119-Jennifer Rosado-Using Life's Challenges as Opportunities for Growth.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe

Ruthless Compassion is a podcast about how you can turn your emotional shit into fertilizer for success and see your darkest moments as opportunities to transform into a powerful kindness warrior. If you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review wherever you listen. Welcome, Jennifer Rosato to the Ruthless Compassion podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

Well, I think your story is very compelling, and I think we should just jump right in by having you introduce yourself and say a little bit about who you are and what you want to talk about today.

Sure, yeah. My name is Jennifer Rosado, and basically I'll start by saying in my previous universe, I was a medical laboratory technologist for a few years, and then I went back to school and got my Masters in elementary education, and then I became a teacher, and then I had my son. And so that was kind of the start of being in my new universe. And in this universe, I am a part-time tutor, a full-time mom, and now I'm an author. So my book is called "My Alternate Universe: Anxiety, Autism, and Adventure in a Parallel Reality". And I was inspired to start writing it was probably about four years after my son was born. I was really feeling very isolated and kind of lost in what I call my new universe, because when he was born, I really had this shift in how I felt about who I was and my place in this world. And it's like being the same person, being in the same place, but just feeling different on the inside. And that's where the whole idea of a whole different universe, an alternate universe, came in also because I enjoy Sci-Fi, so that kind of was part of my vernacular anyway.

I kind of used that as my jumping off point for starting a blog, and that was where my writing began. And then eventually the blogs turned into what I now have now as my book.

That's quite the journey. And when was your son born?

He was born in 2009, so he just turned 13 not too long ago. So, yeah, I started writing it probably the blog about when he was about four years old, so it took quite a while to get to where I'm at now. Sure.

And when was he diagnosed and what kind of autism does he have?

He was diagnosed when he was 18 months old, and at first it's hard to tell "what kind of autism" he has at first, because when it's just starting out, you're still getting to know different things about autism because it really is a spectrum. And so for him, he was non verbal, and so that's kind of where we began the whole journey. He didn't have any words, and he was missing a lot of those milestones that typical children usually have by the age of 18 months, not having eye contact and just kind of being in his own little world, but he also was very hyperactive. So there were definitely things that we were picking up on, but it took us a while to get to the point to understand where he really is on the severe end of the spectrum. Which means that it's not necessarily just that he's nonverbal because some kids who are on the severe end are verbal. But what we discovered as we went through this journey was that he had a lot of behaviors that included aggression and self-injury. And so these were things that we had to work through and emotionally for me, part of why I started writing my blog is that I've had anxiety my whole life. So when I first became a mother, this really became a huge thing for me because all of my anxieties were triggered at that point. And then I worked through many of those things and that's what I write about in my blog, about my early experiences with motherhood. But then there's the other aspect of his autism that brought all this anxiety back up again and kind of working through all of those issues. So that's why my book is called Anxiety, Autism and Adventure in a Parallel Reality, because it really starts with my own personal anxiety and then that kind of compounds all of these other things that I'm experiencing because I'm looking at it through the lens of my anxiety. And so recognizing that for myself was really cathartic and healing and helped me to understand better myself. And as the years have gone on, it's really helped me to understand my son better with his severe autism and his behaviors that he experiences.

Well, it sounds like combination is pretty challenging, having a child on the spectrum and having your own anxiety disorder.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. It really was one of these things that made me feel extremely isolated at the time because I really felt like nobody could understand me. And part of that was just not knowing how to talk to people about it, not knowing how to talk to people about my anxiety, not knowing how to tell people about my son's autism, how to approach that, and how to let people into our world because we did feel very cut off and isolated. I kind of feel like the act of writing and then putting it out there in the world helped me to connect and help me to work through some of that anxiety. And what I found was that there are a lot of other people out there who have anxiety and there are people out there too who have children with autism or children with anxiety. And they were able to identify with a lot of the things that I wrote about. So that made me feel better too, because putting it out there and feeling like I was helping others gave it really a purpose and that made it just put it into a different light.

For sure. Everything is easier when we can find meaning in it. I wanted to ask you another question because as a pregnant woman, you probably had expectations, right? You probably had kind of an idea or a fantasy of what your life would be like once you gave birth and what your baby would be like and what all the stages you would go through would be like. And obviously those expectations were not met. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think you had spoken about that before. You thought you were going to have this journey and you ended up having a different journey.

