Those That Teach

I am sharing this article that I wrote in 1989, seven years before my daughter was born.  I was 23 years old.  I post it, not only because of it's indelible lesson, but because I am always amazed at the timing of its inception, and the path my life has taken.

Perhaps it's the timing and its content that is the message from the Divine - all things are connected, what we think we create, and our "now" is a path to our future. 

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Those that Teach   by Kathy Heck

The Beacon Editor's note: Kathy Heck is a staff trainer for the diocesan Department for Persons with Disabilities.  This story was included with the packet of information given to staff and volunteers at the department's staff day in August 1989.  

 

"Why do you think God created them?" 

That was a question I was asked from a co-worker while swimming with one of the individuals from our programs.  I stopped for a moment.

Why did I think that God created these people with developmental disabilities? This was a good question, yet it wasn't one that I couldn't answer.   In fact, I knew the answer right away, for I carry it within my heart.  Three words immediately came to mind: trust, simplicity, joy.

So often we go through life pondering the major questions of our existence: Why are we?  Why is there suffering?  What is my mission?  In the programs, we stress time and again that staff members are to be role models for these people, so that they will experience "normalization," and be integrated into the community.  How often do we stop and allow ourselves to be taught by these "special people"?

The man that I was swimming with was not a man who held a job or could cook a simple meal without assistance.  As a matter of fact, this man could not even speak a simple sentence.  Yet, what he can teach the world, is what Jesus himself came to teach: trust, simplicity, joy.

When asked by the Pharisees how the kingdom of God can be obtained, Jesus replied, "Be as children."  Trust. Simplicity. Joy.  These are the childlike qualities that make these people so special.  It is through these qualities that we are taught and ministered.  We are no longer those that are role models, but those that are served.  So often we get caught up in our crazy schedules and lives, that we act childish, rather than child-like.  The lessons we learn are not new, yet they are often forgotten.

Trust.  How hard is it to trust others? God? Ourselves?  God calls us to trust in his love for us, to trust that we will be provided for, to be as lilies in the field, to have faith.  And yet, so often we deny him that.  We decide that we can handle things without him, without prayer.  We demand at times to not only control ourselves, but others.  These people cannot survive without trust.  Their trust is so basic.  It is not as if they are trusting that their bills will be paid, or that the phone will ring.  They trust that they will be fed, clothed, and bathed.  Can we put our basic needs before God and trust that he will provide?

It is through their trusting so implicitly in the caretakers, that we learn about simplicity.  Simplicity.  How inviting is that word.  God calls each of us to live simple lives so that we can concentrate on those things of true importance: family, faith, and service.  Isn't it amazing that the lives of these people are so simple, that they don't even realize how well they are serving?  Why do we choose to make our lives so complex?  Why do we waste so much energy on things that only seem to create more distractions from the important things in life?

The final lesson is in joy.  Joy – how often we seek it, yet never find it?  Are we looking in the right places? Why is it that these people can experience joy so deeply? Why is it that they, the people who cannot read, cook, or make a bed, have found what we strive all our lives to find?  They trust.  They are simple.  Therefore, they have joy.

It is clear to me why God "created them" – to be role models for us.  It is by their example that we can find trust, simplicity, joy, ......God.

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The Barbie Townhouse Theory

When I was young, my friend had a Barbie Townhouse.  We would spend hours making sure that Barbie had the right clothes, the best furniture, great accessories.  

If we didn't have the most appropriate outfits for an occasion, we would sew them. If we didn't have the best furniture, we would build some.  We would spend an infinite amount of hours having Barbie play with her friends. We would use our very best imagination to create a life for Barbie that, frankly, anyone would want.  Those days for Barbie were filled with excitement, work, joy, laughter, friendship and love.

We never once had Barbie fight with her friends, come home from work angry, ask Ken if she looked fat or made any indication that she was not worthy.  We'd spend hours making sure that Barbie was, at the end of the day, happy. 

So my question to you is this:  If we spent so much time and love and energy creating a life for Barbie where we WANTED her to be happy, wouldn't God want the same for us?

Like the love and joy we used to create Barbie's Townhouse, so it goes with us. We never expected Barbie to question it, doubt it, or to question or doubt herself.   We wanted her to experience joy, love, friendship and laughter.  Period.

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Do You Hear What I Hear?

