Trisha Walker: 0:00

Previously on Seeds for your Marriage. We're going to talk about going from the devastation of losing a child to becoming parents who do foster to adopt, and how to do that in a way that allows your marriage to still be a priority.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 0:17

We have Facebook. That we created for him just to honor that season in our life and you can go and look at it anytime. Baby Solomon Chaconi. King David said this about him I see that the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken for his right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad and my tongue shouts his praise.

Katie Ciccone: 0:36

Back to the hospital when I found out that after I had gotten on a surgery, they ended up having to do a hysterectomy to save my life, basically. And so Giuseppe comes in and brings the news to me and I don't know, I must have been really drugged because I was like, well, that's okay, we'll just adopt. But it always had been something in my heart.

Katie Ciccone: 1:01

So obviously it wasn't as bubbly, but really, even if I was drugged or whatever, when somebody is not themselves, they still speak from their heart. The truth comes out. So it was in my heart something that I wanted all along and we always wanted a big family and so we said, okay, we'll just do that. After five years of kind of going through all the different possible ways doing a private adoption, I know you guys have been through that whole process as well.

Katie Ciccone: 1:32

But somebody early on said no, you guys should just do foster care. And I was hard against it because I was still really grieving the loss of my baby. But over time we warmed up to the idea, went through foster care classes, all that we posted on Facebook the day we got our license and I get an immediate direct message from a friend of ours who I knew had been fostering and said hey, you want to come over sometime and just chat? It's like okay. So we went over there the following Sunday after church and I was immediately greeted by this bubbly little redhead, bouncy, three-year-old, and he said I have two issues to then.

Katie Ciccone: 2:16

And just, I'm Charlie Hope. She and her sister had been fostered by this family and we sat down with them and just talked and when the kids were not present, they said okay. So here's the situation and said would you guys be open? We know that God is calling us a different direction in foster care and we know that you guys have a heart to adopt. So we said yeah, in faith. You know, let's pursue that.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 2:45

We knew and I remember us pulling away from their house and we just looked at each other and we knew that those girls were going to be our kids. Yeah, we just knew.

Katie Ciccone: 2:53

Yeah, they moved in six months later and were adopted one year later, and so it's definitely been a big journey with them.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 3:01

They were three and five when they moved in God's hand was all over that, because that's not how the system works.

Katie Ciccone: 3:06

So no, yeah, no, we had a lot of favor in that they got to come to our family. You know, typically not the way it goes, but God knew that they would, that's Skyler and Charlie. Yeah, yeah.

Thomas Walker: 3:22

And how old are they now?

Katie Ciccone: 3:24

13 and 11. Wow, some teenage girls now.

Thomas Walker: 3:29

Wow, which is a whole other story Right.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 3:34

They still like to be, they still like to be rocked and they go back to those baby moments now. Yeah, they still are little girls. Yeah.

Katie Ciccone: 3:44

I definitely feel like God. I joke that he tricked us into doing foster care because that was not the way we wanted to do it and we went into foster care to adopt which I would not recommend doing for anybody and when we finally were in the foster care system our hearts were just moved for that whole system and everything that. You know what the kids have gone through, the trauma they've gone through and the love that they need. And so I always joke that he tricked me into being a foster parent because that was not my goal. But I love, yeah, my heart is for that now.

Trisha Walker: 4:25

Yeah, and they have Dan's a half brother of theirs, no biological.

Katie Ciccone: 4:31

No biological connection. Okay, but you.

Trisha Walker: 4:34

Chanel, you have a third baby and I remember him. He's five now.

Thomas Walker: 4:39

Oh my goodness, he's five, yeah, yeah.

Trisha Walker: 4:41

Yeah.

Katie Ciccone: 4:42

Yeah, yeah, we, in between the time that we fostered them and he came, we fostered another little boy and he got to go back with his birth family, which is a beautiful story Tell a little bit that one too. How that happens. And then we got a call that there was a little boy in the hospital and you can get him tomorrow. And he was three days old when we picked him up from the hospital and he's been with us ever since.

Trisha Walker: 5:08

Wow, that's an incredible story, just an incredible story of just allowing God's love for you and his love for all of his children just to shine through and to embrace. You know, all of his children as you know your children. That there's no hierarchy I guess that's what we see. We see you, guys, when you were here, when you were living here and you were, you had Rocco there and in the other three children they were just all the same. You treated them all the same. You love them all the same. There's no special privilege or whatever for one or the other.

Thomas Walker: 5:45

And you also are very thoughtful about giving each of them what they need right You're very in touch with.

