The Joys of Being Just You [Episode 1] Wired For Success TV

~ Wired for Success TV ~Mastering the 7 Areas of Life

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Presented by

Melanie Gabriel & Beryl Thomas

[Episode 1]

The Joys of Being Just You

http://www.wiredforsuccess.tv/

The Joys of Being Just You [Episode 1] Wired For Success TV

[0:00:19]

Melanie: http://www.wiredforsuccess.tv is a web TV show where we focus on mastering the seven areas of life. If you would like more details about these seven areas, just head over to our website, that’s www.WiredforSuccess.TV and have a look at our intro blog.

I’m Melanie Gabriel and my colleague, Beryl Thomas.

Beryl: Hi everyone.

Melanie: We are your hosts for Wired for Success TV. And today, we have a very special guest, Rosemarie Mason. Rosemarie will talk to us today about the joys of being just you and she will also share her exciting journey as a HANDLE Practitioner helping others to live meaningful lives where previously, they would have been written off and possibly not seen as having any real potential.

But before we dive into that, just want to say that if you have not actually joined us on our blog, perhaps you’re watching us on YouTube or listening to our podcast or from any other source, it doesn’t matter wherever you’re joining us from, I’d like to wish you a very warm welcome.

As previously mentioned, today’s guest is HANDLE Practitioner, Rosemarie Mason. She is a mother of five, all with neurodevelopmental differences commonly labeled as autism, severe learning difficulties, dyspraxia, and dyslexia. Her children have made outstanding progress way beyond the results that could be expected from the traditional experts. And some of them are actually studying or training in a college or university setting. In other words, they are living quite normal lives. But we’ll hear more about this and the impact all of this has made on Rosemarie’s family in a moment.

Rosemarie became a campaigner for disability rights, an advocate, a consultant, government adviser, run a local autism support group for ten years, and along with family members has been featured in media

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campaigns for the National Autistic Society. She trained as a HANDLE practitioner and instructor after seeing the dramatic changes in her entire family. HANDLE by the way stands for Holistic Approach to Neurodevelopment and Learning Efficiency.

She has worked with individuals with varying labels and diagnoses. For example, ASD, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, strokes, depression, brain injury, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, amongst others as well as with individuals who while being effective want to be more efficient and less stressed.

So welcome Rosemarie. It’s a pleasure to have you with us today.

Rosemarie: Thank you, Mel.

Melanie: Now, before we talk about your personal experiences and your background, for the benefit of the audience, could you share with us what HANDLE is and how that ties in with the title of Joys of Being Just You? Put that into context with the Joys of Being Just You.

Rosemarie: HANDLE like you’ve said, it is an acronym for Holistic Approach to Neurodevelopment and Learning Efficiency. And almost the best way to describe HANDLE is to look at those words, holistic, it’s whole. We look at everything in HANDLE. So nothing is – nothing stands alone. It’s an approach so it encompasses everything. We have our own set of activities but we have – we use whatever that person needs. So it’s not like someone does a HANDLE program and doesn’t do anything else because well, that’s not real life.

Neurodevelopment, it’s simply as simple as the brain is. It’s brain development and all the aspects of that and all the things that that add to that like the big thing now is all genetics. Well, that is only one small factor. We’ve got genetics. We’ve got environmental factors and environmental factors, internal and external environmental factors. We look at nutrition, aspirations, all kinds of things. Whatever makes up an individual that’s what we’re looking at.

Learning because we all have the ability to learn even though some of us may be labeled with those kind of labels that, “Oh, they’re functioning at



this level.” My bugbear in life is when people start talking about a 35-year-old and they’re functioning like a 4-year-old and it’s like, how dare they? That person is a 35-year-old. We all function at a 4-year-old level sometimes.

Melanie: That’s true.

Rosemarie: And efficiency, which is essentially that we are putting the least amount of energy into doing what we want to do, what we need to do, what we hope to do. And when we’re talking about being me, it’s sort of in HANDLE, we go beyond the labels like a label if you have a label or a diagnosis or be it just stressed out individual. Well, that’s just a sign post. It’s saying, “Red flags are going up. Hey, I’m in trouble.” Like what’s going on? And it’s very difficult to be content, to be happy, to pursue what you want to do when you’re living in that state constantly.

So it’s really addressing behavior and looking at that. It’s communication. Looking at the whys, I mean the big word in HANDLE is why. Why are you doing that? And often even, when it comes to a behavior, be it somebody that’s flapping or smoking or whatever, we tend to well, let’s try that myself. Like what’s that doing for me? What might that be masking? Why might that be making white noise? Why might I have to repeat something?

