When Safety Slowly Turns Into Separation
When your child is medically fragile or has complex needs, protection becomes instinctual. You scan rooms for risk. You listen for coughs. You calculate exposure. You tell yourself this vigilance is love.
And often, it is.
In Part Two of the ANEW Insight Podcast conversation with Jennifer Swann, former constitutional lawyer turned transformational life coach, this instinct is explored with rare honesty. Jennifer shares how, after her daughter Kennedy’s diagnosis with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), protection slowly transformed into isolation—not just for Kennedy, but for the entire family.
This realization did not come from failure. It came from awareness.
The Psychology of Fear-Based Parenting
Fear-based parenting doesn’t begin with anxiety. It begins with responsibility.
After a diagnosis, parents are often thrust into a world where the consequences feel life-threatening and immediate. Hypervigilance becomes a survival skill. Over time, however, the nervous system adapts to constant threat.
Common signs fear has taken the wheel
- Constant scanning for illness or danger
- Avoiding social environments “just in case”
- Feeling safer at home but emotionally trapped
- Measuring decisions primarily by risk avoidance
- Losing touch with joy, spontaneity, or community
Fear narrows possibility. It keeps families alive—but it also keeps them small.
Isolation Can Feel Responsible Until It Becomes Unsustainable
Jennifer Swann described placing her family in near-lockdown after her daughter Kennedy’s SMA diagnosis. From the outside, it looked like dedication. From the inside, it felt terrifying and exhausting.
Why isolation feels like the right choice
- It creates a sense of control in an uncontrollable situation
- It reduces exposure to known risks
- It allows parents to feel proactive and protective
- It temporarily quiets anxiety
Why it eventually stops working
- Illness still happens despite precautions
- The emotional cost accumulates
- Parents become chronically depleted
- Siblings feel the impact of narrowed family life
- Identity collapses into caregiving alone
Protection without expansion eventually leads to burnout.
The ICU Moment That Changes Everything
Jennifer described a moment many parents recognize: sitting in an ICU room, surrounded by machines, exhaustion, and fear, when an unexpected thought appeared.
What if life could be more than this?
For Jennifer, that thought came as a vision of a Disney cruise. Immediately dismissed as unrealistic and unsafe, the idea refused to go away. Not because it was logical—but because it represented life, joy, and possibility.
This wasn’t about a vacation.
It was about choosing how to live.
Why Thriving Begins With a Decision, Not a Plan
Many parents wait for certainty before changing course. But certainty rarely arrives in medically complex lives.
Jennifer’s shift began with a decision:
I am not willing to live only in survival mode.
What this decision did not require
- Ignoring medical realities
- Taking reckless risks
- Abandoning responsibility
What it did require
- A willingness to question fear-based defaults
- Listening to intuition alongside medical advice
- Accepting discomfort in exchange for meaning
- Choosing values over worst-case scenarios
Thriving does not eliminate risk. It rebalances life around what matters.
What Happens When You Choose Expansion Over Restriction
When Jennifer began loosening the grip of fear, Kennedy’s life expanded rapidly—and meaningfully.
What became possible
- In-person schooling with accommodations
- Travel, including cruises and cross-country trips
- Participation in musical theater and school activities
- Social independence with trusted caregivers
- Creative expression and typical teenage experiences
None of this happened without planning, adaptation, or support. But it happened because fear was no longer the sole decision-maker.
The Hidden Cost of Chronic Self-Sacrifice
Jennifer spoke candidly about something many parents struggle to admit: serving your child 24/7 without caring for yourself does not make you a better parent.
Chronic depletion shows up as
- Emotional numbness or irritability
- Physical exhaustion and health issues
- Loss of identity beyond caregiving
- Resentment layered with guilt
- Reduced emotional availability for all family members
Caregiving without replenishment eventually erodes connection.
Why “Put Your Oxygen Mask On First” Needs Context
Jennifer offered an important reframe. There are moments when a child’s needs are immediate and life-saving. In those moments, self-care is not the priority.
The problem arises when emergency mode becomes permanent.
