Living in the world where we all need
to constantly move faster and faster in order to be able to cope with
the demands of society and economy leaves a toll on each one of us.
We tend to feel stressed with the long working hours, with being
underpaid, with not being appreciated for our efforts, with not being
seen as individuals but as parts of a larger system.
People with special needs may not be
working in a corporate sector, they may not be lawyers appearing in
court fighting for extremely important causes, or may not be striving to get funds for
their own start-up, however the pressure they live under and the
stress and frustrations that they experience can be equally difficult
for them to deal with.
I recently felt frustrated after having
been rejected one more time by the artist residency program, I
questioned the sense of applying for something again and began to
wonder whether there is any point in trying at all. Someone else
might feel frustrated with not being able to recall the spelling of
one's own name. Two different situations, two different people, yet
perhaps the amount of effort we both put into our writing a good
project and writing the name is the same? And perhaps both of us want
to finally make it good this time and not to have to face the
disappointment and frustration again.
We all have the same needs that need to
be met for each of us to be able to live a thriving and healthy
emotional life.
Few years back I was standing at the
school corridor just after the lunch break. The bell rang and I
was watching adults standing around a class 3 student who was
diagnosed with a genetic disorder. She was walking slowly towards her
classroom, too slowly and so the adults began telling her that she
needs to walk faster. It was my first active experience of empathy as
I was trying to imagine what this situation might have looked like
from the perspective of the child. It must have been scary I felt. It
must have felt scary and powerless to be standing among people twice
her size and be rushed to walk with the speed that was too fast for
her to handle.
It must feel equally scary and
frustrating to be an elderly person being rushed to eat faster and
spill less soup onto the table when the hand is shivering.
We all have the same basic human needs
and one of them is ability to be seen for who we are as beings and
not for the actions that we are able to perform with sometimes
better, sometimes worse results. We all want to be loved and
appreciated, we all need warmth, friends, sense of belonging.
I do not want my friends to judge me on
the basis of how successful I am as a professional. A child with
special needs wants to have friends to play with irrespective of
whether he/she is able to score the goal during the football match.
As a child I was never good at sport – I would always be the last
person to be chosen by any team. It felt embarrassing and frustrating
to be the last one taken into the team...every week of my primary
school.
I live in a place where many people
believe I do not understand the language they speak. It happened to
me a couple of times that people would talk about me in a rude way
thinking that I would not be able to understand their words. But I
did... and it hurt. It made me feel like an object. People with
special needs may look different sometimes or behave in a different
way, however, it does not mean that they are completely unable to
understand the tone of voice or words that are being used while
talking about them. They do understand...
Life is often stressful for many of us.
As humans we are very often programmed to experience negative
emotions in a stronger way than the positive ones in our lives, even
though the latter once may be actually be larger in number. Positive
emotions are often experienced in a milder, more subdued way and so
we need them more frequently. Perhaps while dealing with individuals
with special needs we could try to concentrate on strengths more than
on the weaknesses?
That class 3 student I mentioned a few sentences above... she managed to
stand in the vrkshaasana (tree pose) in a yoga class one day... And that day the
whole class clapped for her... She performed great! 30 seconds of balance! And I think she felt like a great achiever that day, the way you or I do after a performance, good session, promotion at work.
