Episode 014 with Laura Crowley

In this episode, Rebecca is joined by Laura Crowley for an honest conversation about identity, growth, and navigating change. Laura reflects on how life’s transitions can shift your sense of self and the challenge of balancing different roles and expectations.

Together, they explore the importance of self-awareness, trusting your inner voice, and allowing yourself to evolve. This episode offers a reassuring reminder that it’s okay to change and redefine what feels right for you.

www.lauracrowleyconnect.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Aiden Equips, the podcast that shares real stories, practical tools to help parents, carers, professionals feel equipped on this journey of raising and supporting neurodivergent children, young people. Whether you are tuning in with a coffee, whether you're driving in the car, you're doing, you're coming back from the school run, or you've got a very rare and very precious quiet moment. I'm so glad you're here and choosing to listen to us today. I am truly delighted that we are joined by Laura this morning. Laura has recently and is speaking again as our keynote speaker for the second year in a row at Eden Consultancy at our conference. Laura is an autistic consultant, author, lecturer, the founder of Laura Carly Connect, a service that supports autistic children, teenagers, and the families and professionals around them through training resources programs, over 25 years of experience working with young people, own lived experience of being identified as autistic in adulthood. Laura brings both professional and personal insights to her work, passionate about creating accessibility, practical, neuroaffirmative approaches to help young people feel understood, supported, and able to engage in the world in ways that make them feel safe and it's authentic to them. I know so many of you will be excited that Laura is speaking with us today. And Laura, I'd shared this with you. And I know you'd even express how nice it was to feel to hear that at our last conference the feedback that we got the most was more Laura. So here you are. More and more and more of Laura. So really a deep, deep thank you for giving us time today.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

It is my pleasure. I'll be honest, I was really surprised when you reached out again. I was like, they want me back. So it was really, really nice, really, really nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

And honestly, I think even from like a personal point, like that moment for me last year was just so incredible of like learning so much. I could, there was such an energy in the room when you were speaking. Of like, I was like, genuinely that whole phrase of oh, you could hear a pin drop, like, and I spoke to so many parents and carers afterwards who things you said have just like lived with them in beautiful ways. Of like you spoke truth and authenticity. And yeah, we're excited to hear what you're bringing again to us tomorrow. When we're recording this, it's it's tomorrow. Um, there are so many different avenues. Like when I was trying to think about I knew you were coming on the podcast, and I was like, oh my gosh, great. And you know, like when we were with with Emma as well, it's a gosh, this could be nearly like a six-part episode that would be exhausting, so don't worry, we're not doing that. But um, there's lots of things we could focus on. But I would love to do this first part of our episode um talking about what you are speaking in at the conference this year. Um, the title that you're speaking on is Safety Before Skills, Why Autistic Support Must Start with the Nervous System. I heard that, saw that, and thought, yeah, brilliant. Like so good.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

I I think it comes from a really personal place, actually. Um, so if I can go back to maybe three, three and a half years ago, I was working three jobs at the time. I was working part-time in my consultancy for a charity and also lecturing at night. Um, and it came to about October in that year, and I wasn't sleeping. I was my diet had gone absolutely atrocious because I was just constantly carbloading because that felt safe. Um, and I was in a space where I thought something, there's something drastically wrong here. Something has to change. Um, and I I read a book, it was called Rushing Woman Syndrome. Oh, it's a brilliant book. Any women out there, I highly recommend that. Yes. And I realized from that book that I was in what we call SNS dominance, which is sympathetic nervous system dominance. So I was spending most of my time in fight, flight, freeze.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

And there the effect that that was having on my body was that my brain was in effect mush at that stage. I was finding it really difficult to concentrate, really, really difficult to do the simplest of tasks. I couldn't take in any any new information. I was really, really floundering. So I stood back and I said, right, we'll make changes. And while offloading certain things was a huge part of it. So I gave up lecturing, I gave up um the work with the charity and I just worked for myself. The other section of it was working on my nervous system. Okay. And figuring out, well, how do I get myself out of this?

