The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids

Raising the New Earth Kids: Superpowers, Sensitivities, and Soul Lessons with Renee Boos

• Carrie Lingenfelter, CCC-SLP • Season 1 • Episode 86

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Are our kids here to heal us? Renee Boos of the Neurodiverse Community Center joins Carrie to share her incredible journey of raising a demand avoidant, highly intuitive son—and how his sensitivities became a gateway to both of their healing.

Renee shares her transformative journey as a parent of a demand avoidant child who taught her that everything she once viewed as "wrong" could actually be reframed as perfectly right. With raw honesty, she describes how her son's wisdom—expressed remarkably early—led her to question deeply held beliefs about normalcy, success, and what truly matters. "My son spoke at a very young age about how he had come from the nothing and that there were many like him that had chosen to come to this existence at this place in time to reset the balance here," Renee reveals.

The conversation delves into the historical value of highly sensitive people in tribal communities, where they were honored for their ability to alert others to dangers that weren't obvious. Could today's neurodiverse children be serving a similar purpose—guiding humanity back to connection and authenticity? We explore how parents can step into the unknown with an open heart, healing their own wounds to better support their children's natural gifts.

For parents feeling isolated while raising neurodiverse children, this episode offers both validation and hope. Discover why creating spaces where these families can simply be themselves without judgment is revolutionary, and how embracing our children's differences might be the key to our collective evolution.

Join us to transform your perspective on neurodiversity and perhaps discover that what society labels as challenges might actually be your child's—and your—greatest superpowers.

Connect with Renee Boos and the Neurodiverse Community Center:
*Website: https://www.neurodiversitycc.org/

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Connect with Carrie:
*Website: https://hearttoheartlife.com/
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*YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSpiritualParent
*Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Spiritual-Parent/61554482625081
*Email: info@hearttoheartlife.com

**Please remember that the information shared on this podcast is educational in nature and does not constitute licensed mental health advice. If you need such advice, you should speak with a licensed professional about your unique situation. Thanks so much happy listeners.

© 2024-2025 Heart to Heart Life LLC

Renee Boos:

I seem to be a magnet to demand avoidant people, being one myself, and it's my people, so I love it. But a lot of people that come to my center have that particular label and I see that, especially the children, they will not accept anything less.

Renee Boos:

You know they are demanding that we acknowledge a better way of being. They will not accept something mediocre anymore and thank goodness. And if you think back through time, you know there were always way back when, right when we were in sort of a tribal existence, let's say there were always the people that were highly sensitive, that were, you know, honored in those groups of people, because they were the people that would alert others to danger. They could sense things that weren't as obvious.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Hi Conscious Parents. It's Keri here and I am here with a little info about raising our mindful kids. I've got some tips and tricks about breaking free of the box and becoming who you are and teaching your kids how to do that. Along the way, join us Hi there and welcome back conscious parents. I'm so excited. I have a treat for you today. I have Renee Bowes here. She opened a. She's a change maker mama and I'm so excited to connect with her. She opened the Neurodiverse Community Center in Lafayette, colorado, and she is all about healing and changing changing the mindset of neurodiversity. Did I describe that correctly for you, renee?

Renee Boos:

I think I describe it differently every day, so you know, yes.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Okay, when it comes from the heart, I feel like it evolves right.

Renee Boos:

Yeah, for sure yeah.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yeah, so I'm so excited to have you and I think it's strengths and some of the challenges. But empowering our kids and finding labeling them In our house we call it superpowers our heightened sensitivities. Maybe that can sometimes make it hard to be in the body at certain times, but also we try to change the mindset and focus on the positive pieces of being so connected to being a human. Yeah, yeah, so I'm curious, right, being a human being in our human form, um, with our highly sensitive, amazing kids that came to us, um, what? What do you guys frame it? As in your house or in the community? How do you frame some of those pieces, those heightened sensitivities or those understanding? I feel like my kids can read the room, they can read other people, they're drawn towards certain situations. What do you guys frame that? As in your house?

