Episode 332-Teach the heart to speak: colors, capes, and the quiet power of parental intuition with Constance Lewis

A dream, a diagnosis, and a blueprint for calmer families—this conversation with Constance Lewis traces how a sudden medical crisis turned into a playful, powerful tool for emotional regulation. When her son Miles began having grand mal seizures at four, Constance and her husband Andre (a pediatric dentist) entered a maze of tests, medications, and second opinions. After a brain lesion finally came to light and surgery followed, they channeled the experience into a children’s book that helps kids name, normalize, and navigate their feelings using colors and capes.

We walk through the heart of the method: letting children choose colors for emotions, using capes or simple tokens to “wear” a feeling safely, and modeling regulation in real time. Constance shares how the framework helped when Miles lost language under stress, how it supported his siblings (including a tutu-loving sister who’s inspiring the next book), and how teachers can adapt it for the classroom with discreet color check-ins. Along the way, we dig into the tightrope every caregiver knows—sorting intuition from anxiety—so you can advocate clearly with clinicians while keeping your nervous system steady.

If you’re a parent, teacher, therapist, or healthcare professional seeking simple SEL tools, trauma‑informed practices, and kid‑friendly coping strategies, you’ll find pragmatic steps, hopeful stories, and a reminder that feelings are signals, not verdicts. Explore resources and blog guides at colorfulcapesoffeelings.com, find the book on Amazon (paperback) and at Walmart, Barnes & Noble, and Books‑A‑Million (hardcover), and follow along on Instagram at colorful_underscore_feelings.books. If this conversation helps, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help more families find it.

Chapters

• 0:00 Warm Up & Weather Banter
• 1:50 Meet Constance: Nurse to Parent Coach
• 3:18 The Dream That Started a Book
• 6:45 Miles’s Seizure Story & Advocacy
• 11:05 From Lost Words to Colorful Capes
• 14:20 Inside the Book: Emotions by Color
• 16:45 Siblings, Big Feelings, New Books
• 19:20 Community, Schools, and Curriculum
• 22:20 Intuition vs Anxiety in Caregiving
• 25:00 Where to Find the Book & What’s Next
• 27:10 Practical Parenting Tools & Blogs

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hi, thanks for joining the SG Child show today. I'm so excited to be meeting this morning with Constance Lewis. I just love your name, by the way, too. Beautiful. Um and you know, it's I don't know, it's a beautiful day here. Where are you at in the world, anyways? I am in Florida.

SPEAKER_02: 0:20

It's very hot still and muggy. Actually, it's a rain, it's raining right now.

SPEAKER_00: 0:26

So okay, so it's a little bit chiller, huh? Or is it a hot rain? I don't know. I I've only been to Florida like when I was in my teens.

SPEAKER_01: 0:33

So you don't yeah, it's like a hot, it's like a hot, muggy rain, which is like, oh, it's like sticky, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 0:41

Oh gosh, I couldn't. I don't know if I could do it, but I live in Utah, Salt Lake City, so I'm literally in the dry heat. Yeah. And but here it's actually, I think we had this beautiful spring this year, and now it's like the fall has been better this year than other falls. It's like going slowly from summer into winter instead of overnighting, you know?

SPEAKER_02: 1:09

Yeah, I'm very jealous. Yeah, I need fall in my life. It's like I decorate for fall in my house, and I'm just like, why?

