Jen & Wholistic Feeding Specialist: Lena Livinsky

Jen welcomes Lena Livinsky—holistic feeding specialist and speech-language pathologist (SLP)—back from a short podcast break for a conversation that weaves together motherhood, healing, and a root-cause approach to picky eating.

Lena shares how she spent 13+ years as an SLP with a traditionally behavioral training background, but always felt most drawn to feeding because of its “medical” connection and the real-life importance of nourishment. The turning point came after she became a mom: her son was a picky eater, and none of the conventional feeding strategies she had been taught (or used professionally) worked at home. In a powerful moment at her kitchen island, she saw fear and tension flood her son’s body when food was placed in front of him—an experience that cracked open a new lens: picky eating isn’t simply behavior, it’s biology, nervous system safety, oral-motor readiness, and gut-brain communication.

At the same time, Lena was navigating her own health challenges—psoriasis since childhood, severe mold sensitivity, brain fog, and difficulty losing weight after a miscarriage and postpartum. Her personal healing journey (including rebuilding nutrients after veganism and exploring root-cause health) became the bridge to understanding her child’s feeding struggles more holistically.

Lena explains that today she primarily works virtually through parent coaching rather than traditional “child-only” therapy, because picky eating is a symptom—not a diagnosis—and real change happens through the home environment, the daily rhythm, and parent-led support. She introduces her BLOOM framework (Balanced health, oral-motor skills, microbiome, open exploration, and boundaries), emphasizing small realistic shifts—not perfection or overwhelm.

The conversation also explores modern contributors to rising rates of chronic illness and true feeding challenges in kids: toxic load, indoor lifestyles, light environment/circadian rhythm disruption, and how nervous system dysregulation can show up as restrictive eating. Lena shares practical examples of “boundaries with support,” including family meals, “tapas-style” serving, and gentle food chaining (e.g., moving from ultra-processed nuggets/fish sticks toward higher-quality proteins in doable steps).

Jen and Lena bond over the shared experience of being SLPs who felt the holistic dimension was “diluted” in the profession—and how reclaiming all parts of their identity is where the magic and alignment happens. The episode closes with how listeners can connect with Lena through her website, a free strategy call, her coaching program, and Instagram.

✨ Connect with Lena Livinsky

Lena Livinsky is a holistic feeding specialist and speech-language pathologist who supports families through a root-cause, nervous-system-informed approach to picky eating.

🌿 Website: https://lenalivinsky.com
Explore her work, learn about her Picky Eating Reset coaching program, and book a free 30-minute strategy call to see if it’s the right fit for your family.

📱 Instagram: @lena.livinsky
https://www.instagram.com/lena.livinsky?igsh=MTM4amNya2xwNDFyeQ==
Follow Lena for practical tips, education, and reassurance for pa

Find your host, Jen McNerney:

https://jenmcnerney.com/
https://linktr.ee/heartrootedhealing
https://www.facebook.com/jenslpNET
https://www.instagram.com/heartrootedhealing/
https://www.tiktok.com/@heart.rooted.jen?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

Transcript

PJ McNerney: 0:00

Warning, listen to this podcast at your own risk. Side effects may include joy, feeling, content, illumination, newfound senses of purpose and wellbeing. Courage, realizing you are not alone.

Jennifer McNerney: 0:18

Welcome to the Ripple Effect. I am your host Jen McNerney, sharing the unfolding stories that made us and healed us.

