In this heartfelt conversation, Heidi Rome opens up about her powerful journey with her son Ethan, who was diagnosed with severe autism at age 5 and told he had the mental capacity of a 5-month-old infant. For years, she sought to fix Ethan—turning to experts and therapies—only to find herself drained, powerless, and without answers.

Everything shifted when Ethan, at 9 years old, was given assistive technology at a school that presumed competence. Suddenly, his brilliance and deep wisdom shone through. From that moment, Heidi realized her role was not to fix, but to love. Ethan’s words—“You just have to love me”—freed her to embrace unconditional acceptance. 💜

Now, after navigating the challenges of puberty and residential schooling, Heidi is pioneering a groundbreaking community for non-speaking autistic adults to thrive, belong, and contribute. Her message is clear: love first, trust yourself, and release the need to control.

👉 Listen to the full interview here.

📖 Learn more in Heidi’s book You Just Have to Love Me, where she shares her lessons on self-trust, compassion, and honoring the wisdom within.

Link to buy Heidi’s Book: https://bit.ly/JustLoveMeBook

Offers:

Introduction video about Girls Matter: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R3-xqzJLZW14om1PhFClcU_oRSZ8zgip/view

The Light Circle Membership:

https://amplifyimpactacademy.com/thelightcircle-aligned-core

Meet Your Unconscious Mind Workshop:

https://amplifyimpactacademy.com/um

Quantum Life Mastery School: https://amplifyimpactacademy.com/90-day-q3

FREE 7 Day Trial: NuCalm Products to recalibrate your nervous system / improve your sleep:: https://nucalm.com

Use my promo code at checkout: YGHJ to get 15% off your monthly subscription, every month.

Episode Summary:

Heidi's journey with her son Ethan @ 00:00

Heidi shares the devastating news she received when Ethan, her younger son, was diagnosed with severe autism at age 5 - that he had the mental capacity of a 5-month-old infant. This led Heidi on a years-long journey trying desperately to "fix" Ethan's autism, seeking out experts and therapies, but to no avail. Heidi felt hopeless and powerless, believing the experts knew better than she did.

Discovering Ethan's true capabilities @ 06:34

When Ethan was 9 years old, Heidi found a school that presumed competence in non-speaking autistic individuals and used assistive technology to allow Ethan to communicate. This revealed Ethan to be a highly intelligent, thoughtful, and insightful young person, completely contradicting the earlier assessment of his mental capacity. Heidi was shocked and amazed by Ethan's ability to express himself.

Ethan's wisdom and Heidi's shift in perspective @ 10:12

As Heidi witnessed Ethan's profound communications, she had a profound realization that her role was not to "fix" him, but simply to love and support him. Ethan himself told Heidi "You just have to love me" - taking the pressure off Heidi to change or control him. This shifted Heidi's mindset from one of desperation and fixing to one of acceptance, trust, and service.

Ethan's residential schooling and Heidi's creation of a new community @ 38:26

When Ethan entered puberty, his dysregulated nervous system led to dangerous behaviors, requiring him to enter a residential school for his own safety. Though difficult, Heidi recognized this as another step in Ethan's journey. Now, Heidi is building a first-of-its-kind residential community that presumes competence in non-speaking autistic adults like Ethan, to provide them a lifelong home where they can thrive and contribute.

Heidi's advice and book @ 55:47

Heidi shares her key message of "love, don't fix" and encourages others to trust their own inner wisdom rather than deferring to external "experts". She discusses her book "You Just Have to Love Me" which explores these themes. Heidi emphasizes the importance of self-trust, self-love, and being true to oneself as the path to greatest effectiveness and impact.

About the Guest:

Heidi Rome is a speaker, coach, relationship-nurturer, and author of “You Just Have to Love Me”. Inspired by her journey with her younger son Ethan, Heidi's core message—Love, Don’t Fix—champions a profound mindset shift: from trying to fix our autistic kids of any age to truly accepting and loving them. Spoiler alert: This guidance applies to all human relationships, not only those touched by special needs. Heidi is currently building a team to create a first-of-its-kind lifelong residential caring community that presumes competence in nonspeaking autistic adults.

Contact:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidi-rome-8b60a110/

https://www.facebook.com/heidi.o.rome

https://heidirome.com/

https://bit.ly/JustLoveMeBook

About the Host:

Melissa is an Integrative Health Practitioner and a Board Designated Trainer of NLP, Time Line Therapy®, Hypnotherapy, and NLP Results Coaching, helping people get to the root cause of their health issues and then get lasting results. Melissa neither diagnoses nor cures but helps bring your body back into balance by helping discover your “toxic load” and then removing the toxins. Melissa offers functional medicine lab testing that helps you “see inside” to know exactly what is going on, and then provides a personalized wellness protocol using natural herbs and supplements.  Melissa’s business is 100% virtual – the lab tests are mailed directly to your home and she specializes in holding your hand and guiding the way to healing so that you don’t have to figure it all out on your own.

Melissa has launched Amplify Impact Academy, with business partner, Billie Aadmi and together they train other coaches, practitioners and counsellors in the 4 mind-body healing modalities mentioned above, giving them powerful tools to use with clients to get results with greater ease, speed and grace. These courses teach life skills and anyone can take them, if you want to be a better leader, parent, partner, be empowered in your own life, these courses are for you!

Melissa’s passion project is her non-profit, Girls Matter (www.girlsmatter.ca), breaking the poverty cycle 1 girl, 1 family, 1 village at a time.  The mission is to keep girls in school and stop teenage marriages, because school isn’t free in over 50 countries around the world and when parents have to make the difficult choices of feeding their kids or paying for school, food wins. And when the girls hit their teen years, they will often be married off so that someone else becomes responsible to feed them. Keeping girls in school instead creates a generational ripple effect, because an educated girl is more than twice as likely to ensure her own children are educated. Educating girls also grows the GDP of countries, when they get into the workforce. This is how together, we can change the world. Guests on this podcast are invited to donate to this important cause.  Learn more here in this short video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R3-xqzJLZW14om1PhFClcU_oRSZ8zgip/view?usp=share_link

Melissa is also the winner of the 2024 Women in Podcasting Awards in the “inspiration & motivation” category and the 2021 & 2022 Quality Care Award by Business From The Heart and is also the recipient of the Alignable “Local Business Person of the Year “Award 2022, 2023 & 2024 for Whistler. 

Melissa has been featured at a number of Health & Wellness Summits, such as the Health, Wealth & Wisdom Summit, The Power To Profit Summit, The Feel Fan-freaking-tas-tic Summit, the Aim Higher Summit and many more!  She has also guested on over 90 different podcasts teaching people about the importance of prioritizing our health and how to get started.

 

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/yourguidedhealthjourney

 

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