Thomas Walker: 5:50

okay, here's Skyler, here's her personality, here is the call on her life, here's what we see Holy Spirit doing. So you're very adaptive to each child is what I've also observed, and that's just exactly how the father is with all of his children. You know where we each have our unique relationship and he gives us what we need. Yeah, he loves us all, the same, but same but different right Based on what we're wired, based on our individual identities. So I have a. I've seen the grace, giuseppe, that you both you and Katie parent with, and just the love that you have, and I can just see so many special moments that you create, like the other day I saw ice cream. You know, sometimes you just got to get away and spend time with the kids and I love that post, and if I haven't liked it yet, I will wait until then. I guess what I'm, what I'm after here is A little bit about how you parent with the father's heart and any tips about parenting yeah, parenting tips for Giuseppe and Katie.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 6:52

I have some thoughts that come to mind. You know these kids, all of them Rob, and all of them biological doctors. They're doing the best that they can and we just need to get on their level and connect with them. We need to connect with them and connection is the biggest thing that has always brought us back. You know, if I'm forgetting, katie will ask me what's your goal right now. If she's forgetting, I will ask her what's your goal right now? And we know the answer. The answer is always. It doesn't change. The answer is always oh, connection, yeah, and so that's my biggest thing.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 7:31

That sticks with me is am I connecting right now or am I trying to be more convenient for myself or am I? You know, and it can get very challenging Working, you know, working hard, being an entrepreneur, also working side job, you know all the things like so many things. And then the kid comes up. You know, go into school full time and the kid comes in the office and you're like in it, and they're like hey, can I tell you something about school? And it's so easy and I've done it to just say hey, not right now. But I'd like to think that more often than not I'm like wait connection, because I won't have that moment back, you know. So connection is a big deal for me personally.

Katie Ciccone: 8:20

Yeah, and I think what you said about the father's heart you know. I think it's our responsibility as parents to show the kids a picture of what the father, what his heart for us, is. And there's a lot of opinions about how we should parent and all that. But really we just need to go to our word and you know how does he treat us and you think of stories of the prodigal son and just like how much the father loved that son even though he didn't deserve it. You know, based on, you know, natural principles.

Katie Ciccone: 8:56

And how can we do that? How can we love our children through their mistakes and walk away from a punishment kind of culture? Because you know, I think generations past have worked on, you know that's been their mainframe and there's new advice, there's new realizations. We don't have to live off of an old parenting paradigm and we might look counter, you know, whatever the previous culture is. But you know there's so much about helping kids heal from trauma and helping ourselves heal from trauma and rewiring our brains and the kids' brains to be able to make healthy pathways and healthy connections so that they can function in the world, you know, and not have to heal from our bad parenting.

Katie Ciccone: 9:51

So showing up after the father does, in so much love and so much grace, all the while except in the fact that we're humans. So it requires a lot of apologies and a lot of like oops, I messed up, let's try again.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 10:06

Yeah, I agree with you. It's a recognition of trauma. I mean, that's a bigger deal than I think people pay attention to and that's for everybody. It's not just for a dog or a dog or whatever. It's all of us. It's all of us.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 10:21

I think it's only been 22, 20 something years that trauma has been a thing that people study and go after. So anybody before that age was also parenting and they were parenting in trauma and they were being traumatic and they don't even know what it was. And now we have a bunch of, you know, 30 year olds running around trying to parent and trying to get out of this cycle of trauma that's plagued them for so long and thinking that the Bible is going to fix everything and it's not because, if that was the case, that all these years trauma would not even. You know what I'm saying. Like the thing that's going to fix it is recognizing his presence, staying connected to the father, staying connected to our kids and recognizing that there's trauma happening from the day that sin entered into this world. Trauma is a real thing and we can heal from it, because we are healed from it is the truth. You asked about the truth.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 11:18

The truth is that we are completely healed from it and we get to see that fully manifest by us recognizing it, by opening our eyes to it.

Trisha Walker: 11:28

Yeah, that's really good, that's really important just to be. I thank you for sharing that because could you both are saying well, you know, how can I show up in parent from the father's heart, how can I show them the father's love for them? But if you don't know that for yourself, if your lens is through trauma and through how you grew up with all of these maybe negative experiences or traumatic experiences, or maybe your view of who the father is is not who he really is, the truth of who he really is Then it can be, there can be a disconnect and how to show up for your children and show that to them. So I do agree it's healing from that trauma and starting to really press into the truth of the word of who God says he is and who he says he is as the heavenly father. Right, jesus would always go and talk about his father in heaven. Right, so for us to be able to know the truth of who he is as our father and then, naturally, we can start showing that to our children.