Yesterday I was in the grocery store and I overheard a woman speaking on her phone.  Her conversation went something like this. “Yeah, well, I don’t even know why I try.  It’s not going to work out for me anyway.  It never does. I can’t do anything right, and I certainly can’t do this.” 

I wondered if this woman actually HEARD what she was saying to herself.  Throughout our lives we will encounter people who are naysayers.  Pessimists.  People who believe that if you imagine good things happening to you, you will somehow jinx the process.  Those people are the people that Julia Cameron describes as being censors.  We all have them.  They are not the cheerleaders, optimists or champions.  They do not support our dreams or if they do, it is only superficial.  They are the doubters, the skeptics and cynics. These are the people that easily put the “buts” and “shoulds” into our thoughts.  They are the ones that keep the fear of soaring alive.

This woman in the grocery store clearly had heard those words before, and as a result, she believed them.  That belief about who she is influences every aspect of her life.  She may not know it, but on some subconscious level, she believes that she will always be a failure. The interesting thing is that she didn’t come into this world as a new born babe, saying those things to herself.   She had to be taught to think that way.  The doubters, skeptics and cynics are most often the people that have the greatest influence in our lives: our parents, our teachers, our bosses or co-workers.  And as a result of exposure to those limiting beliefs, many of us become our own worse censors.

It would be easy to place blame on those that have taught us to doubt.  Yet, that would not allow us to live our best lives.  Through no fault of their own, our censors also learned these false beliefs and integrated them into their own thoughts, actions and words. When we are able to sit back and observe that cyclical process, we are able to acknowledge the doubt and the pain without judgment.  It is then that we are able to release the blame and move forward.  

Moving forward may not be easy but when we are able to release fear and doubt and beliefs that limit our potential, we are able to soar and to feel free.  The first step to doing this is to listen to the words that we tell ourselves.  Do they tend to be more positive or negative? Are they truly YOUR words or did someone else say them to you?  Do you want to continue to believe the words or do you consciously choose to use other more positive words and affirmations?

What you say to yourself, the words you use, and the thoughts you think create your experience.  Whatever it was that the woman in the grocery store was pursuing, I am sure that she did not receive it.  Her words became her experience: it did not work out.

What words do you use?  Do you tell yourself not to trust, not to believe, not to hope?  Do you tell yourself that you are no good, or lazy, or incompetent?  Do you use the words like “should have” or “I can’t”?  Trend carefully, for these are the words that create your experience.

Yet there is something else here that is critical to consider; for although words like these are limiting, they are NOT the truth. The truth is that we are Sacred beings, and as sacred beings, we are sourced in the Divine, the Good. When we step into that truth, our words change:  “I CAN”, “I COULD if I choose”, “it IS possible”.

The next time you are on the phone talking about your hopes and dreams, listen to the words you use.

What is it that to you want to hear?

Creative Healing

19 years ago my life changed forever.  I guess you could say that of anyone who becomes a parent.  Yet unlike most women who become mothers, my journey into motherhood can be described as "special".

I won't bore you with all the details, but suffice to say, the moment my daughter was placed in my arms and she looked at me, I knew.  I knew that my life had changed; and I was in shock. I guess a mother does know her child best, and such was the case.  For when those slanted eyeslooked at me for the first time, I knew my daughter had Down syndrome.

For the past 19 years, I have journeyed with my daughter and have rode the ebbs and flows of life, accepting her for who she is.  Yes, I could espouse the virtues of the gifts of having a child with special needs.  Conversely I could inform you of the struggles and daily challenges of living with someone who has a disability or working with teachers and social workers defining what is "appropriate" in our free and appropriate education system.  Yet those details would not be able to clearly define the journey I have taken.  For those details are actions, are movement, but they are not the soul of the journey.

In her guide to recovering artists, Vein of Gold, Julia Cameron describes a "creative wound".  For Ms. Cameron, a creative wound is the result of a painful or stressful situation that immobilizes an artist's creative work.  For many artists, playwrights, and authors these traumas create a "block" that prevents the continuation of art. When I first read these words, I was was hit with an "a-ha moment".   Although Ms. Cameron's intent is to assist artists who are "stuck", I am fairly certain that she was not prepared to apply those words to my life situation. Yet, when I read those words, I knew that they could be; and it became clear to me what happened in that delivery room so many years ago.  My daughter's birth and subsequent diagnosis is for me, a creative wound.  As a parent, as a pro-creator, the experience could be nothing less.

