Ep #126: ADHD Beliefs and Behaviors with Kayla Kincanon

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Hello, hello and welcome back to the show. Kim here and my guest Kayla who is the integrative herbalist. Today we were talking about behavior and beliefs. Specifically diagnosis such as ADD and ADHD, specifically in children.

So Kayla’s going to talk a little bit about her experience in her business, but also in her family and with her children. So, Kayla, you want to go ahead and introduce yourself?

Kayla: Sure, my name is Kayla Kincanon, I’m an integrative herbalist. I’ve been working with Kim for a couple of years. And I don’t really like these words but it’s what’s generally- You know, they talk about non-neurotypical and neurotypical. I’ve got three boys, all three of them are technically considered non-neurotypical.

So I’ve spent years and years, my oldest one is 24. So probably 21 of the last 24 years, I’ve kind of just done a bunch of research and experimentation that my kids have been my guinea pigs, in terms of figuring out what works and what doesn’t work for different types of the way you perceive and process information.

And I really enjoy and love talking about what others perceive to be a problem in terms of how their brains operate. It’s not a problem, you might have to make certain accommodations or request certain things from schools or whatever to make things work. But there’s no such thing as a wrong way for your brain to work.

Your brain works, it is, it exists, it’s neutral. And so when we start labeling and judging and comparing is when we run into these sticky, icky situations on judging what is the right and the wrong way for someone to think.

Kim: I love that. So Kayla and I have known each other for years. And she came through the integrative life coach program, it was probably three years, Kayla. Two or three years? It’s been a while. And has since opened an herbal store here in town.

So the first one of its type. And I was so excited because I was driving out of town and I had lots of books on herbalism and just natural treatments. And I member going up to you in yoga and I was like, “I want to know everything. I want to know what you’re doing.” Do you remember that? I was so excited.

Kayla: Yeah, I do. I was kind of caught off guard because it was almost something that I kept secret and kept hidden. It’s like this is what I do. This is my hobby. This is how my family and I function. I don’t know, I guess maybe not being judged, but anticipating being judged.

So I came at it from a defensive standpoint. So anytime someone would question me, I would immediately back off like, “Oh my gosh, what do they want? What do I have to prove? Where am I going?” And so yeah, it was almost overwhelming when you asked me about it the first time.

Kim: Yet here we were in Evangeline Parish doing yoga. And that’s exactly what my experience has been with meditation and yoga and mindful practice and stuff like that, is it’s kind of standoffish. There’s a lot of fear around it. It feels like coming out of the closet to talk about natural health, as if we’re doing something wrong. It’s so weird.

Kayla: I know, it does feel illegal sometimes. You’ve mentioned this before about thinking the cops coming to show up at my door because I might have said the wrong thing. Or I said heal instead of whatever the right terminology is.

Kim: Yeah, I was like, “The medical community and the police are coming to get me. The medical community and the church is going to shut me down because this is not what they teach.”

Kayla: Or if I say the wrong word that I’m going to get sued and lose my house or something. It was this crazy scenario I had in my mind.

Kim: Well that happened with doTERRA. I mean we were being watched and we had to pull down all of our posts that insinuated any type of treatment for any ailments, or any of that stuff.

It was kind of a big deal which was really weird. Because when they had conventions and stuff, if it was out of the US they were fine talking about healing, and they were allowed to do it on Facebook. And you could tell who was from what country by what the conversation was and the way they were turning the words. There is such a stench around it.

Kayla: Well in my herbalist training it was beat into my head, “These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA to say that you can diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any disease or illness.” Like it was always you had to preface everything you said or if you didn’t say it at the beginning you had to say it at the end. That mantra that we don’t treat, cure, prevent, or heal anything,

Kim: It’s almost as if you have to own the label or the diagnosis as it’s been given.

Kayla: And then the other is it’s almost self-defeating to say that this herb supports your body to heal itself. But then by the way, the FDA says this isn’t true. It’s almost like you’re having to contradict yourself every time you’re trying to say something so it feels unnatural.

Kim: It’s like the mumble at the end of the medication commercials on TV.

Anyway, let’s move on to the good stuff here. We’re going to give you guys a little bit of insight of Kayla’s experience with her boys and what she is doing in this part of, I’ll say, natural health or holistic health. What you were doing to help families. What you have to offer in your business. And just solutions that you have found yourself.

I’m highly interested in this because I happen to be one of these people, I am just an adult. And I often say, if the teachers would have known what to do with me, I don’t know what else I could have achieved. Because I had a very creative, busy mind. My brain is really, really fast as is yours. It’s like our conversation and the thoughts that are coming out in our conversations sometimes gets jammed up because it moves so fast.

And being able to practice mindfulness and embodiment has really slowed that down. I used to think I had a sluggish brain. And then I realized actually it was moving so fast. But when I was able to slow down and come into alignment, everything started functioning differently.