And I think we’ve all encountered people that you ask them a question and they tend to repeat it or they repeat your answer. Could that be because they need more time to process language? They might not be given that label but that might be what’s happening.

Melanie: So, what I think I’m hearing you’re saying is that what we’re seeking to do is to understand the person, start with the person from where they’re coming rather than box them up in a label. And of course by doing that, they’re going to feel heard. They’re going to feel understood and we’re probably going to get a lot more out of them.

Rosemarie: Yeah, most definitely. And I mean most of us if we get a label or a diagnosis, we start defining ourselves by that. You just have to look out there. We’ve got the cancer victims or the sufferers of autism or the – and it’s sort of like everybody gets banged together as a group, as we women used to be. We were all banged together. This is what women do.



Melanie: Yeah. No, carry on.

Rosemarie: Yeah. No, which was just – I mean what’s coming to mind is in the States, the wife of the Republican candidate for the president was talking about us women, this is what we do. And it was like, hey, wait a minute. No, we don’t. That woman might do it but the next woman doesn’t. One of us might bake cookies but the next one might not be able to boil water.

Melanie: Yeah, yeah. Yes, it’s so easy to be trapped in a force field of this is how it’s done and then everybody goes along with it.

Rosemarie: Yeah, yeah. And also, if you get put into that box, you become that. I mean this is what I find with a lot of people I work with who are labeled certain thing. They suddenly – I know somebody that very capably was reading and writing and whatever, suddenly, got this diagnosis of dyslexia and reading it’s really hard for me. Writing is really hard for me. Now, it might be a challenge but she was confidently doing it before she got the label.

Beryl: So Rosemarie, can you tell us a little about – I mean this is fascinating and I’m really intrigued into how HANDLE was developed. Who found it? Where did it come from?

Rosemarie: It was developed by an absolutely amazing woman called Judith Bluestone who unfortunately passed away a few years ago. But Judith was born with major issues, neurological issues, bones in her face didn’t grow, she had a severe seizure disorder, she had [0:10:13] [indiscernible] encephalitis. Would have qualified for many, many labels including probably autism, attention-deficit, hyperactivity disorder, probably would have been labeled epileptic, her favorite one was oppositional defiant disorder but she wanted to keep that one because that sounded good.

But she was born before the labels. So she didn’t actually get them.

Beryl: That was lucky.



Rosemarie: Part of the reasons why her – she was born with all these difficulties was her father was a scientist and he was part of a team trying to cure world hunger so working with insecticides and pesticides.

Beryl: Oh OK.

Rosemarie: Actually contributed to making Agent Orange which was eventually used in as a weapon in Vietnam. It was a de-foliage. So really, before she was even conceived, her – the likelihood is her father’s sperm was probably damaged. But then he was bringing it home on his clothes and it was going into their vegetable patch. He didn’t know.

Like many things, you do things and you don’t realize. So it was one of the – probably genes was one of the factors in her difficulties but she also was fortunate in her parents had never say no, never say never. And she was allowed to do what she needed to do.

And HANDLE itself, that whole approach, I mean it was – she lived HANDLE and she just had that – although she probably – nowadays, probably would have been labeled with some kind of intellectual impairment because she didn’t talk until she was about nine. And her behavior was very bizarre. She would look at – she would be looking at spinning wheels and getting great joy out of squealing or whatever.

But she – behind all of that, she was figuring out what she needed and she was doing it. I mean at one stage, she went profoundly deaf because the bones that should have been growing into her face grew into her ears, into her middle ears. And they didn’t figure that out for a year that she – because she had moved house and she – what she always said, she blamed her sister because her sister never told her that the birds in this neighborhood were singing too. She just thought all the birds had stopped. And she was a great lip reader. She learned how to lip read from a very young age.

So for – after the operation, she spent a year on a pogo stick but was allowed to do that. And that kind of movement without going into too much detail is actually a shutdown movement. She was actually able to cope with all the sensory input that was coming in on her because she was allowed to jump up and down.



Beryl: So are you saying Rosemarie that Judith instinctively knew what was right for her and this stimulated her thinking to open up this whole world of HANDLE to other people because she realized that there other people out there who had been put in boxes but actually they were doing their best intuitively to communicate, to live in a normal kind of life. Is that how it all evolved?

Rosemarie: Yeah, they were doing what they needed to do. I mean she always said, “I’m me.” She didn’t want the labels. I mean she studied – as she was growing, she started studying. She studied neurology. She studied anatomy. She studied education. She studied everything and anything, different methodologies like Montessori, Doman-Delacato’s work. She studied all of these things. And a lot of things she did up to PhD level but she never got the label of PhD if you will for various reasons, mainly time issues but also, it wasn’t necessary in her work.

