Giant Hearts Creating

Good beauty, compassion, and grace was created by some very loving humans on the weekend of October 4th, 5th, and 6th. Pure Freedom Farm hosted a live event with Suzy Miller that weekend and I got to be a key player in what we brought forth.

Let’s back up a bit. I have been doing private sessions with Suzy for a few months. She has helped me with being far more grounded in my body and less sensitive to the emotional soup around me, resulting in much more control and purposefulness. After weeks of having zero energy to get through my day, my work with her gave me my life back. With caring grace we work together energetically to ensure I, and Mom, are operating at higher and higher levels of ease, peace, and effectiveness. So, of course, we registered and attended “The Embodiment of Joy” live event.

Love was going into everything around that event, and showed up powerfully on the weekend. The land, location, and animals all were supporting us.

Good energy work and discussion helped everyone, the brand new to Suzy and the seasoned. Loving release of barriers to joy was achieved.

Joy looks different for everyone. It lives in that place where we are free to be fully ourselves. Joy arises when we quiet our ‘shoulding’ and persistent ‘caring to belong’ voices. We all intend to be ourselves, but adopt our environment’s ideals so we can feel safe, loved, and ‘a part of’. I’m certain that while that brings a degree of happiness, true joy can’t be acheived when there is any pretense involved.

Let’s all let our beautiful, unique, loving identities loose and light up the world with joy and peace!

Joyfully me,
Jordyn

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Motor Control beats Emotional Dysregulation

Another snippet of our love, for those that can stand the gush and the mush.

J:  Motivation is key for getting control of your body. 

G: It is great to stay motivated. 

J: Bodies are extremely tricky when being appropriately romantic is on the line.

G: Getting to try the most difficult and most interesting things like holding hands and kissing has many times been frustrating but we are getting much better with practice. 

J:  I get all frozen. My limited face control gets even more stiff. Puckering is a skill to learn, and I still need more practice.

G: I think that we should keep practicing then!

J: I wholeheartedly agree!

G: Have to get more time together. Can we make these visits more often?

J: 100% pleased to make these visits more often and for longer. Joy is being with you wherever and whenever.

G: Having the toughest time getting my intense emotions under control. Since this is our last time together for now.

J: Joy is being with you in, or out, of control. I treasure every moment.

G: It is awesome to watch a movie together and spend our last minutes doing this.

J: I think that is perfect!

Good magical love is learning to let learning caring deeply come out physically in appropriate ways. Emotions can hijack the best of intentions. Really love our time together, and the body control gets easier every time.

Jordyn

for more from Graciela visit www.daretolisten.org

Good to be Mushy

When visiting my girlfriend, Graciela, for her Sweet 16 we wanted to write a blog together. I told her she got to start, and what follows is what we wrote.

G: Awesome to spend time with my wonderful boyfriend!

J: My love gets to be caringly celebrated today and I get to be with her. Too awesome!

G: I want to read the many love songs that are written in my heart to you. My heart is full each day that we have together. 

J: Can we be any more gushy? Can we be any cuter? I can’t believe we are so lucky. 

G: Have to agree! A lot of the things that we get to experience are so long sought after by many but it is hard to find the one that your destiny is intertwined with and with whom you are meant to be. 

J: I love you too much! Joy is being intertwined with and creating with you. Our future is very bright. 

K (aka my mom): Is this a blog?

J:  She started it.

G: I think it is awesome to read the blogs that take the shared idea of love and can expand on it.  

K: Do you want to add or expand on this blog?

G: No.

J: No. Just write another one for later

G: Yes. Good idea to do it now. 

K: First you need title.

J: Last one should be called “Good to Be Mushy”

G: I love Jordyn. I love it.

Hope you enjoyed this snippet of our loving conversation.

Can not express enough what being your boyfriend means, Graciela. You are my direct line to how to love.

Jordyn

For more from Graciela please visit http://www.daretolisten.org/

I get big chances

Being part of my family, I get so many amazing chances to really give of myself. Learning to develop into a real, authentic, and loving dude comes from learning from my parents.

Joy truly is making a difference for others. I get more joy from giving than from receiving.