Renee Boos:

I think for me you know, it was sort of a blessing and a curse that I realized very quickly with my son that I shared many of the sensitivities that he had, but mine had just been so heavily masked due to lack of a supportive environment and, you know, just adulting for so long. I had my son at 43 years old and he's my only child, so I didn't know anything about neurodiversity at that point. I just thought I was kind of a quirky person, I'd set up a life that fit me really well, I thought and I felt like I had a lot of control over that life. And then my son came and I was like wait a minute, this perfect life isn't perfect for him and and I I'm I'm kind of resonating with this it felt like his nervous system was just vibrating. You know, it was like tangible to me and I I was like there's a familiar hum here, but mine was like, you know, 20 miles back down the road and his was right in my face. So it was this sort of an awakening process for me. And then I had a lot of challenge with that in terms of, you know, answering your question. What did we call it at first? You know, it felt I'm going to be honest I had been conditioned to think that these things, these sensitivities that I had, were a detriment, and so I looked at them like a problem, initially in myself. And then, you know, when you have a child that mirrors some of the things that you see in yourself as maybe less than ideal you might think that they're less than ideal in a child, but, very quickly, ideal. You might think that they're less than ideal in a child, but very quickly.

Renee Boos:

That idea that my son was perfect. You know, I had this epiphany one day holding him and we had a rough time and he just looked so peaceful and so happy, which was kind of rare at that time, and I thought he is so perfect. You know, I knew it despite from the outside world, in our sort of conditioned environment and our peer group and my family and all of those things, we looked nothing like perfection on those kind of typical standards. But I looked at him and I knew he was perfect and I realized that if he was perfect and he came from me, you know, whatever that means, I don't know these days I'm really wondering about that and he and I have had lots of conversations about how we came to be in this relationship together. But whatever he was in me and was out of my body, my meat sack, and I thought, well, if he's that perfect, there might be a tiny bit of that in me too. Well, if he's that perfect, there might be a tiny bit of that in me too.

Renee Boos:

And it sort of changed the way I saw him, saw us, saw the sensitivities that we shared, and it kind of flipped the script for me, because the things that I had been conditioned to think were so problematic. I started to see them as gifts. But I'm not going to lie and say that that happened immediately. It didn't happen easily. It was sort of a dying to an old way of believing about things, a total sort of way of being in the world. But the rebirth is beautiful and so we really, much like you said, believe that these sensitivities are superpowers.

Renee Boos:

And now, with what I'm doing in the world with the community center, that was one of the big inspirations for me.

Renee Boos:

Starting is because when I came to that realization here in our home, we were quite isolated and I started to believe that this was not a unique occurrence, that these were superpowers, that these sensitivities were beneficial, and especially at this time in humanity's sort of experience, and so I was given a message, a literal vision and meditation to create a place for people to come together to lean into the beauty and the brilliance of these sensitivities so that they could be amplified and so that these, these gifts, this energy that we can tap into, that we can feel, like you said. You know, we can read the room, we can sense things. I think we are like mixed to certain frequencies so that we can amplify them together and I believe that it will change the experience that humanity has in the world. You know, and it may be by one encounter at a time, I'm not sure it's a great experiment. So that's why I'm doing what I'm doing and that's a really long-winded answer to your question.

Renee Boos:

But we think you're superpowers, and I see it every day with the adults, the teens, the young adults and the children that come to my space. It is evident, there is no doubt in my mind that what oftentimes the medical model deems as a deficiency, in the same breath could be seen as an extreme strength, a gift, something that is so needed, and I always say that everything that I see, that those of us, myself included, that have these labels, need to thrive. There hasn't been one exception and I've been looking for it. There has not been one exception to the fact that these things are better for all of humanity, these ways of being, this way of life. There is no doubt in my mind. So I think it's definitely a beautiful gift, a hard won one. Sometimes, you know, it's not easy to be in these bodies with these sensitivities. I'm not denying that it is not easy.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

You know it's's really interesting. I think I went through it sound. Thank you for sharing your story. It was a beautiful story and it's interesting because I I was a speech therapist and an elementary educator beforehand, so my, my previous education taught me to look for the errors in a person, to help fix those errors.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