Thomas Walker: 12:34

Yeah, and I think it also then brings in like Giuseppe you talked about, or Katie no, you said a lot of apologies and I think that's so important the level of vulnerability and humility that it begins to introduce, which is so critical in relationships and walking things through, because when we do make mistakes, it's less about the mistake itself most often, and more about how we deal with it and the way we respond in wanting to make amends, but then not just saying I'm sorry and doing it again, Like there needs to be that change, like that repentance, to say, wow, I really understand how this impacted you, Giuseppe, in your words, how this broke our connection or it hurt our connection, and my goal is to stay connected with you. And so here is what I'm going to do, and so I think it's that level of individual ownership and accountability and what we bring to the relationship and the things that that we need to address, not only in our own hearts, but also in how we show up and relate to one another. And when we get to that place and you're building that community you're building, I can see you building that into your children as well. Like the other day, I live on your Facebook. I'm sorry, I just got to bring it up, but like whenever I guess it would maybe it was Skyler broke the banister right there and you're just like.

Thomas Walker: 13:57

I can only imagine how I would have responded. And I have to say, I love, I love how you respond. You're like okay, that's like we're going to take a trip to home depot, it's like this is going to cost your allowance and so you taught her consequence. But you didn't. You didn't go the route of punishment to get there. Right.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 14:15

And she'll never forget that. That's right, she's still brain, yeah.

Thomas Walker: 14:24

It's just so much grace. So yeah, it's beautiful, just happy.

Trisha Walker: 14:28

So I do want to say that now, how many years later since you've been diagnosed with MS, you are now on this journey. Where have you been officially diagnosed, as like, in remission or it's called relapsing.

Katie Ciccone: 14:44

Yeah, they probably would never take it off of his medical record just because of MS. And it doesn't matter if they do or not, because it's.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 14:54

there's the truth in the universe. What's true? So? But like, yeah, it's.

Trisha Walker: 14:58

it's supposedly very aggressive and God is sustaining me, so yeah, praise God, yeah, so you, I mean you've just maybe want to share a few minutes of just that journey and just your health journey and where you're at now.

Thomas Walker: 15:16

Yeah, and while you do that, just like yeah, I'd like you to just go right into your health journey and then go right into you and Katie and how you're really empowering and helping others realize their health journey as well. Yeah, yeah.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 15:32

For me when I got diagnosed. It answered a lot of questions from the symptoms that we were experiencing that I was experiencing and she was experiencing with me and I began to make some decisions. We made decisions together to begin to look at our health holistically. What's going on Like is there anything that we can do? Because we had so much trust and faith that God was going to completely, radically heal my body that we were going to do whatever we can from our standpoint to run alongside him, Like he's going this direction so I want to go with him. So how can we make better decisions every day to be alongside that? That? What we believe is ultimate health? You know, we believe that our body is to prosper and be in health, just as our soul is prospering.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 16:20

And a lot of people say, well, that's not for Well, it's for a lot of things, it's for more things than we realize. And so, anyways, began to eat differently. We tried so many different things, all in the effort of trying to be healthy. I mean, we were vegan for two and a half years. I did so many different programs to try to get healthy. I was at my max weight when I was diagnosed. I was at 315 pounds and for just for comparison, today I think I'm at about 210. So there was a big difference from then until now. But I just remember saying like I got to change something and we read a book, a large portion of a book, called the More Excellent Way by Dr Henry Wright, which is a supernatural book on the spiritual roots to diseases, and that really was an eye opener for us. We realized that there was five links to this disease rheumatoid arthritis, small dysphorosis, bipolar, other things and it was interesting because they were all linked and then everybody in my family had something on that list.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 17:31

And so it's just a really interesting thing to begin to go after and we're still searching, we're still trying to understand. But fast forward. We, through all of the education that we received and all of the different programs there was truth in all of them, like there's truth. No matter what program we did we learned something about our health and it all kind of culminated into this one thing that we are doing now, which is more of a holistic thing, but everything that we're doing right now, like the knowledge pulls from all of those things and we're so happy to have found something that kind of ties it all together with a pretty bow that's repeatable. You know something that makes sense. You know because our bodies are complex. So those are some of the thoughts that I that come to mind, without getting too specific, but I'll leave some space for you to read it for me.

Katie Ciccone: 18:22

Yeah, no, I mean ultimately what we're doing now. One of the biggest steps in our health was having a coach, having somebody to hold us accountable. It started with him. He, he made the decision. I thought I was just great, but that's a different story. And so he she was great.

Katie Ciccone: 18:39

Yeah, he needed something as a change, and he was continually not to be rude, continually failing to try to do it on his own, and so he needed real, true accountability. And so we connected with a coach of ours through God, really, and she, she walked him through the program that we currently are using, the habits of health, and it's just as simple as just having healthy habits every single day that are repeated, like he said, and on nutrition and beyond fitness. Yeah.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 19:15

And full lifestyle shift.

Katie Ciccone: 19:18

But immediately he started losing weight and feeling better. And I mean, what we've learned in all of this is you know the way autoimmune diseases are related to inflammation and that's very, very simple, but it's so key and vital. And so as soon as we cut out, you know, refined sugars and refined carbohydrates and all that stuff, like he has no symptoms, Like his body is responding so well. He went to a neurologist in California and he's like I don't know what you're doing, Whatever you're doing, just keep doing it, Cause I don't see any signs of MS in your body.

