Prioritizing Mental Health and Inclusivity is the New Face of Gymnastics with Lisa Richer

The world of gymnastics is both a treasured and tainted sport. In this conversation with Lisa Richer, a member of Team USA back in the 80s and 90s, we cover how the sport has evolved since then. She shares her experience learning she is Neurodiverse and was in need of vision therapy as a gymnast! Now she helps others understand the world of Neurodivergence and the different therapies and ways to support this community.

Check out Lisa's work here and reach out

https://journey2bloom.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisaricher/ https://journey2bloom.com/ https://www.facebook.com/LisaLazarRicher IG @Jouney2Bloom


Time Stamps: 

• Lisa Richer's early beginnings in gymnastics and her inspiration to start the sport. (00:01:27)
• Significant injuries experienced by Lisa, including back fractures and their impact on her career and the concept of burnout during college gymnastics and its effects on mental health. (00:03:33)
• Burnout in College Gymnastics Lisa discusses her feelings of burnout during her college gymnastics experience and the pressures involved. well-being.(00:09:56)
• Current Opportunities in Gymnastics Lisa highlights the increased opportunities for gymnasts today compared to her training era.(00:17:05)
• Opportunities for Adult Gymnasts Announcement of new opportunities for adult gymnasts to continue their athletic careers.(00:22:08)
• Identity Beyond Athletics Reflection on athletes' identities outside of their sports and the pressures associated with being known solely as an athlete.(00:25:40)
• Neurodiversity and Parenting Lisa's journey of discovering her neurodiversity through her children's experiences and diagnoses. (00:29:08)
• Burnout and Identity Crisis Lisa shares her experience with burnout and the struggle of losing her identity as an athlete. (00:32:00)
• Understanding Neurodiversity in Organizations: Lisa's work with organizations to promote understanding different neurotypes and their needs. (00:34:04)

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Transcript

0:18

Welcome back to another episode of spirit of an athlete. I'm your host, Amanda Smith, and on this episode, I invited Lisa Richer to share her experience as an elite gymnast on team USA, as well as her experience with neurodiversity. She didn't learn that she was neurodiverse until after she was an athlete, and now she is a certified neurodiversity consultant for organizations, parents and athletes that are learning that they're neurodivergent, too. I truly hope that you enjoy this episode of spirit of an athlete. Lisa Richer, thank you so much for being on spirit of an athlete with me and sharing not only your story, but what you do in the world to help people. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Just meeting you. The first time I felt like we were kindred spirits. So I'm excited for today. Seriously? Seriously. Okay, so when did you become an athlete? And then when did you find out you were neurodivergent? Wow. Very different types. So, um, I my first time in, I was a gymnast my whole young life, um, through through college. And, uh, it all started. I was at a preschool, and somebody taught them. Tom had been doing cartwheels, and it was nursery school, and I taught myself a cartwheel. And I went home and I said, mom, I want to go to Marquette's. And she's like, what is that? And then I started a Monday tumbling class at five. And that was when my gymnastics career began. Okay. Are you are you a shorter person? Well, I was five, four and a half, and now that I'm in my 50s, I shrunk an inch, which was really disturbing to me. But yes, I'm on the shorter side. Um, but when I actually, when I fractured my back the first of two times, which I know we'll talk about at some point. Um, I grew three inches during that year. Oh my gosh. Okay, so they kicked me out of gymnastics. I have to share this with you. They kicked me out of gymnastics because I was taller than the instructors. So I started gymnastics at six and at six years old, I was taller than the instructors. And they were like, listen, you should probably go play basketball or volleyball or anything else because you're going to be too tall to do gymnastics. And I call these now because they just didn't want to adjust all the equipment. That's really what it boiled down to. I was gonna say, well, and, you know, and back in the day, um, and we were always adjusting the low bar or the high bar, the bar width. And now everyone, it's like two uneven bars, 2 to 2 high bars. The bars are so wide. But, um. Yeah, you had to adjust everything. Get in, Just the vault. The the vault. Hey, we were always unscrewing and screwing things back in. That's so funny, because I had some tall teammates. Yeah. Hallelujah. See? Okay, so you were in gymnastics all the way through college. Where'd you go to college? I went to college. I went to West Virginia, WVU. Um, I was injured more than I was, um, healthy. I was also burnt out and so many other things that I didn't know about myself because I had yet to be diagnosed as an individual, which you're asking, when did I actually get diagnosed? So I found out that I had anxiety when I was in my early 20s, when I had gone in and talked to a doctor about, like, I'm having I'm exhausted in the morning. I'm having a hard time getting into bed. At that point, I was working for a staffing firm and I was a division director, so I was running the desk and a team and sales and recruiting, and I'd go home and I would just crash and and then I was like, I can't get out of bed on the weekends or whatever it was. And my doctor said, you have anxiety. So that's how I found out about the anxiety. Um, when I, uh, was diagnosed with, um, ADHD, It was just a couple of years ago. Um, and, uh, my, I learned a lot through my children and their journeys and their different diagnoses and, um, things that I was like, oh, that makes sense. And that seems right. And, oh, gosh, I get that. And, uh, found out I had visual processing disorder when my younger son was getting trained to do a home program. and the vision therapist said, you did say you were an international gymnast, right? You competed for the US. Correct? And I was like, yes. And she said, how did you do that? And I was like, what do you mean? She's like, you could really use vision therapy. And she started talking about like, did the board seem to move when you got closer to the ball? Did the end of the beam seem to move when you were doing mountain dismounts? I'm like, yeah, they were scary. My dismounts and mounts on beam. My mounts on bars were scary. That was bars was my best event, but probably because nothing was moving. It was me moving on the bar that was stagnant and it all makes sense now. But she said, wow, I don't know