Throughout the years, like so many other parents, I have learned to intellectualize my daughter's diagnosis.  I have learned to accept her for who she is and the impact that the disability has on our entire family.  Yet, all the years of therapy and support groups did not touch on the essence of what I have experienced, a creative wound; for the part of me that truly ached was my soul, my creative self.  I had in essence, created a child, a piece of art, that others deemed unacceptable.  The impact that has on one's spirit, can only be described as a shock to the creative system.  Unlike most of the people I know who have Ds, my daughter has an additional disability, a severe speech impairment known as apraxia.  This condition results in words that are not processed correctly through the synapses of her brain, and the words she speaks come out garbled. In addition to typical stares that may come in any communal experience such as church or the grocery store, when my daughter's words sound like abstract vocalizations, people become afraid.  To have created a child of whom others are afraid is a creative wound.  To watch my (then) young son be too embarrassed to have friends at his home because his sister could not speak, is a creative wound.  To comfort a younger daughter who is afraid to walk near her sister who may strike rather use words, is a creative wound. To struggle to understand her excitement and animation over something great that happened at school, and still not understand, is a creative wound.  To have looked forward to the day, when finally, in heaven, you can image yourselves talking to each other, is a creative wound. 

Yet graciously, Julia Cameron continues her thoughts by explaining, "it is the use of creativity that heals the creative wound.  Nothing else works."    And that is the key to moving forward.  Despite those years of therapy, support groups and glasses of wine with other moms, the one thing that has allowed me to journey forward is my continued creativity.

Each Wednesday morning for several years, I have taken a painting class.  Since the beginning of those classes I have experienced more of life - several miscarriages, years of unpredictable panic attacks and raised three children.  I have returned to work and promoted inclusive education.  I have volunteered, spoken publicly, sustained a loving marriage, and became "Friends" with others. Yet, through it all, I painted. 

I can talk with you about painting - it's mediums, it products, it techniques.  Yet, the greatest lesson I have learned about painting is this: it heals.  There comes a point in every piece I do that I want to put it down.  I don't like it.  I am not connected to it.  I can't see the end result.  Yet, inevitably, when I continue with the process, with the journey; when I push through it; the painting becomes art.

For me, there is is magic in knowing that what I experienced 19 years ago is not an intellectual wound but a creative one. For in being able to identify it as such, I now have the answers and the tools for healing it.  Through creativity, through right brain activity, through laughter, art, cooking, painting, sewing, dancing, playing, sports, pottery, writing, yoga, all creative wounds can heal.

My pro-creative wound has healed because of art.  It's the activity of creation and re-creation and knowing that can continue, which does the healing. For in acknowledging and using the tools of creativity, the Divine and Ultimate creation - my soul - has healed. 

Every spirit is worthy of soaring.

If you could choose one thing for yourself, what would it be?  And once you have chosen it, how would you get it?  Most people would say, "to be happy", "to lose weight", "to be successful", or some other variation of what could be described as soaring.  Similar to a kite, we all have the innate or structural ability to soar.  It's in our nature.  Yet, usually somewhere along the way to soaring, we lose our loft, or our ability to fly high.  That "downward draft" can manifest itself in so many ways: doubt, stress, anxiety, loss, grief, ailments, and fear.  That is where the kite tails come in.  At first glance, kite tails are decorative, creative, playful.  They help give the kite its "wow factor".  Yet, in reality they are much more, as they are the functional guidance system of the kite, and allow the kite to fly despite various conditions or "winds of change".

In order for each of us to soar, whether in our own personal growth journey, in our families, or at work, we need our own kite tails and the strategies to keep us aloft.   Just as the kite excels with it's own decorative guidance, so too we need our own creative strategies in order to fly.

I have spent a significant amount of my professional life working, supporting and advocating for people with disabilities.  There is a lesson that each person has given me; with my own daughter perhaps being my greatest teacher; and the lesson is this:  that regardless of where I am in my life and the challenges I face, there is something to be grateful for and that my spirit is worthy of soaring.

As a result of 25 years of creating person centered plans, I have come to learn that each of us has a number of natural strengths and abilities that at times are overshadowed by challenges, stressors and fears.  Those abilities are innate, but must also be acknowledged, nurtured and supported.  This is where creative strategies and intuitive coaching comes in; for in allowing ourselves to dream and coupling that imagination with intuitive, specific action steps, we can move forward and ignite our Infinite DoAbilities.