Perspective is a powerful and a beautiful word, yet can be used in the wrong context. It can hold positive power or negative power if left unchecked and in the wrong hands.. What do I mean by this? Well to every story that everyone on this earth has, we all have our own perspective on, well, almost everything. Whether it be a good perspective or not, that is up to the individual. Let me share a few short stories on perspective. The first one: disability parking permits.
Quite a few times over the years since I came out of hospital people have looked at me with evil glaring eyes. This happened when I was either a passenger, or the driver parked in an allocated disability parking car park. One time I was coming home from the hospital for a home visit and this lady gave me the “evil eye” and said to my mum “you should not be parking here”! My mum calmly and politely looked at the woman and smiled at her and said “I am bringing my son home from hospital for a home visit and we need to park here so we can quickly buy some milk. Have a look at our disability parking permit”. The lady simply walked off. haha. After mum got the milk she explained her experience to everyone else in the car (without her nice smile). Why do some people have to be like this I wonder? I guess its because there are a lot of invisible disabilities out there and some people get a little kick from putting others down.. From the outside the person looking at the person parking in the disabled parking spot may not look disabled, so in turn they simply cannot see and then have every right to “judge” or be cruel… Yet in this day and age you’d think people would have moved on from judging others negatively.. I never liked this experience to be honest (being on the disabled side of this). It was not until I built confidence that I actually started to see the other side of the coin. I actually started to enjoy this experience. It boosted my confidence even more when people looked at me with their evil eyes when I parked in the disabled parking. I thought, “oh, why thank you for that lovely compliment, I guess I must not look disabled”. Early on after I received the disability parking I actually hated using it as I felt it brought attention to myself. Yet later on I realised I needed it as my walking was not perfect nor was my energy. So in fact it was and still is very beneficial to be able to park in disability parking spaces.
So in this case when talking about disability parking there is a good and a bad perspective, just like every side to stories. The bad being from the general public naming and shaming people with disabilities. The good (possibly with support) in seeing the positives of people naming and shaming you. Seeing the positives and deeply enjoying it in this situation does take time. Yet it is well worth the practice in getting there as it boosts your confidence dramatically in situations like these. These experiences (once practiced) enable you to keep on going with your stroke recovery.
Another perspective you can have is “Why did this happen to me? My life is so difficult! I give up” etc.. Being forcefully put into this position sucks, let’s be honest! On the other perspective this in fact gives you a chance to (in time) re-create your life. You can in a sense go straight ahead to begin re-creating your life by having small goals, like walking unassisted, or having enough energy to get through your day. However it is far more effective to go about it by seeing someone who has “been there and done that experience”. It wasn’t long after one of my clients started seeing me that he felt comfortable doing more than simply taking photos of flowers in his backyard. click here to read his review. This client went from simply taking photos of flowers to having the confidence and strength to start going to the gym with a person trainer. He also started taking his old classic car to car shows and car cruises. He also started attending dance classes and going to local get-togethers. This all happened in as little as 5 sessions with me. So in this case this client’s perspective on himself changed dramatically. We now only see each other once every few months as he has built up enough confidence to go about his life with enough activities going on in his life to keep himself satisfied. As well as this, he has learnt how to manage himself mostly un assisted now which is fantastic!
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