So I would like to speak to this from all of those perspectives. What the diagnosis does. And then what the parents and the children run into around the beliefs around it. And what happens with the behavior due to it. Does that make sense?

Once you get labeled, early on in school especially, it’s kind of passed down the hall to the next grade, and the next grade, and the next grade. It’s kind of amongst the teachers, right? Everyone kind of knows what’s coming, and who’s coming, and what’s up with that child. And so there’s this stamp at such an early age, they are different.

Kayla: Especially in such a small town like we are, reputations are established at 5, 6, 7 years old. Specifically, my middle son is the one that I always refer to because he’s been my guinea pig. And so I knew even prior to school age he was verbally gifted, for lack of better words. Very, very vocal, very verbally proficient child. So we kind of anticipated, okay, when he’s going to school he’s going to probably get in trouble for talking too much. Not a big deal.

But what we started noticing, and as early as first grade, so probably six years old, he would sit at home and do his homework at the table. We’d watch him, he’d take his homework from the table, put it in his bag. And somewhere between putting it in his bag that night before he’d go to bed and turning it in at school the next day the homework was lost. It would just magically leave.

And at first it was kind of tolerated, understanding that he was young. But then when he got to be in about third grade or so then there were these harsh judgments. And he would get punish work for not having his homework in on time. Or points off of test grades for an assignment that hadn’t been completed. And he knew the material, he could talk it, he could speak it, he was proficient with the understanding. But he didn’t have the paper to turn in.

And it started to where, “Okay, you’re irresponsible.” Or I’d get the sympathetic phone calls, “He’s so bright, and he’s got so much to do. But he’s just not meeting standard. Not following standard.” And so at that time I really thought I was doing him a favor following the teacher’s suggestions and the doctor’s guidelines.

You get the, you’ve seen this before, the questionnaire. It’s a two-sided piece of paper, yes, sometimes, always, maybe on these questions. You check that out, you bring it to the doctor, they give you medication and your problem is solved, right? And that was the ADHD diagnosis that we got at the time.

I really thought I was doing something good for him by trying to make his life easier by making him fit in. But looking back at it now retrospectively, all I was trying to do was take this beautiful star shaped little block and shoving it into a square, and over, and over, and over again. All we were doing was chipping away at the little points that made him special and made him unique.

And after about a few months I guess I started realizing, yes, absolutely his behavior at school was great. His grades were never bad, but they were improving. You know, like a 92 to a 95 kind of scenario. But his personality, who he was as a human, his creativity, and his vivaciousness just wasn’t there anymore.

He could read, and write, and speak beautifully. Spelling wasn’t his big strong suit. So I remember one evening quizzing him on spelling words. And it was a word, probably something like the word opposite or whatever. And he spelled it correctly. In fact, not only did he spell it correctly, he repeated it with my exact rhythm that I had helped him study with a couple of minutes before.

But what was missing was his personality, the giving the examples of what opposite meant, or how he saw something opposite during the day. That whole creative thing showing me where his mind went. That whole part of my son that made him my son wasn’t there. It was just a robotic repeating.

Kim: I was going to say it’s almost robotic.

Kayla: Very disheartening and it was very frightening to me.

Kim: Yeah. So it’s the consequence we pay to get the grades and the calm behavior so that we have all robots, all 30 robots in their desk.

Kayla: Yeah, but that’s like the first time I doubted myself as, “What am I doing?” And I really did, and his life was easier for those six, eight months, however long he was on the medication, it was. And in my head, that was the kind, loving thing to do, it’s let’s make him fit in.

Kim: Yeah, same. I did the same thing.

Kayla: But that’s when I started questioning myself. It’s like, “Why do I want to fit in? What am I after when I’m saying fit in?”

Kim: Well, I did the same thing, Kayla. And I wanted them to fit in because I wanted them to feel like they belonged. And I wanted their life to be easier. And I didn’t want them to be the problem child.

Getting the call, I remember when Dylan was in third or fourth grade and it was like, “He doesn’t sit still in his desk. And he’s moving all over. And he’s a distraction. He’s distracting the other kids. And he doesn’t behave.” And so I felt pressured to comply.

Kayla: Absolutely.

Kim: But he was a zombie in the car after school. I don’t know where he would go or who he was. And he was he was grouchy and moody. And he couldn’t answer us. I could feel this heavy weight.

Kayla: But he also said that he didn’t like the medication but then he felt guilty telling me he didn’t like it. Because he knew that, I mean, I had other children and my husband was gone and we were doing different things. And so he knew that his being on the medication made my day to day life a little bit easier.