That's what I was trained to do as a speech therapist right To diagnose and then treat. And so I constantly. When I had my kiddo, my son, who's now turning 10, when he was first born, I was constantly looking for what's wrong. What's wrong? Why is he crying? What's wrong, how do I fix it? And I wanted to label it or figure it out or diagnose it every single time.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Whereas now, and so much healing and so much spirituality and all of these pieces that you kind of mentioned that helped to get me to where I am now, also on a very similar path, using the podcast, whereas you're using a community center.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

It's really cool because I'm trying to share with the world that these kids are coming in a loud way to help us come back to some of the basic human pieces, which is connection, knowing ourselves, slowing down our lives, being within nature sometimes, if the kids are in that zone if we're having a good day. But yeah, those pieces that maybe you and I couldn't achieve when we were younger because we weren't allowed to be the high maintenance kid I think Brene Brown labeled it high maintenance kid of the 80s, 90s, 70s, I think when we weren't allowed to be like that. Now we're starting to understand and we have people like you and I out there trying to say let them be themselves, let's find their strengths, let's find how to support them so they can be who they truly are meant to be here, and we're learning from them. So I think that's a beautiful thing.

Renee Boos:

I think many of them at least. I'll speak from my experience with my son and you know I seem to be a mad, a magnet to demand avoidant people, being one myself and it's my, it's my people, so I love it. But a lot of people that come to my center have that particular label and I see that, especially the children, they will not accept anything less.

Renee Boos:

You know, they, they are demanding that we acknowledge better way of being. They will not accept something mediocre anymore and thank goodness. And if you think back through time, you know there were always way back when, right when we were in sort of a tribal existence, let's say there were always the people that were highly sensitive, that were, you know, honored in those groups of people because they were the people that would alert others to danger. They could sense things that weren't as obvious. And so I think that our kids function in much that way, you know, to try to direct humanity back to what it means to be in these meat sacks, these bodies, for this period of time on this planet, connected. I mean, I'm loosely tethered most of the time, but I had to realize I am here in this body, whether I like it or not. This thing doesn't work right for me a lot of the times or how I want it to, but it's my resonator, it's my vehicle for this time and I need to honor that, and I think that's a big challenge for a lot of people with these labels.

Renee Boos:

You know my son spoke at a very young age about how he had come from the nothing and that there were many like him that had chosen to come to this existence at this place in time to reset the balance here, and that people here were wanting to eradicate darkness.

Renee Boos:

But that was a mistake, because without darkness you can't know light, and that it was about the balance between the two. And he spoke about how difficult it was to come into these bodies because they didn't work right and the language could never communicate what he really wanted to say and he was like an Oxford scholar at one and a half, but the language, you know, there was no word for what he needed to communicate and so you know, it was like all of this high vibrational frequency trying to downgrade into this material manifestation and it's difficult. And we look at these kids like they're broken because they're not assimilating into this reality, this material world, this material vessel. But they're not broken, it's just a difficult, it's a generous and difficult challenge for them, you know I mean if you think about it.

Renee Boos:

As hard as it is to be a parent with a child that has a lot of needs. And believe me, I know my son didn't sleep more than two and a half hours until he was six and a half and I had to hold him for that sleep. So I slept none. I literally almost died. But you know as hard as these things were for me.

Renee Boos:

I had a son who could articulate at a young age that his body would not accept him, and it hurt, you know so yeah it's hard to be a parent, but I think that there are some very special individuals that are here at this time that are making a huge sacrifice to be sort of those, those souls, those beings that alert us to what is not working here and are attempting to bring humanity back into balance.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

That's such a beautiful way to describe it. Thank you so much, and I can't believe how in tune your son was able to express himself.

Renee Boos:

Beautiful, he told me once. So prior to doing the community center, I ran a fairly large interior design firm. I designed hotels and I would design like 40 boutique hotels a year. So you know I had a lot of staff at a purchasing firm. I felt like I was pretty good at all of the things that a type a person wants to be good at right. And so then I have this kid and I can't even take a shower. I can't sleep. We're like barely surviving. One of us isn't wearing pants that wasn't me, but you know that's how it was. I was about ready to get rid of mine too, because I wasn't leaving the house and.

