What can you do when life hits you with the unexpected? Nicola Irvine shares her experience as the mother of a son who was born healthy, but soon developed serious life-challenging medical problems. She is a motivational speaker and author. Learn more about her on her website.
Emmalou Penrod 0:00
Today I’m talking to Nicola Irvine. She is a motivational speaker, author, mentor, and mother. Nicola, welcome.
Nicola Irvine 0:12
Thank you so much. Emmalou I’m just so pleased and honored to be here just to have this time with you today.
Emmalou Penrod 0:19
Well, I’m excited to hear your story. I love the title, mother, quite often we take that one for granted. But in your case, it has really guided your life, would you say?
Nicola Irvine 0:33
Well, it certainly pivoted my role in life, quite substantially. I’d say I did a 180 if not a 360 and another 180. So he’s certainly shaking my life up, that’s for sure.
Emmalou Penrod 0:50
Could you share?
Nicola Irvine 0:51
Sure, look, yeah, thank you, Emmalou. I started my life as an accountant, you know, once I’d finished university, and had about 10 years of that. And then I was blessed with Thomas. I call him my bundle of joy. And he came into my life in 1997. And yeah, what a joyous time it was. And then things, as life does, that has had a different plan for me and for Thomas, and he contracted meningitis, pneumococcal meningitis. And this left him with a number of lifetime challenges including deafness, epilepsy, global delay, I think those are the major ones. And within that, knowing that my young baby couldn’t be, couldn’t go back to who he was, prior to meningitis, it actually sent me off on a searching journey. And each moment, he inspired me to look at different teachings, different traditions, and I really went searching for what my purpose, what my meaning in life was, and how Thomas and I went to actually work in this together. And that’s been 23 years. And it’s been quite an amazing journey. It’s been, I tell you, what, there’s been lots of ups and downs. I call it roller coaster rides. It’s been a real roller coaster ride even so much so just earlier this week. Thomas had a fall, and he ended up in hospital having to have a CT scan. So this is something that I deal with constantly. It’s, you know, his challenges will not go away. So I’ve had to search for ways or perspectives, or, I guess, practices or habits that can support me. In this world that we don’t, honestly, do not have any understanding or knowing what the answer will be. Now, this is true of life anyway, you know. I thought I had a knowing that everything would be okay. I had that fairy tale, that fairytale dream that, you know, you marry a handsome prince, and you’d have a couple of children and everything would be okay. But yeah, life is challenges. And that’s just the way it is. And so, I’m really loving that when I end each and every day, because I don’t know when Thomas is going to have a seizure and fall and hit his head and end up in hospital. So like I said, I’ve had to learn to manage my way of being in life and how to cope with my emotions and my mental health, my spiritual health, my physical health. And I’ve had to find ways to do that. And I guess the guiding principles for me, and I call them the three E’s, and they are in every moment we have a choice.
Emmalou Penrod 4:17
I totally agree.
Nicola Irvine 4:19
And, yeah, and that’s really a choice to see something in love or fear. And, you know, I’m still practicing this. I’m actually just about going to be recording a video about this because, you know, just done with this incident with what happened with Thomas recently, I went into fear of the fact that I’m not in the same country as him. And how could anyone be there like I can be there? And how does anyone really understand what he wants? Because Thomas is nonverbal. So I went into fear. And fortunately, I could catch myself. Ah, now I can see what I’m doing to myself, spiraling into this spiral of downward fear. And fortunately, you know, when you catch yourself and are aware of it, you can get yourself out of it. So in every moment, we have a choice, whether we act in love or in fear. Every road has opportunities. And I mean, I can just see this in life, whatever road I take, whatever choice you make, there is a road that you’re going along, and there’ll be beautiful things there. And there’ll be challenges. And there’ll be beautiful things, and it’s just all of life. But there are going to be opportunities no matter what. And, you know, whether you choose to see it as a silver lining, or you want to focus on the past. Focusing on the past just doesn’t get you anywhere, does it?
Emmalou Penrod 5:49
No, it doesn’t.