SPEAKER_01: 1:18

It doesn't feel like fall, but it's all right. It helps me get in the mood.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22

Exactly. I'll video chat you and you can see all the leaves changing perfect, yeah. I love it. Um, it's so nice, and it's you know, back to school, and yeah, we're definitely gonna be talking about something, a project of yours and something near and dear to um what we should be working on our kids with. So without further ado, please have um introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_02: 1:50

Yes, thank you for having me. So I'm Constance Lewis. I am first and foremost a mom of three kids, wild kids. I have a seven-year-old, a five-year-old, and a two-year-old. So I'm still kind of in the thick of it with the two-year-old, and he's now napping. So that's why I'm here. Um, I historically I'm a nurse. I started as a neonatal intensive care nurse, turned childbirth educator, lactation, um, and then I ended up getting my women's health nurse practitioner as well, worked in a private OBG WAN office. Um, but I worked solely with kids. So in the neonatal intensive care unit, also in the pediatric unit, um, was a nurse educator as well. So that was my background. And um, with three kids later, I had to step away. And with Miles's condition and a newborn, I had to step away from an office scene with clients, which is sad. I miss them, but I knew my purpose was here at home. So I've just kind of reinvented myself as a home coach, uh, coaching women and parents. So here I am, and that's what I'm doing now. I'm married to an amazing husband. His name is Andre Lewis, and he is a pediatric dentist, and he's so good at what he does. Everybody loves going to him. He has a ton of neurodiverse kids that go to his office as well, even up to the age of 35. And yeah, it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00: 3:13

And he's listening yes, he's amazing.

SPEAKER_02: 3:18

And um, him and I wrote a children's book together, and that's why I'm here.

SPEAKER_00: 3:24

I love that, I love that so much, and um I resonate with uh none of the nursing and thing. My mom was a nurse as far as my nursing experience goes. Oh yeah, but I uh also wrote children's books, and just that that you know, heart-centered. It was first going to be just like a little book I was gonna give to my daughter just to let her know that she was okay no matter how or what or who she ever was, like she was the reason that she was okay and wonderful, yeah. So, and then it just uh led into people saying, Oh, you should do this, you should keep doing this, keep as you probably experienced as well. So, tell us a little bit about that journey, what started it, and and all of that. And I'm so excited to learn.

SPEAKER_02: 4:21

Yes, okay, so really it's such a crazy story, honestly. But I had a dream that I was meant to write a children's book. It was so weird. I literally woke up and I was like believing that yeah, I was like, okay, and I said to my husband, I think I'm supposed to write a children's book. Like, this is so weird. Like I never in my life ever thought about being an author or writing a children's book. I honestly, I actually have a learning disability and comprehension, and I'm a terrible writer and a terrible um reader. And I I just like was like, what? And so actually, before this book, I am a co-author in two other books. There, there's an infertility and a postpartum book that I co-writ with somebody with lots of help of editing and writing. And they're like, You actually write really heartfelt. You write really well because it comes from the heart. Um, we just need to fix your grammar and your spelling. So I was like, Yeah. Yeah. So I woke up and I was like, okay, I'll just I'll write a children's book. I have no idea what I'm gonna write about. This is so weird. And then I knew it was gonna be about Miles, my son. I knew it was gonna be about his medical journey, but I didn't know where and how to start. And so then I just I just kept thinking about what he loved and thinking about how kids love colors and play. And then it just came to me and I was like, Oh, and I wrote it in one night. I was just laying in bed and I looked at my husband, I was like, I know what I'm gonna write about. And he was like, All right, and I literally just wrote it out in one night. It was so rough draft, and then I was like, Can you help me rhyme this? Because he's really good at the rhyming part. And he was like, Yeah, sure. And um, like he helped me rhyme it, and then hence here we have a book, and and then I found we were like, find an illustrator, and it took a little bit longer, but that's how the idea came about, really.

SPEAKER_00: 6:33

Oh, that's so beautiful. And as comfortable as you are with it, give us a little introduction to Miles and tell us a little bit about what we can expect and learning um from this beautiful book. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 6:46