how you did what you did. And my dad said, well, how come no one ever told me? And I said, well, that's a really good question, dad. But back then we didn't even know what visual processing disorder was. Oh, yes. Oh, how I can relate to this. So. You you said you've said several things that we have to go back and talk about relative to your gymnastics career. Uh, first off, you broke your back twice. When? Twice. When did you. When in the career did you break your back? Were you in high school? Were you in college? Were you going for international play? I mean, yeah. So, um, I it was I think the first time it was I want to see it was 85 maybe. And it was a stress fracture in my back, so I'd already. My first time making US national team was junior U.S. national team, and it was 1984. And then I won the 84 Olympic gold medal tour. I was in Lubbock hopeful with like, Phoebe Mills and, um, the likes of, you know, Christy Phillips. And I was on the tour with Julie McNamara and all of those people that people knew from the from the 80s and 90s. And, um, so I fractured my I had stress fracture on my back. Um, but then I came back and I made a national team again. And I had competed, um, all over the world and Japan and Sicily and other places for the US. Um, and then in 87 was when my compression fracture happened. Um, and that was, I think end of 87, beginning of 88. So I was in high school and, uh, that was it. Like my identity was gone. My chances of going to the Olympic team and even making Olympic trials, let alone championships, uh, USA because you have to go to nationals and USA Championships to even qualify for, um, qualify for the Olympic trials. All that went out the window. So I had a compression fracture, um, and it had gone from like a little bit here to slid over here and we the, our orthopedic thought oh it's just from the other fracture. So it's going to be okay. And so I kept swinging bars. Well because it was in the lower upper toward the middle of my back. The absolute worst thing I could have done was swing bar. But when I fracture, when I had my stress fracture, my lower back bars were fine because it was my lower back, so it was the least pressure. But because of where the top one was with my arms up and doing, you know, giants and all of that and release moves, it was just making it worse and worse. By the time I went to a specialist in New York and he looked at my upper back, he's like, wow, that's gotten worse. And then I was out for almost a year. And this was before college. So then you pushed on after after breaking your back twice. You pushed on to go D1 gymnastics. How did how did that look? When was the gap between when you needed to take a break to allow your back to heel and college? So when, um, I was always still in the gym, I mean, I took time off, but I would go in, ride the bike. Um, but then I grew 3.5in, had weight gain. You know, everything was different. I was training 5 to 7 hours a day during the school year and up to eight upwards of eight and a half in the summers. And then it went to I can't do anything. So even, you know, everything changed. Um, and then when I came back, um, it had gone from class for 3 to 1, elite to levels like they have now, levels one through ten and then elite. And so I dropped down to level nine, um, level nine and level ten. So I only had to compete optionals and not do compulsory anymore. Compulsory is were the absolute worst thing on my back after the first injury and then definitely after the second. Um, because a lot of it was walkovers and back bet and things that you had to like. Literally. One of the tricks on beam was like a you start to do a front walkover and you pause in the middle, you tap into your knee and then you come back over. Well, on my back, my lower back, that was awful. And then on my upper both parts, I just couldn't do it. Um, so I did enough to go to college, but I was already I was heading for burnout, like in my early 20s. Loss of identity. I didn't know what I didn't know, though. I didn't know. Like I said, I was diagnosed with ADHD in my late 40s after burnout, and my therapist, you know, walked me through and was like, okay, you this is going on, this is going on. And it all just kind of came together for me. But I never really recovered to answer your question. And college was really hard for me. I colleges were college. It was too big. I didn't feel like I fit in. None of my teammates had trained at the level that I had trained. They were peaking and doing wonderful in college. I was just wanting to be anywhere but in the gym. Yeah, yeah, I remember those days. Yeah, we talked about that a little bit. Right? Yeah. So we. Did. We did. Oh okay. So didn't get burned out trying to recover from from breaking your back. It was later. It was in college. Okay. All right. That clears up a lot of things for me. That's interesting. So what we tend to see in athletics, especially at this elite level, is that athletes are getting burned out in high school, and then they're making the big push to go to Division one potentially. And and that's when they really go, oh my gosh this is ridiculous. And they, they start to back down. And then when you get into college you get the scholarship. You start to play the sport. Then you realize, oh my gosh, all of my time is dedicated to practice. How many hours a week were you doing? If, you know, were you doing gymnastics relative to classwork? Yes. So it's interesting that you say that because. Because I trained at gym growing up, um, where we were in the gym hours and hours. And this is important kind of distinction. So when I was growing up in the 80s, it was it was kind of Olympics or bust and you could go to college on this scholarship, but it wasn't like it is today where more gymnasts train and get college scholarships and peak in college and do phenomenal things in college and get new skills. Those of us that trained most of us that were training at the time that I was, if they went to college on a scholarship, um, some of them did peak and some had phenomenal careers, even the ones that were at the Olympic level, world Championship teams and all of that. But a lot of us were realizing we were burnt out. Um, and because we trained, uh, like I said, upwards of 5 to 7 hours in the gym. So I would go to school from 745 in the morning till about 1245. I would leave school, and then I would go to practice from 130 to 730, and then I would go home and I would do my homework. So the reason this is relevant is when I went to college, had I not been burnt out, and had I been in an environment that felt good to me from the inside out and we talked, well, I'm sure we'll talk more about that. And I trusted my God and I, I was able to use my voice and say, this is this feels wrong and I need to not be here because I had those conversations