An esteemed Conscious Parenting Coach and Pediatric NeuroMovement® Practitioner, Christine L'Abbé is a fierce advocate for families of children with a neurodiversity. CEO and founder of Evolve Movement, Christine has made it her mission to offer families holistic support to guide parents and children to live happier and healthier lives rooted in deep self-understanding, clear intention, and alignment. She aims to awaken families to see beyond the diagnosis into a new world of possibilities for the whole family to thrive.
Christine began this journey as the mother to a daughter with Rett Syndrome, a rare genetic neurological and developmental disorder affecting how the brain develops. Her personal experience and professional work in service to families and professionals fuel her passion to give families hope: to empower parents and children to write their own narrative and not be limited to the stories they have been taught to believe.
Christine was a featured speaker on NY Times bestselling author Dr. Shefali Tsabary's, Parenting Mastery Summit 2023, she has also made appearances on CTV, TVA, and Global News, among other media sources, conferences, and podcasts where she speaks of her transformational journey as a parent to a divergent child and shares her expertise about what it truly means to connect with and show up for our children. Whether through her speaking and coaching engagements, somatic work with children, or her children's book, Christine has a gift for inspiring others to transform and awaken to new possibilities, creating an opportunity for parents and children across the globe to step into their innate potential.
Christine L'Abbé, Conscious Parenting Coach and Pediatric NeuroMovement® Practitioner
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you.
My name is Christine L'Abbé. I am the CEO of Evolve movement, a collective of conscious professionals from across North America in service to families with neurodiverse children.
As part of Evolve, I support children as a certified Pediatric Anat Baniel Method® (ABM) NeuroMovement® practitioner. Certified in the Conscious Parenting Method™ Certification Program, I also offer conscious parenting coaching services and workshops for parents and caregivers and teach professionals in service to neurodiverse children how to consciously connect with pediatric clients for optimal outcomes.
It comes down to our ability to be in a state of pure awareness in the presence of a child. It's in this safe space that we can tune into their essence, a practice that requires continued inner work to reach greater levels of depth and consistency. When we can connect with a child on this level, we intuitively have a deeper understanding of their needs in that precise moment, whether those are words spoken, energy mirrored back to them, or the actual work you're doing with them, which in my case is somatic work. It's not all about the work you're trained to do, but rather how you show up to do it.
What about your personal life, can you tell us more?
I am the mother to two beautiful souls, Juliana and Gabriela.
I would consider myself to be a highly sensitive person, with a strong desire and drive to create positive change in the world, however big or small. I felt from a young age that there was something in me to share, but it took years before I could figure out what that was. My daughter Gabi was the catalyst to my awakening, which finally led me on the path to discovering who I am and how I am meant to be of service.
I believe in holistic health. To nurture the mind, body, and soul daily.
I've understood the importance of nourishing our inner world to become empowered to create the life that we want. Quiet time with myself is something I prioritize to replenish, connect, and get intentional about how I'm going to go about my day. When you live life in alignment with your inner you, you become very clear on your next move and are better able to find balance.
I feel truly blessed to make a living doing something that has meaning. Work that makes me a better mom to my kids, a more conscious partner, and an overall more joyful person, despite the challenges we face, and let me tell you, we face them. It hasn't been the easiest trajectory with Gabi's health. But the most difficult of times create readiness for great transformation, and I think that's what life is about, to grow, evolve, expand, break free from limiting beliefs, and open up to what is possible. We are so much more than we think, and the same applies to our neurodiverse kids. Society just hasn't caught up yet.
You are the co-founder of Evolve Movement, when and why did you decide to start Evolve Movement?
In 2018, I co-founded Evolve Movement, following my training to become an Anat Baniel Method® (ABM) NeuroMovement® practitioner, a modality I had identified early on as integral to Gabi's development. Two other ABM practitioners and I brought Evolve Movement to life to support neurodiverse children across Canada, each of us fueled by our personal experience as parents of divergent kids.
The business expanded over time to become multidisciplinary as I began to understand that supporting a child more holistically with modalities that were in alignment with the child as an individual led to better outcomes.
Whole family healing came later as I saw the correlation between the parent's healing and inner expansion, and their ability to become more intentional about how they supported their kids to develop and thrive.
Now Evolve is entering a new phase. We're aiming to educate families about how they can become empowered to create a learning environment for their children to develop in alignment with their soul's intent. A safe container that offers a child freedom to explore, discover, and express their innate potential. We're awakening parents and professionals to a new way of supporting neurodiverse kids, one that promises greater joy and guides children to connect inwards so that they can be empowered to become exactly who they came here to be. Molding a child is a thing of the past, and with a growing number of divergent children, we're being asked to level up and change our parenting approach.
Your daughter has Rett Syndrome, can you tell us a little bit about what it is?
Rett Syndrome is a rare genetic neurological and developmental disorder affecting how the brain develops. This causes a progressive loss of motor skills and language. Rett can sometimes present autistic-like behaviors. It's often accompanied by seizure activity and respiratory challenges. Like other conditions, the spectrum is wide in terms of severity.
For now, Gabi lives on the more severe end of Rett syndrome, which presents with low tone, early developmental delay, and little to no intentional hand movement. Gabi is non-verbal, non-ambulatory, and fed via a g-tube.
Despite all the things she can't do because of her physical limitations, she has many gifts and abilities that simply aren't seen or recognized by all. Anyone who spends time with her knows how amazing it feels to simply be in her presence. Unlike us, I believe kids like Gabi are more themselves, impossible to mold into members of the herd. It doesn't mean they don't struggle emotionally, but given the right environment, they can more easily step into who they truly are leading them to greater health and joy. Most of us wake up in our 30s and 40s and begin backpedaling to unlearn everything we've been taught about who we're supposed to be to finally meet ourselves.