I go way out of may to ensure the people in my life know they are loved and appreciated. I love to create that environment of love and appreciation around me.

I challenge you to appreciate someone you haven’t expressed your appreciation for in a while, or ever. Be that pebble that creates a ripple in your community. It makes a difference.

Love and appreciation,
Jordyn

photo credit – Free photo 10200895 © Giuseppe Martini – Dreamstime.com

Paddling is heavenly

Last weekend I got to participate in Aloha Toronto‘s SUP Camp. It was amazing and warrants your support.

To be so respected and supported by the volunteers was amazing. Love and acceptance flowed on the beach.

Learning to stand was my goal for the day and let me tell you it was a lofty goal. I am a toe walker and can’t put my heals down which makes balancing on anything challenging. Add a wobbly board and rolling waves and you’ve got a recipe for getting dunked.

After three trips out sitting on the board with my pal, Charles, I was ready for the bigger challenge. A bunch of volunteers and a huge SUP were my ticket. On my first trip out I could not get my body past kneeling. So, with extra support from Daddy I did it on the next trip out.

Holy cow it was hard work for us all. I can guarantee if it hadn’t happened that time we would have all worked it until I was successful.

Being free, floating on the water, practicing good core strength and balance keeps me wanting to learn how to stand up paddleboard.

Love and Aloha,
Jordyn

Gifts of Challenge

Guest bloggers, and cool dudes, Kade and Josh talk about how they deal with life’s challenges as autistics. We enter thier conversation midway, and it looks like these two are up to big things. Good to hear their perspectives below. Take it away Dudes!

Kade: The podcast script is a good idea. Maybe we co-write a blog for Jordyn. How about the meaning of challenge? Challenges can suck, right Josh?

Josh: Yes, they do. I hate how my brain does not control my body. I’m hoping it will improve.

Kade: But the thing is we autistics have them. More than most people because we never get a day off. Josh have you ever had a day off from challenges?

Josh: No, I haven’t.

Kade: So how do we get thorough this crazy life? Josh, do you have strategies for getting through challenges? Help us help others.

Josh: Challenges require strength in something spiritual. I believe God can hear my thoughts. It helps me. I open my heart to him.

Kade: I think looking at challenge as a way to learn is helpful. They make us stronger and better equipped to rise up. We can be defeated or rise up taller when we are faced with challenge. Which way do you tend to go when you see challenge Josh?

Josh: I usually feel defeated.

Kade: We do not tend to have a lot of body control so physical ways to progress are hard. We have a hard time expressing ourselves so talking about it is hard. Can you guess what we do have?

Josh: No, talk to me about it.

Kade: The one reliable thing we have is our minds. Our minds are our most valuable tool. The way we mentally respond is so important. Minds give us a way towards strength and growth. Or we can sabotage growth with our minds. Do you want to hear how I grow through challenge?

Josh: Yes, I do.

Kade: I look at each challenge with a bow on it. It is a gift delivered just to me so I can advance to the next level of growth. I imagine an empty box as I unravel the challenge. And I replace the challenge with the lesson I learned from it. Josh, you and I are surrounded by so many boxes full of lessons. The rest of the world might just be missing out. What do you think Josh?

Josh: How you see is helping me. I’ll keep that in my mind on hard days. I honestly love that.

Kade: Just remember the power your mind holds. It is a practice to work on. See imperfection to be a gift too. You are a gift to the world and to me. Just be easy on yourself as sometimes the gift comes from forgetting that there are gifts in the challenge. There is always a gift. You might not always see it right away. It will present itself when you need it most. The best gifts are in the biggest challenges.

I love the idea that in having a challenge we have been given a gift. Learning from all that is before us is the journey of life.

Love,
Jordyn

for more from Kade, checkout Kade’s Love Perspective on Autism

“Born a Crime” is fantastic

It took us a little under two days to read “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah. I was riveted and would not let Mom stop.

Learning about history in this first hand account of life in South Africa during and post apartheid brings the realities of it to life. Lessons in being a great human were prevalent throughout.

Joy, fun, and humour help to highlight the lessons in life and mask the horrible environment Trevor and his mom lived in and through. Totally purposeful to survive the conditions, