by Jessie Cooper | Oct 10, 2024
Over the last five years, I have written as the owner of Instructional ABA Consultants, a mama, and sometimes a BCBA. You can reference my original blogs here Owner’s Blog / Autism Blog. Throughout the summer, my team and I have been collaborating on what could be meaningful for the families and caregivers we serve. Through that collaboration, the idea for this series was born. The series will focus on our corner of the world through the perspective of an ABA business owner, BCBA, and a mama walking in the trenches right next to those we serve.
With my pen, I will do my best to share the origins and work of Instructional ABA Consultants, the gift of applied behavior analysis, and parenting to serve our community. The service I hope to provide is connection, knowledge, and community. I know firsthand how defeating lonely parenthood can be and how connection offers healing. Let us begin as I walk beside you sharing what I hope will serve you.
From College to Company Founding
In the spring of 2010, I was midway through my Master’s Degree in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). Social justice and behavior analysis filled my every waking hour. It was only three years earlier that I was teaching preschool, wondering how my autistic students would get access to care. In those days I walked the halls of residential mental health hospitals bearing witness to what happens when children do not get that access and become adults. At twenty-three years old my heart broke as I saw the most vulnerable beings on earth with an immense lack of care. I was working on the Illinois Crisis Prevention Network with the most amazing mentor; Kim Shontz. My position during this time was a Board-Certified Assistant Behavior Analyst tasked with stabilizing the most severe cases in Illinois. I worked with children as young as three to the elderly with one goal: decrease their behaviors and increase community access. Doing this work during my Master’s Degree gave me the advantage of applying the science with the support of faculty.
The results were incredible.
In the two years I worked on the ICPN I had nearly a 100% success rate of meeting the team’s goal. Applied behavior analysis offered the tools necessary to decrease the behaviors and the ICPN’s resources allowed the individuals to then access their community. The issue here was that every individual we served was state-funded without insurance coverage for ABA. It was early in the years that ABA was state-mandated by insurance (2008 for Illinois). The state saw the benefit but did not provide that access to all its residents; the burden being on the consumer. In 2012 I chose to start Instructional ABA Consultants with the mission to provide care across all funding sources. I enrolled as a BCBA for state funding that larger corporations wouldn’t touch; it didn’t pay enough. With a caseload of 20 clients, I began.
What I witnessed all those years ago and deeply desired still rings true today. I witnessed a series of systems that were failing our children and adults with disabilities. The number of kind-hearted, talented people who work within these systems would astound you. Yet they are always working without enough. I would like to believe people who hold positions of power surrounding these systems know of their shortcomings. Yet as time has aged me, I’ve begun to realize that sometimes people only see what they are capable of seeing. Who among us could say they directly supported a system that at its best denied access to care to children and at its worst made billionaires off healthcare profit margins? As humans, it can be incredibly difficult to look at the harm we’ve created because we do not want to believe we have it in us. If each of us was so brave to witness this harm I truly believe it would stop existing. Our hearts would break and from the fracture, an equitable world would be reborn. That day has not come yet and so it is my job to continue to witness the shortcomings of the systems around us and tenderly hold my desire.
Our Greatest Wish
My desire is this: that all children are given the very best chance at life we can give them, that their families are held in support, and should we have failed them as children serve them kindly and well as adults.
I am lucky enough today to be surrounded by a team of BCBAs who desire the same thing in their work at Instructional ABA Consultants. While imperfect, we share the same vision of using the science of Applied Behavior Analysis to transform the lives we touch.
As a mama, with children who have also needed support from others, I now know how precious our work is not just from a professional standpoint, but personally. The sea of parenting a child whose needs are different from the other children can be a dark and swirling world. Yet the waves can calm as resources are offered that will uplift your family to shore. Wade with me darlings, perhaps together we can create a lifeline for all.
Xoxo,
Jessie Cooper
by Jessie Cooper | May 2, 2024
For all the mama’s out there I’m almost certain that the moment we found out we were going to become that mama is cemented in our mind. That tiny moment when the double lines show up or the phone call is made that your baby is coming home. Your world changes in an instant, your heart grows beyond what your chest can hold, and love and fear dance inside of you. A life, a precious life, is now yours for tending as it grows into full blossom. A life to love beyond what you’ve ever defined before.