0:31

Hello, today on the Ripple Effect Podcast and after I've taken a little bit of a break, I have the perfect guest to come back from the break. I have Lena Levinsky with me and she is a holistic feeding specialist, and I am so grateful you're here and I just because. With the ripple effect. I have guests on my show that have made an impact, whether it's personal or professionally. And I will say that us connecting on Instagram, which is so wild, I love when this happens and you being a speech pathologist, speech path background. I was just like, oh, this just helping me to heal some wounds I have with, with being, choosing that profession wounds in terms of just feeling like, um. Yeah. The holistic aspect being like looted from our profession. Yes, exactly. You're not the first one I met. There's, we're out there. There's more of us guys. There's so many of us and we're slowly, I feel like coming out of hiding. Yes, exactly. I wanted. So, yeah, so welcome to Thank you for having me. The show I wanna delve into. I just, absolutely love what you're doing with, thank you. All the content you put out there. And Lena has a podcast which I was just a guest on, yes. Full episodes ago. And, yeah, I just wanna know. Your why, like how did you get into, interweave into like present time? A little background about you and how your whole practice has evolved and how you got to like the present time. Yeah. That's a great question. So I feel like it's a long story because I've been an SLP for now over 13 years, and I don't wanna age myself, but that's the truth. You're young compared to. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Uh, it's actually funny'cause my husband's 40th birthday today, so I'm always like two years behind him, so I'm like at least Thank you. Oh, happy birthday to your husband. Thank you. But yeah, so I've been in SLP for 13 years now, and I definitely had a background in a very behaviorally rooted approach as most of us get in school. And I actually loved feeding from the beginning because a part of me always wanted to be medically oriented. Somehow I am glad I didn't go into medicine because I don't think I would've been a good fit for it, especially with the regular training you get. But my heart was always there, so I always thought, I'm gonna work with adults. I'm gonna work with swallowing. I'm gonna be in a hospital. That's what I'm gonna do. And of course, it didn't go that way. I ended up working with pediatrics. Feeding was like my way of staying in this, like medically connected somehow because feeding is more invasive. Kids need to actually put food in their body and that's really important, right? That's a biological function. So I was never really, I never really loved the. Part of speech that was language development and speech development. It just didn't speak to me. I was never the one to go to extra courses to learn about it and classes to learn about it. I mean, it's fascinating, but it's just feeding is, was what my passion, what I was most passionate about. So that's what I did my training in. Every time I did any type of cu it was feeding oriented and I wanted to learn more, more. And I thought I was so good at it. I was like, I thought I knew so much. I had so many clients and I, I helped some kids and I was like, this is great. And then I had my son, and my son was a picky eater. And nothing I did, nothing. I did worked. Like none of the advice I was giving to my clients and my patients like it really, it didn't work for him. And I still remember the day when it clicked for me. It all started. In my kitchen a moment like I literally, I'll never forget, so he's sitting in by the kitchen island, his little legs just dangling and I just placed some food in front of him. And I worked hard on that food, right? I was like, I thought I made a really good dinner stuff. He used to like stuff he usually enjoys. And I was like, this is gonna go great. He's gonna love this. He's gonna have a good meal. He is gonna have some good meat and like some good fats and like, you know, a bass meal's gonna be perfect. But the second he looked at it, like his whole body tensed, and I saw fear in his eyes and his little sho shoulders like tense and tightened and his face changed. And of course all I wanted to do was scream. Because I was holding onto so much already, right. I was exhausted, I was worried there was a pressure to get it right. And, I was that feeding specialist and I wasn't able to help my child through this. So there was a lot of shame there and, and and he was my child. He was terrified of the food I had just lovingly prepared and maybe terrified of my reaction because. Postpartum is hard and I feel like I wasn't handling stress very well and I could,, I would blow up once in a while and yeah, and I could feel just this explosion rising inside of me again. But also the heartbreak because again, I wasn't just a mom, I was a pediatric speech nurse pathologist with advanced feeding training, and I should have known how to help him, but nothing. Yeah, nothing was working. So that moment really cracked something wide open in me because at the same time I was going through my own healing journey. I've had psoriasis since I was eight years old and, all different types of symptoms. I had mold exposure, in 2024, which just wrecked me and it was just for a few days, but I was just so susceptible. Nobody else. Had any type of reaction, but I did very severe. Yeah. So it was just like sim, like issues on top of issues, on top of issues. And I was trying to heal. So I had a very holistic mindset. I kind of broke up with this western type of medicine route a while back just because it didn't work for me and I started to learn all about root cause healing and things like that, so we knew a lot of things, but for some reason up until that moment I didn't think to, at my son holistically. What a root cause approach. Like why is he acting this way? Is there any type of correlation between this behavior and his biology and his body? So yeah, so that's when I started to realize like after this moment, No one has taught me this, but picky eating isn't just about behavior, it's about biology. It's about nervous system safety. It's about the gut. It's about oral motor readiness. There's really no sticker chart or one bite rule that's going to ever fix that. Right? So that's when I eventually put things together. I created my Bloom framework, which is a very, root cause whole child approach to feeding. And once I saw the difference, it really