Let's face it, parenting is tough. But, what happens when an ADHD diagnosis hurls a curveball at you?
This week on the podcast, I'm talking with Amber Schumacher, a resilience coach specializing in mindset and parenting. Amber shares her journey searching for answers leading up to her son's ADHD diagnosis and gives a raw and real picture of her struggles, learning curve, and the complete transformation of her parenting approach after finding out. She also talks about a life-altering moment of compassion in, of all places, a pediatrician’s office.
Amber also opens up about her marriage and the impact an ADHD diagnosis and the related parenting challenges can have on a relationship. She walks us through the hard reset she and her husband undertook, and how they eventually rebuilt their connection.
Amber's resilience, commitment to change, and devotion to mindful parenting are sure to inspire you!
Connect with Amber
hercatalystcoaching.com
Facebook
Instagram
Grab Ambers's FREE Resources HERE
Connect with Heidi
Work with Heidi
IG @realheidisawyer
If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review!
Checkout the Heart First Leadership Podcast with Ryan & Heidi Sawyer
Let's face it, parenting is tough. But, what happens when an ADHD diagnosis hurls a curveball at you?
This week on the podcast, I'm talking with Amber Schumacher, a resilience coach specializing in mindset and parenting. Amber shares her journey searching for answers leading up to her son's ADHD diagnosis and gives a raw and real picture of her struggles, learning curve, and the complete transformation of her parenting approach after finding out. She also talks about a life-altering moment of compassion in, of all places, a pediatrician’s office.
Amber also opens up about her marriage and the impact an ADHD diagnosis and the related parenting challenges can have on a relationship. She walks us through the hard reset she and her husband undertook, and how they eventually rebuilt their connection.
Amber's resilience, commitment to change, and devotion to mindful parenting are sure to inspire you!
Connect with Amber
hercatalystcoaching.com
Facebook
Instagram
Grab Ambers's FREE Resources HERE
Connect with Heidi
Work with Heidi
IG @realheidisawyer
If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review!
Checkout the Heart First Leadership Podcast with Ryan & Heidi Sawyer
Welcome back to the show, friends. Today I have a special guest for you, amber Schumacher. She is a resilience coach specializing in mindset and parent coaching. Amber's fascination with how our brains work really started when her son was diagnosed with ADHD in 2015. In her own downward spiral, she was led to a feeling of deep desperation to help her family, and in that she discovered that she was not alone. Many other women were struggling to keep things together as they searched for answers and the community that was missing. After a deep dive into educating herself about the ADHD brain and some personal coaching, amber found herself in a coaching certification program seminary and a positive intelligence training program. She is currently rounding out a course in ADHD professional certification and a course in conscious parenting.
Speaker 1:In this episode, amber candidly shares about how the turbulence that she faced as a mom around the time of her son's diagnosis led to relationship struggles in her marriage and what she did to turn things around. Her hope is that by listening to her story, you will be inspired to create more peace and joy right where you are. I think what Amber shares in this conversation is so inspiring, whether you're facing a diagnosis, like she did in 2015, and you're trying to navigate through that or any other challenge in your relationship. There's lots of great wisdom that you can glean from what Amber has to share. So, without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Amber. Amber, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to hang out today, so tell everybody listening a little bit more about what you do and who you help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd love to. So my primary passion is helping parents. I serve parents raising ADHD kids, or sometimes refer to them as spicy kids or strong-willed kids so not everybody has a diagnosis, but the more challenging kiddos. I just absolutely love helping those families find freedom in a more parent-centric approach. We have lots of resources for kids, and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that that primary point of focus is actually the parent, not that we leave the kids out, but that we need to start with the parents and then we can address the kids Because, as you and I know, we lead right, we are the model and we are the example, and so if we can really support and serve parents, we actually see a lot of growth and health for kids.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, one of the things that neuroscience teaches us is how we learn as human beings is through modeling, and so we have a motto that we talk about a lot in our family, which is don't tell them, show them right, be that change that you want to see and model those behaviors that you wanna see in your kids yourself. So I love that. Tell me a little bit more about kind of when did you have the diagnosis, how did it kind of unfold and what was that like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my son is currently 13. And so we got his diagnosis around the time when he was five, and around that time our house was really the only way I can describe it is really dysregulated. There was just it felt, and the other word that I use all the time is chaos. It was very chaotic and it was this frenetic energy and not a lot of positive energy, unfortunately and so recognizing like my household was living in fight or flight and that really was coming from me it's really easy to put that on a child, but really where it came from was my own fears and my own kind of shame and guilt and things that I had not addressed in my own motherhood in my life. My first kid was super easy, and so I thought I had it all together, right, it was one of those stories, and so when the second one came, I had just you know that mother's intuition like something was different, not inherently wrong, but something was different. And so I'm a very green personality and I was like I need to find out what's different, because, number one, we're all gonna die, the ship's gonna go down. Things are hard. It's not getting better. It's having an effect on my relationship with you know, my kids, with my husband, with my community and even with myself, and so that's like my hair on fire season, like I just everything set me off.