Sustainable caregiving requires
- Differentiating acute crisis from chronic lifestyle
- Creating pockets of restoration, even small ones
- Allowing others to help without losing control
- Trusting that caring for yourself strengthens caregiving
Self-care is not indulgence. It is infrastructure.
From Survival to Thriving: The “Secret Menu”
Jennifer describes a powerful concept: when parents enter special-needs communities, they often inherit a single narrative—struggle, vigilance, sacrifice.
What they don’t hear is that another experience is possible.
The “secret menu” mindset
- Acknowledges hardship without glorifying suffering
- Recognizes joy as compatible with responsibility
- Centers values, not fear, as decision drivers
- Creates space for peace even when life is complex
You cannot choose an option you don’t know exists.
Want to know more about Jennifer Swann? Here are her social media Links: https://jenniferswanncoaching.com/, https://www.instagram.com/jenniferandkennedy/, https://www.facebook.com/people/Jennifer-Swann-Coaching
A New Path Forward: Practical First Steps
You do not need to overhaul your life to begin shifting from fear to thriving.
Start here
- Identify one restriction rooted more in fear than necessity
- Choose one small, life-giving experience this month
- Accept help in one clearly defined way
- Reconnect with something that reminds you who you are
- Ask yourself: What would “more life” look like right now?
Change begins with awareness, not perfection.
FAQs
How do I know when protection has turned into isolation?
When safety measures begin to significantly limit connection, joy, identity, or participation—and no longer meaningfully reduce risk—it may be time to reassess.
Is it selfish to want joy while caring for a medically complex child?
No. Wanting joy is human. Sustained caregiving requires emotional nourishment. Joy strengthens resilience and improves the entire family system.
What if fear feels unavoidable?
Fear is understandable. The goal is not to eliminate fear, but to prevent it from being the sole authority in decision-making. Values and intuition deserve a seat at the table too.
Continue Your Journey
- 🌿 Rebuild body trust and nervous-system regulation inside my step-by-step program: Deprogram Diet Culture course
- 📘 Go deeper on mindset, cravings, and sustainable health: Deprogram Diet Culture book (paperback, Kindle, and audio) — find it via the book page on my site
- 🎧 Listen to the full ANEW Insight episode featuring these practices and Dr. Lavretsky’s research
View here the full podcast Transcript:
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: [00:00:00] Welcome back everyone. We are back for the second half of our interview with powerhouse mother, Jennifer Swann. In the last half, Kennedy just gave us amazing insight into her path towards truly living a full and beautiful life. Now it’s my turn to pick Jennifer’s brain and I am so excited because I gotta just tell you everyone I know, I said this before, these two blew me away at TEDx Temecula and they really left quite the impression.
I will say all of the people that I had there, you know, I was, I, I was kind of hinting at what they might see. I was like, can you just gotta wait. Just wait. I have to go and give Kennedy a pep talk, but just you wait. And afterwards I talked to everyone that I was with and they [00:01:00] said that they were just in tears.
So inspired, just they loved this talk so much. I cannot wait for it to come out. So Jennifer, you know, take us back in time. It had to have been so stressful to you when Kennedy was first diagnosed. How did that moment change you and what helped you find resilience through uncertainty.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: You know, in the beginning what, when she was diagnosed, the prognosis was less than two years. In fact, by, by a year old, 80% of children with her disease had already passed away. By two years, it was 90%. So, you hear that in reference to your own child and obviously it’s just completely devastating. Um, so there was this really profound deep period of mourning, um, because, [00:02:00] we just didn’t expect to get that much time with her. And it was really, really challenging learning because it, her pro, her disease progressed so quickly. She was diagnosed at nine months old. By about a month later, she was choking on her feed her foods and she needed a G-tube. About a month later, she needed respiratory support. Then she needed help with a machine that would cough for her. So like, it was like every few weeks we were learning a new machine. She has seven machines that she uses every day. And was, it was overwhelming and it was heartbreaking, because all these dreams that you had in your head that you just, at least I took for granted would come true, were just gone. They were just gone. And at that time, in my mind, there wasn’t like a different version of the life that we might be living because. We didn’t [00:03:00] expect her to live past, you know, two, or maybe we’d get to three or something. But it, you know, devastating is the only word I can use to describe it. Resilience came very slowly for me. You know, it was, it was six months after her diagnosis that my son was diagnosed on the autism spectrum. And honestly, in that conversation, we didn’t even, we were not on, that was not on our radar. And I remember in that conversation, just looking at the, the clinical psychologist who gave us the diagnosis and being like, no, no thank you.