made with him. Um, it just. The light bulb moment went off, and that's really what, that's what I'm passionate about right now, helping other families too. Issues. When did the light bulb go out for you? If you gave us like a timeline, what year was that you, that was honestly when I put it all together. Probably within, a year ago. Okay. Like a year ago. So everything came and like, so like your mul, so like you had a lot. I had a lot of healing to do. Perfect storm of like the perfect arm own journey of healing through mold. And then, yeah, and that took some time too, but also like I was 50 pounds heavier than I am today and no matter what I did. And it wasn't because I had a bad diet. It wasn't because I was living in like such a, you know, careless life where just putting on pounds, no. No matter what I did, I couldn't lose the weight after having my son. And it started honestly before I had a miscarriage in 2019. And that's when I realized something started to shift in my body after that, where I could no longer lose weight. I didn't have like crazy weight on me. It was maybe like extra 15, 20 pounds I never wanted, but no matter what I did, like I used to go to Orangetheory, which I don't know if you're familiar with that place. I'm, it's very extreme. Like it's a lot of exercise and I did it for eight months. I didn't lose one pound, not one pound, and like I just couldn't get answers and it was just like a trickling down effect. After I had Nate also I'm kind of jumping around, but I was vegan. That is Okay. I'm interviewing you. So this, I'm not, this is kind of the frequency I show up in where it's like. I feel like the interweaving stories, so Yeah. Yeah. But I, but I was vegan for three years and I was severely nutrient depleted, so I was vegan from 2017 until 2020 until my body could no longer take it like I was craving meat. Oh my God. Mm-hmm. For like, and I ignored it for six months due to feeling bad about, you know? Yeah. Or whatever the whole, yes. And I still, I love animals. I do, but I can't survive. We're meant to eat animals. You know, we're meant to eat them. It's a whole food chain. And like without it, unfortunately most of us, we can't thrive. So yeah, I was just so depleted. And then I started, once I got off veganism, it wasn't like I went into this amazing healing journey, like I started eating meat, but I still needed to move forward to replenish my nutrients and minerals and do all these things. And I didn't do that and I got pregnant. So luckily my son is perfect, like he's very healthy. But after I had him. Oh my gosh. I was just like a wreck. Well, it, it does a, on our everything, our hormones all. Yeah, for sure. Cause like healing the mitochondria, healing like, oh my gosh. Or if you have fungal imbalance, doesn't it? A lot of patients as well. I see. Um, because of the vials for different, um, parasites. Mm-hmm. And fungal and bacteria. Like you're just not gonna, no matter what you do, you're not gonna lose that weight if there's an imbalance there. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So it wasn't really until this year, I feel like this year was just so pivotal in my life in terms of, yeah. I feel like getting almost like my brain back too, because I had so much brain fog. I couldn't focus, like I wanted to go back in and focus on my business and do things and help people, but I couldn't focus. I couldn't, like literally, I wouldn't have been able to have this conversation with you like last year at this time, would've been a completely different person. I. I'm helping a friend and client through a mold exposure right now. Yeah. And it is no joke and watching. It's no joke. And I think to your, you mentioned this and I feel like same thing for her, like she's the one most severely affected by it. Right. We're so, such unique bio, like our, we're just so unique in our, so one person could. Looks so different. And then I think that adds to, if you go to Western medicine, they kind of gaslight people because they're like you know, your husband is not showing this, or you know, or your, whoever. It's, if it's just the one person, they kind of, yeah. Goes in. And it often happens that way because we're just so sensitive. If you have autoimmune issues or anything else going on you're depleted in nutrients. Like you're just susceptible to these things just because you're not as strong. There is like, maybe your mucosal gut. Yeah. Like level is just permeated. So like you are gonna let in these toxins so much easier. So that's what happened to me because nobody else was affected. And it was at an Airbnb that we stayed at and it was me, my husband, my son, my parents, and my mother-in-law. Six people. And I was the only one but so severely affected. I thought I had cancer. Like I really thought that's what was happening. And I've healed through most of these symptoms already, but like I still feel them flare up sometimes. So it was just like, it takes a long time and I think there's like, healing I had to go through because I had a, I, I had Lyme and co-infections and I was very ill and thought I was dying of cancer. And because the brain fog, I was looking for my phone with my phone flashlight, and I had that moment where I'm like, oh my gosh, the brain fog was so crazy bad, so crazy bad that I thought I'm dying. And like, yeah. And sorry. I'm sorry that it's just that people don't realize the, impact it has emotionally. So if you have a flare up mm-hmm. You like, it can kind of trigger you back into. The hardest of times, right? Mm-hmm. And the, but now my reframe is like, thank you body. You're telling me something's out of balance and I need to like look at either my environment or my food or like maybe, you know, that's why restaurants are hard'cause you don't know what oils they're using. Or you become super sensitive like it sounds when you are that sensitive. It's really hard. It's really hard. Yeah. And um. And it's hard when you're going through like a chronic disease like that because oftentimes it's not a diagnosis ki kind of like cancer or a diagnosis where people understand it's hard and I don't wanna compare, but like it's kind of like you go through this and people expect you to be normal because like, what do you mean we don't have any issues with mold? Like you're supposed to be just normal because you don't have like a formal, really difficult diagnosis. But it's hard. It's ha having heart, a chronic disease can be hard. It's exhausting. It's so exhausting. Yeah. Because you almost feel