Speaker 2:I was very kind of critical of myself and I was just picking up everybody else's criticism of me and my family and my parenting. The world can be a little bit rough when you've got a spicy kid and you're trying to do your best and you're tired. Like I had little kids too. Like in that season I had just had my. My little girl was a year old, so I had like this four year age gap between my boys and then I had this baby and so it was like just the dust was spinning and so and I'm also really strong willed so I was like I got this, I know how to be a good mom. Like I got this. I don't need any help and I'm not telling anybody how bad it is. I used a lot of humor to cope in that season and I do value that. We can pick that up for ourselves.
Speaker 2:But the breaking point for me was really I think we all hit a wall where we really defined that we are at the end of ourselves, like there's nothing left to do or to offer. And I had to wave that white flag and ask for help. And so it was a routine checkup at the pediatrician's office. And I went into the pediatrician's office on schedule. I was I'm the schedule mom. I like I'm an Enneagram six, I do things by the book.
Speaker 2:And so I walked into that office and she asked me how I was and normally I just breeze through that we're fine, we're good, we're just here for the things checkup. And I looked at her and I lost my mind like weeping and sobbing and couldn't catch my breath. And she just looked at me and she was like honey, how long have you been holding this in? What's wrong? And I was like I don't know how to tell you what's wrong. My house is crazy. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells. I'm always afraid. I'm afraid for his safety, I'm afraid for my other kids, I'm afraid for he just leaves, he just does all of these little things that I felt Like he's very volatile, like his motion swing from left to right. And so she just put her hand on my lap and she was like ugh. First of all, I need you to know you're a good mom. Second of all, I'm getting you a referral for help.
Speaker 2:What an angel. Yeah, and that is not everybody's story. A lot of families have to fight for their diagnosis and we were living in Southern California, had access to just a lot of resources. And so five days later we were sitting in a pediatric developmental office having a four hour assessment, and she was a little rough around the edges. I'm not going to say I appreciated the evaluation, but you know, that day was the day that I left in what I call this kind of dichotomy of my life, where I had answers, finally, which felt very freeing, like I wasn't crazy anymore.
Speaker 2:There really was something different about my kid and there was an enormous amount of fear like, oh my God, what do I even do with this? I don't know what this means for the rest of our life. And then we left with a handful of recommendations for books and for services for my kiddo, you know was we're going to go to OT and we're going to go to PT and we're going to go to counseling, all child focused. And so we did see, we got a little help for him and we got, you know, some growth in some areas, but we really weren't seeing a change in our family. We were not seeing relief, which we desperately needed, and so my husband and I were kind of at odds with each other. There was kind of this empty vacuum and this tension, and so it was, but it was this constant like coming together in desperation and then blowing up in desperation, and so for me the marker was when I finally started to get some coaching and some support for myself. I needed to get myself regulated, I needed to uncover and give my fears a safe place to rest, and I needed to find some coping tools for my own emotional regulation. My brain was on fire all the time. I didn't know this language then, right, but the way that it is described is my brain was on fire all the time and that was dictating my behaviors, and so it was just very volatile. It was like all in or all out all the time, and there was never this like continuity or sustainability or calm, and so I was still in our home.
