Keep dancing! It cures everything. love, peace and feelin' Guru V.
One solution: P.U. People for Urgency. Because feeling isolated stinks. More about this and the Time-Out Room within the next week. Keep dancing! It cures everything. love, peace and feelin' Guru V.
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These boots are made for walkin'! Kicking the autism blues goodbye and taking it on the road!!!! CONTACT ME ASAP IF YOU WANT US TO VISIT YOUR AREA!!!
#7 fact - BE PREPARED...do your research or you may be left with only your assumptions. Many times the school districts rely on the parents being uninformed and appreciative of ANY help. Many families, as well as mine, assume that the other party has their best interest at hand. Unfortunately many of us have not found this assumption to be true, nor have we felt our family values being honored in the process. That is why we have the law, our intellect and intuition. It is essential to be armed with the law and know what you want. I will clarify a few of the laws that I feel are pertinent later in my facts series. If you are unsure where to research, please ask for help. Clarity also helps. I find it helpful to draw a chart, like a goals map for example. I usually hang it on my wall. This is helpful in my daily life, special education negotiations, doctor visits, relationships and nearly all decisions and life endeavors. #6 - We have an epidemic of disconnection. Q - How do you stay connected? How do we? #5 - Where there is water, there is swimming!! Wooo hooo. first swim of the Spring, but this rule truly applies to any water, any time and any place. :)
#4 - Wherever you go, there you are...w/good people...Guru V People. SHOUT OUT TO MY PROVIDENCE PEEPS. Thank you Bradley Hospital and Ronald McDonald House...we are grateful and will miss you. Stay in touch. #3 - Anger creates blocks when it is held on to and revisited. I am angry at a few entities...attempting to create action vs. resentment. #2 - Psychiatrists are indeed MD's with an additional residency in psychiatry beyond medical school. Therefore, all medical testing, prevention and methods should be exhausted prior to treatment with psychotropic meds and in order to ensure that long-term side effects are avoided. Children w/autism, as well as many other similarly-diagnosed individuals are treated w/PT's first due to behavioural symptoms. #1 - The parents' team membership on the IEP team gets only one vote, no matter how many family members, professionals and community members they bring to the meeting. The school gets one vote per each representative. Room for change. Starting today in honor of my favorite number and the fact that we have been doing the Guru V Minute for 25 weeks now...I want to do a 25 day/25 facts according to Zen Jen project! These are my truths. Some funny. Some sad. Some infuriating! Many hopeful! Be well and stay tuned for our next adventure! Keep feelin' Guru V and grateful. love and peace, zen jen and her gurus INTUITION. NOW. TRUST. COMPLETE. PREVENTION. LOVE. ACT. hand in hand we glide with love our silly random lives in sync with none as waves of chaos and clever anecdotes sum up and total our perfect global impact as we sustain and entertain with jumps and songs and weeeees and rolls on green green grass where lovely souls giggle and grow we're blessed to know the pain of loving the gift of giving life every moment a pleasure impossible to measure the sacred journey of these three letters M. O. M. me 5/8/2011 We are raised on comparison; our education is based on it; so is our culture. So we struggle to be someone other than who we are. - J. Krishnamurti Although I am a believer in inclusion, I sometimes entertain going along with society. I wonder if it is right to isolate my child, some criminals, some types of brilliance and other 'anti-social' types from the mainstream...'so they and society can operate optimally.' This belief is reasonable when you consider the amount of stimuli and imposed expectations we place on ourselves in order to achieve our maximum capacity. If we reduce expectations, create a less-stimulating environment, engage more on a one-on-one basis, focus more on responsibility than instant gratification, take time to connect, establish healthy habits and boundaries, encourage the use of each individual's motivation, stay productive, kind and courteous....then the world will be at peace again. This seems to be the standard for institutional settings, but we must ask ourselves if these settings have made our society as a whole, better, as we expected them to be. The written bylaws that many 'corrective' or 'rehabilitative' settings create to distinguish themselves from other mainstream settings can be intended to re-integrate, but their rigidity can create the fear instead. Evidence of how this manifests in my own life is illustrated by my tendency to be offended by those who do not see the world as I see it. I fear them. I want to change them. I fear their actions and how they may affect me and my life. Instead I could pay attention to my own experience and let it teach without forcing or willing it on another due to my own impatience and intolerance. My own reaction is contradictory to my belief system. I believe that we are our enemies, our friends, our family members, our most offensive and exceptional members of the universe. WE ARE ONE ANOTHER. Last week, I took the time to hear some stories of individuals in recovery and I heard parts of my own story in theirs. I loved them. I felt sad for the pain they endured and their triumph over a negative force in their lives. I suppose that is why I share our story. Our suffering and our triumphs are so unique and yet so universal. For example, I have recently entertained an isolated setting for my son while he has been in an autism unit at a well-known psychiatric hospital in Rhode Island. Initially I felt like the level of isolation there is so great that it was like having him in prison, yet he had not done anything intentionally harmful. I was so terrified. I still am. I also know that those who work there and make the decisions have love, compassion and great wisdom. And yet with all this expertise and compassion, the engagement level seems very low. I am not certain why, but I know that my own ego has put up walls of fear. The struggle within me is constant and he has definitely been unsafe. Some may even use words such as aggressive, violent and forceful. I am very sensitive to the assumptions and associations that could be made by those who hear or use these words so I myself have purposefullly avoided them. Recently I read a chapter by Thich Nhat Hanh about engaged buddhism - The societal service of meditation. I read it aloud here. If you prefer to only here my moments of clarity commentary about this passage, they are in the six minute video. The actual reading is in the longer one. My reading confirmed that I want my children included in society...NO MATTER WHAT. This has always been my goal, my belief and my passion behind everything I do. We all must be included in order for our world to truly experience peace and love. I am humbly meditating on my own ability to create connectedness and reduce my own fear...I hope you will do the same. Love to you all. . |
Zen JenA mom with passion, action and an inclusion revolution on her mind shares moments, mantras & wisdom gained from her autism adventures. A single mama of two children on the spectrum, whom she considers Archives
September 2015
Guru V People
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Please know that I am a poet and a scientist...so how I deal with discomfort is I ask questions, I manipulate words and rhythms and I dance around issues that I feel strongly about. When I use the word dance, please know that I am no ballerina...I prefer sharp, awkward maneuvers that express my passion. So when I dance around issues, there is no guessing how I feel about them...take nothing personal but please
take action. zen jen |