I’ve had both of these moments; I’ve grown two beautiful sons in my womb and I’ve adopted. Each time the knowledge of becoming a mama to a new life came this love washed over me. The first time this happened was vastly different from the subsequent experiences because, well, experience…
When I became pregnant with Henry the excitement and joy of motherhood overwhelmed me. I ran to Barnes and Noble to pick up the bible for babies, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” Every Sunday I would leaf through my stage of pregnancy, “You’re a bean, a mango, a tiny watermelon,” in pure awe of “it’s eyelash week, you’re growing nails!” I could not get enough of the life growing inside of me. I spent hours on Pinterest designing his nursery and “style,” pushing my cart through Babies “R” Us with a veteran mama, and filling my home with everything Henry. The excitement was everything, becoming his mama was a joy I had never felt.
Eradicating Erroneous Expectations
I look back on preparing to become a mama and as I type it I have a deep love for myself. I was cherishing his life growing and floating in the wonder of becoming a mama. I can almost touch the younger version of myself, and as I do I murmur, “Oh honey, I see your love, how wonderful.” It is wonderful to hold love as you begin the journey into motherhood. It is also incredibly naive to think that rainbows and unicorns, okay Pinterest and Babies “R” Us, have anything to do with motherhood. Pinterest and Babies “R” Us have everything to do with marketing the idea of motherhood. As I pushed my first son into the world I was quickly indoctrinated into the real world of motherhood. Henry, my darling son, would not sleep for over an hour for six months with a livid refusal to be put down. Henry came to life and so did motherhood. By the end of three years, I had three sons aged 1, 1 ½, and 14. Today I have a 5, 6 1/2, and 18-year-old.
Over the past six years, I have spent more time than I can count sarcastically telling a friend, “They don’t tell you that in ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’…” Being a mama is the best and hardest thing I have ever done. I’m guessing that I’m not alone in this. As I write these words to you I’m continuing to navigate the journey of motherhood that I’ve just begun. Each day has tiny treasures, like warm cheeks at bedtime, and each day has something that knocks me on my ass telling me, “You’ve got a lot more to learn.”
My little sons are full of huge emotions and my oldest son is grappling with the independence of 18. What I never knew, and wish someone had told me, is that motherhood is both raising your children and rebirthing yourself. You will be faced with a million challenges both from your children and the world that surrounds them (and you). In each of these moments is the paradox of, “Can you respond as the sturdy leader of your family, or are you back in the dirt working through it, hoping to come out of it with either a solution, or peace, or both?”
Earthing to Center on Love
I think of those “dirt moments” as the ones that knock me on my ass. The times I shout and wish I wouldn’t, the times my children lay a line of my so hurtful I cringe, that one time someone who will not be named threw a taco because it had sour cream followed by, “Bitch!”, and every time the world hands us something harmful or hard that I’m supposed to have the answer for. This is the dirt, the earth, the raw pain of parenthood paired with the soft remembrance of the gift of earth and life. In the dirt I envision myself rolling my pant legs up, planting my feet (or cheek depending on the day), and breathing deeply into it. The salt of my tears dance with the dirt as I tap my own heart, “I am love,” I remind myself, “I am love.” In the dirt I tell myself, I have more to learn, that this thing that has brought me here again needs a tender, open heart to listen, and so I do.
The time I spend in the dirt is vastly different each time I find myself there. My youngest son likes to do this trick. He asks me my name, taps his nose, asks me what it is, and then giggles, “Jessie, nose, nothing.” My little man giggles, yet I touch my nose each time I am in the dirt because it reminds me that I know nothing of this world. Each moment of parenthood that has brought me here reminds me that I am also a life and a life that is learning. This willingness to sit with what I do not know opens my heart to my children and me. When I do not know what to expect, the only thing I can expect is to humble myself enough to be open to the love that brought these children to life.
Motherhood may not come with bows and Instagram-perfect feeds. By the time I was pregnant again, I bought a pack of Pjs. It turns out I cloth-diaper, breastfeed, and co-sleep my babies. It also turns out that raising a teenager is harder than holding a baby for six months. And yet, yet… Motherhood has everything I could not expect and more. Motherhood is carving me into the woman that has always been inside of me, allowing me to shape my sons into the men they will always be. Motherhood is a tribe within us all, knowing we are not alone as we raise ourselves and our children in this world.