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

And I spent the next uh five months really focusing on my nervous system. And then it was cue for me to go full-time into my consultancy. And I just started to apply the same things to my consultancy as I had to myself. And here's what I noticed that my clients were more regulated, they were excited to come in, they were taking in the information, they were assimilating it, using it much more easily than before. So when we're in that, I talked about SNS and there's SNS and PNS.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

So SNS is your sympathetic nervous system, and we think of that as our big anxiety-driven response or big emotional response of fight-flight-freeze fawn. Okay, fawn being people pleasing. And as a recovering people pleaser, I, you know, I really, really empathize with that one. Um, and then we have the PNS, which is your your um parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest and digest. So we want to be in a space where we spend the majority of our time in our PNS and dip in as needed to keep us safe into our other sections.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

But how do we get there? I was just thinking that. How do we get there? I was just thinking.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

And it's only when you're in that PNS state that you can retain information, you can learn, and you can use the skills that you have to your best ability.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Yeah. And that is such a like, there's so many thoughts here, my brain and I hearing you say so much of this. The first is like we call the the topic of this conference beyond the noise. And we were chatting about that with Emma of like life's getting noisy, and like our nervous systems are essentially just completely on fried. They're absolutely fried because of maybe like information or the speed of life that we're living in or whatever that might be. And then even hearing you say, Well, here's these key parts of like when we're in our in our parasympathetic nervous system, it's like that learning that rest and digest, we can connect with others. And how much what I was thinking there, how much expectation there is on every human being, but I'm thinking of our littlies, of our children and young people to always be in that state when a lot of them potentially aren't in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

And I was a 43-year-old woman, yeah. You'd think you'd have those skills by then, but a lot of us don't, right? Yeah. Um, and I think that's I always come at it from a perspective of what would I want little Laura to have had?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Yes, I remember that saying last year.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Yeah, what would little Laura and I always question, and I have two little Laura's. Yes, yeah. Um, but I always question what would what did I need? Right. Um, and and this is what I needed. So I think what people need to realize is that when you're living in that state, and a lot of our children are living in that state because the autistic nervous system particularly is highly um reactive. We know this the amygdala is different in the autistic person, and the amygdala is your center in your brain. You have a left one and a right one, they're kind of between rears to the back of your head here. Um, they're the emotional center in the brain, and they are where you're getting your fight, flight, freeze, fawn from. Um, but we know they're more reactive in the autistic young person and and individual. We know this, so they are at a higher likelihood of experiencing these things, and also the world is not built for us. The world is a very sensory-rich environment, it's unpredictable at the best of times, and it's not um, we are a neurominority and it's built for a neuromajority. So, I think from my perspective, when I change the way I look at things, everything you look at just changes. You ask the right questions, you'll get the right answers. And this for me was the way to change how I was feeling, how I was able to cope, and the things that I was able then to achieve.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

And I wonder, even so many adults listening to this, you know, the way that you're like, Oh, as an adult, I should know. Oh, I think should is the worst word, isn't it? Should know immediately if that's ever been an stop. Yeah, it's really shameful. You should know this. But I'd like to even think about you know, people are saying that, well, you're an adult, so I I'm thinking about so many adults who reach that stage of like burnout, you know, whatever for whatever cycle or wherever they get, and like you said, you took off like loads, set plates down, whatever analogy you want to use. But if you hadn't addressed then your nervous system and worked with your own nervous system, you could go back to doing one thing instead of three things, and your body's still reacting that way because you haven't actually uh gone to the source. And I think so many adults we we live like this, don't we? That we're like, it's okay, this period's coming, and I'll set it down and I'll be okay. And then you just pick it all back up, and your your nervous system hasn't figured out a different way.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