Renee Boos:

I was holding him, you know, in our chair, where we would sit, and I would attempt to get him to sleep, which was so ridiculous because the kid didn't need to sleep. He had stuff to do during the night all these hours. I just thought, you know, you need your eight hours or you're going to die. Well, this kid was busy, he was doing something and he didn't need to sleep. So I would hold him and try to cajole him to sleep. And he looked at me and he he called me Renee, because when he was not even three, he said I'm'm not gonna call you mom anymore. And at this point he had like two sides to him. One was like an Oxford scholar and the other one was a little surly. So I was hoping that what he was gonna call me was gonna come from the one side, not the other. And I said so, okay, fingers crossed, what are you gonna call me then? And he said well, I've noticed you don't say child. Would you like breakfast? Child, would you like to come downstairs? You use my name, so I'm going to use yours out of respect, just like wobbled away. And I was like okay, well, that makes sense. This is going to be a fun life. You're going to break a lot of social norms and I can't argue with you.

Renee Boos:

But he said you know, renee, you are very inefficient. And I said you know, I feel really. But you should have seen me like five years ago, man, I was good. And he said you think I'm so smart. And I said I know you are so smart. He said it is not me, renee, I just know where to go to get the answers. You might notice I get a little quiet and look into my source, where every answer resides. You, on the other hand, you're looking outside of you and you act like your answers are attached to you by heavy chains and you spend all of your energy trying to pull them in. And I'm sitting there with a mouth wide open. Wow, looking at a kid. That's not even four or five, probably not even five. At that point he was probably four. Okay.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Wow.

Renee Boos:

And wondering where this wisdom came from. You know. And that's when I decided to not care if he ever wore pants again, ever ate anything other than plain noodles. I just, you know, I was like I don't. These are. These concerns are not the concerns that we should have.

Renee Boos:

He is concerned about the things that matter and I'm spending a lot of my life, force, energy on these things that do not matter at all. So he's been a brilliant teacher for me and really changed the course of my life in a huge way and I am very grateful and I almost died being his parent. So you know there's that.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Well, I'm glad. I'm glad you maybe have gotten sleep since then. Oh yeah, I'm glad you're up.

Renee Boos:

I'm back at it. It's him too. Like 13 hours a day, it's awesome.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Wow, that's amazing, that's amazing, wow. So that's quite a journey to have gotten to that place. I was gonna, you know, for I feel like I'm in a lot of telepathy or several telepathy groups now on Facebook, after telepathy tapes came out and kind of I feel like it's breaking down that box for us, right, it's really helping us with what. Your goal is similar to my goal in connecting with these families and trying to help focus, focus on what we're looking at and we're coming from our hearts and heart space. I'm finding there's parents in these groups and they're asking how to connect with themselves, how to connect with their kids. They they feel like a telepathy piece is a piece that they're seeing. What would you say to families that are starting to experience this, starting to mold, like to open themselves up to these ideas and pieces? What would you say that helped you?

Renee Boos:

I think my first, like the strongest advice I could give someone, is to let go of your conditioned beliefs about what is real. Let it go, because you can still come back to that. But if you can open yourself to believe that potentially more is possible than what you've been conditioned to believe, there is no harm in that. There's only possibility and potential. And so I would say, just be open and to let go of this. I think this goes hand in hand. You know, when we try to hold on to something that we think is true, I think oftentimes at least I'll speak for myself it comes from a place of fear. You know, we don't want to be vulnerable. We humans don't want to be vulnerable and we are afraid of so many things. And if we can let go, even for just brief periods of time, of that fear and become a little bit vulnerable and that is that is something that was very difficult for me, because I had a pretty traumatic childhood and I had armored myself pretty well and I was really good at controlling things, because that gave me this sense of safety, and so this idea of vulnerability was something that I didn't even want to interface with. But I have learned that the unknown. You know so when you don't want to be vulnerable and you're afraid, you want to know things. You don't like the unknown common sort of trend in our community with these labels, right, yes, and so the unknown is terrifying at times, but what I have found in my meditation practice really led me to this, this understanding, and, you know, tremendous personal healing occurred.

