Tiny Buddha

Tag: disabilities

  • Being Grateful for the Peaceful Coexistence of Joy and Pain

    Being Grateful for the Peaceful Coexistence of Joy and Pain

    “It’s a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that, but if you are grateful for your life, then you must be grateful for all of it.” ~Stephen Colbert

    Life is not a war; you do not conquer it, nor do you overcome it. You simply accept that suffering is an inevitable and necessary rite of passage on our paths throughout life.

    No one is immune to pain; it is only dished out at different levels, and our own internal experience is incomparable. We share similar human experiences—that is the tie that binds us all together—but we cannot compare one’s suffering to the next because we are all individuals.

    We exist in a world filled with duality—light and darkness, good and bad, right and wrong as well as joy and suffering. One cannot survive without the other, so to embrace both wholly and have gratitude for their existence is essential to move forward beyond our hard times to a place of peace.

    The darkness will always be there, but to what degree we allow it to exist is up to us. We decide if it defines us, we decide if it controls our emotions, and we decide whether we peacefully cohabitate with it.

    For years I felt that I had been given an unfair shake in life. I watched and held together the people I love the most when they were broken in pieces on the floor. I gently picked them up and held them together until they healed, often sacrificing myself in the process.

    Some of my life’s challenges have resolved themselves completely, but some struggles will last a lifetime.

    My youngest son was diagnosed with autism at three and a half years old. I am incredibly grateful for his existence. I wouldn’t be who I am without him. The lifelong advocacy, care, and responsibility make you an especially hardy breed of mother.

    I struggled with tremendous guilt for so long when feeling burdened by his diagnosis and the impact it had on our family. Many parents of special needs kids suffer burnout, marriage failures, and depression at a much higher rate than other parents. It has been a constant fight for his education and social services, which created the warrior in me, but the right to exist in a world that doesn’t appreciate diversity shattered my heart.

    I struggled for so long trying to be less resentful and more positive. As much as possible, I fought to keep at bay the deep depression and PTSD I carried silently on my shoulders for years. I kept it hidden, as I never wanted my innocent son to sense my sadness that life wasn’t what I had expected and over how unfair it was to him and to our family.

    One morning, I stumbled upon Anderson Cooper’s podcast. Stephen Colbert was a guest, and Cooper discussed the lasting impact the death of Cooper’s father and brother had had on him at a young age. Cooper went on to ask Colbert about something he had previously said:

    “It’s a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that, but if you are grateful for your life, then you must be grateful for all of it.”

    As the interview progressed, Cooper started to cry, as this conversation resonated with him deeply. I replayed this conversation many times over and cried even more. It was very apparent that it had moved Cooper emotionally and gave light to a subject that had daunted him (and me) for many years.

    How do we come to be at peace with both the hardships in life, especially when they are continuous, and the better times?

    The interaction between these two men was profound, and it inspired me to embrace my pain as a gift.

    It’s an anointment and a difficult, precious task we must all embrace wholeheartedly. Life becomes far more peaceful when we find a way to be grateful for both the hard moments and the joy in our lives.

    To exist is to live in both realities, and there’s something to be gained from both, so we need to honor and respect both equally. One cannot exist without the other. We would never know love if we never experienced grief; they are intrinsically intertwined.

    It was a significant moment for me when I realized this; and it unravelled years of trying to compartmentalize my darker emotions away from my family and the world.

    Seeing my pain as a gift enabled me to fully embrace it. It wasn’t about suppressing my emotions or pretending the hard things don’t hurt; it was about allowing them to hurt with a new sense of perspective—recognizing that pain serves a purpose, and it means I’m alive.

    I started to realize that I did not have to feel guilty for being overwhelmed some days. That it’s okay to cry and there is no shame in feeling defeated because acknowledging the hard times is just as important as celebrating the triumphs.

    I felt the strength to push past those heavy emotions because of the good in my life. The moments when my son laughs, smiles, or hugs me are so incredibly uplifting. Those times would not feel so sweet if not for the days when I feel physically depleted and mentally lost.

    I’ve also learned to appreciate the many gifts his diagnosis has given me. I would not be the person I am today without suffering to create this unstoppable warrior, leader, mother, and human rights activist that is driven by purpose.

    It has made me an incredibly strong person mentally, as we have overcome so many obstacles as a family. I’ve learned to always forge forward and never go back; that life is many problems that just need solving.

    Nowadays, I don’t have to hide my struggles but embrace them and accept them as a part of the grand scheme of life. Recognizing my pain allowed me to release it instead of burying it in a dark, inaccessible place only to grow by the day.

    The greatest gift I bestowed on myself was realizing that I needed to look at life through a different lens by challenging my current beliefs system. My known coping mechanism, tucking heavy emotions neatly away in the back of my mind, wasn’t working. I was slowly coming apart, and I needed to redirect.

    Listening to the conversation between Colbert and Cooper was the catalyst for change inside me. And with that came rebirth. I started to slowly open up about my struggles and connect with other parents, not as an advocate ready to tackle the next fight but as a person struggling in my daily life with a child with disabilities.