Speaker 2:Still in our home, it was still just very dysregulated, and so that just led me on a path towards healing and discovery and curiosity and compassion, and I think for me the the breaking point was actually a really negative encounter in a restaurant with a family that was having a meal to booths behind us and I was used to getting criticism in public. Like my kid was loud and rambunctious, his ADHD combined type, so he's disrupted and he's all over the place. But he was very joyful, like he's very joyful human. And so I had taken a group of silly boys out to a restaurant and girl, I was not fancy, like we were out of dives A diner is drive-ins and dives Like it was a dive and the people in the the owners and the staff, knew us there because it was two miles from my husband's office. We used to just come in kind of hair on fire, wild family that would come and get their hamburgers, have a little fun and then leave and we tipped really well because they were nice to us, right.
Speaker 2:And a man and his wife literally blockaded me from getting out of the restaurant with my kids and ripped me from here to there about how terrible of a parent I was and I had ruined their entire dining experience and how rude and I am. What is wrong with the world. And it was that moment that, for whatever reason, I think the Lord allowed me to connect with compassion for that man, because my first thought was oh, how can joy make you so angry? Right, right. And it was that moment that I made a commitment to myself and to my son I will not be ashamed of who we are. I refuse to carry shame and guilt and condemnation of other people for something that's really beautiful. And that was my breakthrough moment, and from there it was just new levels of freedom, as I began to understand how the ADHD brain worked, how I learned to work with his brain instead of against his brain.
Speaker 2:That was the same week I gave away all my parenting books. I threw some of them away because they were just garbage, but the reality was I did not have tools that fit. I didn't have the resources that were appropriate for the brain that I was raising, and I needed to also have resources for my nervous system. And so that led me on a path towards how do I coach myself, how do I coach my kid and how do I coach other people.
Speaker 2:Because the reality is I can transform myself and I can have access to transformation for my son, but we still have to engage in a very critical world. And so what would it look like to help other people access curiosity and compassion and grace and mercy and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self-control and I lit up. I was like this is what I was made to do. I was made to advocate and I was made to encourage and support and equip. And so, through just years of evolution, I got certified as a life coach. I continue to take training for ADHD professionals and I just deliver content and I have one-to-one and group coaching for families that want to access like true, genuine, sustainable home in their bodies and in their homes and in their communities.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a really powerful story and a powerful testimony to those two components. It's interesting because one of our last episodes that came up in a conversation compassion and curiosity whatever we're facing in life, employing those things Right like you did in that restaurant with that man Okay, curiosity what would make someone so triggered and offended by someone who's joyful? Well, it's the opposite. It's someone who's miserable, right Like then. In that moment, you were able to access the compassion for him, even though I'm sure that was really hard because you probably wanted to tell him a few words.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And I for sure told him a few words in my own brain when I got in the car and gave myself permission to feel that pain right and experience somebody else's criticism, but really at the end of the day, understanding that that was his own hurt and his own pain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, something else that I heard in what you said was when you mentioned going home and throwing out all these parenting books and realizing maybe the answers that I need to find are actually within myself and if I can get myself to a regulated place, then I'm in the space to receive the knowledge and to actually intuitively know what resources to go to, as opposed to kind of taking some prescribed advice. Right, I think that we find that a lot in relationships too. I remember when Ryan and I were going through some major struggles in our relationship looking online how do I forgive, how do I get over this, all this stuff other people's advice and ultimately it was the work that I need, just like what you're saying. It was that what I needed to do to heal within myself was what opened the door then to the right tools and the right resources to really change my own circumstance, and it sounds like that's what you're saying in your story too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I think you know what you're describing is how we access the ability to navigate and innovate right In our actual lives, versus in what I think what ends up happening is out of like this emergency state to fix something, we go into fix it mode. I just need somebody to tell me what to do to make it better. And the reality is is that leaves the individual completely out of the picture in the puzzle, which I think is why I'm so passionate about coaching, because coaching is getting underneath the individual problem. Right, it's not taking the collective problem and saying this is your three step program to a whole new life. Right, I'm like okay, first of all, if anybody's promising you that that's garbage and you should just unfollow them.