So Miles is now seven. He has had such a journey in his little life already, and he is such an inspiration and a true superhero. And at the age of four, he developed a seizure condition out of nowhere, just literally out of nowhere. One day started having grand mall seizures. Like it was insane and scary. And it was nice. And I'm, you know, I'm a nurse practitioner, my husband's a dentist, so we were used to the medical side of it, but it was just like, what in the world? And it was 911 calls and praying and that he's gonna wake up and still be somewhat himself again, you know. And we went through all these doctors and these medical diagnoses and all these medication changes and these tests and studies, and it was it was rough. And I always say to people, if you're a mom who has a child with a medical condition of any sort, you sometimes you live in that fight, flight, or free state because you just don't know what's gonna happen next. And you're looking for answers. And so for two years that he was going through these seizures and we were going through testing and we're trying to figure out why and what we should do. I was in that state of mind and just with a newborn baby, baby, and a three-year-old. So it was um a lot, and um I every mom, I'm very blessed and lucky that I had the support and that I had the medical background to really infuse that and advocate for him in this scene because it's I've seen and been around a lot of situations where parents aren't uh able to do that for their kids and it's frustrating. And and um I think that if I didn't have the background, we wouldn't be where we are here today. And my personality of like, no, that's not enough. No, I need to find answers. No, I don't think that you're right because I truly felt that we were missing something and we were he had a brain lesion that wasn't caught on his MRI for over a year until we found a fourth neurologist. And so I was like, this is we need to um we so we need to do something about this. So um essentially, I just thought as we were going through this process, Miles changed, you know, he he was vibrant and super smart and super articulate with her emotions. Um, at the age of two, a kid poured water on his shoes and he looked over and said, That made me mad. He's a two-year-old. I mean, what two-year-old does that, you know? And so we kind of lost that in in those two years. And so I was trying to figure out a way how do I bring that back, but not so stressful. Because at 18 months, he was speaking full-on sentences and he was very verbal, and we lost a lot of that through the medications and the seizures. And and so I thought, how how can I help him express these feelings without words? And kids love color, they love play, and he loved dressing up as a superhero. That was his jam, like every costume in his closet, Superman, Spider-Man, like his whole room was decorated, and and he loved wearing capes. And so I thought, let's just infuse the things he loves with color and emotions, and hence the book came about.

SPEAKER_00: 10:08

And you have a copy of it behind you. I do. Yeah, can you can you give it put it closer to us? Oh, wonderful, yeah. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_02: 10:20

Yeah, so this is his book. It's got all the colors of the feelings of he picked out the colors. Like I said, okay, if you were, you know, we're gonna talk about different emotions, and if um, you know, silly, what color do you want for silly? And then, you know, that's his sister in the book. Yeah, so it's so cute. Yeah, we let it here's the emotions, you tell me the colors, and he picked the colors, and a lot of them are pretty typical of what you would think a kid would pick colors like blue is sad and black is mad. But um, but yeah, so that's how the book came about. And and then I realized that because I wanted this book to help other kids, I didn't really think about the parent part of it from the beginning. I was thinking about the kid part. So I want this book to help and support other kids when they're scared, when they have medical procedures, when they have to go to the hospital, when they have to go to the doctor, or just any big emotion that they're feeling, if they could just put on a colored cape and feel safe, connected, brave, um, or or whatever they like you putting on. It doesn't have to be a cape. And then and then I realized that a lot of parents said to me, This is actually helping me with my emotions and how to teach my kid to regulate their own emotions. So it turned into a now I'm kind of like a parent coach in a way.

SPEAKER_00: 11:38

I love that. And you know, I I couldn't agree with you more. I think that um parents really do learn from the books that they are able to read their children, especially when they do partake in the reading to the children and and really take advantage of that time when they're little and they love books and they love the colors and the pages and all of the things. It's so much fun at that time, and um I just love that so much. And I was thinking while you were talking, how wonderful for the siblings. I mean, how for his siblings, how did that transpire to them in understanding him better or supporting him and their own feelings?