Nicola Irvine 5:50
No. And then the third E for me is that, everyone. And I mean, everyone has a gift. And this has been, I guess, a guiding principle to motivate me to find Thomas’s gift. And, you know, like I said to you, he’s nonverbal, he has these seizures. He’s globally delayed. So what hope is there for him? You know, many of us would think that what could he actually offer to the world? And yet, just through observation, caring for him, loving him, the big thing for me really was accepting him for who he was, who he was really, in this moment. Because part of me spent many years trying to fix him.
Emmalou Penrod 6:42
Interesting perspective!
Nicola Irvine 6:44
Yeah. And I think that was my first road to burn out. Yeah, I tried everything. I traveled the world to try and fix my boy. And when I finally, finally, not only as a mental concept, but finally got a deep within my heart and soul, that he was perfect, just the way he was. Then there was an element that I can rest, and then I could start to heal my fatigue, my burnout, yeah.
Emmalou Penrod 7:22
Well, and I can’t help but think, what a gift that was to him.
Nicola Irvine 7:26
Yes.
Emmalou Penrod 7:27
That acceptance. And it is interesting to me, that it’s really all motivated by love. Out of love, you wanted to fix him. But through love you learned to accept him.
Nicola Irvine 7:41
Exactly, exactly.
Emmalou Penrod 7:43
That’s huge!
Nicola Irvine 7:43
Yeah, it is huge. It’s that, I guess, in a way, it’s the the paradox of life, isn’t it? You know, you think you’re doing Yeah, you’re doing it out of love to fix. But actually, the best thing you could do for him is just accept them. That beautiful being, I guess I was, because Thomas got the meningitis at nine months, I could relate to him being that, what I perceive, that perfect young man before that young baby before. I just wanted that opportunity to mold that young baby. And you know, and I, you know, I mean, it’s just what life had installed for both of us at a deep level, at a deep soul level. And that’s my belief that was what was installed for us. And now, I mean, I can honestly say that I fully accept him for who he is. It doesn’t mean, I don’t get frustrated with him, doesn’t mean that I don’t want to kick his butt. And it doesn’t mean that I still don’t want to try and control him, even though you know, I can’t really do this. You know, when I’m here in the US and he’s in New Zealand. Yeah. So, anyway.
Emmalou Penrod 8:57
You have been through. . . Well, yeah, parenting is a challenge. You know, I think every parent has a story to tell, a journey they’ve been through. You have been through an especially challenging one. But you didn’t just survive through it. You’ve also accomplished quite a bit. You’ve written books, you’ve inspired others. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Nicola Irvine 9:24
Yes, sure. I’ve always known that there’s a silver lining amongst all of this. Now, the silver lining for me is the fact that I can accept Thomas for who he is, and that that’s not only Thomas, but it’s actually everyone really. I think I probably was a person that used to judge other people because I guess that’s just the way I was and now I can fully accept people the way they are. And so I’ve always wanted to make a difference and and so I guess I can see the benefit, well, I’ve seen the benefit in my own life. Because, now I actually consider that even amongst the chaos that I’m living, you know, Thomas was in hospital just a few days ago, I’m actually living the most joyous I’ve ever been. And so for me, I’ve always wanted to share those stories, share the anecdotes that I have. And I’ve written two books. One is called Trust Life’s Journey. And that’s really, that was written probably 15 years ago. It wasn’t published till five or six years ago. It took me that long to get to get it all together. And this is really about the journey and a lot of different techniques that I flew the world for, to Fort Thomas. I don’t speak a lot about them. But I’m always open to share those with others, many different techniques. And then the second book is called Communication His Way. And like I said, Thomas is nonverbal. And yet he has a skill of really knowing what is going on in people’s hearts. He’s a very gifted, gifted soul. And he does this through affirmation cards and Oracle cards. And so in the book, Communication His Way, I share a little bit about that. And the truth of it is, I’ve just watched him. I’ve watched him like a hawk, things he loves, and then followed his interest. And also, I’ve had beautiful friends and family that have said, “Did you notice that Thomas likes this or that?” And we’ve been able to mold together something like his little business, and it’s called Tom’s readings. And and that’s, you know, this is a success story. Because a lot of people don’t believe that young people with these lifelong challenges can actually contribute in the world. And I believe Thomas can, and he is. He is actually a taxpayer in New Zealand, because he is making money from his business. He would like more clients. But because I feel that it’s just like, I’m just so grateful that I’m having this opportunity to share this with you today. Because the more I share about it, the more people know, and the more people who get inspired to help their loved one. But the second thing is, Emmalou, that we need to take care of ourselves first. Because yes, we talk a lot about self care, everyone’s talking about self care, but we really do have to do it. And whatever it is, self care is different to everyone. I’ve just got back from a nice long walk with my husband. And that’s part of my self care. Having a nice cup of tea and a couple of deep breaths is part of self care. Reading a book is self care. Whatever it is for you, you’ve got to find that time to recharge and fill up that energy tank.
