Julia Blair [00:00:03]: When we engage the heart set and when we take it seriously and when we kind of listen to what a child is here or born to explore and, importantly, what they love to do, we make them feel seen and heard and valued. And if we think about what I would call an old school paradigm, we never really find out what really, really lights them up.

Penny Williams [00:00:29]: Welcome to the Beautifully Complex podcast, where I share insights and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids straight from the trenches. I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach, author, and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the journey of raising your atypical kid. Let's get started. Welcome back to Beautifully Complex. I am here with Julia Black today to discuss unleashing creativity and learning. Julia is the founder of Lights on Learning, and we're gonna talk a little bit about that as well. But will you start by letting everybody know who you are and what you do?

Julia Blair [00:01:14]: Yes. Thank you very much for having me on. I'm Julia Blair, and I am an author, a neuro coach, a mom, and an educationist. And I work with parents and educators to implement a culture of learning within their homes or classrooms that really unleashes the creative energy within children, young people, and so that they can explore and express, their fullest potential.

Penny Williams [00:01:41]: I love the phrase culture of learning because I think it's so very important, and I'm sure we're gonna dive into how to create that culture, at least some initial ideas, some general ideas for that. But I was hoping that we could start by just talking about what does lights on learning mean, and how did that come about?

Julia Blair [00:02:00]: So it really came around I've been working in education for about 15 years now, as a parent trying to solve the problem for my own children. Mhmm. But in 2016, I was really looking for something that really encapsulated when we, as a team, were getting it right, getting the practice right. And I had a meeting with a business strategist, and he said, well, how do you know when you are getting it right? And I said, well, because we see it. We see it in their eyes. It's like their lights have come on. And it was really, really, for me, just so clear that, actually, that metric in itself, lights on, lights off, became our guide as to whether we were working with a child and really reengaging them, but more importantly, helping them take ownership of their learning. So it's really about the emotional, the mental, and the physical, and even the spiritual connection to learning.

Julia Blair [00:02:57]: And so lights on learning is really an embodied way. It's using our heart. I talk about the heart set, the mindset, and skill set as acting as our learning circuitry. And it's really bringing in the full power and potential of what we have as human beings into the mix.

Penny Williams [00:03:15]: Can you talk about those three things that you listed in a little more detail? The, let's see, heart set, mindset, and skill set. What are we talking about there? What are we looking at as either a parent or an educator?

Julia Blair [00:03:28]: So, obviously, many people understand mindset, and I and I kind of realized that the mistake that we often make, and I definitely, you know, was guilty of this right at the beginning, is thinking like, alright, we've got to work on the mindset. But I now never work on a child or an adult's mindset without engaging the heart set first. Mhmm. And so for me, this is really where the thing I believe we're all born. We've come here to explore and express a particular gift, or a talent. And I kind of believe our heart set holds our dreams, and it enables us to find the courage for us to really show up as our authentic, curious, you know, passionate as learners. So I always start with heart set because then the mindset isn't about heavy lifting. It's actually what the heart set does is I talk about it.

Julia Blair [00:04:20]: We, our hearts will always dream bigger than our heads are ready for. So it's when we lock in the heart set first, we naturally become more curious and courageous. And so the mindset work that we have to do now doesn't feel like a battle. It just feels like an inevitable challenge along the way. So what I see with, children and adults and young people is they become more curious and courageous, and they step outside of that comfort zone. And then when we know what the heart set is, I talk about having switches that switch on our lights, that really kind of unlock our potential and our creative energy. We can begin to get much more specific about the skill set that's relevant for us expressing our creative energy and exploring the gifts that we've got. So when we begin with the heart set, the mindset kind of is just part of the process and we get more specific about the skillset that we need to develop.