Like we, there was just no bandwidth for anything else at that time. And it was really, really overwhelming and resilience really only came when we started [00:04:00] embracing the things that were in alignment with what we wanted in our life, because the more we focused on. You know, oh, she got a cold, now she’s back in the hospital with pneumonia.
The more of that experience we got and when we really started in leaning into living more is really when the resilience was just, was, I don’t know, maybe that was the resilience, but that it was a side, certainly a side effect of those choices.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Yes. Well I, you know, I find it so interesting. Um. When you talked about it in your talk, you basically said that everything kind of just shut down, you know, you went on lockdown. So I wanna talk about that real quick, but if you could give us first, uh, were there signs of her SMA and is that what brought you to the doctor?
What did you notice in her that was not, you [00:05:00] know, within the kind of normal developmental range?
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: Yeah, so at about two months old I noticed that she was not holding her head up, but she had been holding her head up. And when, you know, we did tummy time when they were babies, we’d put them on their tummy to practice lifting their head and looking around the room and she couldn’t lift her head and she was in therapy by the time she was four months old with a developmental physical, physical therapist,. But she didn’t present typically typically as a type one, which is the type she has. There’s actually four types of SMA and, and so that wasn’t really on anybody’s radar. Um, so we were going to the doctor and we were kind of being told, I don’t really know. She obviously has hypotonia. But, we don’t really know what this is. And I remember it was so funny, like she rolled at four months old. And I remember in my head, you know, [00:06:00] there’s like the milestones they hit and I’m like, check, she’s rolled at four months old
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Hmm.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: And then she never rolled again. And, and everything just started, you know, the, she just wasn’t progressing. And, and so it was really at about seven months old that people were like, okay, like the doctors were like. Something’s clearly off, and it doesn’t just seem to be an, an unexplained hypotonia, low muscle tone. So that’s when they started digging some more and we did some genetic testing and it was a simple blood test that told us that she had SMA.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: And is it a genetic disorder?
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: Yes, it’s a genetic disorder and it is recessively inherited. So both her dad and I have the gene for it. We had no idea that we had the gene. Neither one of us had any family history that we were aware of. So it’s not like it was, you know, in the, the realm of possibility for us. We just had [00:07:00] no idea. And at that time. It wasn’t really screened for anyway, like if we had done prenatal testing it, it wouldn’t have come up. I will say today there’s an organization out there called Cure SMA, which has has helped spearhead lobbying country like across the United States, and now there is genetic testing for SMA that is part of newborn screening. So every single baby born today in the United States is screened for SMA, and today there are three treatments on the market for it. So when they get screened, they know immediately and they can get treated in, in many cases before they’re symptomatic.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Does early treatment help their prognosis?
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: Early treatment makes all of the difference because the way the disease progresses is that SMA is where your, your body can’t make a certain enough of a certain protein that motor neurons in the spinal cord need to [00:08:00] survive, so the motor neurons start dying off. And what happens when the motor neuron dies off is that the connection between the muscle and the motor neuron is gone.
Now there’s no motor motor neuron. There’s no axon connecting to the muscle, and then the muscle atrophies. So, from where we sit today, there’s no way to replace lost motor neurons. So the key to to, to successful treatment is to treat before the motor neurons are lost.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Wow.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: And that happens very, very rapidly with type one SMA.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Hmm. Wow. So I can only imagine. And you described when you got this diagnosis and how devastated you felt, you put everybody pretty much on lockdown in order to try to keep Kennedy from getting sick, you know, bringing in bugs from outside. Just describe what that was like, to pull away from [00:09:00] society and to be isolated in that way.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: You know, it was, there was a level of comfort in it because I thought I was doing the right thing to keep my daughter safe, but there was also just this. It was tariff. Everything felt terrifying. Like even if I went out, I used to joke that I was like an expert in the type of cough that someone had because I could hear someone cough from like a mile away and I’d be like, oh, that’s a smoker’s cough.
I don’t need to worry about that. Or,
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Wow.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: but they’ve had that cough for like three weeks. That’s not, I don’t need to worry about that. And I’m like, oh, that is a, an acute illness. Stay the heck away from me.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Wow.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: literally was like. The biggest germaphobe because, you know, I was the direct line of contact to my daughter if I got sick.
You know, the ship was going dead, she was getting it, and it was even [00:10:00] being at home, we couldn’t, know, completely cut ourselves off. You know,, her, her dad was still going to work and we wanted her brother to have. As normal an experience as he could. Um, we didn’t wanna deny him that, so he started preschool, which ev you know, most kids who start preschool, they come home immediately with sickness after
sickness.
So
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: It’s a germ factory.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: Yes. So it was, it was this weird like confluence of like, this feels like the safest thing and yet it’s not playing out like we’re really safe at all. Like, so it was very. We weren’t getting the result we wanted out of it in terms of she’s still getting sick and we’re like hardly leaving the house with her.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: So what was the turning point then for you? You talk about it in the TEDx talk, but what shifted for you where you were like, this is just no way to live?
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: [00:11:00] So we were in the ICU with her whenever she got hospitalized it was straight to the ICU. And we, we would be in the hospital for like 10 days, 14 days, two and a half weeks at a time with any given illness, she would develop pneumonia. It was, you know, we were doing respiratory treatments round the clock sometimes every two to four hours. And I was sitting in the ICU with her during one of these hospitalizations and I just, I was completely depleted, completely overwhelmed, missing my son and feeling like, you know, I was, not able to show up for him the way that I wanted to because my life, my daughter’s life was literally in jeopardy. And, I just started daydreaming. And I, I started thinking about like, gosh, you know, Kennedy really loves Disney. We all really love Disney. What would it be like to go on a Disney cruise? And the thought kind of popped into my head and I was like, that’s [00:12:00] totally insane. There’s no way. But then it wouldn’t leave. And The more time I had in that hospital, just staring at the walls and all the equipment and hearing the beeping and I was like, could we really do that?
Like what would that be like? And I mentioned it to my husband. And he was like, he was, he was all for it honestly. He, I mean, he wasn’t the one who was really pushing lockdown mode. That was me. And so then we started talking to the doctors and they were like, uh, no, absolutely not. That’s totally insane. You do realize the condition that your daughter has. You’ve been in the hospital with her. You know, she gets pneumonia. Like, what if she needs to be intubated with a breathing tube? Is a doctor on a cruise ship gonna know how to do that? And like, it’s a Petri dish like this. We really, really caution you against this. And, and that was what I was hearing from every single specialist who was treating her. But there was, [00:13:00] there was this pull that was like, no, you’re supposed to do this.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Wow.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: being called to this and you need to do this. That’s really where it started.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Oh my goodness. And then it just took off from there. And then it was really, the sky is the limit for Kennedy. I mean, describe just briefly, like all the things, all the things that opened up for her. Just gimme a list.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: So it’s funny ’cause I, I, I like to describe it to people as like, when I finally got ready to like take the lid off of her, then she was like, you know,
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Hmm.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: here we go. She immediately wanted to go to preschool, which. in person, which kids with her condition really weren’t doing. I mean, we knew a handful of them across the country, but I mean, by the way, that means, you know, she was three, three and a half.
She had made it past two years old. Um, so she wanted to go to preschool and I was like. [00:14:00] Okay, let’s try it. So we started with preschool, but then we’re like, but I’m not sending you in cold and flu season. You have to do school from home in cold and flu season. So for the first, you know, year, she went to preschool.
We took her out in the, in the winter, and she she did school from home, but she was like, I wanna go back to school. I miss my friends and, and she was always pushing me to let her do more. And so she did. She went to school in person. She’s been going to school in person ever since. She’s a 10th grader now in high school.
