Hereâs a basic concept I share with people I coach and is applicable to anyone after their worldâs turned upside down.
Now that life isnât as it was and you canât BE and DO like before, youâre in a liminal spaceâyouâre neither here nor there.
Youâre asking profound questions about:
And
Youâre asking these questions because life is now forever different.
And to become the new version of yourself you need to create new options.
As you cobble yourself back together.
As you fit yourself into your new normal.
Three principles can help you create new options under these circumstances:
1. Problem-solve for today not tomorrow.
2. Give extra attention and value to intuition.
3. Have lots of conversations.
For parents...
Most of the time I see this concept worded differently.
People are trying to âovercomeâ their challenges.
For me, that puts a negative spin on it.
It implies winning a fight â an act of exclusion.
It makes it seem as if challenge is something to avoid or put behind us.
This perspective holds us back from exploring and experiencing life in its fullest.
Life has chapters and episodes and events that end. But only in a sense.
Because if weâre learning from adversity then weâre growing.
Each âendingâ becomes integrated into who we are.
So I prefer to talk of handling challenge.
This word allows for embracing something we might prefer to not deal with.
We allow ourselves to be...
When a child gets a catastrophic medical diagnosis the parentâs identity gets disrupted.
Itâs no longer anchored in the same well-defined groups and associations as before.
Because of time constraints but also because of different needs, interests, and priorities, itâs easy to get isolated.
And itâs easy to beat yourself up thinking about not doing and beingthe same as beforeâŚ
â All the things youâre no longer getting done...
â All the people with whom youâve lost connectionâŚ
At the same time you know itâs impossible to be the same person because life is irrevocably and fundamentally different.
And giving yourself grace as you adapt will help you cope better.
As you make mistakes and do it messy.
As you make the most of each dayâ
Angela just stepped away from 35 years of high-level leadership in the US federal government.
Her perspective and experience as a Black leader is painful and revealing:
â âThey called me strong. But what that really meant was âYou can take more.â âŚ
â âStrongâ wasnât support. It was silence wrapped in praise.â
Martha, âheroâ mom to a disabled child with cerebral palsy, created a space and services for other families like hers in Kumasi, Ghana.
â Sheâs getting an award for being âstrong, compassionate, and inspirational.â
â âA testament to whatâs possible when empathy meets action.â
What do these two women have in common?
They both HAD to be strong, to work exponentially harder than the norm BECAUSE society didnât support them.
In Marthaâs case, she broke out of isolation as a single mom raising her child in a society that offered her no support.
Angela was simply a Black woman in the USA doing her job.
What many of us donât see behind the veil of strength is sheer necessity.
...
Untitled piece by unknown author
Grief is proofâŚ
That you can feel your own heart breaking.
Grief is terrifyingâŚ
Because itâs impossible to fix the cause of all this pain.
Grief is lonelyâŚ
Even in a crowd of people. Because the only one you want to talk to is the one you canât reach.
Grief is quietâŚ
When you try to connect with the one who is gone.. and your questions are met with silence.
Grief is exhaustingâŚ
Constantly fighting against the current of reality and just wanting to wake up from this nightmare.
Grief is heavyâŚ
Trudging along in these new unrecognizable days in a world now unfamiliar to you.
Grief is a measureâŚ
Of the emptinessâŚ
Of the painâŚ
Of the love you are still carrying for them.
And will forever.
âAuthor unknown
#BoldBecoming
#MastersOfChange
#GriefAndLoss
One of the skills a parent with a child with special needs perfects is advocacy.
Just because laws, regulations, services, and programs exist doesnât mean treatment and services are handed over on a silver platter.
Reality can be the opposite.
You often fight tooth and nail to get what your child needs.
Medical and educational service delivery becomes and ongoing part of life.
Even when you lose a percentage of these battles you never give up. After all, youâre really the only one going to bat for your child.
You often donât get enough rest or support with daily responsibilities of parenting and running a household.
This comment Shilpi gave on another of my posts says it all:
â âWe are allowed to take up space in our own lives, even in hard seasons.â
It was in response to a story of how my mom committed to reading half an hour a day, regardless of what happened to us kids.
The thin...
One of the most important things I teach parents with a child with a catastrophic medical diagnosis is to treat reality as reality.
What does that mean?
When things arenât the way we want them to be, sometimes we try to twist reality.
We may:
â Pretend what is ISNâT really as it is.
â Get on a hamster wheel coming up with reasons it SHOULDNâT be as it is.
â DENY and ignore reality.
These are just some of the ways we unnecessarily deplete precious time and energy.
Theyâre coping mechanisms to deal with reality when thereâs just too much pain and uncertainty.
And there are better ways.
Here are three ways to cope more effectively that help you face reality head on:
1. Lower expectations
2. Measure productivity differently
3. Take time to grieve.
Life isnât now, and may never be, as it was before.
With a serious medical condition the individualâs current lifestyle changes. Their life trajectory changes.
The trick here is to lower expectations to match reality WHILE keeping...
I read a Facebook post where a person talked about not letting her disease define her.
It reminded me of how far Iâve come.
My health challenges, that started when I was 21, used to take center stage. They definitely defined me.
I havenât overcome my health challenges.
I still adapt every minute of every day because of them but they no longer take up center stage.
These were my remarks to the post :
For parents with a child with a catastrophic medical diagnosis it may feel all but impossible not to define yourself around your caretaker role. Around your circumstances.
Iâm here to tell you itâs possible to put yourself back in the pictu...
I wonder if the way we train students to learn is shortsighted?
Does it become an unhelpful, ingrained way of living?
In school, weâre rewarded for upholding expectations by following the syllabus and striving for a great final grade.
I wonder if this kind of schooling later contributes to so many peopleâs reluctance to go off course?
Explore?
Take risks?
Become someone unimaginable?
Does it put us in a straight jacket?
Iâm pretty sure we miss out on SO much because of these kinds of predetermined outcomes.
There are different ways to teach and learn.
Ways that encourage curiosity, exploration, and walking blindfolded into the wilderness, aspiring to discover whatâs there and be changed because of it.
There was once a wonderful humanitari...
Wherever Iâm heading â I donât want to be there.
Today I was driving on the first ugly road since moving to Portland a month ago.
It was a bunch of industrial buildings, few trees, and hideous road repair for miles on end.
Driving back from my destination I couldnât take it anymore. Traffic light after traffic light jammed with miles of traffic.
I took a right turn.
I didnât check my GPS I just went off course because where I was heading wasn't my final destination anyway.
Sometimes in life, we need to go off course even if we donât have a map.
First make the decision.
Then figure out how youâre going to get to where youâre going next.
Believe it or not, we CAN take a few turns without instructions.
We can make decisions without consulting ChatGPT. Or Yelp. Or ⌠anything.
Decide first then figure it out.
If you allow uncertainty to be okay, youâll be amazed at w...
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