Julia Blair [00:05:17]: For example, my son, who's now 18, I identified he was a digital wizard at the age of 7. I used to be a filmmaker, you know, so his his father is a filmmaker. His grandfather is a filmmaker. And so we were able to then look and go write the technical skills he needs, but he also needs communication and critical thinking. And, as well, my daughter who's now 21, when she was 6, I identified that she was a wordsmith. So when we kind of know the thing that switches on our lights, we can really look at the skill set that unlocks that potential. And I think so many of us just focus on mindset and miss these 2 other crucial elements that I refer to as really forming our learning circuitry.

Penny Williams [00:06:02]: Yeah. And we tend to, I think, skip straight to the skill set and the lagging skills or the missing skills in the educational environment, and we're really missing out by doing that. You know, when we talk about strengths based learning or strengths based parenting, we're taking interest and strengths, those things that we find in the heart and the mindset. Right? And we're using those to help with lagging skills with learning challenges, and so it makes so much sense to start with the heart and keep building from there, these building blocks from there. I'm wondering, though, I'm curious, how does that look in a classroom environment? Because we know teachers are so overwhelmed. We ask them to do so much. They often have 25, 30, 35 kids, and 1 adult. So how can they incorporate this process in the classroom?

Julia Blair [00:07:05]: I think it's really important, and it makes a massive difference with the teachers that I work with or the schools. In particular, because when we engage the heart set and when we take it seriously and when we kind of listen to what a child is here or born to explore, and importantly, what they love to do, we make them feel seen and heard and valued. And if we think about traditional, what I would call maybe not traditional necessarily, but an old school paradigm, we never really find out what really, really lights them up, which means that we're not really listening to them. They're not being seen or heard, and they're not having any chance for often for 14 years in an education system to even practice, explore and express the thing that makes them so hungry to learn. So even the simple idea in the classroom for teachers to know, and this is where parent teacher collaboration, I feel is really important to know what a child is curious about, to know what their natural strengths and talents and gifts are, then immediately, they have different conversations with those children. But also what it means, which is really exciting, is when you do teamwork or collaboration, which most schools do or a lot of schools do, or you're doing projects, now, you know, oh, we've got the digital wizard, and we've got the wordsmith, and we've got the performer, and we've got the engineer, and we've got the mathematician. So now you can create teams or groups based on a really, really empowered skillset within that group, rather than what they sometimes do, which is like, oh, we better put that person with this person because they'll babysit that person. And this person, you know, will benefit from being with that person, but we're now being strategic.

Julia Blair [00:08:54]: And this is in the home or the classroom about how we can facilitate through that culture of learning, really extraordinary learning. And I like to think, you know, ordinary people coming together, expressing in this way through, like you say, a strength based way, can create something extraordinary that they can't do on their own. So, Heartset also brings collaboration massively into the mix. It brings communication massively into the mix because we're making the learning tangible because we're expressing our creative energy. It's not about the head knowledge going in and regurgitating. It's about what does my heart truly, truly want to explore and express? And how am I going to do that? So it totally transforms the culture of learning. And it doesn't need to be a whole transformation of the educational practice for lights on learning really layers on top of what either a parent is doing, if they're home educating or even flexi schooling, but also what a school is doing. And I think that's what makes it exciting.

Julia Blair [00:09:57]: I've seen transformations happen with as little as, like, 2 hours a week dedicated to, projects, passion projects. So it's very exciting, the power, when we bring in the heart, it's intelligence, and, and have a vision for that we want our children to love learning, because why would we not?

Penny Williams [00:10:14]: Yeah. And as you were talking, that's what I was thinking. Like, this is how we get kids lit up about learning, passionate about learning, invested in learning instead of this, oh, I have to go do this boring thing again today. Right? I have to go sit, and I have to learn things, and I have to be still and quiet and, you know, a lot of things that our neurodivergent kids struggle with already, and that transformation can last for a lifetime, as you're talking about. And I think, you know, that's what we want as parents. That's what teachers want. That's what the reason that educators get into teaching, right, is because they're passionate about learning. They're passionate about kids, and it sometimes oftentimes, I think, at least here in the US, gets very lost.

Penny Williams [00:11:07]: We get into just the system and test scores and things that I learned through having a neurodivergent kid who struggled in school aren't really that important. They're not as important as we make them or as we, you know, give them weight. And so, yeah, having these conversations and turning the narrative is so key, I think, for not just our neurodivergent kids, but I think all kids. If we have, you know, a world of people who are excited about learning and curious all the time and connected to each other, it would be so different and really amazing.

Julia Blair [00:11:51]: Yeah. And I think what's exciting about all of this is it's such a simple vision. And for me, it's a no brainer. Do we want children to love learning? Yes, please. You know? Yes. We raise our hands. And so immediately what that does is we've now moved an entire paradigm with just one simple shift and a yes into bringing love and the power of love as an emotion and the gateway that that opens up to joy and gratitude and abundance and really feeling that that creative flow, we've immediately let it into our homes and our classrooms. It's it's such a simple shift that is so powerful.

Julia Blair [00:12:31]: And that's really what lights on means. Lights on and lights off. And I have a whole spectrum from darkness through to radiance. It was really about becoming aware of the one metric that I believe matters, which is, is this child learning with their lights on or off? And we see it. We see it in their eyes. So we don't need to even be trained professionals. This is where it's exciting for parents because we see it. And also because our children will tell us.

Julia Blair [00:12:59]: So, again, having those conversations in our home, like, what really gets you excited? What are you curious about? What would you want to wake up and explore every single day? And that becomes our starting point, which means we can also, as parents, make sure they're getting that outside of school if school isn't lighting them up so much. But I think it's, you know, also really important. And I made this mistake for a while. The power of also being lights off is where it gets really exciting. Because when you start doing and learning and exploring something that you love, you go beyond your edge. And that's when you hit frustration. That's when you find challenge, but that's when you also want to solve the problem. And so when we move into being lights off, which is frustration, anger, sadness, sometimes disappointment, sometimes despair, all of these emotions are healthy, normal emotions to really deep learning that's leading to mastery.

Julia Blair [00:14:02]: And one of the mistakes I think we can make as parents and educators is we see our children become disengaged or disconnected, or in my language, lights off, and we panic. And we want to get them back happy again. And so, a lot of the work that I do with parents is really helping them also understand what switches on their lights on and off, and being able to hold space for their children when they are having maybe those moments where they've hit the wall and they want to quit. But of course, with passion and the heart set in the mix, they're not going to quit. And sometimes what we can do is we can jump in too quickly and kind of distinguish the light even more. So I think the power of being lights off, for me, I've come to understand is really where the hidden potential is. It's where our limiting beliefs hang out. You know, I can't do this.

Julia Blair [00:14:57]: It's too hard. My brain doesn't work. You know, I'm rubbish. I will never be able to all of those, you know, negative thought patterns that we have that, well, I don't like to use the word negative emotions, but create emotions that we find uncomfortable sometimes seeing our children experience. Yeah. And we can use those because it's about helping a child as soon as we know they think they can't, they think their brain doesn't work, that they're rubbish. We now know the thing that's limiting them express their potential. And then our job as, as inspiring leaders within our homes or in, within the classroom is really to help them get evidence that they can.

Julia Blair [00:15:37]: The post struggle success after getting it wrong, making mistakes and failing is such a beautiful, empowered feeling Yeah. That I believe all of us should, like, really have the luxury of of exploring and feeling.

Penny Williams [00:15:53]: I love that you weave in emotions because I think it's a part that we often miss in education. We're emotional beings. We, you know, are either regulated or disregulated, and that emotional regulation can be really tough, And I think that's part of this lights off point that you're talking about is when we're getting dysregulated, things are difficult, and pushing through that, being able to or even knowing that you can is super valuable, especially because so many neurodivergent kids really avoid hard things. They tend to shut down or turn and walk the other way when things get difficult, especially emotionally difficult. And so having a process to help them through that and being able as a parent or an educator to recognize that it's part of a bigger process that's going to get us to a really great place where they're going to feel those successes and those wins so deeply and build confidence, is really important.

