THE BLOG

GETTING UP AGAIN

So I'm back here in my most amazing podcast studio, which is actually my wardrobe, but the sound quality is really good, so this is where I record all the podcasts from. I have recorded the last 50, almost 50 of them, not the interviews, but 50 episodes of the podcast from this wardrobe and after almost 12 months of not posting an episode, I am back and ready to start this new season and new phase in this journey of discovering more about what it takes to live well with the challenges of a disability. So I'm looking forward to what's coming next.

In the last 12 months, life has been life- ing.I heard that somewhere and I quite like that phrase. But life has just been life-ing, it's been an interesting year. It's been a difficult year. It's been an emotional year. Any adjectives that you want to use to describe what the last year has been like. I'm sure for many of you listening, it will have been, you'll have had similar challenges, you'll have had different challenges, but you'll have been challenged because that's just what life does to us, isn't it?

We are challenged and we are broken and we are put back together. And I can say that in the last year that I have, I really feel like I have grown as a person. 

Would I have chosen to go through some of the things that I've experienced over the last year? Absolutely not. But which one of us can say that we choose to go through really hard things, but we know that it's a necessity because that's how we grow.

That's how we get stronger. So even though going through it all hasn't been the easiest ride and at points, I have wondered just what on earth is going on and how are we ever going come out of what it is we're experiencing, I know that it's possible, and I know that you can overcome challenges.

I wouldn't say that the events of the last year to 18 months, that I'm completely over them. That I'm completely through them, but with every step and with every choice that's made to look to what’s possible and look to the new things, that I can start to make that progress that's needed.

Recording the She is a VIP podcast in the last year was more than just a privilege for me, but it was my platform to learn, so many things, so many skills about how to remain resilient in the face of learning something new, learning from people who I really admire and respect.

Getting to know their point of view on what it means to live well in general, but more specifically to live well with a visual impairment and I was able to see things and learn things about myself that I hadn't really thought about before, that I hadn't really considered before because I suppose in some ways I had come to live in a way that the visual impairment that I have and that I have lived with since the age of 15, probably even younger than that, I had learned to kind of push those challenges down and to minimise them. So that I wouldn't appear weak so that I wouldn't appear as someone who couldn't do.

But I learned through those conversations that actually what I was doing wasn't, wasn't benefiting me or anyone else, and part of what I experienced, I guess in the last year was the result of the years of pushing that down.

But while I have been away, I haven't been doing nothing. I have been thinking a lot about the next phase of this journey and She is a VIP was about me not only helping other women living with visual impairments, but it was kind of - how can I describe it? Like a journal for me, like a verbal, spoken journal that I'd never really written before.

That I'd never really sat down and really thought about because I was just trying to do life as best I could without really trying to acknowledge too much about the difficulties and the challenges that I actually experienced, that I was actually going through on a daily basis.

And as I've been thinking and working through where I see this going, going next, I have come to realise that actually I want to include women who are experiencing challenges and disabilities of all kinds. That yes, I could remain just speaking to women with visual impairments, but I know, as people have spoken to me and as I've had conversations and connected with so many different kinds of people that there are so many of you that have got so much out of listening to the podcast.

So, I am just widening the net. I've decided to widen the net just a little bit more and I think this is also part of my nature because if you haven't heard before, I've spent the last 15 years as a special needs coordinator. So all of the children and young people that I have worked with over the years have a broad range of needs.

So I guess maybe it's in my makeup as it were -  that I can't, I find it difficult to leave anyone out. Inclusion is kind of the name of the game. So I don't know, maybe the net is too wide, but I don't think so. I think that the things that you will be hearing going forward will be relevant to you if one, yes, you are a woman who is living with a disability and really wants to start to think about how you can use your strengths, to focus on your strengths, to focus on what you are able to do and how you can use them to make an impact in the world.

And it's still also an education piece, I suppose, an education piece for people who maybe don't understand fully what it means to  live with a disability that is either hidden or visible. So the conversations that you'll hear will be from people who have both visible and hidden disabilities and just really understanding or having a deeper understanding as to how they live their lives and as the challenges that they face from day to day.

One of the things that I have learned over the last year is that both as a woman living with a disability that is relatively hidden for most of the time, and as someone who is pretty ambitious, really wanting to achieve great things and to have impact in and on the lives of others and in the world as a, as a whole - is that if I'm trying to minimise, if I'm trying to hide the difficulties that I face, that means that I'm denying part of who I am.

Disability doesn't define who I am and what I'm able to do or not able to do, but it is part of who I am. It's part of what makes me.

And so I need to acknowledge that.

I've learned that if I don't start to acknowledge that in a deeper way, if I don't start to accept, these are the things that I can't do, but these are the things that I can do-  if I don't start to acknowledge my disability as something that makes me who I am, then I'll miss out. Then I'm missing out on actually being able to see and experience the things that I can do.

And I've also learned that if I spend too much time thinking about dwelling on the fact that I can't do, or in my case, see certain things, which prevents me from doing certain things, then I miss out on what I'm able to do.

And for those who are listening who may not necessarily have a disability or, or challenge in, you know that in some way,it's for you to understand a little bit about the capability of those of us who are disabled, who have disabilities, who have challenges of different levels and stages. But it's for you to understand that we have so much to offer. We have so much to bring to the table and that we shouldn't be discounted.

So the name of the podcast, which you will see has changed and I've decided to call it. Don't Miss Her Ability because as I've just said, I don't want us as women, as the women living with the disabilities from day to day, I don't want us to miss our ability. I  want us to spend more of our time focusing on the things that we can do and how much impact we can have. And I don't want  others, anyone else who's not in that category, in this category of women, or females with disabilities, I don't want anyone else to miss out on the ability that may well be  standing in front of you, or sitting in front of you, or within your workplace, or within your organisation, within your leisure facility, wherever it is.

I don't want you to miss out either.

I want everyone who listens to this podcast to really be dialled in, or become more and more dialled into the massive potential that lies within those of us who maybe on the surface, It doesn't look like there is much that we can offer.

It is time to, for us to stop living with the limitations, the limiting beliefs, the limitations that

I guess society can, can place on us or even just we can place on ourselves, that we have nothing, or very little to bring to the table.

So this is the Don't Miss Her Ability podcast. And I can see that some of you have still been listening to She is a VIP and for that I'm very grateful. I think we've passed now 2000 downloads, which is amazing. But if you are new here and you are, and this resonates with you, that this is something that you feel like you want to hear more about or get involved in, or you just want to connect, be part of this community, then you are welcome.

What I ask is that you subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss future episodes and that you come  and say, hi, you come and connect with me on Instagram or on Facebook, or you can send an email and all of that information for you will be in the show notes. 

But I welcome you back to this podcast, to this space.

I haven't left the VIPs. We're still VIPs. I haven't left you. I'm just bringing, hopefully bringing some more people along with us.

It's really great to be back speaking with you and I just hope that this next phase of this journey brings so much more encouragement, so much more inspiration and that you feel and you become more and more empowered to find, use, recognize the strengths and the ability that you have been given. 

I will speak to you soon.