with my parents, but I still ended up getting staying at the school even though I didn't want to be there. In college, we only trained like three and a half, four hours a day, so I had more of a balanced life in college than I did in private club, even at a D1, but because I was already at the place where I had checked out, I was like, my body hurts. I and then my parents wanted me to do like stay in the sport and if they watch this, they're going to be like, I think recognizing some of the things that I was trying to tell them as a, as a college student. I'm like, I don't want to be here anymore, but why not? I don't know why not. I just can't describe it. But I can feel it. It doesn't feel right to me. But I wasn't allowed to leave unless I decided it was going to pay for school myself. And so there's a lot more to that that I won't get into. It's more personal with my parents, but I was I was working out less hours and I had a lot more free time, and yet I was miserable. All right, let's talk gymnastics then versus now. So I remember in the 80s and the 90s, because I absolutely loved watching gymnastics. I remember the athletes being like anywhere between 12 and 15 years old most of the time. And now here we've got Simone Biles and Chiles and and they're all beyond college level. They're they're in their 20s still, but they're beyond college. They've already competed in college. But of course, Simone Biles, she's been in the Olympics several times now. So why was it that we were pushing athletes at such a young age to compete at the worlds and an Olympic level in gymnastics. And now here we are allowing athletes who are well beyond just okay. So wow, that's a lot to unpack. So when when I think back on it and I think about when I peaked and it was, um, I was the first person to ever do a full and back out off the uneven bars, and I competed it, um, not internationally. I was supposed to do it at a meet in Japan, but then only if I caught my release move. I was going to do the dismount, and I fell on my release move, so I didn't. I did an easier dismount, so it was never named after me. But that is still a very common dismount off the uneven bars. It was a full on back out and a double back with a full twist in the first flip. And so we were all training at that really intense high level and elite level gymnastics was the place to be. It was the that that's that's all we trained for. But if I take you back again when in the 80s, when I was training in in the 70s, we had class four, three, two, one and elite. That's it. Now in today's world we have levels one through ten plus elite. closely. So if you think about it, the population pool at the Olympic level is now this big, whereas we were all vying for it. Now one of the differences is when you went to Olympic trials, when the year that I had gone through the trials, it was you make the team, you're on the team. And then the the next set of years it was it's gotten a lot more. In fact, one of my teammates that I'm still very close to. Um, she got kicked off the team in the 92 team. She should have been on the team. She made the team, got kicked off the team so somebody else could be put on the team because then it became your specialists. And now we have only two. I think it's two all rounders. They keep changing it. I can't even tell you the scoring system works anymore. And neither can a lot of my teammates because it's just different. But to to to answer your question, part of it is one we didn't we only had so many levels. And if you really wanted to make a name for yourself and you really wanted you wanted to be known for something and you wanted to be a, a, a top level gymnast, you had to be an elite. Now you can be a phenomenal level nine or level ten gymnast like I trained up Arquette's. I don't even think we had anybody at championships or Olympic trials this year, but there are numerous people getting college scholarships and are going to be phenomenal. And and so there's so much more opportunity to grow and thrive and not beat your body up at the younger levels at the younger years and, and thrive and really do wonderful in college. And it was there a little bit before. But now I think there's a lot more opportunity. And because of the way it is that you make the Olympic team now. I think there's a lot less people thinking, I even want to put that in. Like, I don't want that energy, the mental, the physical, the emotional, everything. It's just it's, um, it's a different world today. Um, so but if you think back to, like, the 84 Olympic team, um, and, um, and you think of like, uh, Kathy Johnson and Julianne, I. Sorry, Kathy, this isn't true, but I could have sworn she was like 16 or 17, so, um, you know, and then I know Kelly Garrison. Steve. She was in college when she made a comeback. And so there have been a select few that are, you know, that were a little bit older, older. But I think part of it is the mentality of our gymnasts, like Ali. Ali Raisman, someone was joking in her rising up. I was just watching it over the weekend and rising up about how she was, and she even said it when she made the Olympic team, how she was calling Ali grandma. And now she's older than Ali was at her last Olympics. And so, you know, they're defying the odds. Dominique Dawes I've known Dominique since we were tiny. Like she used to come to our gym in the summer for summer camps, and they were Maryland. We were Pennsylvania. So we would we would compete together. Um, and she went to three Olympics. So she was older, um, and and yet she trained at the same level of intensity as I did. Um, so, you know, some of it is I wanted to find the odds. Some of it your body has to be willing to continue to do these things. And I also think that training is finally coming around to being what do I need? What does my body need in order to get to those outcomes? Like Simone talks about how she wasn't she she was out of the gym a lot versus in the gym because now she's married and she wanted to be with her husband and watch. You know, I don't know her personally, but you just like following her story. She wanted to be there for her husband at the football game. So she's traveling back and forth to green Bay. But yet here she is still go. I mean, she's she's the most incredible gymnast we've ever seen come through the doors. And we all agree with that as gymnasts. Um, but the other thing is being older she now and after the Larry Nassar thing happened. Um, yes. The the voices of us as gymnasts. It's broken open. And then with what happened there, coupled with Simone breaking out of the Olympics and saying, I'm done, can't do it. It's really just brought to the surface that there is no such thing as mind over matter. And it is mind, body and soul combined. And if you're and she's so right, like if your mind's not in it, you can get