Speaker 2:Right, and, like you said, I think there is so much more wisdom within us if we can pause for a minute and take a look around and create kind of a safe space for us to get curious and access that innovation and navigation part of our brain. Like is for human design, right, that's what I love about so much of what you share is this is part of human design. This isn't some far off woo woo theory, right, like we have the science that proves that the most curious people, people who are like infatuated with wonder, are the most innovative people, and most families, most relationships, need individualized innovation that comes from inside that unit, not from outside that unit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love what you're saying about the where you were talking about the three. You know three steps to have the perfect life in five minutes. If you do these things and I see that too in the coaching world and in the personal development world there's a lot of, and it's it is the way that a lot of you know buying behavior happens too, because people are looking for those quick fixes and fast answers because they're hurting, and I think that you know that's why we decided to call this podcast reinvent your relationship. It's not about repairing the same thing that you had before. It's different. And even in your family you had to reinvent your family. You had to reinvent yourself and the way that you interacted to create the environment of growth that you needed to create within your four walls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think what you're describing is that difference between behavior modification, which is not sustainable, right, and a truly transformed person that's sustainable because it's embedded in who you are and the things that are actually aligned with your weaknesses, with your strengths, with your actual like, operating within the reality that you exist in.
Speaker 1:So tell me, tell me a little bit more about when you were going through this. You mentioned briefly you guys would kind of come together to solve the issues that were happening and trying to like problem solve together, and then it would kind of like blow apart and then come back together, or what did that look like? What was that like navigating that as a married couple?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think you know, every relationship experiences stress, right, every marriage, every partnership. There's stress underneath relationships because real life is happening to us, around us, all the time. But I think what we didn't know at the time was the intensity of stress that we were living in all the time. There was no really like reprieve in that season, it was just it was on all the time. But, like I say, it felt like a fire hose, right, but we weren't putting the fire out, we were just kind of drowning.
Speaker 1:It's like you're the fish in the bowl and you don't even realize that you're swimming in water, like, oh, there's water here. No, this is just my environment. This is what's around and what's happening.
Speaker 2:And yeah, and that familiarity of your surroundings, right, Like I was living in chaos and so it was almost like we just managed the chaos, but not really right.
Speaker 2:Because, there was always this low level. Not low level was just always, tension was just always on, and so, you know, communication as a couple is already hard. Adding, you know, some significant issues that never turn off right. There's never a break and challenges that you don't know how to deal with. Yet lack of education around what you're experiencing, lack of community, because there's a lot of stigma around raising kids with ADHD, and then you bring like these two people who are like their own people, right, so my husband has his own person with his own stories and his own belief systems and his own, you know, ways of wanting to do things, his own default settings and then my own, right, and so in that you know kind of relational environment, like they're the and we were young, we got married young, and so our communication skills sucked anyways, not something that we were really good at, and so I think communication and understanding, like being able to effectively communicate with each other, wasn't happening. You know, was like my critical, on fire self was engaging with his critical and on fire self, and so I think there is something to say. Like, in emergency situations, we do see people able to kind of bridge that gap, come together, put out the fire, right, and then. But once that adrenaline rush kind of drops, we just disengage again, right, right. And so it was like parenting with him, but we were just missing the mark, right.
Speaker 2:And as a mom and a green personality, you know I was in research mode and so we would have arguments about why I was spending so much time disengaged from our relationship or parenting to. You know, I couldn't turn off my CSI brain, right. Well, like, how can I fix this? I need to solve the problem. I know there's an answer.