But she needed to explain what she was doing, what she was doing instinctively even from her own point of view like what am I doing when I do that? Like I’m saying that movement that she was doing instinctively like what is happening? What is happening in the brain when I do that movement?

Beryl: So, a lot of self-inquiry was going on in her.

Rosemarie: Most definitely.

Beryl: She was confident enough it sounds like because her parents weren’t labeling her and were letting her have this free expression.

Rosemarie: Yeah, yeah.

Beryl: She was able to self-inquire without kind of damning herself for being different allegedly.

Rosemarie: Yeah. And she also – because of the time she was growing up in and because of her parents insistence, she went to mainstream schools. Now, it wasn’t always a pleasant experience for her because like in her teenage years, she was drooling all the time so she was made in the



canteen to face the wall so she wouldn’t upset the other students. I mean what does that do to you?

But also, the plus side of that was she was able to actually observe other people and what they were doing and how they were dealing with things. I mean that made her …

Melanie: I’ve lost sound. Hello?

Rosemarie: Hello?

Beryl: Carry on, carry on.

Melanie: Carry on.

Beryl: We lost you for a moment there. Carry on, Rosemarie.

Melanie: We lost you for a minute.

Rosemarie: Right. It just made her part of society, society as a whole rather than an isolated part in an institution which many people ended up in.

Melanie: Rosemarie, there’s one question I’m trying to get clear in my mind. So you mentioned that she was nine before she spoke properly.

Rosemarie: Yup.

Melanie: Yeah. And you imply that there are a number of other challenges that she had to deal with. So, is it through her own self-inquiry, her own persistence that she learned to speak or was there assistance from the system or what?

Rosemarie: No. In actual fact, one of the reasons that was – the speech was so difficult for her was she didn’t have an upper palette. So, she couldn’t actually follow. I mean part of the things about speech development is watching, babies watch, they’re watching what you’re doing with your mouth and your tongue and everything else.



Well, for her, without that upper palette, it was very, very difficult to form the words. So she learned how to do it.

Beryl: Because she speaks very clearly. I have seen a video of her interview. She speaks, I know sadly she’s passed but there was no difficulty understanding her.

Rosemarie: No.

Melanie: So you’re saying without an upper palette, she’s learned to speak as well as she did?

Rosemarie: Yeah. I mean she did eventually have a reconstructed upper palette.

Melanie: OK.

Rosemarie: But she still would – occasionally, she would even show you how she used to speak. And even that was clear. It’s amazing what human beings can do. But she was definitely an exceptional, exceptionally exceptional person. She was way in front of her time. I mean constantly there’s research being done constantly and things that are coming out. Well, Judith seemed to have known that 30, 40 years ago. But like I said, didn’t do the research into it. I mean things like neuroplasticity which is pretty acceptable now.

Well, 40 years ago, that wasn’t. I know when I was studying biology, it was almost like once your brain was developed like by the time you were 21 or so, I mean that was it. I mean we now know the brain constantly develops and doesn’t stop until we die. And even now, they’re saying …

Melanie: It’s developing now as we speak.

Rosemarie: Yeah. And even we know we can – we actually can grow new brain cells. All these things that we were told, no, we couldn’t do. Judith knew …

Melanie: So this is the paradigm she was operating in even though it wasn’t popular at the time.



Rosemarie: Yeah, yeah. I mean she would be – she worked within educational systems and knew very much how to deal with people as well. Ironically for somebody that would have qualified for that label of not being empathetic or not knowing how to interact with other people. She was a great person for almost making the other person think that was their idea and she did that very much when she was in education. She got away with things that people would look at, “How did you do that? How did you manage to get that? And how did you …?” And it was just – innately, she knew what to do.

Ironically, I find that with one my sons who is nonverbal is a great – he gets things done and you start looking like how, what. But there are all these other things that you can do. She then eventually – she moved to Israel and she lived about ten years on a kibbutz. And it was after she left the kibbutz, her work won awards because it wasn’t a very prosperous kibbutz and it was one that had a lot of social difficulties, teenage pregnancies and uneducated workforce, et cetera.

And in those ten years, things changed quite dramatically. And that was through the work that Judith was doing and that’s really where she probably put it together and when she actually moved back to the States, people were sort of saying, “Judith, you have to teach others.” And that’s when she started the HANDLE Institute.

Beryl: So Rosemarie, you touched on how your son has been helped by this process here. Could you just share with us how you found Judith because you really fell on your feet there, didn’t you?