seriously injured. I know people that have died. I have teammates, teammates that I roomed with when I was on national team that are no longer here, one of them because of landing a vault inappropriately. And we didn't have what I like to call the cow tongue now, and we didn't have, like, the thing around the vault where if you miss your feet on the edge of the floor, that you still have something to put your feet on, like, literally, you missed the board. So things are safer. Um, people are speaking up when they're injured, and they like the Kerri Strug thing. She should never have done that vault. Right. So. So things have changed. Um, things are evolving. Out of bad is coming good. Not as fast as I'd like to see it, but I think that's also allowing people to stay in the sport longer. And they just recently announced that they're they're looking at creating opportunities for, um, adult adult gymnasts to become, you know, professional athletes and keep their career going for those that are going to be like up through Simone's age. Um, Gabby Douglas just announced she wants to try to come back for the next Olympics. She'll be in her 30s. So, you know, I think things are changing and I love that they're changing. And I think it's because we are as, as a, as a sport, um, demanding the change and using our voices. And, um, I'm part of the alumni association for, um, there's a gymnastics alumni association that's out there now that was started by some of the former elite level gymnasts. Um, one of the board members is a former world champion. Maybe a couple of them are. Some Olympians are part of it. And we're all just trying to be better because now we know better so that we can do better for the younger generations. Yeah, yeah, that that. Uh oh. I had Angela Fuller, who she became a, uh, American Ninja Warrior last year. And she was a gymnast, stopped doing her gymnastics at 13, and just went to world championships at 43. And to to see that that sport can continue well into your 40s and similar to you, she had broken her back. So seeing her comeback story and oh, it's she's been on on the podcast and her story is just absolutely phenomenal. But I love that you're part of making the sport a safer place, as well as something that we can continue on well into old age. Right? Yeah. Which which cracks me up. as as someone who's a powerlifter. We have we have, um, open, which is up to 30, I believe it's 34, and then 35 to 39 is Sub Masters, and then Masters is 40 and up, and then they break it down every five years. And you know, that's that's a model that I feel like gymnastics could probably put into place. I think you're right. I think they probably will be able to. And I'm really excited to see what comes comes from it. You know, I watch um, NCAA, I don't watch a lot of the college gymnastics. But when I look at NCAA blaze, I think, wow, the you know, these girls are peaking. And and some of my teammates also did great in the early 90s, late 80s when they were in college. Um, but the opportunity to do it as a team sport. That's the other piece of this is when you're training as an athlete. Growing up, it's we went to Invitational, but it was very individualized. But then when you are at a world or any national team competitions, it's a team sport. And so like one of them we went to, I think it was for the 84 team. In 85 it was USA, China. And so all of us as gymnasts that were on national team from our respective private clubs, we come together, we we train together. We team together like we had, um, us Olympic Training Center. We would have training camps at Colorado Springs. It's nothing like they do now. Like I think now they go like every month or two and they train together. So there is a much bigger team camaraderie piece of it now I think to across private clubs, because they do come together now in a safer environment than it was, you know, with the, um, the Crowley era. Um, but but there's more team camaraderie. But college is where it really becomes a team sport. And that's another reason why I think a lot of people just really lean in and try to want to be part of that and then want to continue it because they're having fun. It's not just about one goal of, you know, eight people get to go to the Olympics. Now it's five. And, you know, and those rules have changed too. It's so narrow. The field is it's almost impossible. It's like the luck of a draw. Three of the girls that should have been on that Olympic team, they all get injured. One hurt the knee and two blow out the Achilles at Olympic trials. I mean, how devastating. Like I got hurt at least a year and a half before, and I knew it was over. It still took me many years to figure out who I was as not Lisa the gymnast, but these girls were at trials. They made it to trials and it was gone in an instant. And I know, just like athletes in general like that, it happens. And, you know, knowing your identity outside of being an athlete, I wish somebody would have said to me, you're so much more than just a gymnast because I was known as Lisa the Gymnast. Yeah, yeah, I feel that on so many levels, I feel like the younger athletes are really starting to grasp this. And I love the fact that they they're being coached around this. And that's key because there was no coaching, especially when you were an elite athlete. There was no coaching around. There's your normal life and then there's your athletic life. You were the sport. So I completely agree. I, I definitely identified as softball player, especially when I got to college. And that was the only sport I was doing before that I was jock chick. That's what they called me in high school and and then before, before high school. And the boys giving me lovely nicknames. I was just an athlete. Just a and that was what the coaches would say. Oh, she's just a raw athlete. I was many, many muscles because I had I always had a six pack and, you know. Um, yeah. And you know, and it was um, or they call me by my nickname, which they called me Laser Beam and laser was my last name was laser. Growing up. So they called me laser and laser beam, and, um, but everything was, you know, Lisas. You know, the town I grew up in, I was the hometown hero. I was the one that got gave eastern a name in Pennsylvania other than Larry Holmes, because he was the boxer and he was a boxer when I was a gymnast. And it was, you know, like we were breaking barriers back then and it's a lot of pressure. But when it was so good, it was so good. But when it went bad, I didn't I didn't know where to turn. And that's like, I think the proudest thing I am of as being a mom of two unique, neurodivergent individual boys is that they are who they are. And if I teach them nothing else in my lifetime, it's be comfortable with who you are and let others let others understand you and learn to understand