Speaker 2:And so I think there was also a longing for each other. Like we missed each other. We wanted each other, but the very thing we wanted was the very thing we would destroy, right, because we would come in hot and angry instead of being able to communicate. I just am longing for your attention, I just miss you, and I think, in an ADHD household, the other challenging reality beyond communication is that quality time is something that is very challenging to achieve, because, especially if you have combined type kids, there's just a lot of vigilance that has to happen all the time, and it's hard to trust people with your kids that are different. You already don't know what you're doing or how to parent them, or how to be kind and calm with your kids, who are, you know, just pushing the envelope all the time and you know, activating all your fear buttons all the time, and so really having to learn. And what was crazy is I think I bought into this lie that I will invest in our relationship when he does Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, waiting for the other person to warm up when you step up and then I'll step up.
Speaker 2:I need you to put me in the game.
Speaker 1:I need proof that I'm not going to put myself out there and you're going to bail on me, or you know what's so interesting about that is that then you have two people who are longing for connection with each other, but nobody's making a move, and it's just this big stalemate that happens. It's like, okay, where are we going from here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then that resentment creates a crazy cycle right of kind of, I would say, subconscious wounding, right, it's not like we woke up every morning and thought I wonder how I could hurt my spouse, right, but essentially that's what we were doing is living in this cycle of wounding. And so I think around that same time that I was accosted by the gentleman in the restaurant. It was kind of the point in my life where I put the stake in the ground and I was like you know, criticism can't have my marriage, I don't want to raise my kids alone and I am longing for intimacy with my husband, like emotional intimacy, and I want, I believe, that there's something better and different for us. And so it took me kind of dying to myself and dying to, probably, my fears and insecurities and all this other things, and kind of laying that down and saying, but what do I want more and what am I willing to risk to get there? Right, I was risking a lot. I was risking being rejected, which is like my number one core fear, right, is rejection from my storyline, and so the thought of being rejected by my own husband would hold me back from engaging in our relationship to promote healing right. It wasn't like I knew I wasn't going to be the one who would heal our marriage right, but I could access being a partner and promoting healing in our marriage, and had to start with me. I couldn't have an expectation even that he was coming with me.
Speaker 2:And so I think when I finally made that decision and realized like the only thing that I have control of in this life is me, I felt very empowered. I was able to kind of detach myself from results right and stop keeping track or tally, marking the wins and losses or activating my critical spirit. I could engage with more compassion for him when I was engaging with compassion for myself, and I could have access to what felt like dangerous conversations If my emotions and my nervous system were regulated and I could engage and enter the conversation with some undergirding of like calm spirit versus that spirit of attack. Right, I need to control you to feel safe and you need to do what I say to win for us. And so I think in that regard, that's what I am also really passionate about and why I'm so focused on the adults in the household, because being able to shift that in our marriage allowed me greater access to the energy and like the calm, cool and collected confidence in my mothering, because now I was getting that intimacy that you were talking about earlier with my husband right, craving that deep rooted connection versus the surface level. Fix the things, connection right and partnership shifted.
Speaker 2:We kind of we laugh now, but in that season we kind of did the radical. We took our calendar and we dumped it. We were like if it's not serving healing for our family in this calendar year, then we have to say no, because we are losing ourselves and we're losing each other. That's not what I want and that's not what he wanted ultimately. And so we canceled everything. We canceled individual endeavors, we canceled group endeavors, we canceled sports, we canceled gym memberships, we canceled all of the things, or kind of like this hard reset in our marriage. That said, we have got to figure out who we are as individuals and come back to the thing that we said yes to in the first place, because we had really lost who we were and why we had gotten married to begin with.
Speaker 2:And I think that ignited the opportunity to be friends again. Before we were firefighters, yeah, and it. I think it was slow. I didn't like it in the beginning, right. The beginning was I was very critical. I was like I don't know if it's going to stick. I don't know if I really want to invest, I don't know. And so I think every morning I had to wake up and make that choice. This is the commitment we made. It's worth the nine months to see if there's going to be change. I can't quit today, and so it was a daily, every single day for that year, to wake up and make the same choice over again at so timely this conversation, amber, because the last three podcast episodes that we recorded, we were talking through this cycle.