So then not only do we have the ridicule that he was dealing with for not being “normal”, then this eight year old is feeling guilty. He didn’t even feel like he had the right to tell me that he didn’t like it, because he was perceiving it that my life was easier because he was behaving different.

Kim: Yeah, the whole people pleasing. So the pressure of having to comply and be like everyone else, which is all this homogenization. It’s like we need to control the herd. I mean, I did it with five kids at home. I was like the military, man. I fixed their plates, I told them when to eat, what to do, because I needed some kind of system to keep things under control.

So I get it. I get all of it. It’s like I want to cry because I just didn’t know. I just didn’t know there was alternatives. No one else was talking about it and explaining it.

So what would you say to- gosh, what is even the percentage, over 50% of the students? I mean seriously, what is it? Do you know?

Kayla: It’s probably in the upper 40s. I wouldn’t say 50 but it’s in the upper 40s.

Kim: Yeah, it’s got to be high.

Kayla: And that was kind of my wake up call to realize that there’s nothing wrong. You’ve got people who are exceptionally tall, let’s say there’s a guy who’s six foot five. And there might be a girl who’s five feet tall. They go through life and there’s certain things that are maybe not as easy as the “normal” five foot nine people. But they can adjust their life and lifestyles and decisions to accommodate their height.

I look at ADHD as the same way. You can’t control whether you have an ADHD brain any more than you can control if you’re six foot five. It’s just there. You wouldn’t expect someone who’s five feet tall to get on a stretcher to make themselves longer. So why would you take someone who processes information differently and expect them to change something that they just physiologically cannot? It’s not even fair to contemplate.

Kim: Because they need everyone to be the same, to comply, so that the classes run easier. That’s the only answer I can give you.

Kayla: Yeah.

Kim: Gosh, it’s like we could go so deep into this. And yet I don’t want to go too far off. Because I want people to be able to take something away from this if they happen to be in this position where the child has been diagnosed, they’re on the medication. And I am not anti-medication. I want to work with the doctors, I want this to be the bridge to mind body medicine. So that’s my disclaimer. I’m not anti.

But if your child, if you’re experiencing what Kayla and I are talking about, and you want to explore this or see what the options are, Kayla, what would you say would be something that you didn’t understand that you do understand now that you would have done things differently?

Kayla: The first thing I would say is that punishing for ADHD type behaviors or tendencies is not effective. In fact, it’s going to make it worse because the more insecure and angry a child gets about their circumstances, the worse the behavior is going to be. So believing and understanding that it is the way that the brain is structured will have a direct impact on the behavior that the child has.

Secondly, is if you take a deep breath and drop your judgment about the way a child should behave or shouldn’t behave in class. Even if they’re coming home with punishment work and getting into detention, “Okay, cool, we’ll just deal with it.” But when you drop that judgment, you can get creative.

So we tried different things. You know, you bring up a clay to class. And so if all he had to do was face forward, he could play with the clay. Or put a library book on top of a textbook. Or when you’re doing homework take breaks every three minutes. You can get creative and you can actually have fun with it and learn to recognize and appreciate the beautiful way that they process information.

But it’s dropping the judgment, that actually starts with understanding and truly recognizing that it’s not something that is wrong. It’s just a fact. It’s no different than your shoe size or your eye color. It just is.

Kim: Or it’s like moving from problem to presence. And dealing with what is.

Kayla: Absolutely, present is always first.

Kim: Not trying to solve a problem because the problem is nonexistent, it is not a problem. The problem is the way that it’s been labeled. The problem is the way that it’s been identified as, correct? Because different is the problem, when actually different is just individual.

Kayla: It’s like I said, I always go back to the height thing, or the shoe size thing, or the eye color thing. It just is. The reason presence is so important when you’re dealing with an ADHD brain is kids are kids. They’re going to push limits, right? They’re going to try to test their boundaries.

But learning to differentiate between what is something that they’re pushing boundaries because they’re kids and they want to test how far they can go, versus what is something that is truly not in their control and so to work with. That’s why presence is so invaluable when it comes to dealing with the two, is differentiating. What’s a kid being a kid versus, physically can’t sit still in a chair, versus I’m going to stand up because you told me to sit down.

So that’s why the presence is so important. And learning exactly how and why the brain works the way it does.

Kim: What do you think or how do you think things would look differently if the educators were educated on this, seeing it differently, and not being a problem? Do you think it’s because they’re burnt out, stressed out, and they’re so overworked? I mean, their day doesn’t end at three o’clock, they’re going home and they have stacks of work And it’s like it doesn’t end.

And so is it the stress that creates the tension and the pressure? Or is it the needing everybody to be the same? Or is it both? Maybe it’s both?

