able to see people's creative expressions. So my middle daughter, so I yeah, I've got a kind of wide range of the challenges with my children. Everybody has challenges. Everybody has challenges themselves. Everybody has challenges with their children. They're they're this is something I consistently tell people, is that when you think that you see somebody, you know somebody, and they have everything put together, that just means that you don't know them well enough,

Elle Billing:

right? Yeah, like I said, presumably, had an easy time growing up like now that I live with my parents as an adult, something will come on TV. And I'll laugh, and I'll go, like, what I'm like, oh yeah. That would have given me nightmares as a kid, like,

Ivan Hardcastle:

oh yeah.

Elle Billing:

Like, it's completely innocuous, but, like, I had a really vivid imagination, I would come up with ways that I could die, like

Ivan Hardcastle:

I had nightmares by looking at a book cover once. Yeah,the movie Pete's Dragon, yep, the final like that, the end when they're trying to capture the dragon, and the the two bad guys and, like, there, but there's also, like, the the bad guy family in Pete's Dragon. Yes, it's been like,

Elle Billing:

the two snake oil salesmen are trying to catch the dragon. Like, that whole scene, like, for whatever reason gave me nightmares. Like, I think that it was terrifying to me that like, bad people would be, like, fighting over kidnapping something, yeah, yeah. Just the other night they were talking about, what was it? Oh, there was, like, rats on TV, on some show we were watching. And I laughed, and I was like, Ope!, I said, they're gonna get Hantavirus. And my parents looked at me, and I was like, Well, I thought I was gonna get Hantavirus when I was a kid. Yeah, what child worries about Hantavirus. I was like, the hyper lexic one? Who was like, eight years old, reading about Hantavirus outbreaks in Readers Digest, just because you can read something doesn't mean you should, yeah, yeah. Like, I could read everything when I was little, and so if they left magazines laying around, I would read them. I shouldn't have read them, but I did,

Ivan Hardcastle:

but you did, yeah, don't -- Yeah, careful what ya leave out. So learning new things and teaching. So I I started. I always liked woodworking. I just had this fascination with it. But, I mean, I had a hand saw and a drill, really, up until 2012 and I had a colleague give me a book on scroll saw, how to make puzzles. Anyway. This is really cool. This is really fascinating. What in the world is a scroll saw. That's why I looked it up, and then I bought one with, yeah, I got one for Christmas, and started playing with it. And the learning curve for me was trying to fit these thin, you know, the string sized blades into this machine, and learning how thick of wood I can cut, and how fast to cut, and what pressure to use, and what speed to put the machine in. And I just, I mean, I broke blade after blade after blade after blade, and I warped and I burnt and I and I just got better and better. And then I was making flat puzzles, and then three dimensional puzzles, and then puzzle boxes. And then I got into making bowls on the scroll saw and putting together different colors of wood, and and, and then back in 2021 I had a friend say, Hey, Ivan, will you make earrings? And I went, earrings out of wood, like they're gonna break, they're gonna snap, they're gonna be too small, they're gonna be hard to work with. And she talked me into it, and so I made some. And

Elle Billing:

They are. I have a pair of them. I wear them when I they're awesome. when I do market, like I do one or two markets a year, but whenever I sell my art in public, I wear the earrings I bought from you.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah? Oh, fun, yeah.

Elle Billing:

They were the colored pencil ones.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. And I got into doing colored pencil, learning how to do that. And there's just, I always come and look at life like there, there is just not enough time in life to be able to do everything that I want to do. There's so much to learn, so much to grow. And yes, it can be frustrating, yes, it can be overwhelming, but to come up the from the other side and realize that you've learned something, that you've created something, that you've produced something, and through the hard effort, it brings joy to you, and it brings joy to other people. That's that's amazing to me. One of the questions that you'd asked me was, before we started, was, you know, if there's, if there's something that you can tell families or tell children,

Elle Billing:

Oh, yeah. Like all families and homes are different, right? Like, we're all diverse, but if we had, like, what is one shift most of us could probably make in our homes to facilitate more ease. That question?

Ivan Hardcastle:

yeah, yeah, I would say slow down, which is goofy after I just said,

Elle Billing:

Right, no, I know, because I'm the same way, like I want to, but I have had to slow down. Like, if I've learned anything, like, I think my top three lessons since I got sick are slow down; we need each other.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah

Elle Billing:

and, like, take your meds,

Ivan Hardcastle:

hey, right?