Rosemarie: Yeah. I mean it was back in 2003 and I actually had heard of HANDLE previously but hadn’t quite gone down the route. Probably, we’re actually doing a lot of following the kind of ethos of HANDLE in that I very much backed the system. Whatever I was told to do with the kids, I sort of asked permission to do it for one thing. And yeah, I did what was right for our family. I mean I was sort of known as unrealistic mother, which I’m very proud of. That’s my label.

And I actually was at a spiritual retreat and I met a woman who was a [0:22:35] [indiscernible] and she was telling me about her thoughts of



changing career and she’d gone on this HANDLE course and maybe I’d be interested. Because of course, my three sons were diagnosed with autism and once you say that to somebody, it’s sort of, “Oh yeah, well my friend’s daughter has autism.” And the connection is made.

And I think it was like about three, four months later, she sent me a flyer about a course that was being held in North London. And the night that it was being held, it was a weekend course but it started on the Friday, I think most of the trains were out. We had ice and snow and I very much – and I was being encouraged by my husband, “Why don’t you stay home? It’s not too good out there and whatever.” And I thought – just something inside of me said, go.

And I went and sat for three hours being told what HANDLE was all about and being – talked about reasons, possible reasons for behavior, possible reasons why somebody has difficulties, et cetera. And I swear I skipped home. It was just like getting there I was sort of like walking like I was very old and very feeble. But I was a 4-year-old running home.

It was suddenly – because to me, I’d always been asking why and I was told, well, just because they have like behaviors or because they’re autistic or with my daughters who had as well as dyslexia, dyspraxia, they had language disorders, well why? I had all kinds of reasons like previous existence of mad Harry I must have been. And also, that was me feeling sorry for myself which occasionally happened. But most of the time, it was like I was grateful because I have the most amazing children.

OK. There were times when the boys were small and they’d attack me and bite me and scratch me but then they give me lovely hugs and lovely kisses. But they also looked terrified. And the world was terrifying for them because they were sensory bombardment that they weren’t able to cope with. And HANDLE gave me the reasons why and then – and things to do about it too.

Beryl: So tell us about what happened next, what did you do about it? How did you work with your children?

Rosemarie: Well, what happened next was I first off booked my eldest twin, Sean, in for an assessment with the Cathy Stingley who was the



presenter, the instructor and I booked Sean in. But equally, they had – there was application for an intermediate course and at this stage, I think my husband was out of work and there wasn’t a lot of money going around and I had never been away from home without bringing at least two or three kids with me. And I was saying, this was a residential course for seven days and I came home and said, “I want to go on this course and it’s in February.” Now, this was January.

And off I went. And the HANDLE journey began and it just – HANDLE was really in its infancy then. It’s still not the largest organization in the world but we are getting there. And they were starting with – this was the first intermediate course. And in May of that same year was the first advance course and I booked myself on that one as well. And it just – I had to know. But equally, it became very obvious at home that whatever I was learning was helping.

Beryl: Right. So that drove you on.

Rosemarie: I came home and I was showing the kids some of the activities …

Melanie: And they were cooperating.

Rosemarie: Not always, not always. My younger son had a t-shirt or at least he wanted a t-shirt that “I hate HANDLE” and he wasn’t going to have any of it. For one thing, it was taking mom away. But it was also, you were asking him to do things and for him, he was always, if you will, the most autistic of my children even though other people thought he was the least. But he was the one that was very, very rigid and everything had to be the same.

So as we were introducing activities and he went through the whole assessment process, it was scary because things were changing. And we’re all a bit like that. It’s human nature to sort of like what’s familiar and as much as we look and we say, “Oh, that would be fun.” It’s like, “Oh, do I really want to do that?” I mean it was a bit like me with the interview today. It was like I was looking so forward to it but then part of me was uh-oh.

Melanie: OK. Yeah. www.wiredforsuccess.tv 12


Rosemarie: So it’s that kind of thing. Change can be scary.

Beryl: But Rosemarie, did you find with your children when you were working with them, did you find that as they saw the changes and I’m not sure if this is the thing to say, life became easier? I’m not sure quite if that’s the phrase. But as they saw changes, were they more inclined to do the exercises? I know there’s no pressure to do the exercises but were they more compliant with the process?

Rosemarie: Most definitely, most definitely. And they still do them. They were seeing the difference. And the joy of HANDLE activities is we can change them and vary them with an individual. So like an activity that we do is a clapping game. Well, that doesn’t really interest teenage boys going around clapping. It might girls but not necessarily boys. So OK, we can change this and do this with the ball against the wall.

So you can actually introduce. And there’s a bit of competition then. And I know my son is enjoying it and other kids, they’d be going, “Oh wow! That looks like fun.” And it was fun because that’s how – our brain develops through fun things more than the things that we think, the things that you do in school. Actually, you probably learned more by jumping around the playground because that enabled your brain then to take on the information that you are given in school.