you. And if they don't at least respect and appreciate you, don't conform to what I did and not trusting your gut. And, um, you know, I wish I had never stopped trusting my gut, but society was telling me I was doing everything wrong. It was just because they love me. I love that that's what you share with your kids and the growth that you obviously have had since then. That's that is absolutely beautiful. Definitely worth quoting, I think. Yes. Okay. So neurodivergent. This is this has become your specialty. This has become the thing that you help the rest of the world with. And it was born from your children. And then the discovery of your own neurodiverse experience. Correct. Okay, so first you find out that you have anxiety. Then you find out you have ADHD through what you're learning from your kids. Is that correct? Somewhat, yeah. So, um, my older son would say, oh my gosh, mom, you're like, you're, you know, you're the carbon copy. Joseph would say you're the carbon copy of Zander. Like, if you don't have ADHD, I don't know who does. So when I finally told them that my doctor diagnosed me, he's like, duh. Like, I was like, he's a 17 year old boy, right? And, um. But yeah. So through through, uh, my youngest, I found out about that. And then his, his vision therapist had diagnosed me with visual processing disorder. Um, and it was through him and I again, like, I would never, never have known. And, you know, he was my second. And he started out totally typically developing. And then things quickly turned. But my my second, my first one there was struggles from day one, but it took like four and a half years to figure out what was going on with him. And people were labeling him and people were doing all these things. And, um, oftentimes I'll have people say to me whether I'm like you said, this is what I do now for a living. Like I just feel like it's my life's purpose. I have my lived experiences, my training experience, my kids experience. Um, and, you know, all of that. And, and whether I'm working with parents that are, um, trying to navigate the neurodiverse learning journey with their children, whether they're three years old with early interventions. Yeah. We talked about this a little bit. Right. Um, early intervention or I initially just wanted to do early intervention through like fifth grade, because I know the earlier you get the information you need to inform how you can support your child, the more likely they are going to thrive and not just survive. And so what I found though, was people were coming to me. They had kids transitioning in the middle and then into high school, and I was like, oh my gosh. Well, clearly if they didn't get the help they needed early on, they're going to need it. And so everything I do is through referral. And so I was like, okay, so now I have a portfolio from three year olds through seniors in high school. And and then during Covid when I went into full burnout and it was I had a really bad reaction to my second Covid shot. Full burnout, couldn't get off the couch. It was the first time I ever missed one of my, um, my older son summits. I couldn't travel with him. I'm like, I can't go, And my entire vestibular system, everything, it was just like, you're done, you're done. Now, the burnout, as my therapist would say, started many, many, many years ago, probably when I lost my identity back when I was 17 or 16. However, I was in survival mode that whole time I was the fixer I was in, you know, whatever it was. Just keep going. Fixer or survivor. Um, so as an adult, I was told, like you, why don't you do it the way I do it? How come you know you're you can't put a deck together the way I do? I do things in the middle out. And so when I was coming out of out of through burnout, which my therapist always reminds me, you're still moving through it several years later, that, okay, these kids grow up to be adults just like me. And we didn't know what we didn't know, and our parents didn't know what they didn't know. And so I want to do better and be better for them. So I started to do this thing called art of relationship building, and it turned into group coaching with a couple of different organizations where they hired me as a consultant, and I do group group sessions with them, and it's all through the lens of neurodiversity. So everything comes from that nerd, non-linear thinking lens, if you will. And then, um, additionally to that, when I was through Covid, I was doing research and I wanted to work with organizations to help them understand different neuro types because in order diversity umbrella, as you and I have talked about, is a huge umbrella. And people would say, well, pick a lane. And I said, I did. It's an adversity and everything intertwines. Whether it's executive functioning. You have ADHD, you have anxiety. There's typically coexisting diagnoses. And so if we don't inform each other, those diagnoses mean nothing unless we have the information to understand how to advocate, how to implement and then how to sustain it. And so I also partner with a company that has EAP companies as their clients. And I go in most of the time I do it through workshops online. and I do understanding prototypes for organizations, and I do implementing and executing, um, leading and leading and managing and engaging across other types. So I do like a basic 101 and then one from the more higher level. And there's always at least one person that goes, oh my gosh, that's me. Oh my gosh, that's my child. You know. So so I'm still hitting the parents in all facets. And when I made a decision to let go of everyone else's, you have to pick a lane. And I said I did. And these are the three ways in which I execute on that lane of neurodiversity. Um, everything started. All these people started to come toward me and all three parts of the business, while my website still mostly just talks about my journey to get here and the parent piece, It's because I feel like if I don't connect with the parents on a very emotional level, they're not going to trust me to work with them. Whereas the adults and the organizations, I'm getting referrals to them through the work I'm doing, podcasts, things like I'm doing here, and they're hearing me and they're going, oh, I want to talk to her. And so, you know, knowing your audience and this is who I've been my whole life, and yet I let society tell me I couldn't do any of it or be any of it. And that's. Yeah, that's how my whole business came to be. So my daughter recently got, uh, diagnosed with a couple of things, and one of them being ADHD. And when the, when the doctor went through the report, I was just sitting there going, oh yeah, that's that's me. That is every bit of what she's experiencing is exactly how I was. I had different tools to manage it, but absolutely everything that she has I have. And