Elle Billing:

Or, like, get enough sleep. Like, but really, like, the two biggest things are, like, you got to slow down, and, yeah, like, we can't do this alone. Like, we all need each other. You know, that brings me back to the first story of me talking about quitting my job. When I quit my job, right before that, I got to the doctor and she said, Ivan, I am not letting you out of my office until your blood pressure is under control. My face would be flushed all the time, just terrible. And I have a family history of heart stuff and and so it's quite serious for me. After quitting my job. Nine months later, I was off my I was off my blood pressure meds. I used to have joint pains. I'm I have not had joint pain, and I can't even think now to the last time that I I know that I was still having that a year ago. I remember a time walking and having a hard time walking and thinking, I need to change what I'm doing for work. And this was after still changing my job. So, yeah, so taking taking time slowing down, which, which, on the one hand, is, is, is frustrating to think, oh, but there's, there's not enough time to do everything that I want to do, and there isn't enough time. But when I do slow down, and when people can slow down, what it does is it it allows you to enjoy the moments that you do have, and it allows you to put some things into perspective, and it allows you to connect better with yourself and with your children, with your significant others, and it brings more joy, and that joy counterbalances the Stress and anxiety that we often feel in the world. One of the greatest things that people talk about how How terrible COVID was and how stressful it was, and for for our family, we recognized how good it was, not that there was sickness, but it forced us to slow down, and it forced us to cancel a lot of things that we were spread out doing, and really just spend time with each other. And we have wonderful memories from that. And my wife and I were just talking last night, just like we're getting busy again. We need to, we need to slow back down, and we need to reconnect as a family and and make sure that we've had sports going on, we've had this going on. All of our kids were just scattered everywhere, and now those things are done, which is like we need to we need to slow back down, we need to reconnect and take the time to find joy and find each other and to thrive. I really appreciate that. I was a hyper-scheduled tween and teen and yeah, it turns out that the type of ADHD I have that is probably why I was also getting things done, because, like, I depend on, or at least at the time I needed, like, that's that level of cortisol was, like, replacing the dopamine to finish things, yeah, but I have also had horrible stomach problems since high school, because it's not healthy to be that stressed and that scheduled as a developing human, you know, and so the last 10 years of my life has been unlearning all of the stuff I learned for the first two thirds of my life, which was all about hyper scheduling and hyper intense do all the things. And I still have to resist doing that, because when I'm having a good day, right? Oh, I don't have much pain. My head's clear like that is so rare that I just like, I hit the ground running, and I try to cram as much into one of those days as I can, and then I really regret it the next day, and I'm like, Oh yeah, no. I really am. I really am sick and disabled. I should have just like, you know, kept a steady pace and maybe slowed down yesterday,

Ivan Hardcastle:

well I don't even, I don't even think that is for people who are sick and disabled. I think that's true for everyone.

Elle Billing:

Everybody, yeah,

Ivan Hardcastle:

hey, feel great, so I'm going to overdo it.

Elle Billing:

But weekend warriors, right? How many people of our generation say I need a weekend to recover from my weekend, or I need a vacation to recover from my vacation,

Ivan Hardcastle:

from my vacation? Yeah?

Elle Billing:

Yeah. Like, we just need, yeah, like you said, to cherish the moments we have while we're in them.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah, there's so much to do and there's so much to learn in this world, but balancing that with learning how to cherish the moments and to enjoy the moments and not be so focused on what's coming next, and not getting distracted by the things that have happened in the past, the mistakes that we've made, not beating ourselves up about that. Learning to accept who we are, learning to accept that we're growing and so we're constantly different, but enjoying where we are in the moment, of enjoying our families, enjoying aspects of work, aspects of talent and creativity, of hobbies, of disconnecting so much from, I think so many times electronics, they are so powerful and. In the type of stimulus that they give, that they suck us in, and it doesn't allow us to be grounded and connected. And if we can rebalance ourselves from that and get to a point where we are, we're truly living in the moment and being surrounded with awareness and interaction and connection, it, it affects our mentality. It affects our physical health. It, it affects our ability to connect and show love and appreciation and to uplift others and to and to be in a better spot ourselves. Life. Life becomes better.