like you have to be hypervigilant about, like, you can't just book an Airbnb and be like, you know? Yeah. It's all good. Yeah, I know. You can't, you freak out, right? Like, is there mold, like what kind of products do you use? Mm-hmm. You have to be really conscious about these things. Yeah. So Lena, how did you have a lot, you have a lot of resources out there that you give to people, like through, through just like, Hey, you want like a little re just little tips and tricks, but if somebody were to see you right now, like how are you working mostly virtually or te telehealth, or are you working any with anybody in person? Or what does your like practice look like today? Yeah, so my practice has completely shifted from patient care to parent coaching. So I do it virtually just because, like in terms of feeding, what I did was patient care throughout my entire majority of my career. I have found that it's just not enough, because when you do that type of patient care, it is very behaviorally based because you are not gonna have a conversation with a 4-year-old or a five-year-old like you have to be, you know, lower toxic or like, we have to do these changes. We have to do that because. With feeding, like feeding or picky eating is a symptom. It's not a diagnosis. It's a symptom of something deeper going on in the body. So it's really the parents who can make the biggest difference in terms of helping their picky eater and become more curious and just eat better. Because it's it's little steps they can do at home to clean up their environment and to look at their biology and maybe work with a functional doctor or an integrative doctor to do some testing and to see what's going on. With their gut, what's going on internally, right? There's different things you can do, to actually help them on that biological level if they need it. Because if a child is associating eating with pain or discomfort in any way, it's going to affect their appetite and also the gut and brain. They communicate all the time, right? And they send appetite and society. Is that how you say it? I can never say that. Signals to the brain to let you know, like I'm full or I'm hungry. Or it can send anxiety and signs to the brain like this is making me very nervous. Like I don't wanna try this. And there is sensory components as well. A lot of those stem from nutrient deficiencies or gut issues. So we have to look at it from this biological perspective, but also help kids explore in a very safe environment. So create an environment that's very supportive. We have to look at their oral-motor skills, right? We really do, because some kids struggle there. I was wondering if you were, if your program did tie in some of the oral motor or the weakness and all of the things. Yeah, yeah. It does oftentimes, like with the last client that I had, I actually, one of the sessions, the parent coaching sessions we did, I did get to meet him and mom sent me videos of him eating and stuff like that so I could see and review. But he also is a mouth, was a mouth breather, so he ended up going to an airway. Dentist. Right? Right. So these things, like everything is so connected that you gotta look at it, you gotta look at your home environment and make some changes. And it doesn't have to be so routine disruptive. It doesn't have to completely overturn your house and change everything you're doing with your family. It could be little things and they add up. And also one big thing I also teach parents to do is set boundaries.'cause boundaries are really important. So when you say set boundaries, can you give us like a example, and obviously you're not gonna be naming any clients or any mm-hmm. But what does that sometimes look like with Yeah, so here is a, here's a good example. This is what we did recently. A client I was working with, so he was 11, so he was able to like, make his own food and he was able to make a lot of his own decisions. So the family wasn't really, sitting down much for dinner together just because of their schedule and just because it was, five kids, right? So it was hard. So some of the boundaries you set about. Set for them was that they had a family meal when, once the dad got home. So everybody sat at the table together.'cause that was a goal too. Mom wanted that, she just needed to make it realistic so that it worked for the family. Because if the kids get home at four 30, they're hungry. They're not gonna wait to eat with their dad at six. So they would have their meal when they got home and then they would have an option to graze at the table with when the dad was there. But they all sat together. But one of the things that we implemented was like tapa style meals. So everybody was able to make their own plate, but they couldn't make any, they couldn't go grab and like go and make toast on his side.'cause that's what he tended to do. He tended to not wanna sit with the family and he tended to just get up, like, I'm not gonna eat this. I'm gonna go make myself toast. So that was a rule. We're not gonna do that. And Mom was to place foods that are safe. For him and something to explore as well, so that he didn't have to feel like, I'm not gonna touch any of this. Right. It was kind of like in a way, comforting where he could have something he liked and he was able to make his own plate, because that's going to give him a sense of, he's not going to feel like somebody's forcing him to eat or making their plate. It's going to give him this choice. I'm thinking of the word, I can't think of the word right now. It still happens to me. That's okay when you Oh, like, you're thinking about he had a choice, but it's a controlled choice. Right? Or Exactly. He was in control. Thank you. Yeah, he was in control. That's a little, that's what I couldn't think of. That's a parent hack where like, they think they're in control, but like it's two choices that you're okay with. Exactly. Exactly. Mom, set out the food. You're control, but like you're like, but you're giving the kid or the teen a buy-in there. Exactly. And it helps. It does. It really helps the kids because of, yeah, because of Nobody likes that., I think because of my age and how I grew up, it's You're doing it because I said so and there was ever, there was never a why, like, why are we doing this? And you weren't allowed to question it. So I don't, and I think that that automatically sets people into a, um, hyper vigilance. Yes. Fight or flight right there. Just with that. Yeah. Being like, you're gonna eat this, or you're not