so now we're going through therapies together. And one of the things that I found out similar to you was visual processing. As a softball player, with balls moving very fast at you, or away from you or toward you. People kept on asking like, how did you do that? Well, I played tricks on my brain. I went from being a right handed batter to a left handed batter, and that that managed to help me be able to see things better. And then my spatial awareness was phenomenal. Being able to judge when I needed to make a pitch turn was that was one of my major gifts. And now being able to visually see like how my pitchers that I coach is their ball spinning the appropriate amount, is it turning when we want it to turn? When does it start to break all of those things I'm super capable of doing. But but I definitely had that visual processing issue. And now I'm going, okay, maybe we need to check and see if my daughter has that also. Well, it's interesting that you say it because when my younger son, um, got diagnosed with it, um, he was struggling with tracking. And then in the midst of all this too, we also found out that he had absence seizures, so we didn't know of him. Missing information was because of the ADHD complex combined ADHD, or because his brain was literally turning on and off every five seconds, or sometimes, you know, every hour for five seconds at a time, 20s at a time, like a light switch. So his tracking and his eyes didn't track together. So that's what we originally went there for. And then when they realize all these other pieces and he played baseball at the time and they were like, oh gosh, there's no way he can hit a ball. And we were like, oh no, he is the most consistent hitter with machine pitch because he figured out where the ball was going, right? And when he made contact, it was great. But trying to catch the ball in the air, he said it looked like a blob. He literally said, this is what it looked like coming at him and in the air. It was like, okay, it's all over here and over here, and I don't even know where the ball is. Um, and then once he went through the the therapies, his reading got better, his tracking got better. He ended up getting, um, the glasses that have the progressive, the lenses that are the two type of lenses because he only needed them for reading. Um, and now they have the transition glasses, transitional glasses. So he uses them at school, but he doesn't need them for sports. And it's just incredible. And for me, what it did was during Covid when all the fun backgrounds came out and we talked about this earlier, Whether it's the great art background or a fun, really neat background background. I always say to people, I really need you to turn it off or just turn the camera off when a meeting with you, because I've been doing virtual meetings and Skype and I'm like, instant messenger from AOL. That's how long ago I started virtual work and I never got headaches. And I was on meetings all day long. And then through Covid, I'm like, is it from my, you know, reaction to my shot? Like what is going on? And then what I finally realized was the back. I let people look like this to me when those backgrounds are on and and like this. So I'm getting nauseous, I'm getting headaches, I'm trying to squint to that. Right. And and so once I asked people to turn them off, I was like, oh my gosh, this is what's going on. And whatever I do, those art of relationship building trainings or other, um, things like we're doing today, a podcast or I do some other type of training that's virtual. People always say to me, well, do you want us to tell our audience that you're going to ask them to do this? And I said, please don't. And they sometimes look at me like, sure. And the reason I tell them don't do that is I said, I want people to understand whether this is what's bothering them or there's something else, that they have the authority. They have the power to speak up and share what it is that they need in order to have equal access to what everyone else has, and that a combination that I'm asking for. If it bothers you, then turn the camera off. I'm giving you an out. But don't sit there and be passive aggressive and leave your background on even after I ask you not to. And if you can't figure out how to turn it off, then go off camera. And so, you know, those are the things that I would just sit there and suffer. I would sit there and suffer when people were being passive aggressive and making me feel less than. And these are all the things that it took me going into burnout to figure out where all this came from, how I was in survival mode and fawning for so many years, and unpack all of that. And that's also why I do what I do, because parents are sometimes going through that adult piece of it while they're going through it with their kids, and adults are often going, oh yeah, that's me, and I can't. It's amazing how many male leaders that were toxic and manipulative and gaslighting me constantly, now open up to me and go, oh my gosh, I'm like the male version of you. And I didn't feel comfortable in corporate. And so it's interesting to see like sometimes they're also not, um, you know, getting what they need. And they also were afraid to speak up. And so I work with one of the organizations is all female. So when I get to share with them, listen, they think it. But that doesn't mean that some of them aren't hurting. And oftentimes the more passive aggressive is the lesser self-esteem that they have. So when you feel comfortable with who you are inside and you can share that truth. And I had to do that on a, on a, um, workshop I did the other day where someone wanted me to slip a visual that I had and asked me to take my word of last year and this year. Curiosity. And what? What if I put curiosity downward? Collaboration is. I think I showed you this slide the other day and took collaboration and put it where curiosity was at the top, and I said, well, and it felt really bad to me. So after the person finished, I said, that is great to you and I really appreciate your perspective, but that would not work for me because without or without courage, I'm sorry. It was courage. Not curiosity. Without courage. Yeah, none of my other. I couldn't say no. When my capacity is filled. I couldn't be my authentic self and I couldn't collaborate. Courage is my Northstar, not collaboration. Collaboration only happens when I truly have the courage to be myself. Yeah. And for that person, well, that was different. Oh, fabulous example for her. Yes. And she does some of the work that I do. So it was interesting that, um, you know, I'm like, you got to meet your people where they are and, and kids, right? And adults and all of us and, and also just give space and non-judgment when somebody doesn't necessarily get it and don't shut down, because