She goes to school in person. She is on a modified schedule ’cause she, you know, she has, has stamina issues, but she does what works for her. Oh my gosh. Okay. So we’ve been on, we went on like nine cruises with her. We’ve flown to Hawaii twice. We’ve been to Walt Disney World twice. We’ve taken two cross country trips with trains. She told me about, it was actually right after COVID, she wanted to do musical theater.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: [00:15:00] That’s the best.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: I was like, uh, You know, like, okay, let me see how we can make this happen. And. So I, you know, made some calls and found a group that was willing to work with her and allow a caregiver or me on stage with her.
And so she’s been doing musical theater. She’s doing her seventh show right now. She and I are doing Elf Together, and she’s very
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Oh my God.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: proud to announce that she has the part of Mrs. Claus. So she’s very excited about that. She did color guard her first year in school, which, and of course all of it’s modified to make it work for her.
You know, we do what she can do with it. She did show choir her freshman year of high school, and we did what, you know, what she could do. She’s on stage with a, with her aide from school. She’s taking ceramics this year in, in high school. She, you know, she does, and this is the most hilarious thing. She is such a typical teenager when she wants to do something outside [00:16:00] of the house, you know, I have a life now.
I didn’t always have a life
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: And we’re gonna talk about that. We’re, we’re gonna get into that.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: But I do have a life and sometimes I can’t take her where she wants to go. And she, for all intents and purposes, she has her own car because everyone else has their own vehicle and we have an accessible vehicle for her. So she just finds another adult who will drive the car you know, she’ll go with a nurse and that person will drive her where she wants to go.
It’s like she’s finding her ride, even though they’re driving her accessible van.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: That’s awesome.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: she really just. She, she just doesn’t see anything as out of the range of possibility for herself.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Well, I would have to say you don’t either. You have had all of these requests and they have seemed impossible, but your mind is the first to go. Hmm. How? And is there a way? And you’ve made it happen, which I [00:17:00] think, you know, it just shows the two of you are definitely related and I, I really wanna know about that moment when you realized that you had stopped your life and how, and, and, and in what way did you start it back up again?
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: So honestly that was a very slow process for me. Um, I think, you know, in the beginning. I really believed that it was my calling to serve my children. And to particularly to serve her in this way because she required 24 hour care, and I really was at peace with that. But at the same time, you know, when I was at peace with that, I also had it in the back of my mind that this was going to be a couple of years maybe, you know, we really didn’t have any expectation of her surviving in, [00:18:00] you know, even to see kindergarten, for example. So by the time I was many, many years into this, I knew that there was like this discontent in me. But I really didn’t know how to do it any differently. I was like, how, how am I gonna do anything different than I’m already doing?
I have these two kids who both have extraordinary needs. And I , it didn’t seem possible to me, but I did start doing things for me. And the first part of that, honestly, was accepting more help because, um. You know, there are plenty of caregivers out there who are like, I’m the one who’s supposed to be taking care of my kiddo, and I’m gonna do it 24 7, and I’m the best, and I’m this, and I’m that. I totally respect the decision that people make for their own family. But for me, I don’t show up as my best self for anyone when all [00:19:00] I’m doing is serving my daughter. When there is no space created for me to serve myself, my own passions, my own needs, I don’t show up how I wanna show up with anybody in my life. And so, you know, part of the realization came honestly with this, um, there was a death in our community of a parent, a, a young man, a young father who was killed in a car accident in his twenties and, in the span of my daughter’s lifetime. That has happened three times in our disease community where a
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: gosh.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: where a father in his twenties has been killed in a car accident and his child with SMA outlived him. And it kind of was like, my life is happening now too. And even though she has this disease and like it, you know, if you look at it statistically, she’s far more likely to die before me than I am to die before her. Maybe that’s [00:20:00] not what’s in my life plan. Maybe I’m going to die of some random cause tomorrow. So am I spending, yes, we’re not manifesting that, but, but you don’t know. And the point is, therefore your life is happening now. And when you see it that way, there becomes, you know, there’s this, I don’t wanna call it an urgency ’cause it, but it, it is a, a gratitude for the life that you have now. And it is a. It. It’s the realization that now is the only time you’re guaranteed, the moment you’re in. So really now is the moment to do what you would love. And so I just started taking baby steps and one of the first baby steps I took was to start taking karate lessons with my son. And that was something that we shared together.