getting up from the table until it's done. Right. That's how I was raised, you know? Yeah. That's how majority of us were like, there was no choice. There was no choice. This is what's for dinner. But also, I think when we were growing up, there was a lot less picky eating going on. Like true picky eating like. Based on like chronic disease underlying issues. That is true picky eating versus like kids are, kids can be picky, right? But we get into issues when it's like a really underlying, there's a deep underlying issues that's causing them to literally not be able to eat. Right. Which is, that's when it's an issue. This is a perfect segue. If you had to guess what's different. Like what? What? Like, I know we could go like, there's a lot, it's compounded because we are seeing, you said it when you gave me that stat when we met. Mm-hmm. Podcast. It's like one and four. Mm-hmm. Like legit. Picky eaters, but this is not just like the kind of picky eating that we grew up with where I hated this Salisbury steak that my parents would make. It was just like one thing and I'm like, oh, I just don't like it. But this is like texture, so what do you think, I'm sure there's gonna be the toxic load you're gonna talk about, but what are you seeing as like a pattern? I do think definitely the toxic load, but we're just so much more sicker in general. The chronic disease rate in kids is just skyrocketing, right? I mean, we're at like 60% of kids now have some kind of chronic disease, which is insane. That's a true epidemic like, and it's only going getting worse right now because kids, I mean, we're on track. I read, I think in, I believe, 50 years, like we're gonna be antibiotic resistant. Yeah, because we're on track to be there about like super bugs and all the things. Yeah, it's, it's how bad it is. So I think that it's like the food we're eating, it's unhealthy. A lot of it, even if you try to eat healthy, it's hard. You have to be very knowledgeable about it, of where your food comes from, because I think there's a lot of misinformation mislabeling out there as well. We're not eating seasonally, and I think seasonal eating is just so good for your health. It's amazing. We're not outside. Most of us are inside there. We're living this indoor lifestyle where there's actually a study that said that if you, your body thinks it's at war when you're inside, it's literally things you are at war. So it tends to like protect itself because we didn't evolve this way to be living this indoor lifestyle around so many blue lights. Is that your dog? Your dog. Love it. That was my dog. She's so annoying. Gosh. I locked my dog. I lo my arm when she still tries to get in Dog. That's like so annoying. And I'm like, it's Ruby again. No, it's all good. That was Luna. Oh yeah, Luna. She always wants to be a part of it. Totally fine. Yeah, she's cute, but she marks too much. But yeah, you were saying like. And I don't know if you could speak to this, because I don't know if, um, people know, my audience wouldn't know. But you're not from the US originally. Mm, I'm not. You're from Poland. Poland, yeah. Can you, is the chronic disease 60% in Poland in kids, or is this just a United States thing? I mean, because I get frustrated with, like, we had a German exchange student and she was like horrified by our food. And I, and I don't blame her because like. Things are literally not, they're banned in other countries that they're allowed here're, like Kraft Mac and cheeses in Europe is not the same as Kraft Mac and cheese here in the United States. And it's like, are they intentionally trying to us or is this just like a bottom line, like cheaper? I don't know. Yeah, I think there's too many of us maybe, but yeah. But European Union, they have. Such, so much stricter regulations in terms of like what's allowed in even the makeup, the chemicals that they use and the food, everything on your skin. I think there's, I think, I don't wanna give you the wrong information, but I remember reading somewhere this like 10,000 do, uh, not dollars, 10,000 chemicals that are allowed in the US that are banned in. In Poland. So I don't know the stats of chronic disease in children in Poland. That's a great question. I'm gonna look it up now'cause I'm really curious, but I definitely don't see the same kind of issues. There because you do, you and I go back every year. I was gonna say, do you go back a lot? I do. You still have family in Poland? I do. My grandma's still there and my husband's parents are, are there mostly. So we go every year and every time I go I'm always just like blown away. I love going back. It's a great place. But, but I do notice, like, and this is something I noticed this year, I don't think it's perfect in any way, shape, or form. I still think. Even though some of the chemicals are not allowed, they're making up for it with like sugar content. Because I remember like looking at some things at labels and I'm just like, okay, so it's cleaner ingredients, but how much sugar is in this? Like, oh, like, oh. I was like, wow. Okay. Yeah. So, so I think, you know, you just gotta be conscious everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of which, like, I don't know if you tell your families this, but my latest hack is going to like the European market and getting our flowers there. Yes. It's so much better. My gosh, it's so much cleaner and it tastes better. My kids like it more. Yes. It's so much better because it's not sprayed with glyphosate and all these things, it's much cleaner. It's processed differently. So like, yeah, I do the same. I do the same, but clearly I go to the Polish market. Like gonna say, you go to the Polish market. Yeah. Because that's familiar. There is a European but there's so many options. It's, it's smart. And you can most, like, if you live in a big, bigger city or near a bigger city, you have access to these places. But yes, European food will typically be cleaner. Or like we get some Italian flowers or different places. Yes. Yeah. So, so good Italian flower is top notch. Yeah. So, so you're just, you're looking through the lens of like. You could be working on feeding, but like maybe you're like taking inventory of the home environment. For sure. And obviously with your knowledge and your own personal journey with you and your son and your husband, you might be giving people advice about the EMFs that they're being like exposed to. Yes. I'm big on light. Light, so tell, so can you tell us how light. Might affect feeding because maybe somebody's listening to this for the first time. You're like, what? What? Now I need to worry about lighting. Not, not in a worried way, but like these little shifts that build and get you to a place where you can enjoy a meal together. Yeah. Reviews and it's like, what? Life changing And because like some people like food is a love language. Mm-hmm. Like sitting at the table and having people eat a meal that's prepared with love. That's like a way some people feel like they're loving on their kids. Right. A mom or a dad. Absolutely. It's such a social, social thing. I mean, we center a lot of our day around food, right? Like we have breakfast and then we think about food every day. We go out to social functions that center around food. Yes. Food and, yeah. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah. So how would you say that, and I think you have this on your Instagram, like just like the circadian rhythms and how does that affect digestion and like how we even prepare for food? So. Yeah, well it's, the light essentially sets our circadian rhythm, but it also helps our mitochondria health. And when I mean the light, it's uh, the sun, right? The sun has so many different, so many different rays and so many different spectrums and they do different things within our bodies. So I'm not an expert in light. Yeah. But I know the basis, the basis of it, because I think it's just so important. Going out in red and infrared light, and this is essentially like what the red light panels are trying to do.'cause red light therapy is becoming so popular right now and it's, it's a great tool. But when you go out first thing in the morning, close to sunrise or close to sunset, the light spectrum outside is 90% red infrared light. So it is just so healing and so calming. It helps with oxidative stress. It helps with so many different things to set your circadian rhythm helps with mitochondria health. It's just like going out and taking this big supplement of goodness for your body, which is true. You don't need to go buy a fringe. Infrared light. I mean, I have'em. Yeah. But like at the end of the day, just get outside. Get outside. You gonna, yeah. And I, and I get why like red and infra? I have them too. I have two panels and they're great. Like if I have a headache, I'll get like my little red light and I'll put it like next to my forehead. Yeah. Yeah, and it's great'cause very targeted. When you really targeted, it's great, but for overall health, the sun is what we need and we need it for vitamin D production like supplements they're just never going to give you the right type of vitamin D and they're not going to up it naturally. Yeah, you have to be out in the sun and you have to be out in the sun. During the time when UVB light is present, that's when you can really produce vitamin D. It's not in the morning. It's not because we're just, we were taught to, to fear the sun, and I think there was a reason for that. But I do like, honestly, the sun is one of the best ways for you to protect your health and to get healthy. So it actually sh, there is studies that show that it shifts your microbiome positively more than food. Like 51% to 50% or something like that. And it's doesn't seem like a lot, but it's more, yeah, it's so important. It's our light environment. It's our sound environment. All of it is just so important to us. You can't throw food without the sun. I mean like, this is just like the basics, right? This is just the basic. We've just as a society and a collective of just moved away from it all. Yeah. It's almost like people are becoming, I don't know if it's so pro-science that. Yes. That it's a pendulum that they're like anti nature. You're like, wait, what? Mm-hmm. Like, you know, it's kind of a weird pendulum swing that we're observing. Yes. Or at least I'm like, I'm trying to like, observe it. I'm like, huh, huh. You know, I can see the swings and trying to be somewhere in the middle. Yeah. No, for sure. For sure. And I think it's good to be in the middle. You don't want to be so far off onto the natural path where you're like, I can't live in a city. I can't do this, I can't do that. Yeah. Because then that, that creates stress because you're in a fear frequency. Exactly. So if you're afraid to eat something, you're actually causing inflammation in your body because you're, you're not addressing those emotions. Right. So it's just this like, yeah. Somewhere in the middle. In the middle. It's a good spot to be, right. Yeah, but I think in the middle, like it's also important to be conscious of these things. Sure. So going back to your question, like the light influences our health in such a positive way, and not only our physical health, but our mental health. It's so important. Every time you ponder like a hard question, go outside and walk without glasses so you can actually you know. Get the sun raised, take them in through your retina on your eyes and your skin, because those are the like sun receptors and so you don't wanna cover your eyes when you're outside in the sun. So yeah. And then you're gonna figure out so much like we have so many brilliant ideas when we're outside in nature on the walk, and there's a reason for that because we're meant to be sunbathing and forest bathing and doing these things because that's how we evolved as humans. We need it. We need it for cleaning the oxygen, and that's the most important thing for us to live, right? We're not gonna live without oxygen. So it's just, it's just such a key piece. And I think for kids who are picky eaters, especially for them, because oftentimes they have dysregulated nervous systems, they have biological issues, mitochondrial issues, they have gut issues, and the sun and the different spectrums of the sun, they help heal these things. So that's why it's so important for picky eaters to get out of this, like, this spot where they're dealing with all these issues and to actually heal. So being in a sun is a great way to do that. I know. Wonderful. Yeah. So like give simple. Tweaks for families that don't feel simple tweaks. It's not overwhelming and it maybe it's one at a time. Or how, like how does your work when you're, you can kind of read if somebody's getting overwhelmed by the advice that you Yeah. So I, what I do when I start, like I have a 90 minute. Evaluation chat with the parents and we go through everything. I first send them a questionnaire, so then I already kind of know what they're struggling with a little bit once we're going into this conversation and we can break