No, it's it's putting a plaster on a broken leg. Yeah, it is. Yeah, like here, that'll do for now. Yeah, yeah, like all on. I took a rest this afternoon, sorted. Oh my gosh, yeah. Um but it is, it's you know, it's true. We have highly reactive nervous systems, and I think, as you said, there's so much noise. And I think particularly for parents, um, I think we live in an age where public services, I'm not sure what it's like up here in the north, but in the south, public services are kind of like hens' teeth at the moment. Yeah, where are they? Um, so public services are non-existent. Parents are feeling so guilty that they can't do more, they don't know what to do. Um, and when you asked me to speak, I was like, all right, I'm gonna bring something that is something that is simple enough that people can remember it and impactful enough that it makes a difference.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yes, yeah, and that's beautiful, isn't it? Simple and like impactful. Because I think what you're saying is if I'm a parent listening, I like the irony of, and that was what I find so challenging when planning the conference, the irony of here's the day with more information, you know. I know, but actually that's exactly what you and and Emma then have done of creating these keynotes that are really informative, but like my brain can retain this.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

It's asking it's asking you to ask yourself the right questions, yeah, so that you can pick the right pathways. Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

So, what are those questions, Laura? Like, where how is it how is it simple? How are we taking it?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Uh so I suppose my whole talk in the conference will be about the three C's. So um, we were laughing about this earlier. I was saying that I asked my husband, what do you think the three C's are? And he was like, But the three C's are comfort, communication, connection, and there's a little C minor that floats around all three, yeah, and that's curiosity. So we lead with curiosity into all three sections, yeah. Um, and comfort really is about that sense of sensory safety. Um, it's not about making life easy, it's about making life possible. And that's what I, you know, it's because when people hear comfort, they're like, Well, my child is very comfortable. And I'm like, it's not about the cushions and the pillows, it's about the sensory safety they're experiencing in the different environments, it's about predictability, it's about autonomy, it's about choice and individualized control, it's about like stripping it back and asking, how do I create comfort for my child in this moment, whether that moment is in the supermarket, in school, in church, in you know, wherever it is, how do I create comfort right now?

SPEAKER_01 12:05

That's a really good perspective there, because sometimes we'll hear things like that and be like, here's my safe place, or my young person is comfortable at home in their room under a blanket with their two favourite cuddly toys, just like me, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like there are those like in like beautifully beautiful and important spaces. However, that's important too. Yes, it's absolutely vital.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Yeah, but if I'm in if I'm in the supermarket, yeah, I'm not often thinking about comfort for a child in a supermarket, you know, I'm like survival, but actually it's such a good way to so even like when I'm out with Big Boss, um she which is my eldest, she hates waiting. Okay, waiting is really hard for her and always has been. But one of the things to create comfort for her is I gently cup her jaw. Now, to anybody else, it might look like I'm mangling her, but she loves this. Okay, yeah, and I just give pressure in her jaw and she will open and close her mouth and press against my hand, yeah, and that gets us through a queue. And that's the sensory comfort factor to create safety in that moment when waiting is hard. All right, so that's that's comfort, it's also predictable. You know, I'm saying when we get to the top of this queue, we'll be seeing some video, and then we're gonna go here. So I'm giving her little things and then trying to build in a little bit of autonomy. Do you want to wait with me here, or would you like to go sit in that chair while I'm cueing? You tell me, right? That's comfort. So, and then when we're talking about communication, yeah, we need to remember. So, communication is so big and um it it's huge. But I think you know, tomorrow when I when I talk about this, it'll be kind of the cliff notes because you can't do everything. No, but communication is it's expressing that there is more to communication than simple words, because that's the neuronormative form of communication, right? But for autistic people, communication is withdrawal, silence, uh, movement, uh stimming, it's direct communication, you know, it's um maybe it's um phrases, maybe it's snippets from their favorite movie, right? Uh it's all of these things, but it's also distress, it's also withdrawal and avoidance, and that's all communication as well. So it's about really looking at instead of saying, What are they saying? What does it mean? Yeah, that's good. So, like, you know, I I was saying to you, I was in a school ages ago, and um they were sitting around and they were doing uh a thing in the morning, an emotions thing in the morning, and they all said, Oh, I'm happy. And I was sitting there going, Not one of those children is feeling happy this morning. They're all incredibly dysregulated. But that was taken because the words said yeah, I am happy. Whereas I was looking beyond the words, I was saying these kids are actually communicating that they're not at all, they're not in that safe zone. Right. Um, so it's about looking beyond and asking the right questions. Um, and for for families and stuff, I I do an exercise with parents, especially with teenagers, where I ask them to start a notebook, a communication notebook with their kids. Yeah. And it's kind of like fight club. The first real fight club is you don't talk about fight club. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't talk about the notebook, we don't say the notebook exists. Right. They buy a little notebook, they put a note in the front of it saying, This is a special place for us.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