    I felt more authentic in that I didn’t have to hide my grief; it was okay to not be this impenetrable positive fortress 24/7. I felt more connected to other parents in our shared pain, challenges, and celebrating our children’s achievements. Expressing all of it, not just the parts I wanted to project out to the world, helped me to live in my truth.

    There is a particular sense of freedom in accepting that our hardships are necessary parts of our beautiful existence. Our pain strengthens us and, collectively, we are bonded by it. I am now at peace with all life has given me, and I am grateful for every moment.

  • How I’ve Redefined Success Since ‘Failing’ by Traditional Standards

    How I’ve Redefined Success Since ‘Failing’ by Traditional Standards

    “Once you choose hope, anything is possible.” ~Christopher Reeve

    When I was a child, I wanted to save the world. My mom found me crying in my bedroom one day. She asked what was wrong, and I said, “I haven’t done anything yet!” I couldn’t wait to grow up so I could try to make a difference.

    At fourteen, I joined a youth group that supported adults with disabilities. We hosted dances and ran a buddy program. I helped with projects at state institutions and left saddened by the conditions for the residents. I planned to work at a state institution.

    As a senior in high school, I was voted most likely to succeed. It was unexpected, like so many things in my life. I hoped to find meaningful work that helped others.

    My first year at Ohio State, I fell head over heels in love and married the boy next door. A month after my wedding, newly nineteen, I started my first full-time job as manager of a group home for men with developmental disabilities. I never finished college.

    At twenty-three, I was officially diagnosed with depression after my first baby, but the doctor didn’t tell me. I read the diagnosis in my medical record a few years later. I grew up in the sixties with negative stereotypes of mental illness. I didn’t understand it, and I thought depression meant being weak and ungrateful. I loved being a new mom, and I wanted the doctor to be wrong.

    I was a stay-at-home mom with three young children at the time of my ten-year high school reunion. The event booklet included bios. For mine, I wrote something a bit defensive about the value of being a mom since I didn’t feel successful in any traditional way.

    At thirty, I experienced daily headaches for the first time. I tried natural cures and refused all medication, even over-the-counter ones, while the headaches progressed to a constant mild level. I kept up with three busy kids, taught literacy to residents with multiple disabilities at a state institution, and barreled on. I thought I understood challenges.

    At forty, I went to a pain clinic at Ohio State and received another depression diagnosis. This time it made sense. The diagnosis still made me feel vaguely ashamed, weak. Still, I rationalized it away.

    Which came first, the depression or the headache? Maybe it was the headache’s fault. Anti-depressants were diagnosed for the first time, which managed my depression. Until…

    When I was forty-two, I fell asleep at the wheel with my youngest daughter Beth in the passenger seat. She sustained a spinal cord injury that left her paralyzed from the chest down. I quit my job at the institution to be her round-the-clock caregiver.

    Beth was only fourteen when she was injured. However, she carried me forward, since between the two of us, she was the emotionally stable one. She focused on regaining her independence, despite her quadriplegia. I let her make the decisions about her care and her future. Sometimes we need someone strong to lead the way.

    Every day, every hour, every minute of our new life felt impossibly uncertain. New guilt and anxiety merged with my old issues of chronic pain and depression. Increased doses of my anti-depressants did not prevent me from spiraling down. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. No hope of light.

    I put a tight lid on my feelings, which was a challenge by itself. I didn’t want to give the people I loved more to worry about. I also felt that if I gave in to my emotions, I wouldn’t be able to function. And I desperately needed to help Beth. That’s what mattered the most.

    I started counseling several months after the car accident. At the first session, I thought I would find a little peace, with more ahead. It wasn’t that simple. I felt like a failure, and thought I failed at counseling, too, since I didn’t improve for some time. I should have reached out for help right after Beth’s injury.

    Weekly counseling helped me, along with my husband always being there for me. However, Beth was the one who showed me how to choose hope. I watched her succeed after failing again and again, over and over, on her quest to be independent.

    Beth and I shared unexpected adventures, from our small town in Ohio to Harvard and around the world. She has had the most exciting life of anyone I know. She’s also the happiest person I know because she finds joy in ordinary life, and that’s the best kind of success.

    Since I was voted most likely to succeed in 1976, I learned that success encompasses so much more than I originally thought. Things like being married for forty-five years to my best friend. Raising three great kids. Working meaningful jobs and helping others. Volunteering and mentoring. And learning meditation to better cope with chronic pain.

    Today, my depression is mostly managed with prescriptions, which also feels like a kind of success. I’m no longer ashamed of my depression. It’s part of who I am, and I know for a fact that I’m not weak or ungrateful. There’s light at the end of the tunnel, a bright light.

    Hope is an incredibly powerful thing. And if you never give up? Hope wins.

  • How I Turned My Disability into Desirability with a Simple Perspective Change

    How I Turned My Disability into Desirability with a Simple Perspective Change

    “Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities.” ~Terry Josephson 

    I was affected by the deadly poliovirus when I was six months old. Most people infected with it die. Even today, there is no cure for it. I miraculously survived, but lost my ability to walk.