Xoxo,
Jessie
by Jessie Cooper | Jan 4, 2024
As I sit to write to you this morning, it might in fact be the first time I’ve sat in a week. Well, sat without the echo of “Mom!!!” ringing in my ears or sat without shuffling to the next holiday activity. Like many of you, I’m coming off a week of Christmas, a family birthday, and a happy new year. I’m just going to say it, that shit was intense. On my drive home last night I called my sister, “Who decided this?” I whined, “Who decided that we’re supposed to spend an entire month planning for Christmas, spend an ungodly amount of money, eat more sugar than our bodies can hold, and keep a LIVE tree alive? Anyways, I’m pretty sure I’m Buddhist.” My sister laughed, followed by the validation of, “Rough week?” It was joyfully packed with gifts, family, parties, food, squealing children, and yes, exhaustion.
Tradition vs Reality
I’m going to be honest with you, I thought I had set better boundaries with myself around the holiday. I might have been boastful, “I only send Christmas cards if it feels right!” You know little comments like that make me feel as though I was choosing how to celebrate the holiday. I thought I was doing a standup job at this until one of the highlights of my week was realizing my closet has a pocket door. You heard me right, a pocket door! When needed I could slip inside for quiet, breath, and let the busyness melt off of me until I heard the ringing of, “Mom!!” This holiday season, for me, didn’t bring peace on earth, it brought life at its fullest and emotions at their highest.
Anyone else? Surely I’m not alone in trying to make our holiday special only to be left lying next to our partner with a fist bump of, “We did it” then crawling into a cocoon of sleep. Yes, my holiday was filled with Gingerbread houses, cookies, lights, presents (the everloving candles in the window that take battery), Santa, Christmas cards, cheese balls, ham, and sure, a little whiskey in the eggnog. Those tiny moments and activities did bring tradition and family together. Yet those tiny moments collectively stole me (and my children) from our presence. I planned for the holiday only to be whisked away in a flurry of my plans. It went well enough; tantrums came as well as laughter. But in my lifetime I’m not looking for, “well enough,” I’m looking for “rooted.”
What can be done in reflection? Of this, I’m not certain of the right answer. The truth is some of my favorite childhood memories come from Christmas. Not the gifts (ask my mama, I was not a gracious receiver), but the traditions and time together with family. I want to recreate this for my children and actually like doing the Christmas traditions. You can bet I still hide a pickle on my tree. You can also take a bet if, after a second morning of stealing Christmas candy before breakfast, I threw it all away. Any takers, do you think I did? It was like $50 worth of candy, and that my friends is the price of a cute crop sweater thrown away.
This little dichotomy is everything; tradition versus daily reality. I tried to build Gingerbread houses that had expired unbeknownst to me, we had tears. I tried to put ornaments on the tree after a Christmas parade, there was hitting over whose ornaments were whose. I tried to ice cookies at 8:00 pm, but there was a full-blown tantrum because I wouldn’t let my son mix the red one (Jesus help me, it stains!). I tried to buy what they wanted from Santa, but it was found during hide and seek becoming a gift from Mommy. This was then followed by the days of, “Why didn’t Santa get me…” and mentally screaming “Because Mommy is Santa and you still got the toy!!” This list goes on exhaustively of planning traditions and navigating life. The little mantra that got me through was “Maybe Christmas perhaps doesn’t come from a store, maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more.” The Grinch and my pocket door; saviors of Christmas.
The Bustle of “Should”
Has this happened to you, darling? Did you plan for a beautiful holiday season only to be knocked down by parenting through the holiday season? As you sip your coffee of the new year, are you also calling your sister exclaiming, “WTF was that?” I’m guessing to some extent all of us are because the hamster wheel of the American holiday is exhausting and children are tiring all on their own. Together, of course, they make the perfect storm for moms and dads alike. That alongside a healthy dose of wanting to make traditions perfect. I suppose darling, I got lost in the bustle of should.
I do not have a proposed solution from grappling with tradition and reality. The only thing I know to be true is that when I find myself lost in should, I have to shift and actively choose what my soul needs to thrive. If I want to be rooted, I have to choose to plant myself in stillness. Stillness is what I could not find this holiday. I am still determining what we’ll put down next Christmas (it will be something..). But I do know what I need to pick up today and through my next busy season is air. Air that is breathed in against the dashing stillness of life.
Intentional pausing, stillness, and breath are always a path back to my roots. My darlings, what were you doing because you should and what must you choose for yourselves to come back home?
I’m breathing in, holding my breath for a count of 10, and exhaling you all A Happy New Year.