True happiness doesn't come from what lives outside of us, it comes from what lives within.
Our inner landscape is ours to nourish and develop, no matter what physical limitations we have. That inner landscape is powerful and can greatly influence a child's ability to develop and thrive with joy. Knowing themselves, their beliefs, hopes, alignment, and intentions are all huge contributors to a healthy and happy life whether you're neurodiverse or neurotypical.
We have so much to learn about how to raise happy and healthy kids, and I believe kids like Gabi, who are un-mouldable, force us to open to a much wider array of possible trajectories. It's not about imposing on them a way of being or a trajectory for their life but rather creating an environment in which they can learn who they are and discover and express the innate potential that is unique to them. We are so much more than a physical being. There is so much that we haven't even yet tapped into about what can be manifested from within us. This is an area that greatly interests me and the work that I do both with my children and the children I serve.
What is the biggest struggle parents face when having a child with a diagnosis, and how can you help them?
Three things come to mind when it comes to parent struggles: isolation, suffering, and feelings of not being enough.
Parents of children with a diagnosis often feel alone, misunderstood, unseen and unsupported. They experience deep feelings of overwhelm, anxiety, fear, shame, and guilt. Many feel that they are not enough or not doing enough and often have a hard time asking for help. All of this, and so much more, leads to suffering. These parents lack a conscious safe space to process and move through the various emotional stages that come with caring for a child with high needs. This is a transformative process and there are not enough awakened professionals to empower them through it.
There is a systemic lack of support for caregivers and a lack of attention paid to the correlation between the parent's healing and emotional well-being and the diagnosed child's ability to thrive and step into their potential. The parents can't do it alone, they need support. Caregiver burnout is a real thing. Parents can't support a human being of this level of emotional and physical demand without understanding the importance of inner balance and peace. To find joy, parents must learn to feel and manage their energy amid the hard and the messy, and that requires some inner work. The good news is that once you jump on the transformation train, you don't look back. What parents don't see is that there is so much amazing available to them here and now, whatever their life looks like.
We're here to be teachers and guides for parents to become more aware of all the ways they have the power to dissolve suffering despite the chaos and the challenges that come with being a parent to a child with a diagnosis. This includes deconstructing belief systems and everything we have taken on as cultural messaging about who we and our children should be so we can find our way back to our true selves through self-understanding and self-compassion. Despite the difficulties that come with navigating this path, there is a great opportunity for parents to transform and expand in ways that they would never have otherwise. The deeper within we go as parents, the more empowered we will be to support our kids in the direction that is most aligned with their potential. The hard truth is that we go the deepest during the hardest of times. Through this experience with our kids, more possibilities become available to us from the inside out rather than from the outside in. This is precisely what we need to learn to guide our kids toward the happiness and joy we want so much for them.
Tell us a little bit about your program "Evolving Together."
Evolving Together is a new free podcast we are about to launch. A place where parents come to be inspired by the transformational experiences of other families like theirs and a place where parents can become empowered to write their own narrative and not be limited to the stories they've been taught to believe.
My colleague, Cindy Kaplan, and I want to use this channel to help parents answer the question "What now?" after a diagnosis by bridging the gap between the parent's inner healing and deep self-understanding and their ability to create an optimal learning environment for the whole family to thrive in greater joy and health.
Through a mixture of powerful discussions and interviews, we teach families and professionals in service to neurodiverse children about transformation, conscious parenting, and the power and importance of our own inner expansion and clear intention as we support these children into adulthood. We want parents to see beyond the diagnosis and move into a new realm of possibilities for the whole family to bloom.
What would you like to achieve for yourself and your business in the future?
I'm in the process of co-writing a book for parents and caregivers of children with a neurodiversity with my colleague and friend, Cindy Kaplan.
The book offers parents a guiding light to step into their power and reconnect to their inner knowing as they navigate life alongside their child, no matter the diagnosis. It speaks of the hard and messy truth and offers ways to change the narrative through greater awareness, self-compassion, and understanding to create the life that they desire.
The heart of the book is really how the inner work we do for ourselves is the bridge that enables us to move into a deeper state of connection, presence, and attunement with our neurodiverse kids. This is where the true magic happens when we can recognize and resonate with our children's true essence so that we can support them in the ways that they need most.
Apart from this, I am focused on teaching, writing, and speaking to raise awareness about what it means to truly show up for our neurodiverse kids, regardless of whether we are in the home, in therapy, in the hospital, or the school system.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
There are so many moments that have brought me here, to this precise moment. All are of equal importance toward greater self-awareness, expansion, alignment, and intention.
But the latest most profound moment happened just last summer in the pediatric intensive care unit where my daughter was being cared for after a near-death experience in the ambulance on her way to the hospital. There was a second event, only a couple of weeks later, where upon entering her hospital room I was informed by the staff that she was dying. I remember facing Gabi and looking deeply into her eyes. I said to her "Focus on my energy, mama is peaceful, you're safe".
I understood my own power that day. I really showed up for her. This was one of my proudest moments as a human being.
As we gazed into each other's eyes, I reminded her who she was, an infinite being, a soul. I told her that wherever she chose to go would be beautiful and that if she chose to stay she had the power to heal, that all she had to do was to remember who she was and why she was here. I told her so many things over a short period. Within thirty minutes, her saturation came back up and stabilized. Two days later, her joy and smile uplifted us all.
This was a hugely transformational moment for both of us. One that would have me up-level to a whole other plane. The plane I was meant to teach from.