Penny Williams [00:17:12]: And I also wrote down, as you were talking, fulfillment, because you were describing a lot of characteristics that I sort of put under that fulfillment bucket, but I, in the past, did a webinar on availability to learn and overlapped Maslow's hierarchy of needs and also what we know about the autonomic nervous system and regulation and dysregulation. And it was amazing to really look when you put all those layers together that we can't get to fulfillment, to feeling good about ourselves, our role in the world, and all of those things without the basics. And part of those basics is feeling good about what we're doing, feeling regulated, feeling like we are capable. And the way that you're describing lights on learning, it strikes me as sort of the same building blocks so that when you get through, you know, you go from maybe a kid has lights off. They're not excited about learning. In that way, their lights off, and then they're lit up and things are great, and then they sort of hit that frustration. But then pushing through that, that's where we get to the top of the pyramid. Right? That's where we get to that fulfillment and feeling good about our place in the world, which is amazing.

Penny Williams [00:18:38]: That's what we want for everyone. Right?

Julia Blair [00:18:40]: Absolutely. And that's why I've got what I call the lights on spectrum because we began tracking as families. I began working with a group of mothers to be able to look and go, right. Well, it's we're fluid and dynamic. Like you say, we move in and out of emotions all the time. Right? We might get triggered by something. We might feel it in our bodies, or we might be totally unaware. And we might just go into the reactive state or even the survival mode.

Julia Blair [00:19:05]: And so when we began tracking to see, well, how much did we move between lights on and lights off and become really aware of how to use that to our advantage, to absolutely what you say, to feel fulfilled from an internal perspective rather than waiting for the success criteria to, you know, from the external validation. But how can we feel so fulfilled through our internal calibration that actually nothing stands in our way. And what we found is when we started tracking is that it made sense to have 3 lights off signatures, as I call them, and 3 lights on signatures. And so we move fluidly and dynamically all the time through them. And each signature has the thought. So we have darkness down really at the bit, sort of at the bottom. Dimness and glimmer are the 3 lights off signatures that we use. Each of them have thoughts and emotions, and we're getting that awareness of where we feel it in our body so that we can use our bodies as that signal.

Julia Blair [00:20:09]: Like, woah, okay. There's something there. See the emotion and feel the emotion, but then also get to the thought that's been sort of triggered and the cascade that results often in behavior as a result. And then moving up from glimmer, we go into glow, which is the sort of the entry level of the lights on signatures, glow, brilliance, and radiance. And what's been really exciting is the discovering and helping the parents, really them discovering that actually it can be more comfortable to be lights off than it can be to be in the in radiance. And when, you know, a lot of the talk really around not really understanding radiance, believing it's something we've got to aspire to rather than actually radiances are the essence of who we are. It's with us all the time. It's our kind of renewable energy source.

Julia Blair [00:21:02]: Like the sun can get covered up like clouds, but it's always there. And also the fears that Bernie Brown talks about foreboding joy that if I feel so good and, I need, you know, so little in life and everything is, it is really is great, I risk losing it all. And so that's been a really beautiful process to see families learn that if they want their children to love learning, explore their potential, and feel fulfilled, then they themselves have really got to understand, like, how do we get to that place of, yeah, just gratitude, abundance, and and life is good and really being happy and fulfilled by choice, not circumstance. And it's been really beautiful to see the evolution and the growth within the families through the tracking of the lights on and lights off status. Because, you know, where a year ago, they might have been much more lights off and maybe in the comfort, zone of glow and glimmer, they're now touching radiance much more often. And that then has this lights on effect within their family without really even changing much the whole culture and dynamic and energy within the family shifts. So, yes, it's exactly what you're saying. It's it's just like learning to use our bodies as to recalibrate or, you know, or to calibrate to what we need in terms of our thoughts, our emotions, our energy at any particular point, based on what is it we want to achieve today.

