Turning Challenge into Opportunity:My Own Life Journey |
Another great product from Cincopa The Chinese word for crisis contains within it the word opportunity. My life journey has been about those challenges and about turning each into an opportunity.
I had left a long career of teaching thirteen years ago because I became disabled by Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. That was, for me, a crisis. But just as all of the difficulties I have encountered became opportunities, this one too turned out to be a blessing.
In search of a cure, I attended many schools of healing and eventually became certified as an Eden Energy Medicine Practitioner, a Neuro Emotional Technique Practitioner, an Academy of Guided Imagery Practitioner, as well as in many other modalities. In addition, I have completed more than fifteen coach trainings, most of them long-term (one to three years), and my practice has grown through the power of attraction.
An ongoing recent challenge is my journey to overcome my physical disability from RSD and to walk without crutches. My goal is to eventually play basketball again. Several years ago, I climbed a 4-mile mountain on my crutches.
But crutches won’t work on the basketball court. So, I am working on it.
I have also run a half mile in 3½ minutes using my crutches, which is faster than I ran as an athlete before I became disabled. I am able to do that, because of my crutches, not despite them. In the same way, I have had success in my career and personal life, because of my ADHD, and not despite my ADHD.
I have overcome many challenges other than ADHD. I am also dyslexic. Because of dyslexia, at age 16½, I had still failed to learn how to read. A boyfriend rejected me when he realized that I could not read. To me, that came to mean that if I didn’t learn how to read, I might never have a boyfriend. So, I developed an avid interest in reading and began on a journey to teach myself to read. Within 6 months, I was placed in the high school’s Honor’s English class, reading a different classic each week. Today I speed-read and I am tri-lingual (Spanish, Hebrew, and English.) I became a teacher and did that for 34-years where I helped my students and their families to overcome their challenges.
I have also overcome food addiction. I am in recovery 34 years and am trained as a Recovery Coach. I had served as the Board Secretary for Recovery Coach International in 2007-2008.
As a parent I have had many challenges, which I write about in my life-lesson stories and in my e-story book.
Today I am grateful for all of the challenges because each part of that journey has led me to more and more wisdom and joy in my life.
I began working with people on the Autism Spectrum (ASD) as part of my ADHD practice, and from the moment each ASD client walked in the door or worked with me on the phone, I quickly saw how different ASD is from ADHD, even when their challenges outwardly appeared to be similar. What I discovered is that what works with ADHD may not be effective in helping the ASD client and what helps the person with ASD may not help with ADHD. Each challenge involves different parts of the brain and different sensitivities. It’s not effective to work with both in the same way.
I help both my ASD and ADHD clients to function in the world on their terms, so that they become the chooser instead of the victim. But not in the same way.
As many of my clients, I have experienced the frustration and powerlessness of being a mom of children on the spectrum. I have felt the embarrassment and the loneliness of being on the spectrum myself and of having close ones on the spectrum. I can share with you too, that today each person close to me is highly successful, living independently, and doing what they are passionate about.
In a search for answers, I have read almost every book on the market that was written by or about someone on the Spectrum. I have attended conferences and trained with the HANDLE (Holistic Approach to Neurodevelopment and Learning Efficiency) program which explains the Neurodevelopmental aspects of ASD and ADHD, the why’s and what to do’s in order to create better functionality through “gentle enhancement(sm)”, I am also a graduate of an Advanced Training in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) training, a very different but effective approach.
But most of what I have learned about the Spectrum has been from my own experience, from my clients and from their families who have so openly shared with me and for whom I have the greatest respect and admiration.
Today, those challenges have become my life work. Today my main focus and purpose are to help those on the spectrum and to train other professionals and parents, to partner with them and their family member to achieve what they may have thought was out of reach, to bring them to independence and high self esteem.
The Academy of Spectrum is about training coaches, parents and professionals to find the inner greatness of those on the Spectrum and to help them to express that greatness. It is about finding the potential in every professional, and in every spectrum client, and it is my privilege, and yours, to see that potential realized.
I share much more in more detail in my Life-Lessons Stories. Most of them are my personal stories and what I learned from each. If you feel you may benefit from those, please take a peek.
I look forward to connecting with you and to being of service to you in any area of the Spectrum.