Emmalou Penrod 13:03
I totally agree. I love what you said, we need to do it. You know, we talk about it a lot; we need to do it. Now there are a couple of other things I wanted to ask you about. I understand that you have actually involved Thomas in your public speaking.
Nicola Irvine 13:20
Yes. Slowly, slowly, we’re doing it. I mean, at the moment, what I’m involved in is I’ve got a video of him, him doing some readings. I can actually see in the future that we will actually be doing videos together on that. But obviously that means being in the same country. At the moment, with the situation with COVID on here in the states and Thomas’s in New Zealand, that’s not going to happen for a while, but I can see that happening. We are sharing, sharing that with with others, definitely. And so yeah, like I said before, you know, I published these books, I’m writing my third one at the moment, and it’s more of a how to book for, you know, families and parents of loved ones who have lifelong challenges. And then I like to speak about it as well. So you know, this is only really new for me. It’s the last couple of years. I’m practicing speaking at different places, getting opportunities to speak on podcasts and things like that and just sharing the love and acceptance like you said.
Emmalou Penrod 14:31
Well, I’ve seen some of your posts. You’re offering valuable content for parents. You know, other parents have children with challenges with special needs. And just what is normal by the way? I think every child has their unique needs. And yet you are offering. . . Can you kind of clarify that and is it through YouTube? Your training, the valuable content for parents is what I was impressed with.
Nicola Irvine 15:06
Yes, well, that’s what I’m doing. I mean, the last year and a half, I’ve been doing a series called midweek moments. And what I’ve decided this year 2021 has to offer, it starts with me. And what it starts with me is, is really, it was really sharing with people, some of these anecdotes and things that are practical for their life. And that’s some things that I’ve mastered, and other things, I’m still a work in progress, just like I said to you. You know, in every moment we have a choice. Yes, in my mind, I understand that and and many of you will understand that and yet sometimes we go down that rabbit hole. The mind creates all these, I don’t know, things that could happen, you know, if he’s in hospital, how long will we be there? And of course, what if something really bad happens in hospital? Or what if he dies? I mean, for me, I can take it to that degree. And yet, fortunately, I’m able to bring myself back to actually a place, but it’s important to acknowledge our mind and what’s actually happening in that moment.
Emmalou Penrod 16:15
That is. That is huge. That is huge. So how can people contact you and learn more?
Nicola Irvine 16:23
Well, like you said, I am doing it on YouTube. I posted on Facebook. I’m starting to do Instagram, which I’m not so used to Instagram and LinkedIn. And then also my website, which is NicolaIrvine.com. So N-i-c-o-l-a-I-r-v-i-n-e-dot com.
Emmalou Penrod 16:48
Nicola. Okay, I apologize. I think I mispronounced your name at the beginning, but it’s, Nicola.
Nicola Irvine 16:54
Well, look, I understand that many Americans call me Nikola. And so I’ve got used to it. Please don’t worry about that. It’s all okay. That’s all okay.
Emmalou Penrod 17:08
Well, it has been delightful to talk to you. Nicola. Thank you so much for your time. It’s been my pleasure.
Nicola Irvine 17:15
Thank you, Emmalou. Appreciate the time.
Emmalou Penrod 17:17
You have a great day.
Nicola Irvine 17:19
Thank you.