SPEAKER_02: 12:27

Yes, that's a great question because when I was so involved in this medical crisis, so call it, um, and I had the newborn that I was breastfeeding every you know, two hours and trying to figure out what to do. I was like, there's all you know, this little girl Mariah, who's my middle child, was like, okay, she's you know, um, she's kind of getting lost in the mix a little bit. And I realized she started to have these grandiose big emotions that were coming out in negative ways. It was like hitting and screaming, and and I was like, Oh, I I I need to go back to that understanding of what the book means and teach her those things as well. And so the book, yeah, as we were discussing, and I was telling them about the book as I was doing it. I was um bringing them in on it and saying, I'm making this book to help kids with emotions and feelings. And now, even with her Mariah at age five, I'll say, you know, what you look sad, and she likes tutus. So we're actually creating a book for her called Mariah and the Colorful Tutuos of Feelings, which is going to be our next put out soon, hopefully by December. Yes, that's her thing. So it's helped her really and me, because she's my big emotion kid, tap into why she's having that emotion and give her an outlet that's less negative with hitting and screaming and running and more creative with color and play. And that's really been so beautiful to see with the other siblings. And my two-year-olds, too. He's my two-year-old is too. And now he's like in that hitting stage too. And I was like, I'm like, what is happening? And so I'm like, okay, let's let's start from scratch. Here we go again. Let's start teaching the emotions. And now he's so Miles is not really into superheroes and capes anymore. He's like, Mom, I'm kind of grown up. I'm like, oh, but you're still my baby. Right. And then the little two-year-old's like, I'll wear the cape, and he runs around with his cape on with the emotions, and we've been working on it with him. So that's kind of how we've infiltrated it in with them as well.

SPEAKER_00: 14:40

Oh, that's so great. And what about your community? Tell me about like how the schools or you know, neighbor kids, things like that. What's been happening on that front?

SPEAKER_02: 14:53

Oh my gosh. So our community of friends has been so supportive, and a lot of them have purchased the book or just they're like, oh my gosh, we just love this idea. And it's really kind of they obsessively read the book because they know the characters in the book. But I have a cousin who's actually creating a curriculum for the book to offer to teachers, yeah, in schools. So that's hopefully going to be uploaded to the website. We do have a website, and I'm hoping to upload it to the website as soon as she finishes it. I've spoken to his teachers and we have some ideas of how without capes, because capes are kind of big and they have uniforms at their school, a way to allow kids to express their emotions with color, but in a discreet way. So only the teachers can see how they're feeling versus if they don't want to express it to the other children. So we're thinking of like token ideas on their desks and they could choose it and flip it over, and only the teacher can look at the color. You know, there's different things. We've thought, we've come up with some brainstorming ideas. Um, and then also at the hospital that Miles had his brain surgery. So hence he ended up having brain surgery, and that's a whole story. But I am gonna be speaking at some of their doctors' conferences, their patient um support conferences to other parents who are going through these things and just giving an outlet of understanding and support, um, and not just through colorful caves, but just other ways to help parents and children through situations. So the community's been so amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 16:24

I'm so happy to hear that. And you're really giving the community so much value and uh the educating piece, excuse me, is so important because just that little bit of how to advocate better for their child, for themselves, to a doctor, to a nurse who sometimes, you know, I was a medical paralegal and a massage therapist. So straight, I mean, I have a different way of having a medical background, but I still, you know, I still do. And so, in in the way that it helped me to same thing, no, this is not right. No, I am not, I'm sorry, that is not, uh, I do not agree with that. Um you have to be such a strong parent. That's such a tricky job sometimes because you go in with all of the trust and all of the um humbleness, almost obedience, you know, and just all of these other things. Um and then to have to defy or anything and and go your own way, it's scary. And it is. I'm really proud of you guys that you listened to that instinct and just did what was right. And I think that we have this underlying, you know, mother's intuition, single fathers out there. I'm sure you have some too, you know, whatever it takes. Um, so I think that really um learning about how to access those types of things, and you know, is give me your website really quickly so I can put that up here.