Kayla: I think it’s both. And then it’s also the system is designed for homogenized learning. So when you’re teaching on a standardized scale, on a standardized test, on a standardized lesson plan, there’s no room for accommodation. And then of course, when you get teachers who’ve been in the system for 20 years doing things one particular way. It’s a combination of things. It really is. It’s not a teacher thing. It’s not a school thing. It’s a system wide, it’s a systemic problem.

Kim: I’m going to speculate on this because I know we don’t have facts. But do you think that this is what was going on when they had the slow class? Like the A class and the B class? That they were putting different children in that other class and classifying them as slow or dumb?

Kayla: Yes. And then also the same problem happens on the other side, when you have the advanced class. Because there are situations where you have an ADHD kid who is gifted. They’re considered it’s called twice exceptional or two E kids.

And those are the kids that you actually put in the fast group because you don’t want to mess with them either. We’re going to give them extra work to keep them quiet, even though they don’t have a depth of understanding, they can memorize stuff. So yeah, it’s on both ends, trying to classify in any way.

Kim: So let’s just deal with the facts. That is how the public system or the school system is set up in order to serve the number of people. So it’s kind of like when you go into a buffet you get what’s there.

So you can choose to homeschool, you can choose to maybe select a different school, you can choose to do something different, right? So what would you say to the person who is in the system, wants to remain in the system? Could you give them a couple of hints, takeaways, something that would help them be able to do it in a way that is more effective?

Kayla: The key, and it’s going to sound cliche, but the key really is at home. When your expectations at home become who your child is and how they function it builds that safety net, that safe space. So when they go to school and they know that they’re not necessarily going to abide by or fit into all the rules and structures or whatever in the classroom, feeling safe when they get home to be able to express themselves without judgment. To say, “I forgot my assignment” and not get punished. Or if they get punish work at school not to get doubly punished or triple punished by the time they get home.

Creating a place, a soft place for them to land where they know and they’re confidence they’re accepted bleeds over into their school behavior. So like when they go to school, and rather than, “Oh my god, I forgot my homework. I’m going to get punished at school. When I get home my mom’s going to spank me or punish me from Xbox for a week.” Then like, “Okay, I got punished at home. Come home, explain to mom, and we’re going to work with it moving forward.”

Just creating an environment at home bleeds over into the school behavior and belief system. Because it comes from the kid. How the kid responds to the classroom.

Kim: I think you just said it backwards, but when they get punished at school, let that stay at school. And then they come home and they get to be themselves. You don’t keep carrying the problem and keep repeating the problem.

Kayla: Exactly.

Kim: Yeah, I love that. So that’s one thing, because they are paying the consequence for being in this system and not obliging by the rules, whether they can or can’t. Whether it’s choice or not, they pay that consequence there. You don’t have to keep hammering it in, and bringing it on, and repeating it, and trying to make them different.

You’re not arguing with what’s there. It’s like, yes, when you’re there, if you go to the store, you have to wear shoes. At home you don’t have to wear shoes, but when you go to the store you have to wear shoes and you have to have a shirt. It’s just like you’re saying understanding it that way.

And the other thing I heard you say is if they feel free to be themselves at home, and they have this self-acceptance, and they’re okay with who they are. How we do anything is how we do everything, they’re going to be okay with who they are at school.

Kayla: Exactly, and they will accept whatever consequences happen at school on their own. But if you think about it from the child’s perspective, going from like the compassionate side, they’re getting ridiculed, corrected, punished, however you want to phrase it, at school all the time. And if they learn to accept, almost compartmentalize, “Well, that’s what happens at school.” But when they’re getting that at school then they get home and you’re actually reinforcing the negativity that they’re experiencing at school, then they have no safe place to be.

Kim: Yeah, it’s like they eject, eject themselves, eject from who they are.

Kayla: Exactly. And they isolate and they get angrier. And so when they’re home, you as the parent, you teach them to love themselves as they are with the understanding that life’s not always going to be easy. And then it ends up reflecting in their behavior, both at school and at home. Because they start to learn to love themselves for who they are and accept the way that they are programmed.

So it takes that insecurity, and that anger, and that fear away. When they feel safe, of course, anybody who feels safe is going to behave in a much different way than if they feel threatened. But when they’re threatened and punished at school, and then when they get home and it’s reinforced that whatever threatening thing that was happening at school also happens at home, they have no safe place to be.

Kim: Yeah, and, I mean, when you’re being punished for being who you are everywhere you go that’s for sure going to lead to low self-esteem and depression.

Kayla: Substance abuse, and self-harm, and a tremendous amount of very negative things. So when you’re teaching them to accept who they are at home it helps a lot.

Kim: Yeah. And then explaining to them that different is not bad or wrong. We actually want to encourage different. Bio-individuality is the secret to humanity.