Yeah, absolutely. And that touches back to the whole idea of an alternate universe, is that I had very much in my mind what this was going to be like, and pretty much every step from the birth to his infancy, everything did not go as planned. So, each step of that really, again, was sort of triggering to my anxiety that I thought I had all this planned. And one of the big things for me as a person with anxiety is I like to control everything. And so I like to feel like it's in control, and that makes me feel secure and makes me feel safe. But when things were not going as planned, then everything kind of started to fall apart. When I was working through that anxiety, it was definitely hard for me to accept at first that this was my new life and it didn't match what I had expected. But as I've gone through this universe and I've become more comfortable here and I do feel more secure, I still don't have very much control over things, but I'm also learning to accept that that's how life is and I'm not going to be able to anticipate every problem that might come up.

So, yeah, I feel like I'm happier now than I was at first, even though at first I feel like it didn't match my expectations and I definitely was disappointed. So that's kind of the journey, actually through the book is coming to that realization at the end that this is my universe and this is my life and I'm okay with it.

There's two things that came to mind when you were talking. The first is that when you're needing to control things and you can't, you have to learn to trust yourself, that you will be able to handle whatever arises. So you have to look back at all the challenges that you have faced and that you have overcome and use those to build a sense of competence and mastery and trust. So that when the unforeseen arises, you can go. Yeah, I got this. I can handle this. Or if I can't handle it alone. I know who to lean on who can support me and help me through it. So that's the first thing. But the other thing that came to mind that I didn't want to forget is that when you get those disappointments in life, I think it's so important to face that you are disappointed and to grieve your loss because it's a real loss. It's a loss of a dream, a loss of a fantasy of what your life would be or who you would be with or how you would be or how your child would be. So when we have those disappointments, I think it's so important to face that they are meaningful losses in our lives and grieve those losses so that we can let go and accept what's new. Because if we're still burying that grief, it's going to fester inside us. Right? So those are the two things that came up, sort of learning how to self-trust and learning how to grieve when you're disappointed.

Absolutely. Both of those things, definitely. I would say the second one, I'll start with that first about the grieving and letting go. It took me a while to get to that point. When you're really in it, especially when it came to my son's diagnosis, I felt like, oh, I got this, I got this. And at the time, I was really accepting of what was going on, I think, because when you're in it, you're sort of like, okay, what do we do next? What do we do next? But it took me a while to really get to that point of really looking at the situation and coming to that acceptance that this is going to be a lifelong struggle for him. So I had to kind of change that about myself, that we weren't just going to, okay, what do we do next? And go in and fix it. It doesn't really work that way. So it was more of me coming to terms with that. And definitely towards the end of my book, I have several chapters about how, like one of my chapters, I write a lot in metaphor, and I just kind of talk about almost like a car driving down the road and how I'm watching these bits and pieces of the car coming off in my rear view mirror.

And those are all parts of myself that I feel like I'm losing. And yet by the end, I realized that the core part of me that's still there. I'm still the same person. I had to let go of all of those expectations and the old dreams in order to make myself available for what was really here, what my real life is. And once I did that, it really was a very freeing feeling, for sure. I feel like the facing and accepting where I'm at and then allowing myself to breathe those bits and pieces of myself that I feel like I've lost and then being able to come back to where I'm at and realize that I can actually make myself into an even better version of myself. That it doesn't have to be this loss and being like in a place where I feel like I'm just going to be disappointed and that's it. Now I can actually kind of make something better. Kind of like what your tagline is, taking your emotional shit and turning it into fertilizer for something really great. And that's kind of what I feel like I got to. But going back to the first part of that, definitely trusting in myself to be able to handle it, and there are still moments, I'll admit, that I feel like, oh my gosh, how are we going to handle this next phase or this next problem?

But we always manage to figure it out. And so the more that I have those challenges and the more that I work through them between me and my husband and our family, that we're able to work through all these things that I realized we can do this. We just have to take it one thing at a time. And I allow myself not to get too overwhelmed by things just a little bit at a time.

Wow. Well, you really said a mouthful here. And I just so appreciate what you said because I love your image of the car with the parts falling off. And I understand that it's not always easy to trust ourselves because we can get overwhelmed by anxiety, but I think it's great to hear that you're able to do it because I have some patients, I've had some patients over the years who they can never give themselves credit for their successes, so they never feel confident. But it sounds like you're able to do that. You're able to give yourself credit and you're able to acknowledge your successes so that when the next challenge comes along, you can face it square on with courage and perseverance.