I'd love if you wrote back, but only when you're comfortable too. I'll take this every day and I'll put a note in about my day. And I ask the parents, be real in it. Give a range of emotions that you felt. Yeah. Your day was not all sunshine and roses. Absolutely not. Um, and I do this with teens, and a lot of teens really love it because they can really see that their parent is trying to reach them, right? And they're communicating with them in a way that's not um too stressful. It gives them a delay in when they have to respond. And I remember doing it with one 11-year-old girl, and uh she we met up and she hadn't talked to me for the first three months of our appointments. We had text across a table at a coffee shop.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

And she was into talking to me at this point, and she said, My mum has a notebook that she talks to me through. And I said, Oh, and she said, I bet you that was you, was it? And I was asking I was like, I don't know. Uh and she I said, Do you like it? And she said, Um, yeah, I love it. She said, I really love it. And I said, Oh, you have you written back? And she's like, No, I'll keep waiting another while. And I'd been going like about two months at this point.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

But get on the apparent thing. She did work, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

You know, she it did work and she did start opening up more.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

And I'm just thinking about like how important that is to then think, you know, it's creating that neuroaffirming practice that we're realizing, you know, like we need to realize this a lot quicker, but that not everyone's brain is communicating the same way around emotions or feelings, or and that's why it's so challenging because so often then we're sitting down, communicating, like like we nearly are at the minute, of like sit down and or maybe say it's like in that you know, practitioner in vertical kind of level of like across the table and a child sat to me, How are you feeling today? Don't know if I'd be able to like actually you know get and for so many of our young people we're expecting this, and then it is uh signed off services because maybe they're not engaging or anything. Like you're giving that example of that young person there who so many other services would be like they're not engaging, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

But you learned how to see her communication, we text communicating, you know, and there was days she didn't turn up, yeah. And I, you know, I sat there with my hot chocolate and my coffee and and waited, and and she didn't, but we did get to it, and I think it's the patience to to put that in and find communication strategies that worked for her. Um, and the days when she wasn't communicating, it was about watching what she was communicating in other ways for me, and then trying to tap into that. Um, so I think there's loads of different things, and I'll always remember that that particular girl gave me a compliment that I I don't think I'll ever forget, and it was that um that I was uh sunshine yellow in her head, and I was like, Oh my god, that's that's so lovely. That was very her you know, she's like if you were colour, I was like, Oh my god, that's that's so nice, lovely compliments again. I'll take that. Yeah, yeah, um but yeah, it's about learning, I suppose, the way in which we communicate has to change according to the individual, right? And that us just thinking in terms of words won't always be the way it has to be, you know. Um and looking at how how do we figure that out.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