Speaker 1:It's kind of a cycle of transformation or cycle of change in relationship that we've uncovered and it works in its principal base. It works basically in any area you want to change in your life. But the first one that we talked about was to slow down, and that's what you did. You're like, okay, slow down, what do I want my life to look like and what do I need to potentially change, or who do I need to be to make that happen. And then the second one was decluttering, whether it's your physical space, your calendar, your circle of influence, what you're taking in in terms of, like, those parenting books that were not helpful. Okay, I've got to get rid of you.
Speaker 1:Intuitively, we're like this has to go.
Speaker 1:Let's clear out all the crap and create space for what we want to create. And then it's like after that, there's three things that we have to stop doing, and one is revisiting old stuff, old stories, right. And then another is complaining and blaming and actually looking being more solution focused than complaint or blame focused. And then the other one is and you mentioned this not keeping score, yeah, yeah. And when we can start to take those steps and we'll go further into some of those in future podcasts I'm not going to give away all the spoiler alert but when we start to take those steps, then we start to open ourselves up for greater connection and to allow things to come back together. And that's one of the things that I love that you said because that's really parallel to our story too is that we said okay, if this works out, awesome, yeah, great, we're back, things are jolting again, but we've got to just learn how to be friends and let go of some of this anger and resentment and even contempt that's going on, yeah.
Speaker 2:That is so real. I think you know I call that the critical spirit, right, and that's always an effort for your own brain to protect yourself, right. And so I think when we're not open to vulnerability and pain, we inadvertently close off the very thing we want the most right, and we live in that perpetual cycle of I'm crazy, I guess I don't know what else to call that that perpetual cycle that we jump on right, and that is the dying to self. Right, that is saying I'm willing to take a risk, I'm willing to experience pain. And if we're not willing to experience pain, we're also not willing to experience friendship and intimacy and the goodness that really we are promised. Right, Like an abundant life. And abundance is not in absence of challenge, right. It's not an absence of other people's messes, it's not an absence of my story or his story, right. We can't actually access abundance and fullness without both sides of that, without experiencing the pain and the frustration and the despair and the discouragement.
Speaker 2:But I think, the willingness to be open to repair when those things do happen and giving your brain permission to say, yes, aunt, Yep, that's probably going to happen, right, it's very probable in a relationship that you're going to hurt each other and how am I going to choose to wake up every morning? You know that is a phrase that I will die with and I will share with clients forever. It's like man. Do you really think that person woke up this morning bent on hurting you? Like their first thought today was how can I hurt my wife?
Speaker 2:And I think it changes you. It changes how you show up in the world, it changes how you show up in your relationships and I love the framework that you're talking about because it is transformative, it's life changing and it doesn't work in three weeks. This is a commitment that you. It's like downloading a new operating system right Into your DNA, into your brain, to where it becomes more natural and it's more of a primary response instead of a secondary response. But you know that fight or flight or fawn has been the primary response and we do have to actually work against that, Just like we go to the gym to work our bodies right. I love a lot of the work you guys do in the physical, mental fitness space. This is mental fitness one-on-one, Like how do we grow the muscle, so that that becomes more of our natural response versus the negative response.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So much of what you just said I wholeheartedly agree with, and I do think that life is always going to give us these moments Like what we call ice bath moments where you're just like your breath, it takes your breath away. Like that moment in the restaurant with that gentleman and you're like, oh, how do I even respond? You know, I'm sure you thought of 150 things, like you said in the car later. Yeah, I know I respond with this, with curiosity, with compassion, with grace, and then learning from those moments and being able to see life as your training ground and really receiving the gift in that moment too, and going. I want to help other parents who may be facing you know, I'm sure that's a common story, yeah, and probably with other clients that you've talked to and some of the things that you've faced in your marriage. I'm sure that you hear that stuff all the time, right, like we're so stressed that's all we ever talk about anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so being able to derive the gift in our own experiences to then pay that forward and help somebody else, because we're all sort of writing our own survival guide.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a part of our experience, because no two are like, no two marriages are like, no two individuals are like.