Beryl: Tell us about the straw, Rosemarie. Tell us about the crazy straw.

Rosemarie: Yeah. I have mine here. It’s just a straw with loads, and loads, and loads of loops. And basically what it’s doing is the same thing that we did when we were sucking at our mother’s breasts. So it’s – I mean there’s often that thing, breast is best and talking about nutrition, et cetera, et cetera.

But it’s what’s going on is actually the first interhemispheric activity we do. It’s the first activity that takes both sides of our brains to do. And if you – looking at pictures of a fetus in the womb, quite often, you see the thumb in the mouth. And that’s quite a complex movement for the brain and it takes – a large part of the brain is doing that.



But while it’s doing that, while someone is sucking, and I mean the reason it’s a swirly whirly straw and equally why when I’m talking about sucking up the mother’s breasts, equally, a child could be sucking on a bottle.

Beryl: OK.

Rosemarie: Drinking formula, et cetera. The difference is the suck, the suck is harder …

Melanie: On the breast.

Rosemarie: … on the breasts than it is with the bottle because gravity gets involved then. So – but again, it depends on the individual. Like one individual needs that kind of suck and the other, the bottle sucking is fine. But when it comes to the activity that we do, we like to use the straw so you get a small aperture and you really have to pull. And what that is actually doing is for one thing, it’s working on the sphincter muscles, those round O muscles. So if you practice one of them, you practice all of them.

And some of the examples of round O muscles that we have are the mouth, the eyes, so you’re working on the muscle tone in the eyes and the esophagus, the esophagus sphincter muscle which is actually preventing reflux. So there are cases of people that have used crazy straws that haven’t needed any medical intervention for their reflux which was getting dangerous because obviously, what’s in the stomach should not be up in the throat.

Beryl: Sure.

Rosemarie: Also, the sphincter muscles in your bowel and bladder. So developmentally, we are meant to suck and be on the breasts until probably the age of two. That’s what would happen in other probably third world countries.

Beryl: Cultures.

Rosemarie: The children would be fed that way and then you – by that stage, you know what the urge is and you know what to do about it because you practice it. Nobody has taught you as such but your body



knows how to do it instinctive. Equally, what sucking does is you have a part in the mid brain called the colliculus which vibrates when you suck. It’s not sphincter muscle but it actually is – with that vibration, it’s helping filter sounds.

Beryl: I was going to ask you about the hearing because I was reading in the book on the topic today, The Fabric of Autism, I was reading about how the ears are affected by this too. Would you like to touch on that?

Rosemarie: Yeah. We have a tympani muscle in the ear and that too vibrates and that again, is part of the structure for helping us filter out sounds. So for a lot of children and adults, if you’re sound sensitive and you’re not able to filter out sounds, it can cause delays in language or it can cause social difficulties like people don’t want to go into groups because all people talking at once. If you’re not able to filter sounds out, you don’t know where to put your attention. And it actually becomes painful.

Beryl: So I see you with your crazy straw, Rosemarie. So you’re never too old are you to start the HANDLE program?

Rosemarie: No, no. I mean my eldest client is soon to be 89 and one of the things that I have permission to say this is what her daughter has been doing with her because she’s been suffering from – recently from a few TIAs which is transient ischemic attacks which are like little strokes. And Jean hasn’t been panicking when these have happened and she’s been able to do HANDLE activities with her and in some cases, her voice is gone and then it’s come back. And there’s been a lot of research around brain issues like that, acquired brain issues and strokes and there are some HANDLE activities that the sooner they can be done the better. But even long-term can still make a difference.

So again, it’s just – it’s natural ways of doing things and using that plasticity of the brain and the idea that the brain and there are books, there is a book recently, The Brain That Changes Itself by a doctor called – I can’t think of his first name, Doidge and it was on the Times bestseller list. And he was looking from the medical model about how the brain can change itself and people have recovered from things they shouldn’t have recovered from. We get that all the time.



I mean Judith herself had a car crash and was told she couldn’t walk again. And one of the questions she just asked was, “Is my spinal column severed?” And they said no. Well, she said, “I’m going to walk.” And she did walk. I mean that happened when she was in her 20s. Now, she passed away in her 60s. But she had to – sometimes she had to remind her brain that her leg could still move.

Melanie: So she used …

Rosemarie: But the leg stopped and she said, “Come on, I can go.”

Melanie: So she would be using the HANDLE techniques to do that?