SPEAKER_02: 18:04

I was gonna say it's www.colorfulcapes of feelings dot com. But yes, I totally agree with you. Um, and I'm a nurse and a nurse practitioner, and my husband's a dentist, and so you know, I think we're sometimes taught to just do what what we say, what doctors say, what teachers say, what police officers say, you know, all those kind of things. That's obedience you are speaking of. And and truly, we respect their knowledge, honestly. There's always you know, respect because of what they know and their history and what they've seen, and and but but in a sense that sometimes our egos get in the way, even as medical professionals, and um, you know, it's it's hard. And I think that you have to listen to your intuition when it comes not necessarily from an anxiety state, which is really hard to do when you're in such a freeze, fight, or flight state when you're having a medical crisis, because your anxiety is gonna overproduce that cortisol, and then you're just gonna really feel like everybody's telling you things that aren't right, right? So, in a way, it's kind of finding that balance between, okay, I'm really anxious because my thoughts get crazy sometimes. Like, you know, Miles has been off his seizure medication for a month now, and then one day he woke up with a headache and a stomachache, and that's how always he would have his seizures. It would start that way. And so I started panicking, and I'm like, oh my gosh, there's this like intense PTSD panic in the middle of the night. And my husband's like, it's okay, calm down, take a breath. And literally he was just sick, like he had the flu. But you know what I mean? It was like my anxiety overtook, and I wanted to call 911, but he wasn't even having any seizures, you know? And so I think that we when I'm able to somewhat ground myself in a way of truth and listen to my intuition, that's when it really comes out. And I can say, listen to this doctor, like I don't agree with you. I don't think it's an abdominal migraine. I think we should investigate. Um, I don't like that medication that you're giving him. It has severe side effects. Can we find a new one? And just even if you don't know anything about medicine, somebody around you does or whatever, not just medicine, anything, somebody, a friend of yours does. So reach out and say, I just don't feel right, it doesn't sit right. How can how can you help me get there?

SPEAKER_00: 20:25

Absolutely. And go to the website and and send questions if you have questions and you wanna, you know, ask maybe for resources. Um please feel free to to reach out and and I'm gonna put that back up really quickly. Colorful, I hopefully I spelled that all right. Uh colorfulcapes of feelings.com. Yes. Um, and really take advantage of those uh resources. Order the book, of course.

SPEAKER_02: 20:53

And where can they order the book? Let's talk about that too. That's a good question. So it's on Amazon and many different countries. Um, on obviously the United States, you can get it at those, they are all paperback covers. If you want a hard copy, you can get it at Walmart, Barnes and Noble, and Books a Million right now. Love that. And and I'm gonna right now the Amazon on the website. There's actually a link to the Amazon, but I'm also gonna add the Walmart and the Books a Million and the Barnes Noble. So it's very surreal and very exciting.

SPEAKER_00: 21:24

Oh, I can imagine. And when should we be expecting the next book? So you said possibly December. So is there like a pre-launch or a link or anything? Get our hands on all of it.

SPEAKER_02: 21:36

Oh my gosh, the website's gonna have all the information, but I am trying my hardest to get Mariah's book out before Christmas. Um, the illustrator, it's really in the illustrator's hands right now, and she's amazing, but it does take time. And so we're trying to do this because Miles' book took about eight months, and this one will be cut in half by half that. So we'll see, man. I'm pushing. If not, probably January or February, but I'm hoping December. And that's Mariah's book. And then my other little two-year-old Micah, he has a book coming early spring next year. Yep. And then I have another book, and it's called Mommies Have Big Feelings Two. And it's gonna be a children's book, and it comes out probably in the fall of next year.