Yeah, definitely. And I feel like when I write about it, I'm able to recognize that better. Even now, sometimes when I go back and reread a chapter, I think, wow, it's just amazing how we made it through this particular issue. And so writing about it is really a cathartic thing. It helps me to put things into perspective and ultimately I trust myself more the next time.

I wanted to ask you two questions. I wanted to ask you what have been the hardest things about raising your son and what have been the best things that have come out of it?

The hardest things, I would say, are just experiencing his pain, because with the severe autism, he has a lot of self-injurious behaviors. Some of these things have improved because we were able to get him on the correct medication that will help with that. And he's also in an excellent school where they're able to teach them skills to help him with that. But we still have rough days. So I would say the hardest thing definitely by far is sometimes just not being able to help him in the way that I wish I could because just the nature of his self-injury and his autism and his inability to really verbalize and understand his own situation. So that as a mom is heartbreaking and we just do the best that we can to make him as comfortable as possible when he's having a meltdown or whatever the situation is. The best part of it is that he's just this amazing little boy and he brings me so much joy and he's taught me really just so much about life, which I know is kind of cliche, but really when you're not so much stuck in your own mind and you're really looking at the world through the eyes of someone else.

And that's really kind of how I feel like I spend most of my days when I'm with him, is always aware of how he's going to perceive things or how he's going to take something in. And so when you start to see the world through the eyes of someone else, especially somebody that you love, it's really eye opening to just seeing the world in a different way altogether. One of my chapters is about this tree that he loves in our yard. And so I never really stopped to consider how beautiful that tree was until he made me sit down with him and look at the tree. And so it's like little simple things about life that sometimes when we're all caught up in every day the craziness of everyday and trying to fill our schedules and all that stuff, we miss all these little beautiful moments that sometimes when you're forced to slow down, you've kind of amazed by.

It's very beautiful. Both of those things. I mean, the first part about the hardest thing that was very heartbreaking to hear and my heart does go out to you in those moments. That does sound very challenging. And the other part about him teaching you I think everyone can be our teacher if we allow ourselves to be open for the lessons. Right. Everyone, everyone, everything, our pets, our friends, our children, our spouses, our students, my patients, everyone can be our teacher and all we have to be as open and then we can shift our perspective. I think that when people are different from us, it really helps us to shift our perspective.

Yeah, definitely.

So I guess it was the blog that got you into the book, but what was the thing that switched you from blogging to, okay, this is going to be a book.

Yeah, actually as I was writing the blog and I got more into the topics of autism, I had quite a few of my blog followers that would write to me in the comments and say, you know, you should really think about putting this together into a book because this could be really helpful for other people who maybe are going through the same situation. And I kind of considered it, but I was like, well, I guess I'll get to that someday. And I didn't really think too much of it, but then the more that I had more friends that were kind of pushing me towards it. I had a doctor who pulled me aside one time when I was in his office and he said, I've read your blog posts and I really think it would be great for you to publish those and have them in a form where I could recommend that to a patient who might have a child going through the same thing. That was when I really was like, oh, maybe I could actually do this. And so I took all the blog posts that I had and I put them in chronological order because it's not really written as a typical narrative.

Each of the blog posts was very theme oriented, almost like I was learning a lesson with each chapter because obviously as a blog you want it to be almost like a mini-story. So I took each of those things and put them into chronological order and then I had to kind of fill in all the gaps in that narrative to make sure that it made sense as a complete story. So from beginning to end, obviously his birth, starting the beginning of the story, and then where we're at now is where the book ends. So that's really the progression of the blog was having the story out there, having people kind of encouraged me to put it together as a story and then actually taking that and doing it.

That's a great progression and I think it's a nice natural way of evolving. And obviously your writing was really reaching people in a very powerful way. That they were all pushing you to publish something about your stories was making them want it in book form. Right?