Kayla: Yes, that’s my herbalism too, that’s everything, it’s bio-individuality. But then even it changes the conversation at home. That, “I can’t believe the teacher punished me for this.” It’s like, “Look, when you’re in the classroom, that’s the teacher’s rules. Do the best you can to abide by those rules. But you know that when you’re at home, or when you’re in the backyard, or wherever you are, then different rules apply.” So it also teaches them to be much more flexible.

And then one of the great things they call it attention deficit, but it’s actually too much attention to too many different things. So when you’re dealing with such a flexible mind, they’re actually very perceptive on picking up this situation is this way. And so it feeds into to one of their strengths, as opposed to creating a another set of weaknesses that they feel like they have to overcome.

Kim: My kids hated that the teacher was always right. I’m like, “The authority is the authority. And if you’re in that room, they are the authority. And if you’re in that office, they are the authority.” And they used to get so mad at us because they’d say we were stricter at home than they were there. And we’d never take up for him. And I was like, “But when you’re going to have a boss, it’s going to be their way. You just as soon learn the rules of the world. That’s what they are.”

Kayla: I don’t necessarily go that far, as far as they’re the authority, but like, look, in their classroom this is what- It’s almost this is what the teacher thinks is right and you have to give her credit for what she’s good at. And then at home, this is what we think is right. It’s not so much the authority is always correct, it’s that look, in this situation I promise you she thinks she’s doing the best that she can. And in this situation, we’re doing the best that we can. I kind of do it that way.

Kim: Yep, I can see that. Because it is not necessarily that they’re correct for everyone. But they are correct in the best way that they can be.

Kayla: Because what I’m trying to avoid, which I’ve seen a tendency with all three of my kids is, “She’s so mean, and she doesn’t like me. And this teacher hates me and he doesn’t understand.” It’s like, “No.” So I try to explain it in such a way as they’re doing the best they can with the information they have, just like we do at home.

And so I try to equate it that way to kind of humanize the teacher and take away that whole she’s in charge or he’s in charge because they’re at school. I want to try to humanize it. It’s like, “Look, you did the best you could in this situation. So is she.” And so when I try to shrink that authority gap I find there’s more compassion on both sides.

Kim: Yeah, I see what you’re saying now. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. So for us, it was, I think, because I was coming from my perspective of what I needed at home to run this tight ship and to taking that on to there. I can see what you’re saying, that makes sense.

So that’s two things. And then the next question I would ask is, how would you help the child get that they are different, or they’re being treated differently? We’ll say like, how do they take the high road? You know how you hear that, like, how do you take the high road? But what would the conversation look like with the parent and the child about helping them with their own self esteem? Because this is happening. That is a fact. This is happening. So how can you help them deal with that in order for them to be empowered?

Kayla: Look for opportunities. Like before we got on here, I was dying Liam’s hair blue, or Lucas’s hair is like waist length. Look for opportunities to let them express themselves. Because if you think about these very structured bureaucratic systems they’re in, if it’s a public school situation, or even with college situations. Look for and encourage expressions of freedom to where they can do what they want, when they want, how they want in a way that’s not going to hinder themselves or those around them.

And I’m not saying totally given just like them be crazy. But like, okay, if it’s hair, hair can be cut. Hair can be dyed. Hair can be whatever you want to. Again, I go back to the humanizing. Humanizing the people that are in charge of the bureaucracy. The system is not the people that run it. Just like we’ve talked about this with church. The church is not the people that are in charge.

So look for opportunities to humanize and to relate. If they can understand, “Look, your teacher said and thought this and you think-” It’s an opportunity to explain and to teach compassion on all levels.

Kim: This is kind of blowing my mind a little bit. So I’m such a rule follower when it came to – Gosh, it’s showing me, just this conversation, so much about myself. Not wanting to be the troublemaker. Not wanting to be the one that causes suffering for anyone else. And so how I took that, that self-perception, that worry about myself, and showed my children that. Just you bringing up this about the authority in different spaces. And I’m just viewing it from a different perspective. So I want to thank you for just opening that up for me.

So for the person who’s just worried, distraught, because that’s what happens when you feel like your child doesn’t fit. Kayla, you dealt with this. So how did you work yourself out of it for you and him both?

Kayla: When you’re dealing with a situation, like you said, about not fitting, I always looked at it- and it’s maybe because I didn’t fit either. That’s why I ran away to New Orleans and Arizona and everywhere else when I finished. It’s okay not to fit because nobody really fits.

Kim: Hold on, mic drop, there it is. No one really fits, and yet we spend our whole life trying to belong somewhere. It is an individual journey.

Kayla: It is, because you have a structure, you have a system. A school system, a church system, a corporate system. The system is not the same as the people who are involved in it. Every person who’s performing a function within that system is still an individual, but the system is not human. The people that are involved are human.