Rosemarie: Yeah, yeah. Now, there has been some – one Cathy that I was speaking of earlier had worked with her aunt who was about 85 and had a massive stroke and she was called to bedside that the woman was not going to survive and it was one side of her body wasn’t moving and she had no voice and straight away, she started doing HANDLE activities. Well, within a week and we have this on video, the woman walked out of the hospital.

Beryl: Good Lord.

Rosemarie: I mean they totally convinced the medical staff there and they are really looking into what they can do using HANDLE techniques, which are very simple. They don’t take major equipment. I mean crazy straws don’t cost that much.

Beryl: And some of it is really quite speedy. Again, referring to the book that I was reading this afternoon on the HANDLE practice, within a few weeks, quite dramatic changes can occur.

Rosemarie: I’ve had – I worked with a man who had multiple sclerosis and had very, very slurred speech and had a very strong Dublin accent to boot and it was like the combination was that sort of sorry, excuse me? And he’s just a lovely man and he just laughs.

But one of the reasons I showed him an activity and this is an activity called face tapping which is basically tapping on the trigeminal nerve and he was



experiencing pain here and the solution for that was he was supposed to be having an operation to cut that, to severe that nerve and then obviously, he wouldn’t have pain. But I just thought, whoa, maybe the face tapping will help that.

So I showed him the face tapping because again Beryl, when you were talking earlier about people that maybe wouldn’t do the activities, again, we can do them in front of them because there is something called mental rehearsal and we use that communically.

Beryl: The mirror neurons.

Rosemarie: Yeah. What sportsmen and dancers [0:39:21] [indiscernible] and we know them. We watch children run around. We’re tired but we haven’t done anything. Well, our brains have done it. So I did it in front of him and then I did it for him because he wasn’t able to do it for himself. And I could see his face going and I thought, oh Lord, are you in pain? Are you OK? And he was just nodding and then he suddenly came out in this crystal clear voice. And I have to say, thankfully, the colleague with me and she heard it too. Crystal clear voice, he just said, “Oh that feels so much better.” I just was like …

Melanie: Did he notice that he’d spoken.

Rosemarie: He didn’t. I said, “Do you know how clear your voice is?” And he just started laughing because he said, “Well, I’ve been working with speech therapists for years and they said they can’t do anything for me.” And again, it’s not that the speech therapists don’t know what they’re doing, it’s just that the underlying systems and I mean I like to describe it like a tree with the roots or our house, the foundation of the house.

In HANDLE, we’re addressing the foundation. And once you have a strong foundation, you can put up the walls and you can put the windows in and you can work on that roof which is really where teachers and speech therapists and various other professionals are working on. But if you don’t have a sound foundation, it’s very difficult.

And if you do succeed, it’s a bit like my daughters who had difficulties reading. I mean they could not understand why anybody would read a book



for pleasure. I mean what pleasure do you get out of reading book? I mean they both managed to like – by the time we came to HANDLE, they were – Kate was doing A levels and Niamh must have been [0:41:18] [indiscernible] level.

So they had done really, really beyond what they were expected to do already. But it was at a cost. Yeah, they didn’t read for pleasure. Now, we’re driving along in the car and the two of them are in back with their books or now, their iPads or their Kindles. But they’re reading constantly.

Beryl: That’s really wonderful to hear. And what it’s making me think Melanie, is here at Wired for Success, Rosemarie, we strongly believe that everybody is wired for success. It’s just all the other stuff that messes up our wiring. Exactly. So I love hearing you say that, talk about the tree and the foundation, at the roots. So clearly, you at HANDLE believe that we all have those roots, those foundations.

Rosemarie: We assume ability.

Beryl: Lovely, lovely way of putting it.

Rosemarie: Whatever other perceptions or whatever that label has said like if I’m talking to a baby, I talk to that baby. If I’m talking to my 89-year-old woman with Alzheimer, I talk to her. I do not talk to – I talk to the people around of course, but that’s the person. And they soon tell you if they don’t understand. It might not be through language, it will be behavior or if you’ve done too much. It’s sort of – if somebody gives me a clout or pinches me or something, well, I have to think, “OK. Now, what am I doing? Why have I gotten on your nerve? Why have I upset you? What’s going on?”

Beryl: So, there’s always a way. There’s always portal, isn’t it? This is what you’re saying I think. There’s always a way. You just go on exploring and you have obviously, certain exercises that work incredibly well. But it sounds like you have, yes, the facility. It sounds like you’re open to any possibility.

Rosemarie: Oh, definitely. I mean we have assessment tools. We can see how somebody’s eyes are working. We can see how language – where they are with language or movement or anything. But sometimes and it’s



not necessarily with the client that you would expect, you get refusals. They’re not going to do that. That’s stupid. That’s silly. Why would I …

Melanie: That’s interesting because I was going to say to you, so for whom does HANDLE not work? Because I know certain, in terms of Wired for Success, in everything you’re saying sort of mirrors the message we’re trying to get out with Wired for Success. You don’t have to be challenged developmentally.