Yeah, and I was really kind of surprised because a lot of my followers were not even parents of children with autism. They were just either fellow bloggers or people who maybe experienced anxiety. So they were kind of following my blog for that. So yeah, it was just interesting to get that encouragement from people who weren't even in the autism community or in the special needs community saying this is really important information and really an important story to have out there. So yeah, I feel like having people that weren't even necessarily associated with autism encouraging me to put it out there, really meant to me that I was able to make my stories universal enough where anybody could read it and get something out of it and feel like it was speaking to them in some way. So yeah, that was a really good feeling for me because that was always my goal. I kind of feel like there's not really a point in writing about something if nobody's ever going to read it. So I wanted to make sure that I made it entertaining enough where people would be interested in coming to it and reading it.

And you know, I think these days so many people are struggling with anxiety, and they have anxiety over all sorts of different situations that they're in. And learning some tools to cope or hearing other people's stories about how they learn to cope, I think is inspiring and encouraging. And like you say, you feel less isolated. Let's say somebody has anxiety over some medical issues that they're dealing with, or they have anxiety around their job situation or their finances or their relationship. They all can relate. If you're saying my anxiety was triggered by this situation and this is how I managed, because I think the thing that's universal is that we all struggle, we all suffer, and we all try to overcome.

Yeah, absolutely. Even after the past two years or so writing about isolation and loss of identity, I would say there's probably quite a few people out there who identify with that after what we've been through of maybe having to lose their job or whatever. All of these, like you said, are very universal feelings when everybody struggles. And so I definitely feel like my stories can connect with many people at this point.

And I love your idea about loss of identity, because isn't it true that when we're flexible, we're able to embrace different identities as our life goes on?

Absolutely. I really feel like one of the things I learned about myself was I'd always defined myself as whatever my job or my role was. So whether it was a teacher or a lab tech or whatever it happened to be at that time, that was my title, that was who I was, my identity. And then when my son arrived and he had so many complications from birth, I didn't go back into teaching. So I'm thinking, well, what is my identity then? And the beautiful part about exploring this through my writing was coming to the realization that those parts of me that made me a good teacher, I'm still those things. And the parts of me that made me want to travel the world before my son was born, those parts are still inside me. So those are all the defining parts of who I am. Those are my identity, not necessarily the role that I was playing. So that was a good thing for me to come to a realization about, because it helps me to let go of the idea that, okay, maybe I'm not a teacher in the classroom anymore, but I can still teach, I can write, and I can connect with people and kind of redefining the way that I looked at myself.

And I feel like a lot of people are probably going through this right now themselves with. Maybe changing jobs and things, is that you still are who you are, but you're just going to have to find maybe a different way to just express yourself or reinvent yourself. And I think that was a really good lesson for me to learn.

Yeah, I love that. What you're really saying is your identity is all the stuff on the inside of you, not all the stuff on the outside.

Exactly. I know it's so simple. It took me a long time kind of being inside my own brain to figure that out. So like I said, the writing really helps me to put it in perspective, which is great.

So speaking of putting things in perspective, what do you think the biggest lessons you've learned over the last 13 years have been?

Oh gosh. There's so many things that I've learned. When I came into wanting to be a mom and having my expectations of what that would be like and being the person that I was before in my previous universe. I really felt like I was able to control everything and that everything would be perfect as long as I did it the way it was supposed to be done. And so I would say the biggest thing that I've learned is that things don't have to be perfect. They don't have to be done a specific way. And when I started to let go of that idea of perfection and that I had control over everything, I actually became a lot more I don't know what the word would be. Maybe gracious to others, being open to the fact that, yeah, I'm not perfect and looking at when other people struggle, it made me connect and be more empathetic and more compassionate to others who are struggling because I wasn't so wrapped up in this idea of me trying to be perfect. Because I kind of feel like whenever you're trying to control everything and you feel like you got it all together and then you see others.

I give examples in the book of before I had kids giving the side that I to people and a mom in the grocery store with her screaming kids. And now how I've come around to the other side and said, whoa, I would be totally convinced rating with this mom right now. And so I think being not so caught up in that perfection and that idea of control that I'm able to see other perspectives better and be more open and more compassionate to the poor mom in the grocery store with the two screaming kids. That I think is probably the biggest lesson for me that I've learned is just kind of take the perspective of others and be open. And that makes you more open to being empathetic and compassionate.

Yeah. You're talking about commiserating with that mother as opposed to judging her.

Exactly.