Elle Billing:

I will admit I'm attached to my phone. That's actually how I connect with my loved ones, because none of them live, but very few of them live here. But yes, I under, I understand the balance with electronics is actually very

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah. Well, there's a difference between connecting with your loved ones over your phone and and and doomscrolling as it were,

Elle Billing:

oh, and using it and using it to dissociate, because I also do that,

Ivan Hardcastle:

yeah, yeah, and yeah, yeah.

Elle Billing:

Because when I need to check out, that's also where I go, like, I need to be away from whatever's happening out here for five minutes, and then I will come back. Oh, yeah. It's a multi use. It's like the Swiss Army knife.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Well, as you said, you know, there's a difference between disconnecting for a couple of minutes and disconnecting all day long.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, yep, which I've also done, but mindfully. Like I'm like, I am mindfully disconnecting all day long. No, yeah, no, absolutely. So I have one more question before we go,

Ivan Hardcastle:

okay

Elle Billing:

and that is, what is one true thing that you have learned through your work with children and families?

Ivan Hardcastle:

You know the one, the one true thing that I see again and again and again and this, this doesn't matter if you have a family member or child or yourself who is doing well and excelling, to a child who is struggling or who is aggressive or who is stealing or who is whatever it is, the true thing that I keep coming across is that people are doing the best that they can with, with the tools that they have and with the knowledge that they have in the perspectives that they've grown with. Sometimes those perspective and sometimes those routines and mental habits that they get into are are not the best, but it's what they've learned and what they've developed. And so if, if they can be given better tools and better knowledge and better pathways to possibilities, they improve, because people want to be the best version of themselves that they can. And so when you come across somebody who you're just like, Oh man, that person is really aggressive, or that person is really mean, or that person is really disconnected as they're trying to manipulate, or taking a moment to reflect and say, wow. Okay, I can see that I've got my own issues, but I can see that that person is really struggling. I wonder why and how can I help lift them in what, in whatever small part I can that's, that's the truth that I see repeated again and again, and it doesn't, it doesn't matter who I come across, um, or even people in the news, it's still okay, they're doing, they're doing the best that they know. And sometimes that that doesn't work well. Sometimes it's actually quite terrible. Some of the things that people do, it's true, but they're still limited by by the best that they know. Thank you. That's something that I noticed when I was in the classroom as well. Oh, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for being here today. I appreciate your time. This was fantastic.

Elle Billing:

It was wonderful catching up with you. If our listeners would like to get in on some of that emotionally empowered parent coaching. Where can they find you?

Ivan Hardcastle:

There's a couple different ways. Okay, certainly reach out to me through email at Ivan at Castle Twin falls.com that's I V, A N, at C, A S, T, L, E, T, W, I N, F, A L, L, S dot com you can go to my website, which is www dot Castle Twin Falls dot com. You can also follow me and message me on Facebook at Ivan M Hardcastle, or you can find me on Instagram at Ivan underscore the parent coach.

Elle Billing:

Great. Thank you so much.

Ivan Hardcastle:

Yeah, you're welcome.

Elle Billing:

Thank you for. Joining us on this episode of Hoorf. To get the complete show notes and all the links mentioned on today's episode, or to get a full transcript of the episode, visit Hoorf podcast dot com. Join the Blessed Herd of Saint Winkus. By signing up for our newsletter, you can get Hoorf episodes delivered directly to your inbox. What's more, you get invitations to our monthly Coffee and Biscuits Chat, where you get to hang out with Ricki and Elle, talk about the show and connect on the topics that mean the most to you. You can sign up for that at Hoorf podcast.com if you become a patron for only $3 a month, you can support the creation of this podcast, help pay my editor and join a community of caregivers out here, just doing our best. Thank you again for joining me, Elle Billing, the chronically ill queer femme who is very tired, on this episode of Hoorf. Until next time, be excellent to each other. Hoorf is hosted by Elle Billing@elleandwink, audio editing by Ricki Cummings @rickiep00h music composed by Ricki Cummings. Hoorf is a production of Elle & Wink Art Studio, LLC, all rights reserved. Hoorf can be found on all social media platforms. At Hoorf podcast at H, O, O, R, F, podcast.

Ivan Hardcastle:

He was 16 feet long, living in our living room.

Contributor

Ricki Cummings

Producer