Trisha Walker: 19:59

You know so it's number one, Holy spirit.

Katie Ciccone: 20:02

And number two, taking personal responsibility for our health.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 20:06

Jesus, jesus is boosted, yeah, and it says very clearly that wisdom that we receive through our journey, that that is the Lord.

Katie Ciccone: 20:15

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's just feeling amazing in our own bodies and showing up for ourselves and our kids daily.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 20:25

So I lost 60 something pounds. She lost 25 pounds and we've been able to keep it off and it's it's an everyday journey, like every day. Tomorrow we'll wake up and say, lord, like, what do we need to do right now? And we still have our moments where we do eat refined sugars. We're not cutting everything out and saying everything's bad. However, it's way way less. Much more accountability, much more awareness of what we're actually doing to ourselves, and it's been just such a powerful journey. So that's the transformation that we have and we love sharing that with others.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 21:02

You know I see people online all the time because that's where I spend a lot of my time, especially being out here in Tennessee. There's not in this in Western Tennessee, where it's a little bit rural and there's not a lot of community happening out here, because people are hard workers and they're in the factories and they're doing stuff and they're not available to just spend time together. It's not the same, and so online is where we connect with people. Even our local friends is online first, and so just seeing the hope release, people responding and sending us messages, or that was so encouraging when we talk to them on the phone or whatever just being able to tell people like you can do this too, like this is not rocket science, this is easy.

Thomas Walker: 21:46

You just need a friend and accountability and to say yes, to yourself so that's so good and I can say that I'm a proud pupil of Giuseppe. So 35 pounds less and I've been able to keep it off as well. So I can personally, you know, give a testimony and a strong word of endorsement to you and to Katie, because I know the love and the care by which you support and you service your clients and it's real to you. It's not just something that you're doing, it literally is who you are and part of your identity and part of your purpose. So you're bringing so much freedom to people in all realms of their life, giuseppe and Katie, and it's just. It's been an honor to be here with you these last 50 plus minutes. I think we're going to wind down and if you want to share more about how can folks find you and get in touch, and then any you know last words of wisdom that you might want to share for our listeners.

Katie Ciccone: 22:45

Yeah, I mean, it's just trilogycoach and you can take health assessments and see a bit of who we are. And, like you said, our Facebook pages are plastered with our life. We live it out loud and that's just who we are really. And I think that kind of ties into last minute wisdom.

Katie Ciccone: 23:03

I was thinking about that as we were going and I mean I would just say one thread that has woven in our journey, our life, our marriage, our 20 years together is, I would say, really, community is a big thing for us and putting yourself in the right rooms and as we've walked through different things, we've had to take ourselves out of rooms and put ourselves in the right ones, you know, in the right spiritual community, the right foster care community, the right health and wellness community, because you need that in support.

Katie Ciccone: 23:43

You know you can't, you can't live your life alone or quiet, in isolation. If your community is not serving you, is not pouring into your belief system and encouraging you, then you need to go find anyone and that's okay. And you know that it's that whole like public accountability, like that's why we live our life out loud, because I know, I know that my story, my health story, my foster care story is going to touch somebody's life and it's going to help. Every time I talk about it out loud, I'm now accountable to the things I said in public.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 24:22

It helps To stay connected to us is really simple. I mean for for Katie it's just KT Chakun. So at Katie Chakuni you can see she does she's daily posting really important stuff and it's really good. And then I try to keep up with her but I can't because she's too awesome. But my, my mates coach underscore just set me Chakuni. So those are the two ways you can really connect with us.

Trisha Walker: 24:55

Awesome. Thank you so much, and I actually, when last bit for me, I actually have benefited from his health journey. So, yeah, yeah, the sex is much better. So, thank you, thank you guys, you're welcome.

Thomas Walker: 25:14

Yeah, I was not expecting that I'm just going to appreciate the.

Giuseppe Ciccone: 25:18

Oh, I can tell Thomas is blushing. Look at his forehead.

Thomas Walker: 25:23

I'm blushing, oh my God, I'm just like, wow, we're moving on, all right, all right. Gee, I'm going to reach out about the next stage of health journey so I can get better and better. Well, we love you both. Have a wonderful rest of your day, and God bless you and we'll see you again soon. Thanks, Thanks so much Bye.

Trisha Walker: 25:49

Thank you for listening to Seeds for your Marriage with hosts Frisha and Thomas Walker. We pray this episode has given you tips and tools on how to thrive in your marriage. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Frisha and Thomas.

Thomas Walker: 26:06

We want to hear from you. Be sure to leave a review and let us know how we're doing. It's our desire that this podcast completely benefits you, so also, let us know future marriage topics that you would like to hear about.