Xoxo,
Jessie Cooper
by Jessie Cooper | Dec 21, 2023
The last several blogs I have written to you have been about lighting up your life and world by letting go of everything that separates you from your love. In these blogs, I implore you to look inward to find where you have separated from love, your true source. Then, through your love, I have asked you to change not only your world but ours. Have you tried it, darling? Have you looked inward (or outward) to see what surrounds you that is rooted in hate? Have you then placed your fingers against the match of love to pave a new way? I hope you have darling, our world needs you and your love.
As I write these words to you, I know that this way of life is a challenge initially. Our world, and nervous system, are conditioned to look for threats to keep us safe. Biologically, our brains are made up of evolutionary parts, one of which is our reptilian brain. This part of our brain looks for danger beneath our consciousness so if a threat were to arrive we could protect ourselves instinctively. You heard me right, even after you make a conscious decision to reconnect to your love (and away from fear), your subconscious brain is on autopilot searching and scanning for threats. How then could we ever make all of our decisions from love with our brain working against us? Slowly my darling, slowing and exquisitely intentional.
Bringing Our Subconscious Into The Forefront
I’ve written to you before about Tara Brach’s teaching. Dr. Brach is a gifted psychologist and thought leader in the Buddhist community. In her work, Dr. Brach teaches us how to navigate our lived experience and biology to live in harmony with our spirit. Her work is the perfect combination of explaining what is out of our control and what we can bring into our control. Dr. Brach teaches extensively about bringing our subconscious fears and beliefs into our consciousness.
You see, thousands of years ago housing our fears in our subconscious was a smart evolutionary choice. The dangers around us were real (hostile tribes, predators, poisonous food, you get me…) and we needed our brains to remain on protective autopilot to keep us safe. Yet today, while there are some environmental fears, the majority of the fears we house in our subconscious are social. We aren’t thinking about poisonous berries, we’re thinking about the poisonous message to stay small as a woman (as an example). These fears build a reality around us of what we need to stay protected from based on what & who we have experienced as a threat.
How exhausting, right? Our brain is keeping grudges just like your bitter aunt at Christmas! Inside of each of those grudges is the same message, “I’m not safe when.” In response to not feeling safe, how might you suppose our behavior looks? Have you ever seen the Boom Booms in Mario? These little characters with huge spinning arms ready to protect themselves from Mario? In my imagination, it looks like that.
You move to protect yourself when you experience something you perceive as a threat. And, darling when you move to protect yourself without thinking you are operating in fear. This is something that all of us struggle with. As a woman living with PTSD, I can experience this on hyperdrive. If a perceived threat comes into my world and I am not connected to my love it’s like Hulk meets the Boom Booms and responds. It’s not a look I wear well and why staying connected to my love is so incredibly important. When I am disconnected from my love I am giving my power away to fear, just as we all do.
Love is There, You Just Have to Look
But here is the beautiful thing about love and life. The love you have inside of yourself is always there and waiting for you. And, darling, you are never walking alone when you are rooted in your fear. We are all imperfect beings who have baggage (okay, subconscious fears) that affect our day-to-day lives. With the power of our love, should we choose, we can begin to unpack our baggage so that we can understand it, and then release it. If you were to continue to open the bags with judgment, “Ugh why in the world would I have screamed at the dog?” you would stay stuck in fear. Maybe it’s not the dog next time, maybe it’s that jerk that cut you off in traffic but either way something or someone is wrong; often that someone is you. As you judge yourself, so will you judge the world. That, my love, is a miserable way to live.
Do not worry my darling, there is a different way to live as your fears bubble over the surface of your life. Try again, opening the baggage with love. “Ugh, I yelled at my dog, I must have felt incredibly low to do that,” No, the behavior isn’t okay, but acknowledging this, and then offering love will begin to unpack your subconscious, bring it to the light, and begin to pave a new way of life. A way of life in which you are divinely human and accept your shortcomings but can love yourself through it anyways. This offering of love, in time, will repair what lives beneath the line, and bring you closer to peace. As you live a life that snuggles closer to peace, the fears of the world lessen. Sure, things still go wrong, but you will have a new way to navigate through what life throws at you. And, when you mess up (or the world does), you’ll know how to walk home to your love.
This process isn’t perfect, because none of us are darling. However, it is the most powerful walk you will ever take. Release your judgment sweetheart, lean in, come home.