Speaker 1:And a lot of times I think it's a wonder as human beings when you look at all the you talked about programming and kind of like downloading new programming into yourself and, like you know, old bugs and glitches still showing up and then going, oh yeah, that's not who I want to be Right, and where did that come from? And all the rabbit hole that that creates. But when we look at our individual experiences and our traumas and the things that we've, you know, made meaning from in our life, it's really a wonder that two human beings can get along in the first place, that we don't kill each other, right, you're not wrong, you're not wrong. It's like whoa. So to be able to learn, to get to a place of a foundation, of a beautiful friendship, I think is always that should always be the goal, because that's always the thing that you have to rest on when you're going through these turbulent waters, when you're dealing with stuff in life that's unforeseen, unexpected, and just what do we do from here?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that such beautiful picture. Yeah, so do you have any pieces of advice for someone who's potentially going through a new diagnosis? Or maybe they've been, you know, it's been a while and they're struggling in their relationships still. What advice would you have for them, just based on your own personal experience?
Speaker 2:I think one of the biggest things that I want families to know is that when we are kind of hiding or or suppressing I call it secret keeping when we're not openly communicating what we're actually experiencing, we're contributing to the pain that is manifesting.
Speaker 2:And I think my greatest hope is that families will find an inch of courage to ask for help in whatever it is that they're initially facing, whatever it is that's brought them to the end of themselves, whatever it is that feels hopeless, that they would not allow that to stay in the dark and that it would find space on the table in the light, whatever that looks like.
Speaker 2:And there's, I think, a natural lie that we believe that it's not safe to share hard things, and what I want people to know is that that's a lie. It can be a challenge. It's a yes and right. It can be a challenge to find the safe places to bring what you have your brokenness right, and it does exist. Sometimes we have to trust the discomfort and get really curious about what that might look like, and I think what we'll find is the more that we choose to be vulnerable and honest about what we're actually experiencing versus what we think everybody else is capable of holding. That's where freedom is, and that is ultimately what I want for every family. And so if that means all you are capable of is sending a secret DM to one person that you feel like might get you, like, that could be the catalyst to the most radical change you might ever experience.
Speaker 1:Just crack the door open and I hear that in the message that you were saying about you and your husband as well. It's like crack that door open on your heart just a little bit, let a little bit of light in, and then open it, just gradually, begin to open it a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more, and it's amazing what can be created through just that very small shift.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love the language that you just used. I think sometimes we're looking for that miraculous cure and we minimize the simplicity of healing that can come with a small shift.
Speaker 1:And when you crack the door open it might slam back shut right away, and then you just commit to cracking it open again and you just keep starting back at square one and you just keep rebuilding that ability to find that curiosity, find that compassion. Allow yourself to love yourself first, to love others and then to be loved, and then it gets a lot easier to walk in your truth because you have that foundation.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think the other thing that I'm hearing you say is like don't give up too soon, right yeah. It's like your healing is worth pursuing. And your healing isn't even just about you, right, it's everybody that you encounter, because I think our healing rubs off on people, right. When people see healed people, they're like, oh, that could be for me too, right yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Well. I've loved this conversation. You've brought so much great insight wisdom to. I'm sure everyone listening is just going to have to go back and listen again, because there was a lot of really, really great words of wisdom that you shared For anybody who's wanting to find you online. Maybe they need some help and they've got some things going on with their family and want to find some resources. Where can people find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my website is a great resource. At her catalyst, coachingcom. I also spend a lot of time on Instagram and spend a little bit of time on Facebook. Those are primary places. If you search for Cal's coaching or Amber Schumacher, I'm sure I will populate somewhere Awesome and we'll put those links in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for taking the time today. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. It's always a joy to come and hang out with you.