oftentimes it's just that people don't know what they don't know, and people get uncomfortable and become aggressive or passive aggressive because they're uncomfortable. Triggers. Yeah, yeah. That fun word triggers. And how we all manage or don't manage those lovely triggers. Oh yeah. Hey, Lisa. Oh my gosh, I love what you're doing in the world. And I'm so unbelievably happy that I've met you, because I'm going through the process of learning all of these things about myself, as well as the process my daughter is going through. And I guarantee you, there's other people out there that are in this boat. And if you and I on this episode can hit one other people person's life that we've done our job. So thank you. You're welcome. And I always say that too. I can't change life for everyone, but if I can just change one person's life for the better. I've done more than a lot of people have done in their lifetime. And, you know, so what you just said, it just it hits here and it's true. Like, I can't be all things to all people, which is another reason why I don't work in corporate anymore. I can't do that. I have to be true to me and then whoever I can help in the process, well, that's what I'm here to do. I want to give the the audience a take away. What are some signs that parents should be looking for in their kids when it comes to. And I'm speaking specifically about athletes when it comes to neurodivergent. divergence. So, you know, it's if you think about it similarly to like a diagnosis informs the decisions. If I think about an athlete is a person, right. So their actions and reactions to things can inform the decision on how you most appropriately support that athlete. So if you're, um, I'm going to I'm going to use one of the I'm going to use an example with the, the visual processing. Um, so I was actually in the gym and I was watching, um, a gymnast do this weird thing with their feet as they got closer to the vault on their on their run. And I asked the coach who actually was our head coach, his daughter. I said, does she always do that when she runs towards the ball? And she's like, yeah, a lot of times I said, do you remember when I used to do my missteps? And she said, yes. And I was like, you need to go get her checked for visual processing disorder. I'm like, I'm wondering if she has a depth perception and a peripheral and that because that's what I had. And I said, I'm not a doctor, so I can't say it. But what I would say is, if you're coach, if the coach or your athlete or you see something, it's just like if you think about, you know, when someone's in danger, see something, say something. Same thing, see something, say something like, if you find that your, um, athlete. I'm using gymnastics, right? Because that's my sport. But if you find like your athlete is messing up on their mouth all the time, or like missing their foot at the end of a dismount For me, the beam looked like it was moving. I didn't connect those dots until I was an adult, but now I get why I had so many problems and I was yelled at constantly. What is wrong with you? You've done this 50 times. We even put a mark down where to put your hands down? But then what? I realized when I was upside down, I felt like I had to snap closer to my hands because of B, the end of the beam looked like it was closer than it was. And you know, so listen to your athletes. So this goes to every sport. Listen to your athletes. If they're feeling like something is off, something is probably off. And just because you don't understand it doesn't mean you shouldn't be curious and seek to understand it. And don't shut your athletes down. And I know it was very unintentional. As I get older with my parents and coaches, and then I lost my voice in it and I felt like, well, I guess I'm just wrong and it feels bad, but maybe they're right and I'm wrong. Don't ever make your athletes feel that way, because now we do know better. Now we know that my my older son works with a sports psychologist, and he said, there is no such thing as mind over matter. We have learned that it's all around this, um, somatic system. Is that. Yeah. Um. And services. Oh, yeah. What's that? The nervous system. So the. And that's the work he does. He has a psychology background, but he does everything around the nervous system. And, um, and it's those triggers, whether it's eMDR therapy or whatever you're doing. Um, those triggers are what caused your body to go into freeze or you're in danger. And, um, and and so I'm learning a lot more about that from an incident my son had in the swimming pool, which is not typical, that you have these, like, as a gymnast, the twisties, or you have a bad vault. There's all these things that happen. But just because your child's in a sport that it doesn't often happen doesn't mean it isn't happening to them. And so listen to your children. Let them share their version of what they're feeling as their truth. And if you don't understand it, at least respect it and ask to understand or get them help with somebody that can help them unpack it. Because if you don't, they're going to end up going down a similar journey that I did for many years. And you don't want to feel, ever feel that guilt, whether you're going to say it outward or not, that you didn't give yourself or your child, your athlete, um, the best opportunity to be their best self, and if you had just listened to understood them, things could have been so much different. Thank you. Thank you for saying that. That's unbelievably true. Listening to your athletes. Even though they've done the thing a thousand times, listen to your athletes because it is. It is a sign. I love that I'm thinking ball sports. Like, um, I know for me, in basketball, I didn't know how to breathe and run at the same time. And I got diagnosed with asthma. That wasn't an asthma problem. That was a nobody taught me how to breathe and run at the same time. And my autonomic nervous system wasn't telling me to continue to breathe while I was raising my heart rate, which has caused heart issues as I got older. Uh, in in softball, reading a ball in the outfield as it's flying toward me was near impossible. And it was this. Exactly. I had visual processing issues. I also was like your son. I was guessing where to swing and not necessarily moving with the ball. And as I got older and the ball started to break in different ways, I couldn't hit. And that was, again, that visual processing situation, um, trying to think of other scenarios where the nervous system is giving you the signs, like your son potentially freezing in the pool. I think that's what I was understanding. Uh, that is the nervous system going into a shutdown state in an inopportune time underwater, right? Uh, that's definitely something to pay attention to. If it had an incident, um, a couple of years ago in the