Integrative caregiving

Integrative caregiving Living with the enormity of our role we move out of survival, build awareness & change our lives. ❤️

I am a family caregiver for my daughter Leia who has a rare genetic mutation. She is also non-verbal and autistic and has severe developmental delays. I am also a researcher, people lover, dreamer and innovator who believes the caregiver experience is here to help us evolve. My purpose is to help redesign the caregiver experience through shift-in-consciousness tools, emotional support, wisdom and

community. I believe caregivers need time to move from a state of survival and trauma into other mindstates and my passion is to help you get there.

Who is looking after me? What kind of care do I need? Why has it taken me so long to realize how important it is? And wh...
08/09/2026

Who is looking after me? What kind of care do I need? Why has it taken me so long to realize how important it is? And why do I keep resisting?

08/08/2026

I was told that my daughter at the age of 11 had reached a developmental plateau and that I should get on with my life.

To stay that I felt like I had been stabbed in the chest is an understatement. My mother was thankfully intelligent enough to say that the doctor was basing her opinion on statistics and that she wasn’t taking into consideration the very specific work and approach I was taking.

This may sound like my mother was trying to console me but from my experience, there have been so many cases where the doctors have it wrong and it is up to us to stay in faith to keep trying new things.

Leia continues to surprise me and as our understanding of autism continues to evolve, new opportunities are emerging. Keep exploring new ways to connect the dots and don’t give up.

Often our limited view of things, supported by the health industry makes it hard for us to see potential. But it is always there. Always.

08/07/2026

I’d love to only show you the final results… but behind every successful speller are thousands of hours of intentional movement and the more apraxic and motorically challenged your child is… the more help they will need to practice breaking movements down.

08/07/2026

18 years ago I was told by the late Dr Stanley Greenspan who developed Floortime and the DIR method that “the more my daughter was able to engage in meaningful physical activities, the more her communication would develop and improve.”

I thought this meant taking her to the playground and pushing her on a swing. I didn’t realize that I needed to spend a significant period of time exploring which movements were challenging. I also didn’t realize that to really help push her along I would need to become a kind of physical therapist helping my daughter initiate every single muscle to help her initiate movement.

Now that I have started to do this, I feel a whole other level of “presuming competence” is starting to fall into place and her motor movements are becoming more pronounced and controlled.

It continues to be mind-blowing to me that this is only becoming apparent to me now but at least we are now on the path.

All of life is reinvention.We are not meant to stay the same. All of our experiences ask us to let go of one idea of our...
07/31/2026

All of life is reinvention.

We are not meant to stay the same. All of our experiences ask us to let go of one idea of ourselves to embrace another. The survival nature of caregiving is no different… the question is whether survival will shape you by default, or whether awareness will allow you to shape yourself.

07/29/2026

If you manage to sit and watch this whole video which is only a minute or so long you will probably feel a range of emotions because that’s what happens when things don’t go the way we want them to go. Even in this contained, learning environment, my brain is experiencing uncertainty and all it wants is an outcome. This is a kind of torture especially when we are doing it day after day, often without being seen, appreciated, filmed or supported by another. Sometimes I wonder how I have arrived at this point, practicing this challenging and often resultless experience? I always come back to the same answer. I am supposed to step out of survival and misery and evolve.

07/29/2026

How can we listen to someone who doesn’t speak? What does that even mean? We all communicate in so many ways. Can we really be present and listen to one another? As ironic as this may seem, our children are here to teach us about presence, listening and human connection.

07/29/2026

How can we listen to someone who doesn’t speak? What does that even mean? We all communicate in so many ways. Can we really be present and listen to one another? As ironic as this may seem, our children are here to teach us about presence and human connection.

07/25/2026

It sounds so simple… let’s go on a family trip to the movies to see Moana.

These kind of trips always seemed beyond us. How would she behave, would I have to leave in the middle, are we wasting money?

All the questions and doubts arise because that’s what our brains do and yes we have all experienced neurocrashes too.

Once again, with the whiteboard we asked what she wanted and decided to believe that her choice was reliable and IT WAS!

Never give up. Never stop believing. Never stop trying even when you are full of doubts. Things change.

07/22/2026

A dog wandered over to Leia on the beach today and people seem to think that because she is autistic she might have some special relationship with animals.

Instead, she smiled, watched for a moment, pushed him along and then returned to what she was doing.

It was a simple reminder that a smile doesn’t always mean fascination, and a lack of interest doesn’t mean a lack of awareness.

For years, I interpreted Leia’s reactions through my own expectations. Now I find myself paying closer attention to what is actually there. In this case the lesson isn’t about the dog.

It’s about how quickly we create stories about other people, and how much we miss when we do.

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26375 Highway 243. PO Box 425
Idyllwild, CA
92549

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