Renee Boos:

I know that the unknown holds much more promise than anything detrimental to me. Now I am certain. And if I'm not willing to step into the unknown, then there is so much potential that I am missing. And if I'm not willing to step into the unknown, then there is so much potential that I am missing. And so back to your question for these parents step into the unknown, just try it, you know. I believe it is safe.

Renee Boos:

I have found it to be nothing but safe in these instances. There is a beauty there. There there is love, there is the potential for the kind of connection that I think we were in this experience for, yeah, and our children can be our guides which is, you know, sort of changing that conditioned idea that as a parent, you're here to guide your child. As sure, in some things the mundane, you know you're going to teach them how to drive and how to hold a fork and all of that right. But I think that our children have the potential to guide us in these other ways, a huge potential to do that if we will. If we will honor what they're bringing and their knowledge, humble ourselves a little bit, step into the unknown with an open heart.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yes, embracing the unknown can be such a process to get to right. There's so much healing because you have to look at the inner child pieces as a parent. What is my need for this control? How much conditioning have I had myself as maybe a high maintenance kid that wasn't allowed to be like that as a kid, or maybe had the PDA yourself as a kid and didn't realize it, or we're a highly sensitive kid. It's. It's really interesting. I've started to fully embrace the unknown and I feel like as you do it more and more, it becomes so much easier and you're like delighted by what comes to fruition and it's like whoa, I didn't even expect this, I didn't even think this was a possibility, I didn't even know this would come my way, or things that you hadn't even imagined that come alive. So there's definitely.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Have you had part of that healing journey for yourself? I don't know. I know it's probably a long. My healing journey was very long as well and I was raised spiritually. I had a good, you know, a pretty stable childhood. There was a lot of control in my childhood but I know I see why I was in so much control because I had to be in control. Because I was in control. There's a lot of control to break for us and we still use those tools to come back when we're feeling that we're trying to control again. So, yeah, we're human, we're in this human, this meat body, I think you call it.

Renee Boos:

Meat sack, Meat sack. I'm trying to be nicer about mine. I'm like I actually feel you and like you now, but you are still a meat sack. Sometimes I'm like come on already. This is so limiting, let's get on with it here.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Those are my children. They're both like. I am limited in this meat sack. I'm ready to be 18. I'm ready to do my passion in life. I'm ready for my dream. Like they feel very limited at seven and almost 10. They're like I'm done. I'm ready to be an adult mom. Why, why isn't this going faster?

Renee Boos:

Yeah Well. I am an adult and I'm ready to be something else. So exactly what that is. But I'm trying. I'm spending a lot of time getting this meat sack to resonate at a higher frequency, that's for sure, because I know there's more potential and it's holding me back sometimes.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I love it, yeah, definitely I feel it this is great, yeah, so it was like a question was no worries, I was thinking you don't have to share all the pieces that you went through. But I think I think for me I came when my son was born. I was really trying to control the situation. I had told my husband I'm a speech therapist, I'm an elementary educator, I got this, I know this, I can do it. I don't. You know, you're good, you can backseat.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

But as soon as he was born and looked in our eyes, we were like holy smokes, our world is shaken, I know nothing. And then he, my husband, said he's beautiful, carrie. And he turned and looked in his eyes and he was like wow, we don't know anything. Both of us were just rocked to our core. Yeah, from that. And then, yeah, we have a little bit of that. You know the demand avoidance and the oppositional force as well. It's like the more we push, the stronger the pushback came. So there was a lot of healing journey for both my partner and I to figure out how to be more of a cooperative participant with our son, to hear him to connect. Did you feel like you had to heal pieces of you and your journey to get where you're at?