pool, and it was based on, like, lack of fueling, lack of, um, um, not being hydrated and some other things. But then he had been sick a lot last year. And so when his breathing, what happened was exactly to what you're talking about, when his breathing started to get impacted in the water, his body went into freeze mode and his coaches were like, I don't really get it. Um, but what it was and it was the the incident is still more deeply seated in his nervous system than even his therapist. His sports psychologist had thought. But his body was like danger, danger, danger, even though there was no danger this time. But his body felt exactly as it did when he was literally not moving in the water trying to get to the end of the pool. And he's a very seasoned athlete. He's a sexual level swimmer. I mean, he's he's a really good swimmer. But his body took over and, um, you know, he's not a virgin. And he went into burnout and he asked for a month off from practice and the coaches gave it to him. And that is like where that comes from is if I hadn't. You have to listen. Let them listen to themselves, give them the courage and be there with them to have the conversation with the athlete as well. But don't tell them no and don't judge them because it's going to break your relationship and it could break them, which is what ended up happening to me. But you know, and our, our younger generations, you said this earlier today, they're listening to that and they're understanding that connection to the nervous system. And you do work with that. Right? So you really understand it even deeper than I do. Yes. The it's interesting to me that you said, you know, listen to your athletes and the way that we shut down our athletes as coaches is saying, well, just suck it up. That that doesn't fly in Gen Z and Gen Alpha, our youngest athletes. It doesn't fly anymore because they know something's different. And what a lot of coaches are saying is, oh, well, they're entitled. They just don't want to do the work. That's not what we're seeing. And there's an episode with Stasia Rivera that she explains, Gen Alpha and Gen Z. They flipped Maslow's hierarchy. Right. So at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy is food, water, shelter. And then right above that is safety. At the top is willpower. And they have literally flipped it. So that willpower is the very first thing that they care about. And if their will is not served, they shut down. And that's not entitlement. That's a different way of existing. And they exist this way because of how they're fed information. They're constantly being inundated with information. They constantly have access to information. Whereas you and I had to go look up things in an in a dictionary or an encyclopedia Britannica. That was a book that we pulled off of a shelf and we had to sift through to find the word. It literally took us an hour of downtime just to find what we were looking for. So we learned patience. We learned resilience. We learned these things. And and now it's like everything comes so quickly, right? Yeah. And and we, we, we learn to do things on our own because we had to. Now it's like that entitlement comes from society offering the world on a platter. So you're right. And and, um, it's it's really interesting. And I can't wait to watch that episode because we talked a little bit about that when, uh, when we were talking earlier and I, I can't wait. It was so and this exact conversation about the, um, about it being entitlement or is it entitlement? Um, yeah. And sometimes it is. I mean, some some kids will take it to an extreme, just like adults will, but we're all people, right? So we're all somebody's kid, um, you know, so that that happens. One other thing I just wanted to quickly mention, because as you were talking, I caught myself doing this. So I go I go to lots of different, um, therapies, types of therapies. And one is cranial sacral. My cranial sacral therapist. I was in a really deep still point one day. This was like two years ago. And she said I had only go like this twice over your face because you weren't breathing. So I come out of this to a point and she said, um, it really scared me. Well, then I had a session with my therapist a few days later who is a Reiki master. She's a, um, since a somatic. She knows all of those things. Yeah. Thank you. And, um, and she's also a clinical psychotherapist as well as a therapist. And she said, I have a question for you. When you were doing your, um, gymnastics routines, like when you were on an event, did you breathe? And I said, uh, I would breathe before I did a tumbling pass. Then stop. I think I would breathe after I caught a release move, and then I would hold my breath again, and then I would breathe. So, yeah, I went like a long time without breathing sometimes. And she said, well, go tell Susan McReynolds, because she knew my criminal psychotherapist. She goes, tell her everything's fine. It's just what you learn to do as an athlete. Yeah, not good like Laura Reid, but. Right. But similar to what you were saying about not being able to breathe and run, right? It was like I held my breath. And part of it was because I felt like I could control my body more when I held my breath, because I was tighter. And if I let go, I was loose. And you think about that. They tell you to breathe, to relax. I didn't want to relax when I was in the middle of a routine, so it all made sense. It wasn't healthy, but it made sense. Yes. Unless you were doing sprints and, you know, it was a really quick sprint. So for me, as a pitcher, I hold my breath in the middle of the motion and that's me staying in the moment. That's me being focused. And and again, when I breathe out, it's at the very end when I want to release the ball. So yeah, but then in basketball you have to run up and down the court and that doesn't work out very well. That's. Yeah. Welcome to my neuro divergence. Lisa, thank you again so much for sharing absolutely everything that you've shared. It has been an absolute honor to have you on I. How can people find you on the interwebs so that they can come and talk to you about what they're experiencing for themselves or for their athletes? Absolutely. Um, so you can find me. My website is journey the number two bloom.com. Um, so it's journey number two bloom. Com and you can email me Lisa at Journey to bloom.com. It's very easy. Um, and you can also find me on LinkedIn, uh, under my name. I think it might say Lisa Lazar Richer just made a name. Same thing on Facebook. Um, and then I also have Journey to Bloom on LinkedIn and on Facebook. So from any of those facets, you can connect with me. I love sharing stories, hearing stories. All that information helps to inform me, be a better person and be a better neurodiversity consultant, I bet. Lisa, thank you again. Thank you.