And then a huge part of that is must be and has to be that final C of I'm connecting, so connection piece because even you saying that that a young person is describing you as sunshine yellow, my brain goes to you've made that young person feel seen and valued, you've connected with them. It's that relational safety.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Okay, so is that that connection then is talking about relational safety, and that's where you find the real nuggets of gold for learning. Um, and I I had a situation where I was in, I was in Boots pharmacy uh shopping um this about two months ago, and this woman was coming towards me and she was about 70, I'd say, but I got this overwhelming urge to ask her if she'd been a teacher. Okay. So I just said, excuse me, randomly. I was like, excuse me, you were you a teacher? Are you a teacher? And she said, Oh, I'm retired. And I said, Oh, where where did you teach? And she said, I taught in such and such a school. And I went, You're my French teacher. Oh, no way. And she kind of looked at me and I was like, You won't recognize me now. I said I had dark curly hair in school and I would have been quiet. And but I went for a coffee afterwards, and I was like, Why did I ask her that question? And it all came flooding back because she was my French teacher, and I always remember her smile, it was her smile I noticed, and she made me feel so safe in that class. There was no public uh corrections, there was no big shouty voice, it was always very soft, um, it was always very supportive. If um and languages were hard for me. I I don't get languages easy at all. Um, I struggled with Irish, um, and but she made it so safe that I learned and I did very well in French because of her. You're probably in your PNS, then if you're able to learn and engage. My PNS, yeah. Yeah. So I actually wrote even a blog about it because I was like, why did I ask her that question? But I felt safe when she smiled at me, you're nervous in front of me. My nervous system went, I know that smile. Amazing, Laura.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Yeah, and like that, it makes me feel so emotional when I hear those stories like genuinely, because I think we sometimes lose that in society of like the importance of that. So it wasn't you didn't feel that because you were like, I was amazing at these subjects, and I was really good, so therefore I was I was her favourite, and da da da da da. It was like even you being like, you probably don't recognise me or remember me, but here's how and I think that is one of the most powerful things. We had Danielle on um a few episodes ago, an incredible autistic young woman, and she was sharing the story of the lollipop lady. She that was the one person she had a really tough journey, really quite traumatic journey in school and growing up, and she said the lollipop lady was her connection person. Her safe said hello, um, smiled at her, said the same kind of things to her every morning. She was saying, exactly. And I just there as more and more of those stories happen, I'm like, isn't don't we overcomplicate it sometimes?

SPEAKER_00 21:44

But it only takes one good adult, right? We don't need the whole school to have relational like connections with each student. We need one good adult and and the levels of EBSA right now are huge. Phenomenal, and I would say a large proportion of my clients are are struggling with it. Um, and I've had situations where a principal and a vice principal went up to a child's bedroom to try and guilt them to coming back to school. That's not safety. No, that's the opposite of it. That child will never return to that school. You know, I've had situations where I've had a girl who had gone to multiple schools and was really eager to get back to school and went in to meet a principal, only for the principal to say, um, the mum said, Well, what do we do if she's struggling to get in? And he basically said, Well, it's 100% attendance or nothing, you're not welcome here otherwise. That's how do we tell a child they're safe in that environment?

SPEAKER_01 22:42

It's like 101, you're not safe. That's what we're saying. Because I'm thinking if like flip that to an adult world, if I was reached by that, if like say they end up an interview or something and they were like, and I would maybe share with them, say I was at a space I could share, and I was like, I I can have real, like I really struggle with my anxiety sometimes, and that might then present itself like X, Y, Z, and they're like, Well, we need you here 100% of the time, or we don't want you. Exactly. I would go, Well, thank you very much. Yeah, uh, withdraw my interview, please, from this process. I'm out of here. Because like, I just I can't I can't fathom that in the adult world because you would never allow it to happen. No, and yet here we are, yeah, multiple stories and conversations.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

I think it comes from like we need to look at learning through through connection rather than correction, because we're building our premises of our whole education system on control, yeah, yeah, and and constant redirection and creating molding these children who really they're not, you know, that's not how we want our children to grow up. Um, and it's not how I want my child to grow up. Uh so I think connection has to be a key part, and I can see it working. Like I have one gorgeous girl who is part of a knitting circle in her school, and she goes knitting now for her breaks. Gorgeous. Because it creates parallel connection. Yeah, you don't have to talk.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Yes, that's a huge thing for autistic people.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