Renee Boos:

Yeah, most definitely. We are a family of three, autistic, demand avoidant individuals, and I'm also ADHD, so I've got a sort of characteristic there, and we didn't know anything about any of this when we started this journey, and so it was quite a learning experience for us. This desire for control was very strong in all three of us. Even the tiny infant decided that he was going to sort of direct how things were going, and we were strong oppositional forces initially. It didn't take us very long, I think, as I talked to others, to come to terms with the fact that that wasn't going to work. I mean, for me it was pretty quick to. I think it was that resonance that I could feel. I'm a very energetically sensitive person, highly intuitive, I channel sometimes. Now I think I'd been doing it for a long time and just didn't know what it was, and so I would get these messages that would help me to understand what my son needed, and and it was actually what I needed too understand what my son needed and and it was actually what I needed too. And so it was a. It was a long. It was a long and short healing journey.

Renee Boos:

I think mine happened. I had to lose almost everything in that journey and I lost my business. I lost friends and family. We were extremely isolated. I didn't leave my house for more than an hour or two a week for like six years when I'd been traveling you know, 25 days a month with my previous career. So I had to sit with myself and with my son in a home alone and sort of acknowledge what was painful, what I was resisting. I had to think about why my son was relentless. He is the strongest person I've ever encountered and I am no weakling.

Renee Boos:

But, that kid. He's amazing. He will not accept mediocrity in anything, and so I wasn't really allowed to take a long time to heal. I was forced to heal quickly and I received these drops of wisdom, you know, seemingly out of nowhere, from my son, which were absolute gifts. You know, they would come at just the right time, Just when I was feeling the most broken. I would get some insight that came from don't know where, because we were not. I grew up Catholic and I was not practicing, and so I didn't know anything about anything that he was talking about. But he would say things and then I would. I would feel that they were correct, Like I would feel the energy behind what he was saying, and then I would look into it and I would be like my goodness, this is in like five spiritual texts.

Renee Boos:

You know, I mean no doubt this is no joke, this is truth here and I have a little messenger, a relentless one, and so I'm going to listen. But yeah, it was. I got very sick, I think, from just. I think it was sort of a reconditioning of my meat sack, to be honest. Yep, it dissipated a lot, almost to the point where of no return, and then it transformed pretty miraculously and so, as scary as that was, for me it was a true healing. I remember I had a moment where I was, where I was feeling like everything that was wrong I love I hate that word now but then I was using a lot right and wrong, good and bad. Everything was wrong. I love I hate that word now but then I was using a lot right and wrong, good and bad, everything that was wrong about us was my doing, my fault.

Renee Boos:

And then I had this epiphany, in this moment of desperation and meditation, that everything that I was thinking was wrong could also be framed as everything that was actually right, and it was just a matter of perspective, kind of like my son spoke about darkness and light. It's a matter of perspective.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yes.

Renee Boos:

And so my perspective changed many times and like, with these you know acknowledgements of this fact and then my healing journey would progress. So it was. It's been an amazing. My son's turning 10 next month and it has been an amazing 10 years. I tell him I'm so thankful for him because I was like a millionth of the person I was before I met him. Yeah, you know, I'm so grateful, very grateful.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yes, yeah, I. It's really interesting. The gifts that we receive raising these amazing kids and the challenges that we go through sometimes can bring us to such a beautiful place. As you described, hardest things for my partner, my husband and I, has been losing friendships, feeling isolated. I think what you're doing with building a community is really special, because I think so many parents of neurodiverse kids can feel so isolated, especially if you have kids who maybe mask outside in society. In school my kids they go to a social-emotional-focused school, project-based learning school near us and every time I mention things to teachers they're like what? I never see that. So that's how my kids are, where they're holding it together during the day. That's how my kids are where they're holding it together during the day. But then at home it can feel so isolating because it looks like the perfect picture from outside.

Renee Boos:

I didn't experience that as much because my son really never had to mask because he's been unschooled from the beginning.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yeah.

Renee Boos:

So because you know it was not my intention initially, I did not even know such a thing existed, but it's what he needed, so I was fortunate enough that I could do that. The NCC was really born of that same idea. Like so often, our children and us as their parents, our family unit we're forced to present ourselves in a way that's acceptable to those around us, present ourselves in a way that's acceptable to those around us, and sometimes those around us.