So find a way to relate to the people separate from the system. The system is someone’s great idea they drew up on a piece of paper and put in a spreadsheet or something. A system is not the people that are involved. A system is not the humans that are actually running it. If you want to relate to the system, or you want to function better within it, or have some compassion for it, look for the person you can identify with. Look for the personal trait, because the person and the system are not the same thing.

Kim: And you actually have a recipe or a concoction of something in order to help, right, a supplementation?

Kayla: It’s a decoction. It’s made the same as like the same method as elderberry syrup is made. It’s concentrated, it’s sweetened. You take 30 milliliters, kind of a couple of tablespoons, maybe a tablespoon and a half. And what it does is it supports the function of the nervous system, specifically the brain, in terms of getting more blood, so therefore more oxygen and more nutrients.

Kim: Is this something that you have to be local to get or can it be shipped out?

Kayla: I can ship it out not sweetened. If I pre-sweeten it, it needs to be picked up locally because in heat it kind of ferments, it turns to mead. It’s got honey in it, so it’ll ferment. So yeah, I can ship it out. Or I can ship it out in a tea version, just not the decoction.

Kim: Got it.

Kayla: Or if I ship it out as the tea, I can give you instructions on how to make that the decoction. So yeah, it can’t be shipped.

Kim: Okay, so that’s the supplementation portion of it. Now you also do, like it’s the whole mind body connection?

Kayla: Yes.

Kayla: And so how would you help someone on that level? Would it be going to the parent, and then the parent changing the relationship with the child or a different understanding? How would you? What does this look like?

Kayla: The most effective way that I’ve dealt with clients is that you give the supplementation to the child, but through the coaching and the mindset work on the parent, because when you’re creating a safe space for your kid, your kid’s behavior is going to reflect your support at home. And so that’s the most effective, is I coach the parent and then supplement the child.

And then once you teach the parent the mindset, and the acceptance, and the love, then that naturally flows into the child. And the child actually takes that into school without the kid even realizing what’s going on. It’s a very natural kind of energy exchange that happens.

Kim: Nice. Yeah, because it really is about the belief about the diagnosis, the belief about the behavior, and the ability to regulate. And then have I’ll say like a toolbox, some coping skills.

Kayla: It is because once, as the parent, when you realize there’s nothing wrong so therefore nothing needs to be fixed, then you’re going to naturally explain that also to your child. There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing that needs to be fixed. Here’s some tools and tricks that we can use to make your life easier while you’re in this box. Whatever that box happens to be.

Then the child’s like, “Oh, okay. Well, there is nothing wrong with me.” So then I’m more confident and love myself. And so the behavior reflects those beliefs.

Kim: I love that. Because I would love to bring on or find out who are our leaders in the community, especially like entrepreneurs, business owners, people who have really excelled outside of the school system.

Kayla: Yes, I love those people.

Kim: I mean that’s us.

Kayla: Yeah. I promise you, I went to college and I really don’t use my degree very much. I mean, it gave me certain skills and it exposed me to some life experiences that I wouldn’t have had. But I’m not like the accountant, stockbroker person that I thought I was supposed to be when I went to college.

Kim: How do you notice, or what’s been the difference in your own life just coming to acceptance of being different or having your brain functioning differently and stuff like that? What did your personal experience look like?

Kayla: I’m not such the know it all. I felt all the time that I had to prove how smart I was and how much I knew. I don’t want to say one up, but very much looking for an opportunity to prove how smart I was and how much I knew.

Now I’m so much more open to sitting back and listening. It’s like, “Oh, wow. That’s really cool, I never thought of it that way.” As opposed to trying to prove that I knew the right way from the get-go before you even finished your first sentence.

Kim: How has Human Design played into this? Has that been a tool that’s empowered you to really take a look at yourself and your children and be able to see the different aspects of us?

Kayla: The Human Design, for me personally, has been interesting because I’m trying to reconnect with my instincts. For a while I was over analyzing so I didn’t know what my instincts were telling me one way or the other. So that’s been a more inward journey.

Two of my children are 6/2s. One’s a 6/2 manifester, the other one’s a 6/2 projector. So learning Human Design has actually given me and them an opportunity to say, “Oh, okay. Well, struggling is part of their human design, struggling as part of their journey.”

Kim: Isn’t that crazy?  It feels like a curse sometimes.

Kayla: But I’m less concerned now with trying to stop them from struggling. It’s like, “Okay, let me get into Human Design so I can figure out how they don’t have to struggle.” And two of their human designs are to struggle. So it’s like, “Oh, okay. Well, then I guess I can let that happen and it’s all right.”

Kim: Yeah. And you can look at it as struggle or you can look at it as experience. We just become experts of experience. It’s really fascinating now that I’m off the roof, I’m in the third phase. So you have a child that’s in the middle or they’re all in first phase?