it down. So I kind of evaluate the child or look at their picky eating symptom with this lens of bloom. So I look at balanced health, I look at, or motor skills. I look at mi the microbiome. I look at. Open exploration. So how the food is being given and how they're exploring it. And then we look at the boundaries set by the family. What's their lifestyle like? Where are they eating meals? How are they reacting when the child is having a hard time? So I kind of do this like evaluation. We look at everything and then we go from there. Because my goal is not to overwhelm the family, to be like, okay, you are gonna spend an hour in the sun, then you're gonna have this meal that's made out of these five ingredients. Like, no, that's not realistic. That's never going to to work. So we look at things. I look at what kind of foods they eat and maybe give some advice of how we can clean it up slightly. How we can maybe go from this brand of Kraft Mac and cheese to maybe, hopefully homemade mac and cheese. But if we can't do that, maybe we'll do like Annie's and then, you know, kind of, we kind of, um, chain the foods even so that it's easier for their families so that we can meet them where they are. Because it's so hard for moms. We're so busy, we're so overwhelmed already, and it's typically moms. Doing this work. So I try to meet them where they are with tips that are manageable for the whole family. Yeah. And then when you meet again, do you kind of go through and be like, what worked, what didn't? Like taking it kind of? Yes. And we do further tips, like we might do food training. So for example, one of my clients, he, the only meat he was eating was like the dino chicken nuggets, right? And by the time we were done, and it wasn't even that long of a time, but by the time we were done, he was eating steak once a week. He was eating like wild caught fish. So instead of having like fish sticks like he was having, he likes things breaded, which is fine. Not the steak, but the fish is breaded. The chicken's breaded. So he's eating like schnitzel and he's eating like these things. And it's, it's a big deal because you can then decide what goes into the breading. You can decide what kind of meat you're gonna get. You can decide what kind of fish you're gonna get. So you're really giving him this really, these delicious foods that are nourishing the body versus depleting them. Depleting it because of all the chemicals that are added in. So there is many different ways of doing that. And I do like to use, uh, food training that makes sense for the, for the family. So, we'll, let's say if we wanna get, go from a fish stick to like a wild co wild caught fish. Yeah. Like fried fish kind of thing you do at home. Like you, you take it there through little steps moving in that direction.'cause that might be too big of a jump. And oftentimes that's what happens to parents. Maybe the, the child's only eating like dino chicken nuggets and mom tries to like, make schnitzel. That's too big of a jump. So you gotta go back and maybe start by just I don't know, making a chicken that's shaped like chicken nuggets with very similar colors and very similar size. And they're very similar sheep. Some these things matter to kids. Yeah, because when you say like, so we chatted about this, and I think a lot of people that maybe have a kid that might be diagnosed or on the spectrum know about the beige diet. So that is like anything that's beige, right? Mm-hmm. The chicken nuggets, the breads, I mean past the french fries, the Yes, the toast. The carbs. The carbs. The carbs. Basically it's the carbs. And then not getting enough protein. Yeah. Or a balanced art of the fats and all the things. Mm-hmm. So do you just do chaining with all of those different items? Like where you're just like trying to make these little tweaks to get them to help? Yeah, and it could be, it's so child specific. Mm-hmm. Because for a child, it might be even like changing the plate first. That's gonna be like the big deal, because they're so set. Right. They're so set on us. Thing or, yeah, or, or like eating everything so they don't, things don't touch, so you kind of like work on like desensitizing them to the maybe like things touching and using one plate and like slowly shifting. So I have a client now I working with who has Arfid, which is kind of like an anxiety based feeding disorder. So he is very specific at how he likes to eat his food. So you just give them like little pushes because he's older too. He's, I think he's 11 as well. 10. So he is, you know, I have conversations with him like, would you be comfortable doing this? How about we do that? And then I do education to say like, this is why Nutella is not the best and why maybe trying this type of cocoa, whatever butter or hazelnut butter is a better choice because these ingredients, this is what it's gonna do in your bodies. That's the repercussions of it. So having these conversations and just. Pushing them in in the right direction. And also food chaining in a way that makes sense. Like for him, we actually did go from like craft mac and cheese to like deluxe craft, mac and cheese to maybe like a little bit of Annie's. And then he'll give me a rating for every single one. He'll have like, how many points is this? One out of 10? So like I ask him for feedback, feedback, and I ask him why. And you're trying to tell his why. Exactly like what's his thinking? And then he has since where he used to only eat craft, like now he'll like Thanksgiving, he tried his ants, mac and cheese, which is supposed to be like this. And he was okay with that. So it's like giving these nudges that is, it's important too. And so like typically, how long are you working with clients and families? Yes. It kind of depends. Right now I'm offering like, um, a coaching program that's three months. And it's funny'cause oftentimes the feedback I feel I hear it's like, what do we do after three months? Like it's just not enough time. But you'd be surprised. I know how much you can achieve. I think that like even in early intervention,'cause I told you I went back to early intervention and mm-hmm. It's a coaching model. It's not like the traditional, like you're working just with Johnny for an hour or twice a week on these different skills. You're actually teaching the parents how to embed these moments of more repetition or language. Yeah, similar like to feeding. It's like the coaching model because we, it's such a good model because you only get an hour. An hour is not going