    During the first twenty years of my life, I evolved through crawling on the floor, lifting my leg with my hands, wearing prosthetics, using canes, and finally learning to walk, painfully, with crutches. As I grew up, I experienced post-polio syndrome, which weakened the other parts of my body.

    Some forty-five years ago, there were no educational or medical facilities in the remote area of India where I lived. That slimmed my chances of getting any education. When I reached the age to go to school, the only way possible was to wear prosthetic braces weighing forty-five pounds on my leg, which was more than my weight. It was incredibly painful to walk while wearing them. In those braces, I could barely take one baby step at a time.

    Experiencing Victim Mode

    The result was me being bullied, left behind, and teased by my classmates all the time. There were times when I had to drag my iron-casted leg back home alone for over a mile using the strength of my stomach muscles. It used to take me two hours, which felt like a lifetime. That cycle repeated for many years, and my emotional pain grew more and more.

    Every time, I asked, “Why me?” The more I asked, the more unpleasant the answers got in my mind.

    Stepping into Fighter Mode

    That misery got me into a fighter mode. I remember that many of the motivational books I read stressed one thing: “Break the walls.” So I secretly subjected myself to the harshest physical exercises, torturing myself, hoping someday I would get better at my disability. But the more I tried, the more my emotional and physical problems escalated—to the point of a breakdown. Charged with much willpower, I did not realize that perhaps I was fighting against the wrong wall. I failed.

    As I see it now, the actual wall that was limiting me was less my physical disability and more my self-limiting beliefs. I had made up unreal, perceived walls in my mind, thinking that I wouldn’t be accepted unless I walked like ordinary people.

    These made-up walls were the ones that were actually stopping me. I was doubly disabled—externally and internally.

    Spotting the Windows

    Every time I was left behind, I made a pact with myself: If I couldn’t walk with my legs, I would walk faster with something else. But the big question was: with what? But then, a simple perspective shift I call “windows through the walls” changed my life and put me on the path of personal transformation to achieve excellence.

    I gradually realized that my disability gave me some gifts I did not recognize earlier. I had no social interruptions, no spoiler friends, and not much mobility. Because of those three things, I had plenty of distraction-free time at my disposal, which was a gifted environment. What could I do with this unique leverage?

    Reading books was the best thing I could do while being contained in a chair. I remember the first book I read, by Dale Carnegie, was much ahead of my age. Soon I mastered poetry, physics, palmistry, psychology, and philosophy while reading any book I could afford to buy or borrow.

    By rigorous reading and learning through science books, I became an engineer at the age of twenty-one, and a year later, I became a technology scientist. It stunned the people who never believed I could do so. The hunger to learn faster led me to earn two doctorates, more than 100 international credentials, and some of the world’s highest certifications.

    “I couldn’t walk with legs—now I teach people how to walk faster in what they do.”

    My lack of speed made me obsessed with gaining it in another area. That became the unique expertise that took me places. I became a performance scientist, helping people speed up their learning and performance skills.

    Not only this, I leveraged my ability to learn and started sharing my learnings with others. My social isolation did not persist, and soon I had one of the largest friendship circles around.

    With my circumstances, I could engage in daydreams that developed my vivid imagination. Soon, a writer inside me woke up. I wrote dramas, stories, poetry, articles, and many things at a very young age. While I could not afford to buy one book then, I have authored twenty books now.

    While glued to that chair, I had similar leverage as other kids—that is, my hands. I developed my skills in painting, drawing, and sketching and received an international award for my art from back then.

    As I reflect back on it, my disability hardly ever got in my way while achieving these things. Rather, it helped me go faster. When I saw my crisis, my disability, my limitations, I did not see them as walls that I should break. Instead, I chose to spot windows among them—windows of opportunities, leverages, and advantages. I’ve leveraged everything my limitations ever offered me.

    Two Important Lessons

    I learned two important lessons in my journey.

    First, not all the walls that seem to be limiting us are real. We need to find the wall that indeed is limiting us and then break it.

    Second, we don’t always need to break every wall because some have windows. No matter the circumstances, we all should focus on spotting the windows.

    Once we change our perspective, we will be surprised at the number of advantages we find in our adversities, desirability in our disabilities, and leverages in our limitations.

    Are We Enough?

    When we experience a loss, we may feel less than others. That’s okay. Sometimes, the crutch I use as an aid for walking reminds me of what I lack. But that’s okay because I wouldn’t be where I am today if it was not for my disability. I think my loss, my disability, defines who I was yesterday, who I am today, and who I am going to be tomorrow.

    However, some of us have been groomed to chant motivational mantras like “I am enough.” It is like convincing our minds that the glass is full, so our minds might stop looking for possibilities.

    But when we realize our glass is half-empty, we become hungry to find windows of leverages in our misfortunes or limitations to fill it up somehow. That’s when we create new possibilities for ourselves.

    Leverage Your Losses

    Think about the losses that you have experienced due to your adversities, failures, or misfortunes. How could you leverage these losses to go from feeling less than others to being a lesson for others?