And I did that for years and years and years. So that was one of the first things I started. You know, I, I, I made friends outside of the caregiving community and I [00:21:00] started hanging out with people who had nothing to do with being caregivers and just could be, you know, it could just be a way to be a human being and a woman and a mom outside of that setting, and it was just one tiny thing after another.
And then you turn around and you’re like, wow, I’ve actually kind of done some things here.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: I love this and I, I really encourage every mother, whether they’re, you know, the mother of a special needs child or a, not that they have to put the oxygen mask on themselves first. I think women are conditioned to not do that. I think that we are conditioned to put everyone else first, but we suffer as caregivers
when we do that. We do not show up as our best selves, like you said, and when we do, and we should allow ourselves time to refresh, go get a haircut, get some nails done, whatever it is that is taking care of yourself, going and exercising. You become a better caregiver and you’re [00:22:00] more, you know, you have just more bandwidth
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: Yeah.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: to care for others, and I love.
Love, and this is something that I hear more often than not from mothers of children with special needs, is that they don’t reach out for help. They do everything themselves. They have difficulty trusting others sometimes to be able to come in and care for their kids. And that’s totally understandable.
You’re, you know, you’re on high alert, you’re mama bear, but when you can just dip your toe in. And allow others to come in and help. You can do that in a slow process. You can monitor it and then you can make sure that in, and I gotta say the caregivers that you have for Kennedy are amazing. They really impressed me as well.
That is vital in order to have the entire family\ well cared for. Because you did need to spend time with your son. You, he [00:23:00] needed his mom as well. Still does. Even though he’s how old? Like how old is he now? He’s gonna be 19 this month. Yeah, he is. He is a man. Now. I, I got to meet him and it was lovely to meet him and I can only imagine that opening up that time to spend with him was so meaningful for him as well.
So I so encourage people to, to take advantage of help. You know, it does take a village, everybody, and you really do. You, you, you can grow so much more as a person and a family if you let people in and allow people to help you. So let’s talk about, um, you know, helping parents move from surviving to thriving.
This is one way. Helping moms understand that they can put the, you know, oxygen mask on themselves first, but tell me what transformation looks like in real life. Where does it begin for parents?
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: So, you know, and I just, I [00:24:00] wanna comment in one way on the oxygen mask thing, because I know when I heard that, particularly in the beginning. I was like, hush. I don’t wanna hear like, what are you even talking about? You have no idea what we’re going through over here. Like, I have given my own child mouth to mouth resuscitation, so don’t tell me about putting the oxygen.
You know, you’re just like, stop. And here. So here’s how I frame that now with parents. There are times, particularly if you’re dealing with a child who has, um, chronic medical conditions, or even a child honestly who has chronic, like mental health issues or acute mental health issues. are times and there are situations where your needs are gonna be, need to be sidelined for a bit. If your child needs to mouth to mouth, you’re gonna, whatever happens, you’re gonna give mouth to mouth before you meet whatever need you have in [00:25:00] that moment. ’cause that need is a literal lifesaving need. So I like to acknowledge that in the space that I live in, sometimes there are situations that call for me to, to, tend to them. The problem arises when you’re chronically living in the space of not putting your oxygen mask on first, and that’s where you operate from constant depletion. You’re never filling your own cup, ever, and, and you just, and it starts to manifest in your own body in all the ways that we don’t want it to manifest. So I just wanted to qualify that from the people in my space who are like, you don’t get it. Do you know what I mean? So in terms of the, for me, every transformation starts with a decision. You have to decide. You have to decide that you are not gonna live this way anymore. And that’s why I think like sometimes it can take a long [00:26:00] time for people to, to get to that place because the pain has to be deep enough to say, I’m not doing this anymore. I don’t know what the alternative is, but this is not an option anymore. And that’s what happened for me in that ICU room. I was like, know, I didn’t know it at the time, but that Disney Cruise was me making a decision for a different way of living, because it opened the door to everything else that followed and. I think one of the things that I see in our disease, in, in, in the community of parents, of children with special needs is that a lack of awareness around the fact that there is an alternative way to experience this journey. And the way that I describe it is that we are given this menu. When we’re di, when our kid is diagnosed, like you join whatever community is out there, whether it’s the moms of kids with autism or spinal muscular [00:27:00] atrophy, or cerebral palsy, whatever it is, and you see how everyone else is experiencing this journey. And you. You meet fantastic people. You meet people with really good souls and really good heart, they are doing an amazing job of caregiving their child. But you also hear about all of the struggle, every fight you’re gonna need to prepare yourself for the hypervigilance you need to be exercising. The hardship you should expect. And you don’t hear anyone saying, I love my life. I feel fully supported. I even the circumstances that I don’t love that come my way, I know how to navigate them from a place of peace. You don’t hear that, and so you don’t know that it’s an option. So
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Yes.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: what, what I describe to people is there’s a secret menu. You gotta, you gotta be aware that there’s a secret menu out there and you can order up the life you want [00:28:00] off of the secret menu.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Yes,
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: when you know about the secret menu, you’re like. Wait, what? There’s a different way to do this. Tell me more. How do you
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: yes,
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: that?