Kayla: No, I have one that’s in the middle, but I’ve got my two- But my 6/2 projector is my oldest son, so he’s 24. My 6/2 manifester is my youngest, he’s only 11.

Kim: Okay, so they’re both in the first phase until 28.6.

Kayla: Yes. My 24 year old is getting closer to the end, while my 11 is just starting. And so it’s interesting to watch.

Kim: Yeah, Human Design, Ross said it was for the children. So that the parent would allow the children to be who they are. So they wouldn’t have to go through all this emotional healing that we’ve had to go through. Because we were treated as someone other than ourselves and then you fight yourself through life. You’re trying to be what people want you to be, but it’s not who you are.

Now, listen, there’s some people who just landed on the planet and they happen to be aligned with the way the parents believed. They went to college. They did everything they were supposed to. They got married, then they had the two kids, it was a boy and a girl. They got the new car; they got the new house. I mean, everything just flowed. I was like they’ve never had a weight problem, they just landed here.

Kayla: They never had bad habits like no drinking, no smoking, no drugs, no nothing like that.

Kim: In my next return, I want to be the person who holds up the blueberry pancake on Instagram and gets 50,000 likes in the first five minutes. If we could choose.

But I think the Human Design system is fascinating. And I’m sure there’s lots of people here who think it’s woo-woo, or it’s out of the box, or it’s witchcraft or whatever. But it’s totally given me so much liberation and a permission slip to understand myself and other individuals better. Like the relationship with my children, with my husband, with all of us, with my clients, it’s so different now.

I’m sure you noticed the difference. The more I got into it, the more I understood it, and understood what was making everyone tick. I never had a problem with trying to get you all to do the same thing in business, that was that was never part of who I was. But even more so now. I’m like, “Well, I don’t know, let’s find, let’s look, let’s investigate. Let’s go try it and see, does it feel right?”

Same thing with you changing your specialty back and forth. It was like, there has to be that freedom and liberation to go and try something. And then to not be punished. Exactly what we’re saying like with the kids.

Kayla: Yeah, that absolutely should not be punished. That’s why I say I’m having fun trying to rediscover my own instincts. But it’s fun to even explore. But I know just from watching you, yours was an urgency, a timeline.

Kim: Yeah.

Kayla: That when we first started working together it was like, “Now, now, now, now.” And so watching you, I know you’ve always known it and you’ve been doing it, but to watch you fully accept it to this flow and ease that you fallen into is contagious actually.

Kim: I had an urgency to please. So I was fighting time and the brain’s ability to get what I was trying to teach. And I didn’t recognize that I had been studying this for 20 something years. When I finally got it and I was so clear about it, I just assumed everyone else would get it. I was like, “Hey, I got the secret. Let me just show it to you.”

And there was an urgency around their investment, and the amount of time, and when that time was going to run out. And it was my responsibility that they got the results in the amount of time promised. It was something like that, that’s where my urgency came from. It was like you got to get this before you get out of here.

But I did not recognize, like Human Design says it takes seven years for transformation, I truly believe it. For all of the cells to be regenerated, for us to become the new identity or the identity that we actually are. To chip away the conditioning, to chip away the stories it takes that long. But I wasn’t counting all of the years of the personal transformation and work I had done. Does that make sense?

Kayla: It does. And then also, Kim, don’t discount just your passion. Your passion for what you do, your passion for what you had discovered. You were so excited to teach and to share this with the world that for someone like me I might have understood it to be urgency. But you were so excited about what you were doing and what you had discovered. And you just wanted to make sure that we all understood and were just as passionate about as you were. So it wasn’t a negative, it was just different.

Kim: Well, I’ve definitely learned to tone it down and not be so influential. There was lots of that kind of stuff. But anyway, it’s the way that the brain works and I just made friends with it. And then I’ve got the 15.23 times, I’m all about extremes. So I get extremely passionate, and then I get extremely pissed.

And for so many years I made that wrong about me. Because people were like, I was moody or I changed too much, or I was always doing something new, or trying something else. And I was just exactly like what’s happening in the school system. I was taking it personal as if I was defected, and I’m supposed to be the same all the time. I should walk the tight line. I should always be predictable. It was the same story that was coming from the systems that we’re talking about. It’s not okay to be myself.

Kayla: My ADHD thing was logic jumps. I would be talking about this flower is red, and all of a sudden, I’m bringing up some fish. And in my head, I was making these logic jumps that no one else was a part of. And so it would be, “Oh, you’re so weird. Where did it come from? It’s so strange.” It’s like, “No, my brain just jumps sometimes.”

And I’ve quit apologizing for that. I used to feel this need to explain as to how I got from the red flower to the fish. But now it’s just like, “My brain did they don’t thing.”

Kim: Do you have an open head and Ajna?

Kayla: Yes.

Kim: How about open root or defined root?