to make, yeah. Child's life. It's not teaching the parents how to interact or regulate their child. That's gonna be life changing. Life changing, exactly. Because they're with the child. Majority of the time, they might be getting some therapy, whether it's speech, ot, pt, whatever. So that's a few hours a week, which is great, but if you are not seeing what's happening in that session and you're not really implementing that at home, it's really hard to see these big gains for a majority of kids. Majority of kids. Yeah. There's no carryover. It's hard. So I do think parent coaching is just so important for our discipline. For pick eating, for speech, for language, for anything for. So how can people, I mean, I'm gonna have this in the podcast notes, but like you, you're pretty, you're, you have a podcast that has amazing guests on there that talk. Thank you. Yeah. Like you. Not the No. I like, no, it was an amazing episode, guys. Go listen. Hopefully let's listen underneath. Yeah. So, so like you, so let us know how people can find you and obviously this be in the podcast note, but how can they like book a session or a consultation? Because I, I noticed on your website you have like a 30 minute or like a I do like a strategy call or something. Yeah. Yeah.'cause to me, honestly, it's important that I'm a good match for the family I'm working with because I have. Kind of like this ancestral approach to living. And if it's not a good fit, then I don't wanna pick up that client, right? So I wanna have that strategy calls to get to know each other, to see if we align in our approach, if these are the things that parents are going to be able to implement. And then we can discuss, so I have that free 30 minute strategy call to see if we're a good match and to see if I can help, because I wanna make sure I can help. And if I can't, then I'll direct you to hopefully the right provider. So you can find me on my website@leanlavinsky.com. So I have that option for that free call there. I also have information, on the different ways you can work with me. So the Picky Eating Reset is my coaching program right now, which I'm still doing one-on-one. Eventually I wanna turn that into group coaching and maybe have a course down the line, but it's all, yeah. Yeah. I think it's good because it's good to have other parents be like, validated that it's hard, it's hard. You're trying so hard. Maybe it didn't work. I struggled, guys. Like I struggled. Yeah. I was just like, yeah, really, really? It was hard. But yeah. So they can find me there. You can go to the shop. It is called like the shop button on my, on my website. And you can find all those from ways you can work with me and then I'm most active on my Instagram at@lenalevinsky Yes. And then, yeah. Well, I mean, you're just a resource for so many. Thank you. And thank you for all the information you're putting out there. I think it's, of course, I know it's landing because, um, I had a few people, like friends that were like, oh my gosh, I listened to your podcast with Lena and like about asking for airway, like who do you know in like North Carolina, you know? So it's, it's, people are starting to get. Yes. People want this. Somebody's at the door. People want, oh no. Can you hear her? I can't. I don't think it's actually gonna come through. I don't it because of your, okay. Yeah. Well, thank you that that means a lot because this work is just so aligned with my soul. I struggled for a while to, I feel like find my calling, but. This is it. This is it. Like my soul sings when I talk about this. I know. I love this so much. You feel it, right? It's like, oh, thank you. Yeah, because like I, I feel like I wanted to separate from speech because initially I was kind of upset at myself of going into the field just because of how limited it was. Yes. With what I see. I think that's weird. This is where the thing is happening when like, I have conversations with you because like same. Yeah. And like it wasn't until I embraced the part of me as a speech pathologist and all the training I had, and you know, I've worked with like hundreds of kids. Sure. Like it's important with so many families. Yes. So like once I embraced that and I put it together with like my holistic approach, I was, that's when the magic happened because I stopped denying who I was and it just, it just. I think we met at the same time.'cause like the whole 2025 for me. Was that instrumental? It was pretending I wasn't a speech therapist. I didn't even wanna tell people I was. And then, you know, I told you about the telepathy tapes being the feeling aspect for me. And then meeting, then I get to meet like there's Karen Galway is a on Instagram and she, we connected and she was feeling the same way, but going into this more holistic, but like once you like say hello to all the pieces of you. Yeah. That's where the magic happens, right. It is, it's like things start to align and make sense and you start to have opportunities. You start to meet people like you, and I've met so many people on my podcast because I'm having these aligned conversations where you just attract the right type of people, people into your life and the right type of clients, hopefully, because you can help so many people. For people who are aligned with your message. But it's absolutely, but it's important to be who you are. Yeah. Yeah. It's, and you're not gonna be every, you're not gonna be everything. No. That's nots. And that's when you get this like great little like aligned group of like root cause practitioners, whether they're in speech specific or feeding or you know, whatever it is. It's just so needed. So thank you so much. Yeah. Knowledge. Thank you for giving me this platform. I appreciate you so much. I appreciate you and I'm gonna definitely, um, refer people to you that are Yeah, same. Same, for sure. Yeah.'cause we need to, we need our kids to get more root cause balance to just help. Yeah. Cool. And you help. And our pick eaters in general, like they have so much nervous system dysregulation. They need that type of work. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Well, thank you

PJ McNerney: 44:47

All content by Jennifer McNerney and guests are for educational and informational purposes only. Listeners acknowledge said content does not constitute medical or professional advice or services. This podcast is for private, non-commercial use Only guests on this podcast do not necessarily reflect any agency, organization, company, or potentially even themselves.