Renee Boos:

What works for them doesn't work for us or what they think works for them definitely does not work for us, and so, like you said, it can be very isolating and my concept, my sort of my inspiration for the NCC was there are many places that you can go, especially if you acquired labels in life, to get fixed, to work on your challenges right, and we all come into this meat sack with a bucket full of challenges and hopefully, I think, like 25 buckets full of gifts. But I think we're really conditioned to look at that one bucket full of challenges and work on that before we really focus on these gifts. The gifts are taken for granted. The challenges are where the focus goes and oftentimes for our children they have, you know, they're in five, six, seven therapies a week and they're focusing on all of these challenges and they don't have much time to lean into their gifts because they're masking so heavily that when they come home and have some freedom, it's just meltdown, you know, let it all out time.

Renee Boos:

So, it is isolating. Yeah, so I thought with the NCC I'd like to create sort of a home away from home for people, where they can come in with their bucket full of challenges. But we're going to, we're going to ignore that one when we're together and you bring your 15 buckets full of gifts and let's dip into those things and let's do them together with no judgment, however you want to do them. So when we have an event at the ncc, I might call it like art night. But what happens at art night is someone takes a nap, someone's hungry, so we cook in the kitchen.

Renee Boos:

Somebody else wants to stargaze in the backyard. Someone else is showing off their car that's powered by depleted uranium in the front parking lot. Someone might make a piece of art, but there's no like conscripted idea of what that is. I mean, someone conjoined three stuffed animals the other day and that was their art experience. It doesn't matter, we just come together and we do what we wish, or nothing, or some combination of all of it, in non-judgment of one another. Yes, I try to hold the frequency of love in that container.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

You know just the idea of this beautiful acceptance that we all deserve yes, you know, as a parent raising kids that are neurodiverse, it was so beautiful to come to your center and we came on the opening day to check it out, and my husband and I. It was really interesting because we both said, wow, I don't feel like I'm trying to restrain my kids, I'm trying to keep them in the box that society expects them to look like. Right now, I feel safe. Right now. Both my husband and I said we feel safe for our kids. They can act the way they want, they can behave the way they want, they can be free. And we felt free as adults, as the parents. It was really cool. You did a wonderful wonderful job.

Renee Boos:

That's what's happening and I can say that things have evolved significantly since that opening day there has. There is definitely this palpable feeling, and I'm not the one saying this it's amazing people come in thinking it's a retail store or something. So I don't have enough money for a great sign and I'm not maybe not even going to put one up, because it's awesome that random people will come in and they'll step like five feet in the door and they'll go what is this place? What is, what are you doing here?

Renee Boos:

yeah, it's beautiful my gosh, it feels so wonderful and they're perplexed and I tell them, and they know, then they're in tears and they want to volunteer. And then they tell me that you know, maybe this're in tears and they want to volunteer. And then they tell me that, you know, maybe this is their neurotype, they're curious about it. And there's definitely the concept, the message I was given and I just had the container and enough crazy to try to do it with no money and you know, no help. So you know that's it.

Renee Boos:

But you know that's my MO, so let's do that, let's give it a go. It has done exactly what I was told it needed to do.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

For sure it is a beautiful experiment about what is possible so much for sharing your journey and your family and how you've found this whole piece of you, how you found NCC, how you followed this path that you were led along. I love the courage you had to do all of that and thank you for sharing your Changemaker journey with us. It was beautiful to hear.

Renee Boos:

Thank you. Thank you for giving me the chance and thank you for what you're doing. It's so wonderful that we can all now come together and just openly share. It's such a gift, you know. It's what we learn from each other's lived experience, I believe far surpasses anything that we can find elsewhere. You know, we are meant to help each other and by sharing our stories, I think we do that.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yes, yes, it's beautiful, so it continues on the path. Thank you, renee. Yeah, thanks. Well, that's a wrap. Thanks so much for tuning in. Changemakers. This is Keri, and if you haven't done a review for us five stars and a little few words about what you've enjoyed in our podcast episodes we would really appreciate it. If you guys would like to ever message me, I would love any questions you have or any feedback at info at hearttoheartlifecom. We also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share it's hearttoheartlifecom. Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times. Changemaker families. Bye.