Yeah. I think it's easy for us to be perfectionistic and judgmental toward ourselves and toward others. But sometimes these really challenging situations kind of I always say, like when our heart is broken, it's broken open and so it has the opportunity. I mean, you can get rigid and sort of double down on the control and all that stuff in the judgment, or you can let your heart break open and you can open it to compassion and acceptance and tolerance and understanding and commiseration versus criticism and judgment and condescension. Right, so I feel like you've let your heart break open.

Yeah, definitely. I would say that's the perfect way to put it. And I feel like, again, I touch upon a lot of that in the book, just my own, recognizing the things about myself that might not have been so great before and being able to hopefully come out the other end as a better person.

Well, you know, the ruthless compassion philosophy is to face the truth about ourselves, other people and the world, but not punish ourselves or others for what we see, just to use that information to make things better. So if you recognize that you were maybe perfectionistic or controlling or judgmental in the past, instead of beating yourself up for that understanding, you can go, okay, well, these are things that I can change, and I can be more tolerant and accepting and compassionate. So you're actually practicing ruthless compassion without it being labeled that way?

I know that's the perfect way to put it. Actually exactly what you said, and ruthless compassion kind of sums that up perfectly.

It's a handy little philosophy, really, especially when you're going through difficult times.

Yes, definitely. And yeah, I feel like because I'm able to recognize those things about myself, I feel like writing it or putting that into my writing also might help somebody out there who doesn't necessarily see the world the same way that I do, but they'll maybe kind of connect with that and say, oh, yeah, I get that. So, yeah, I do feel like writing about it and putting it out there is helpful because it might help somebody else to recognize that as well and hopefully get them to be a little bit more compassionate as a result of that.

Well, after all these years of isolation and stress, I think it's super helpful to have things to talk about, to hear, like this podcast that are giving people help and support and insight and perspective. Because I think coming out of the cocoon, we need a little more of that, don't we?

Yes, absolutely. Perspective is a huge thing. I feel like just putting yourself in the place of someone else.

Before we wrap up, I have my three end questions. So the first question is to remind the listener of the project that you're working on, which is your new book.

Yeah, actually it's out and it was released in April, and it's my “My Alternate Universe: Anxiety, Autism, and Adventure in a Parallel Reality”. And it's available wherever books are sold. If you're looking for it online, Amazon would be a great place to start, but it's going to be out there and available everywhere.

That's fantastic. And if people are interested in following. You and keeping up with your other activities. Where can they find you?

They can find me at my website, which is my first and last name, Jennifer-Rosado.com. So just a hyphen in between my first and last name. So Jennifer-Rosado.com, And that's my website and that has my blog and it has some resources there and information on how to contact me.

Beautiful. And before we end, the last question of the trio is do you have a call to action for the listener?

Well, I believe there's power in stories. For me, allowing others to be part of my journey and being open and honest made me feel a lot less isolated and alone, even if people didn't necessarily understand exactly what I was going through. Just being open and sharing what was going on, especially when it came with my son's diagnosis and not trying to hide that or just being open about that, just made people more likely to talk to me and have questions. And so I felt really connected and I felt less alone. And so I guess my call to action would be for people to be open to the idea of telling your own story when you're comfortable, to the extent that you feel comfortable. But to the other side of it also being open to other people's stories. Because I think when you share stories, you can connect, but when you're listening to other people's stories, it helps understanding. And when you have understanding, then you can have a new perspective on something that you might not have had before. And that change in perspective can lead to an increase in compassion and an increase in empathy.

And ultimately that's where we can get change in the world is through sharing our stories and then also listening to other people's stories. So that would be my call to action, to share stories and be a good listener.

I love that because you're right, that does help us see each other as more similar as opposed to more different. And it builds that empathy and compassion, which, like you said, we need so much of. So thank you for that. That was very touching and meaningful call to action. Well, Jennifer Rosado, thank you so much for coming onto the Ruthless Compassion podcast today and talking about how you turned your emotional shit into fertilizer for something way better, including your first book, probably the first of some of many. I wish you all the best in the book and with your family and all your future endeavors.

Oh, thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun. It's been great speaking with you.

This is Dr. Marcia, Sirota. Thank you for listening. Please leave a review and your comments wherever you listen to podcasts. And don't forget to sign up for my free newsletter at marciasirotamd.com, where you'll learn about upcoming online events as well. Also, we love getting referrals from our listeners about future podcast guests, so please email us at info at marciasirotamd.com.