Kayla: No, my root is defined.

Kim: Yeah, it’s the open head and Ajna. It just asks questions and goes everywhere and it loves to know. Mallory and Danielle used to tell me that, they said I would get to the punch line but they wouldn’t give them the context that I was talking about. I would figure things out in my head and then I would just like give them a punch line, they would have no idea what you’re talking about.

Kayla: And I was so self-conscious about it for so long. I’m just weird. I’m just strange. Nobody understands me. It’s like no, my brain just does the jump thing. That’s what I call it, the jump thing. And it’s okay that it does the jump thing. It just does.

Kim: All right, well I think we’ve done full circle and really Kayla’s mission is to demystify this. To really bring normalcy to human- What is it?

Kayla: Bio individuality.

Kim: Bio individuality is my favorite word in the universe.

Kayla: Non-neurotypical is the scientific word people use for it. I don’t like it, but that’s kind of what the medical community calls it. You have neurotypical and non-neurotypical. But non-neurotypical is just as normal as anybody else. It’s the sciency word that, I mean, I guess it helps the medical community to categorize things. But there’s nothing wrong with it. Just because something’s non typical doesn’t mean it’s broken, or wrong, or a problem to be fixed.

Kim: Yes, it’s like I love, like autism that has really come to you’re not going to change an autistic child. They are here to teach us this bio individuality.

Kayla: Yes, and you’re not going to change an ADHD kid and you’re not going to make someone who’s five feet tall become six foot seven. It’s just facts of life.

Kim: We’re not going to stop them. They just want to label them to understand so that they can relate and to be able to point out. But that’s not how it’s taken by most people. By most people it’s label and it’s less than. And I’m like that is bullshit.

Kayla: Like I am not going to wake up tomorrow blonde. I’m just not and that’s okay to not be blonde.

Kim: We got a long way to go though, Kayla. We’re entering it, and we’re talking about it, and it’s pretty widespread now. But I don’t think we’re going to see an end of it in our lifetime. All of these rules of society, that’s really what we’re standing up for is the human experience.

Kayla: Yes. And that’s all it is, it’s an experience and everyone’s got the right and everyone has the privilege to experience it on their own terms.

Kim: Yes. All right, is there anything that I didn’t ask you or that you want to leave with the audience for someone who is dealing with this with their children in particular, but even with themselves?

Kayla: Accept your kid for who they are, and be aware that sometimes our own insecurities creep in. So that’s where the judgment and comparison comes from. But you can become present, you can take a step back and say, “This is my kid, this is their experience, how can I support them?”

Quit changing, don’t want to change, you really don’t want to change your kid. You love your kid; nobody wants to actually change their kid.

Kim: No, and I want to thank you for the awareness about the authority because the children are the authority of their life. So they may have a certain rule to follow in a certain space, but no one gets to override what they know about themselves.

Kayla: Absolutely. And compassion can happen on both sides.

Kim: Yeah, I think about Human Design and the sacral authority and the uh-huh and huh-uh, and how we might have a two year old that doesn’t want the sweet peas, and they do, “Huh-uh, huh-uh.” And what do we do? We correct them and tell them they have to do it. Or they don’t want to hug Uncle Johnny or whoever. And again, we’re like, “That’s not nice, and you need to.” And we correct them, but we’re actually overriding their authority.

Kayla: Yeah, they’re allowed to be who they are, and like what they like and be comfortable where they’re comfortable. It doesn’t mean they’re less lovable, or likeable, or anything else. In fact, it makes it more so. I love the strong personality kids. They’re like, “You know what? Nope, I’m done with you today. I’m going to go play over here now.” Because I love that, because when you get to watch them be their authentic self unapologetically, it’s actually inspiring.

All right, my friends. That’s what I have for you this week. Kayla, thank you for coming on making this more interesting than me sitting here talking to myself.

Kayla: Anytime, Kim.

Kim: I’ll link your contact in the show notes so that people can reach out, have a conversation with you. I think they can book a one on one and see just kind of where their child is, what help they might need, or what you have to offer, how they can deal with this.

And I’m with you. And I just want to thank you for standing in the gap and having the courage to stand up against some of the stuff that we’ve been taught to comply with. And I, for one, have regrets about the way that I handled it. My kids’ brains were not broken. My boys, there was nothing wrong with them. And I wish I would have known what we know today. But I also recognize that it’s only through that experience that we know what we know.

Kayla: Yeah, absolutely. It’s trial and error. And some stuff sticks, some stuff doesn’t, and then we just move on.

Kim: Yeah, my husband is a 1/3 and I told him today, “It’s actually trial and expert.” So it’s trial and experience to become the expert.

Kayla: There you go, better words.

Kim: All right my friend.

Thanks for listening to this episode of More Than Mindset.