On Instagram about that, and I was like, what a great way to talk about it. So parallel parallel connection is actually a really valid form of connection for autistic people where you are sitting beside someone, but you're not necessarily talking or doing the same thing, even you could be both doing something completely different, yeah. Um, but that's valid. Yeah, and think about that again.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Like, I can think of so many times in my life, like my my safest people that my nervous system feels deeply safe with, of like my husband or like my best friend, and it's those jokes that you say of like, oh, like your best friends are people that you feel safe enough that you like have a nap when you're near them, like because it's that parallel connection.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

We're not talking all the time because you're safe, your nervous system is at rest, you don't have to fill the space. Um, and it's about figuring out how do we how do we connect without doing the neuronormative tell me you're you know kind of feeling it's think about what we can do, right? But it's more about um authenticity and taking the person where they're at and just acknowledging them for the fabulous person that they are. Yeah, people when you feel seen, it's transformative.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

And that's at the heart of it, isn't it? For I think human beings, like and well, from an evolutionary standpoint, if you think about it, right? From an evolutionary standpoint, we were supposed to be in packs, we didn't survive alone. Okay, so we are hardwired to find connection. Yeah, so yeah, then when you think about the loneliness epidemic we have for the kills who are out of school, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't have that connection, literally created for a connection, yeah. It is it is an internal need that isn't being met.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

And then we lose that and we we then we miss that step. So if I'm your teacher or your one-on-one or whoever I am in your life, my my biggest, my biggest, most important task should be how do I connect with this young person? Not okay, here the thing I like you know, get to connect with those kids.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Yeah, because one of the things I get parents to do before they come to me with their kids is I do a one-on-one with the parent because I vehemently disagree with talking about a child in front of a child. Yes, I hate it. Um so, but I I had a new client on boarding the other day, and I thought that the child was coming, and I was panicking because I get them to fill out forms so I know all about the child first. But it was actually the mum arrived, so it was perfect. But I say to her, I like to make million notes about what you said about your child so that I know how best to communicate with them, what parts of my office I need to focus on. Oh, nice, yeah. Um, because my office is set up to provide that sensory safety and the comfort element. So I have like multiple types of seating and um multiple types of fabrics and cushions and blankets and weighted blankets and fidgets and even the colours, etc. But I was like, I was panicking because I had no material on which to connect with him. And she was like, Oh, he's coming next time. I was and he's she's like, I'll have everything for you. And I was like, that for me is what I need because you can then connect, and it looked like I'm just sitting there having a chat for an hour, but that's but it's very, very tailored and structured to that young person, Laura.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

It's there's just so many golden moments in that those conversations that I know moments that people will just adore and take into. So those three C's comfort, communication, connection. Laura, thank you. The C minor within that and the C minor. Yes, absolutely. Of curiosity, you've got that. I love that you call that the C minor. That's so it just floats in my head there when I see it, it floats around all three. Really hear that. We lead with the curiosity about our young people. And for you know, parents or carers listening today, I hope you feel encouraged by that. I hope also like you hear the beauty of that, you know, tuning into those simplistic practices rather than like, you know, you're not saying here's a 65-page research paper you need to read. It's understanding.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

It's not rigid, it's more about your individual experience with your child. So good. It reads with curiosity because otherwise we have judgment.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Yes, and that is dangerous. We don't want that. And you know, I think even for educators hearing this, it's gonna be a massive, massive one for so many people to start like looking at that. In our next uh in our part two, we're gonna be talking about, I guess, even like looking at how do we add that when we're supporting a really anxious brain. Um, so make sure you tune into that as well. But thank you for listening. I am sure so many of you have got so much about that. I know I'll be listening back a lot to teach myself so many things there. Laura, thank you. As always, invaluable. Thank you so much.