Penny Williams [00:22:38]: Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. I love that you're giving them the language too to describe different feelings, different states or stages that I think kids often have a hard time describing, and it makes it, like, really tangible for them, what they're experiencing. I wanna shift back to the heart set for a few more minutes before we wrap up, because I feel like this is probably that first step for anyone who's listening who wants to start to embrace your program, your system, is to figure out where the kids' interest lie, where is their heart, right, in learning. And I'm thinking about, like, we often talk about a child's profile, and we look at their learning profile, but we don't really look at interests within that learning profile. Right? And so can we, as educators, ask kids to fill out a questionnaire about themselves and learn from that, or can we, as parents, fill out, like, a one page summary of our kid, their strengths, their interest, what they might need help with, and that sort of thing, and give it to the teachers ahead of time. But do that exploration, maybe, as parents outside of the classroom too.

Penny Williams [00:24:00]: Does that sound like a good starting point?

Julia Blair [00:24:03]: Yeah. 100%. And I have 2 tools. So one is a curiosity audit, which is exactly that, like, what are you curious to learn about? And really drilling down into the specifics. So not just necessary, you know, oh, I love making cakes, but like, what what cakes are you curious to make? You know? Mhmm. Vegetable cakes or for example, or gluten free cakes, really getting to specifics. But from what point of view of the heart set? So that would be one thing, the curiosity order, which is really simple to do, and I have those tools, you know, readily available. But with the heart set, I encourage parents and educators to think about it as it's what I I talk about the switch.

Julia Blair [00:24:44]: It's what is my specific way that I love to express myself? And when we think about it like that, it's less about the interest, and it's more about, I'm a maker. I I have to move. I have to use my hands. I love working with cardboard. Give me cardboard, and I will do the maths. I really will do the maths, and I will show you that I will do the maths beyond anything that you're asking me to do in year 2 or age 7 or age 10. I will go all the way. Or maybe it's like, I'm a performer.

Julia Blair [00:25:17]: I love to make people laugh. The energy that I have when someone laughs, it just fuels me. And I love to communicate. I love to communicate with my body, or I love to communicate with my words, or I love to communicate, you know, physically with mime. So the more that we can really begin to see, like, how they want to express themselves and communicate through what I call their switch, Now we know exactly where we're leading them. But more importantly, they know the adventure they're on. And so it becomes less about what's going into them, and it's more about what's coming out of them. That creative energy that is lights on energy is now got an outlet that we, parents and educators, know how to channel and how to facilitate.

Julia Blair [00:26:07]: And that is the real power that comes. And 100% you can do this as parents. I have a tool that, I actually outline in my book called the Learning Carousel, and it's specifically designed to help parents or educators learn and look and go, well, what is their switch? Because what I realized is when I had my creative learning center, that actually it's so readily available for us to communicate and express if we have the opportunity. But if we don't get that opportunity, it kind of just lies there, dormant, just below the surface. And children can go through the whole of their educational careers or their lifetime, never fully knowing, you know, what they're good at, that they can become greater over time. So I love the question 100% as parents. I really urge you to get curious with your kids and really start to observe. Like, when when you're creating together, what do they go to? Is it the Lego, the sewing machine? Is it writing words, you know, taking photos? It's a complete game changer.

Penny Williams [00:27:13]: Yeah. Absolutely. And we will link up the resources that you've mentioned in the show notes for this episode for everyone as well, so they have easy access to it. Where can listeners find you online and learn more about your program?

Julia Blair [00:27:30]: So you can find me on across all the socials at the lights on mum, and, also, we've got lots of information about the program and my book on my website, lightsonuniverse.com.

Penny Williams [00:27:44]: Love it. Thank you so much for the work that you're doing to help our kids to really learn and love learning, and I really appreciate you being here and and sharing some of your time and your wisdom with the listeners. I know they appreciate it as well.

Julia Blair [00:28:00]: Thank you very much for having me.

Penny Williams [00:28:03]: And the show notes for this episode for everyone who's listening are at parentingadhdandautism.com/299 for episode 299, and I will see you on the next episode. Take good care. Thanks for joining me on the Beautifully Complex podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share, and don't forget to check out my online courses and parent coaching at parentingadhdandautsism.com and at thebehaviorrevolution.com.