SPEAKER_00: 22:21

Are we like soul sisters from the dry and the wet climate? Oh, I love that. I love it. Oh yeah, it's so great. In fact, I was just I had these here. I'll I'll show them to you after we get off because I'm not promoting my books right now. No, but I would have them for yours. Um but yeah, it's what a great process. And the fact that you integrated your own experiences, I think is so important because yes, there's so many books about, you know, other lists of things or whatever. But when you talk about and talk about kind of your own experiences when you go through things and you put that out for others to to learn from, there's such a connecting point and a relativity that people in your community can get and really support and um just celebrate all of that. And so thank you so much for the wonderful value that you're bringing to to the amazing people around you and all of the children and moms and dads, because it really does um take all of you to kind of access that neutral field of of communication to then be able to discuss all of the various levels outside of that. Um yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_02: 23:55

And I think that um I think that it takes a village, and so the I wanted to create something that not only parents could use, but teachers and medical providers, and because it does, it takes a village, and and you can't always do it alone. So it's been an amazing journey. And in the book, Miles actually presents these capes to different friends in the book who need them based on their emotions, and um, it's just based on his true life story of his resilience, and um yeah, he's he really is the superhero, his he's the inspiration behind it all, and and I envision, and my goal really is I envision a world where this book helps kids feel less scared of their emotions and can find ways to embrace them and and celebrate them.

SPEAKER_00: 24:52

Yeah. And I love that you're putting it out there because another big spotlight we need to have and shine on it is that emotions are okay. They are trend, you have to transcend through them, you have to teach your child how to embrace and process and release all of those. Um, and you can only do that from a space of your own practice. You can't teach you not know or you don't know how to present. So practice yourselves, moms and dads, and then you can be the masters of practicing your own with your children's feelings as well.

SPEAKER_02: 25:34

Well, that is so true, and they model what you do. Really, really modeling is the best way to teach your kids how you want them to act. Um I mean, they they they're so enamored by you as little kids, and you're you're their superhero, you're their life, you're their their breath. And so if you can, if you can model that, oh my gosh, I'm frustrated right now. I'm just gonna take a really deep breath, or I'm gonna scream into my pillow, and they're gonna watch you. And the more you do that, they're gonna do that too. Um, you know, and so I try to always, I've done a lot of work on myself as well. And girl, I'm still going. It's it's it's constant ongoing process, yes, always. I love that. Yeah, yes, and so I think because parents come to me and they're like, okay, we love your book, but how do we do it? Like, how do we do this? Like, I need practical advice, not just like reading it. And I and I put, I actually have a lot of blogs on the website about how to parent this way. So that's been the nice part of being able to um give you actual actionable steps. And so if you go to the website and click the blogs, you'll see like, how do I do this? How do I do that? And it just gives you things that you can work on daily to get closer to that and help your kids get closer to that embracing emotions.

SPEAKER_00: 27:01

So that is colorfulcapes of feelings.com. Go check out the book, get your books, get your uh probably notifications or alerts or whatever you need for other other information. Subscribe if she has an email list and also support on social media. Talk about that. Where are you at on social media?

SPEAKER_02: 27:22

Yeah, so we do have an Instagram page, um, and it's called Colorful Books. I think. Oh my gosh, I gotta look. I'm so bad about Instagram. Okay, good. I'm trying so hard to be better about Instagram. It's called colorful underscore feelings dot books, is what okay? So yes, we I am getting there. That's the part of it.

SPEAKER_00: 27:45

Right. What is my social media again? Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_02: 27:52

That's why I was like, Let me everybody ask me that, and I'm like, what is my Instagram name again?

SPEAKER_00: 27:58

Oh, fantastic. It's been so nice to talk to you today, and thanks for taking the time out. And I'm glad that the um say Micah, right, was able to get to his little nap so that we can chat.

SPEAKER_02: 28:13

And I know it, he's right here sleeping.

SPEAKER_00: 28:15

Oh, thanks for introducing us to Miles and Mariah too. And um, it's been so much fun having you on. And I'd love to invite you to come back with the other books and things like that so that we can talk more about those and and promote it, of course.

SPEAKER_02: 28:33

Absolutely. I will be back on any day, anytime you let me know. I'll keep you updated on when when the next launch is in my crazy life already.

SPEAKER_00: 28:42

We'll make sure to follow each other on social medias personally and everything so we can keep in touch. So, thank you so much for your time today. This has been so much fun, and I look forward to staying in touch. Yes, thank you again for everything.