Leadership and growth

To start a movement, tell a story
Co-production and advocacy / Disability / Improving healthcare / Leadership and growth / My toolkit / Special Needs Parenting

To start a movement, tell a story

Increasingly, activists and change agents are using their own personal stories as a way to awaken leadership in others. Stories speak the language of emotion, the language of the heart. They not only teach us how to act, but also inspire us with the courage to act. Our stories help us translate our values into action by accessing our emotions.

3 Comments
May 2, 2019
Passages
Disability / Leadership and growth / Special Needs Parenting

Passages

I opened a book last week and a bookmark slipped out onto the floor. It was a freebie from a favorite bookstore from my old life, back when I lived on the other side of the ocean. I loved that bookstore, with its coffee counter and author events and the way it always had exactly the book I needed even when it didn't have the book I wanted.

9 Comments
November 29, 2018
The new year as a threshold
Improving healthcare / Leadership and growth / My toolkit / Special Needs Parenting

The new year as a threshold

Every moment offers a new beginning, but there is something special about the collective transition from one calendar year to the next. It is and always has been a struggle for me not to get too caught up in new beginnings like this, to not be spellbound in the illusion that simply resolving to change will bring change, or that most of the mundane changes I desire, will bring lasting happiness.

3 Comments
January 1, 2018
Say my name, say my name
Photo by Filip Bunkens
Disability / Leadership and growth / Special Needs Parenting

Say my name, say my name

There’s another aspect of cultural identity I’ve been thinking about lately: its purpose of providing contours to my otherwise diffuse psyche, like personality eyeliner. A lifetime of fourth of July sparklers, yellow school busses and two-for-Tuesday rock blocks has resulted in a very particular person who is me. If I let this container go, will I still be me? Of course I will, but will I really?

2 Comments
May 17, 2017
Overcoming paralysis with a single step
Co-production and advocacy / Disability / Leadership and growth / Special Needs Parenting

Overcoming paralysis with a single step

In a recent stress dream, I sat in an airport coffee shop knowing I was supposed to board a plane, but with no recollection of when the it was going to take off or from which gate. Despite being surrounded by information counters and departure displays, I just sat and sat, paralyzed and ashamed, with no sense that there was anything I could do.

8 Comments
May 8, 2017
Parenting in a hospital, then and now
Photo by Marcelo Leal
Co-production and advocacy / Improving healthcare / Leadership and growth / My toolkit / Special Needs Parenting

Parenting in a hospital, then and now

Despite the fact that my son is considered a "sick kid"—a child with multiple, chronic conditions—he actually hasn't been in the hospital for years. About a month ago, his winter cold turned into pneumonia, and we've been reacquainted with hospital life with a vengeance. Parenting a child in the hospital for the first time in nearly a decade, I can't help but notice how I've changed.

15 Comments
January 29, 2017
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