The only reason people will not – would not for example, I mean there are several reasons why your wiring won’t work but quite often, people are not ready for change or they see it as being bogus. And I was going to say to you, what are the circumstances where it doesn’t work? Because from what you’ve said, it works for everyone.

Rosemarie: Yeah. I mean it won’t work for like you say people that do not want to change. And I mean, sometimes it worked so well that – especially with children who have been very docile and do what you want them to do and I’ve have that with my eldest daughter. She was the perfect student. I mean she was considered not too bright but she was the perfect student. She’d do anything anybody wanted her to do. If I went shopping with her, if I picked out clothes for her, “Oh yes, mom. Thanks mom. That’s lovely, mom, whatever.” And almost the first time I went out and she said, “Yeah, that’s really nice mom but it’s not me.” It’s like, wow! I feel great.

But for some people, where their life has been built around this person that almost does what they want them to do constantly and sometimes that’s an indication of where their stresses are too. “Oh, I’m not going to do that.” Look at their behavior now, teenagers especially.

You suddenly got – my youngest son went off after school and I’d be ringing and ringing, he wouldn’t answer his phone and eventually he would and it’s like, “Where are you?” “I’m walking with my friends.” And it’s like – and then he became very monosyllable. Like uh, uh. I thought, “Oh God! I have to bring him back to speech therapist, whatever.” And fortunately, I have two very wise daughters and they said, “He’s a teenager.” Well, I hadn’t had one of those before and I was panicking.



Equally, when he was younger, when he was about five or six, he became the terrible two’s which was a bit more of a challenge when you’ve got a bigger child wanting to throw themselves on the floor. So it doesn’t work then because people pull away from it. It doesn’t also work if people don’t do the activities especially initially. You really need to do them as often, as daily, every day. Not too much, just the prescribed – not the prescribed amount, the suggested amount. Sometimes that changes.

So if you’re going to do it now and then not do it again for six months, well, there may be a little change but it’s not really as much as could happen. If you’re not going to address other things like nutrition and hydration, that’s going to have an effect or if you do things too much. The face tapping that I was talking about is a wonderful activity. I mean it’s one that wakes you up really, invigorates you. I use it – I used to get a lot of migraines. Migraines are very nonexistent now. And one of the things – if I’m getting even a tension headache, I will do my face tapping.

Well, we had a man that did his face tapping and he came back and nothing much is changing. Well, what’s your favorite activity? Oh, face tapping. And how often do you do that? Oh, about 12 times a day. But I’m getting a lot of headaches recently.

Beryl: Too much.

Rosemarie: Too much, too much of a good thing as they say. And because we might be doing an activity for one reason and very much try to gear it towards what that person wants like – especially like with the individual. Some – parents come and they’re reading and writing or spouses come with the unreasonable behavior of the individual or whatever else but that person might want to play on the play station better or they might want to play football better or whatever. It’s finding what that person wants too. And if you don’t find that, well then, you’re going to get refusals too. Like I’m not going to do this because why am I doing it?

Beryl: Yeah.

Rosemarie: I don’t want to read better. I’m fine. Because most people that are under stress don’t see it because they are doing great. And the world is revolving around them too and they don’t like to have to look at the other



person’s perspective or how it might be difficult for someone else. I know of individuals that have to – they take their parents to watch trains every weekend and they can’t see – the parent doesn’t want to go watch the trains. Then maybe it would be nice to do something the parent would want to do. But they can’t see that.

Beryl: If people want to find out more about HANDLE and the work of this whole wonderful process, I’ve been reading for example, this book that you gave me, The Fabric of Autism. Would you just like to share a little bit about the book and where people can get it?

Rosemarie: Yeah. The Fabric of Autism is sort of semi autobiographical about Judith because she shares a lot of her experiences and all her experiences working with clients but it’s also weaving in all the underlying systems that support all the things we do in human functioning.

So really, most of us who have read the book actually discover ourselves within the book because a person diagnosed with autism is working from an extreme place of stress and that’s how Judith would have spoken about it as a complete – as an extreme stress disorder.

Another book that you might want to read is called The Churkendoose Anthology and that basically is a bunch of stories about different people, their life stories on how they’ve overcome different issues that might affecting them through HANDLE programs. And both these books are available through Amazon.

Beryl: Interesting title, The Churkendoose. Could you just give us a little quick summary of that?