Xoxo,
Jessie Cooper
by Jessie Cooper | Nov 9, 2023
In my last blog to you I wrote to you about lighting up the world with your love to burn down the fear that surrounds you. In this blog I implored you to detach yourself from beliefs rooted in fear, to lean into your love, and use your rage against hate to build a new world. I hold a vision that collectively, should we choose this path, a new world will be created where all living beings flourish. My dad would say this is the romantic in me, my mama would say this is the fighter. To create this type of change, I realize that not everyone’s love and fury is as heated as mine. I hope someday it is, but to find your fire the first thing that must be done is to strike a match. Are you interested darling? Is there a low heat simmering in you as you observe your life or the life of others? I hope so, but if so, read on.
I’ve often quoted Glennon Doyle’s work, she’s now a well known writer and thought leader with her Podcast, “We Can do Hard Things.” In her work Glennon challenges us to re-evaluate our lives to find our truest form. In her work Glennon grapples with the concept of self-identity and how to find this within a suppressing society. Years ago Glennon’s work inspired me to evaluate my home life because at that time I had separated from myself and my love. Sure, I was giving love to others, but it was nowhere to be found for myself. This season of my life was the darkest I have ever walked. In separating myself from love, fear had taken root in me. Admittedly, terror was amidst my daily experience and truly love was the only way out. It was then I decided to light my own match to light the journey home.
Who Do You See in The Mirror?
I realize in writing this, it is incredibly vague. Why was I separated from my love? Who was I giving it to over myself? What was I frightened of? Who was I running from? Well, my darlings, that story is for a different time when I can safely tell it. What I can tell you is to know what it is to have a deep separation from love, and what it feels like to follow its call in the night. In those dark hours, I knew one thing to be true, I was no longer myself. My experience was admittedly extreme. However, I know that so many of us have these life experiences where in a chilling moment of clarity we realize we are gone. It is that very moment we must trust and believe that the light of love can expose the path back home to ourselves.
Have you ever felt this darling? I’m almost certain that you have. It might be a one off day where you feel restless, depressed or snappy. It could be that you are lost in judgment against yourself and therefore those around you. Perhaps it’s in moments of parenting where you cannot believe the words you’re yelling at your own child. Or in the empty halls of your marriage, knowing deeply you are not being loved the way in which you deserve to be loved.
Perhaps in these moments you’ve justified them away. Everyone has a bad day right? Everyone is stuck in judgment or has parenting moments we are less than proud of. And yes, everyone has some type of relationship, marriage or otherwise, that does not serve their highest good. Yet here’s the thing my darling, if you justify away that everyone else has this experience and then make no changes you, my dearest one, are stuck in fear. To change these life experiences that separate us from love, we must acknowledge them, hold them, and then want to change them.
Grab a Match
Recently I was at the riding stable with my little son Declan. If you would like to see cuteness in real life I invite you to see a tiny four year old in cowboy boots. My god, it’s glorious. The stable is owned by a woman at my Crossfit gym and the trainer is her sister. These women are powerhouses. I was re-canting to the trainer a recent experience I was struggling with as a mama. My darling son Declan struggles with anger and staying calm against his rage is a tall order to fill. As I shared this with her, I told her how badly I feel when I yell and how I’m desperately trying to stay connected to my love. I want to offer him the care and love I would want if anger I could not control overcame me. I was expecting a dismissive response, most moms give a simple, “Ugh, I know but yelling is the only way they listen!” The trainer instead met me with love and understanding, “I hate when I yell at my son, I always apologize after and people say I’m too good to him but I know he deserves to be treated like a person.” Yes! This is a woman connected to her love, who knows how to light a match when she needs to start the journey home. This is a woman who knows that no matter what, treating others (or ourselves) with unkindness, is not the way.
This experience is exactly what I am trying to tell you; it offers the two choices in front of us when we have an experience rooted in fear. We can either dismiss it, “Ugh everyone yells but it works!” or acknowledge it, “Yes, I yelled, I’m human, but it’s not okay and I’ll work to choose a different way.” It’s a tiny moment, a spark if you will, to begin the journey home to love. So where my darling are you separated from your love? Where does fear creep in and make decisions for you because it has taken root? What my darling can you change in any small moment to begin to light the path back home? Speaking from experience, starting with, “I don’t feel like myself and I want to come home,” is a wonderful place to start.
Grab a match my darling, I’m waiting for you and miss you so. It’s time my darlings, come home.
Xoxo,
Jessie Cooper