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: yes.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: you know now. Now you’re like, possibilities.
Possibilities. What does this mean for me?
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Oh.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: So, yeah.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Oh, I, I absolutely agree. I think so many people, and what you’re talking about is just a fundamental mindset shift that that’s it. And I think a lot of people, they get tunnel vision when they are in whatever trench they’re in. And it can be with a special needs child or just in general. Just people in general.
They get tunnel vision and they don’t see any other way out, and they don’t really understand that it’s simply a decision that you can make. And that’s what’s so powerful about your journey and your story with Kennedy is that you just had this idea that [00:29:00] would not go away. And what I also love and how it ties into the work I do and, and even parts of my TEDx speech is you listened to your intuitive voice.
You actually heard, I, I can’t get this outta my head. This is something, yeah, it’s telling me to do this and you listen to it and you just leaned into it, and I think that that is so inspiring to anyone, let alone to a parent with someone with special needs. It’s so important to understand that it doesn’t have to be.
Drudgery. It doesn’t have to be difficult all the time. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it is the hardest thing you’ll probably do in your life, but there can also be joy in that journey. So we’re running out of time. Oh, I wish I had so much more time with both of you. Tell people how they can come and work with you.
Tell them how they can get ahold of you. [00:30:00] Tell them how you, you know, they can have a FaceTime with Kennedy, because I, I know you two are just gonna be inundated with calls after this TEDx talk comes out.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: Yeah, so we are on Instagram. It’s Jennifer and Kennedy, so we can, you can follow us there. And my website. Website is Jennifer Swann with two Ns and Jennifer, two ns in Swann coaching.com um. I am in the process of launching my digital course for parents of Children with special needs, which is called Unlimited Empowering You, Empowering Your Child. So both on my website and on Instagram, there’s gonna be links for that. And I have a free class coming out. It’s called The Secret Menu.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Love this. I love this.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: So yeah, so if you follow us in either of those places, we’re also on TikTok with the same handle. But if you follow us in either of those places, you’ll definitely, uh keep you’ll, you’ll know what the updates are.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Oh, and I see books and keynote [00:31:00] addresses and so many things in both of your futures. Jennifer, I’m just so honored to know you. I’m so glad that we got to meet and become friends, and I know that this is gonna be for life, so thank you so much for coming on the podcast, but most especially, thank you so much for inspiring me and inspiring so many people out there.
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: Thank you for having us, and I don’t think I ever properly thanked you for the pep talk that you gave Kennedy while I was on stage and she was having a little bit of a freak out backstage before she went on, so thank you for that.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: Oh, it was my honor. I was just absolutely just thrilled that she asked me to do that. It, it’s like, oh, I get to be Kennedy’s friend. Yay. This is the best. So that, that, that pep talk was a piece of cake. I was just so happy and, and I’m so glad that it helped her relax her because she just, she was shining when she went up there and it was [00:32:00] so brilliant.
Well, thank you for joining me, Jennifer, and please thank Kennedy again for me. Yes,
jennifer-swann_2_11-05-2025_162505: Thank you for having us.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_11-05-2025_162505: and thank you all for joining the ANEW Insight podcast. I am of course looking forward to the next exciting interview and really hope you join me next time.
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