Rosemarie: The Churkendoose was a story that Judith read when she was a child and it was an animal that was made up of a chicken, a goose, and a turkey so therefore, Churkendoose. And this animal was basically ignored by all the others. It wasn’t a chicken. It wasn’t a turkey. It wasn’t a goose.

And ironically walking in the park this morning, we saw a bunch of geese that actually were trying to get rid of another – well, I don’t know whether it was a goose or what it was but it was a different color. And my – the



comment with my daughter was like it happens in the animal kingdom too. People that are different, we sort of ignore them or try to isolate them.

Beryl: Yeah. OK. Fascinating, fascinating, Rosemarie. Do you want to come in with the last question there, Melanie?

Melanie: Yeah. I just wanted to put the final question in because there are those of us who consider ourselves to be normal, another label, and probably think that they don’t need HANDLE. Can you sort of comment on that? Because I get from what you’ve been saying that everybody could do with a dose of HANDLE.

Rosemarie: Yeah. I mean again, because it is, it is just natural human development, that’s really what we’re talking about. And none of us are perfect. I mean I came to HANDLE to find things to help my children and I was the only one in the family without a label. Even my husband had a dyslexia label. And I mean one thing that happened because part of our training is we have our own HANDLE programs and that’s really partially to help us understand the people we’re working with but equally to understand ourselves.

And one of the results of my HANDLE program is my parking was much better than it was beforehand. I put a lot less effort into parking than I used to. I used to go in and out and in and out as most people do and that’s considered normal. But now, most of the time, I can just pull in. Equally, my writing …

Melanie: So you’re saying – I was only going to say, so you’re saying that this was a special problem that got corrected?

Rosemarie: Yeah, yeah. I mean my proprioceptive awareness became – which is my body in space as I became more aware of my body, my extended body being the car. I understood that better too without – it’s not a cognitive thing. It’s actually – it’s just a response. I’m doing it and my body is aware of it because the more we have to think about things, the less efficient we become because actually thinking is not the most efficient way of doing things because if we did have to think about things like walking and talking, we’d really be in trouble.



Beryl: You’re going to make something about your handwriting there.

Rosemarie: Yeah, my handwriting. I do have a bugbear in life when I can’t read handwriting especially when it’s emails, email addresses. But one of the things I had been doing for quite a few years was printing. And I thought, oh, I’m doing that because of my handwriting thing.

But actually, while I was doing that, I was under a lot of stress and it was only when I was going to do my advance course in HANDLE and after having a late night and driving a long distance, I sat down, started taking notes on the class and looked down and saw this really lovely, efficient joined writing that I was doing. Not only doing it – I didn’t have – it was unlined paper which I was never able to write on except going up and down. I was going straight across.

Beryl: Fantastic.

Rosemarie: So it was like just another thing that you don’t realize, you don’t realize the effort you’re putting into doing things until it’s not there anymore.

Melanie: So I’m guessing that from the descriptions you’re giving that this must be quite useful in ironing out relationship issues and maybe even in the boardroom.

Rosemarie: Definitely. I mean my husband will vouch for that. I mean he is much less stressed. He can be and was historically quite an explosive individual where now, he can understand people better too. And he’s a much better manager. I mean he’s very much a people’s manager now and understands the stresses people are coming – going under. And the crazy straw actually is in the office with him and quite a few of his colleagues have started using crazy straws.

Melanie: Oh wow! It’s catching.

Beryl: Fantastic. So just …

Melanie: So Rosemarie – go on.



Beryl: I was just going to say, just to sum up and thank you. I’m very aware that your clock is ticking here. Where can people find you, Rosemarie to find out more and get in touch with you to help them?

Rosemarie: If you’re on Facebook, I’ve got a Facebook page and that’s Rosemarie Mason, Certified HANDLE Practitioner and Instructor or you can go to my website which is www.outsidethinking.org or I believe I’ll be on your website as well.

Beryl: Yes, you can contact – people can contact through us. Yes.

Melanie: Yes. And the link will be http://wiredforsuccess.tv/blog/the-joys-of-being-just-you. Excellent. So Rosemarie, thank you so much for taking part in this episode. We have certainly enjoyed this conversation and we are sure our viewers will as well. But before we sign off guys, just want to remind you that we love hearing from you so please comment on this episode. And Rosemarie has agreed to be available from time to time to reply to your questions.

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If you head over there, there will be a transcript of this episode too. We reply to all comments and suggestions and we would love to hear from you. So thank you for tuning in. Remember to tune in for the next episode of Wired for Success where we help you to master the seven areas of life.




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So from me Beryl and my co-host Melanie and from our interviewee Rosemarie we bid you farewell and next time. So, if you would like to say good-bye.

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The Joys of Being Just You [Episode 1] Wired For Success TV

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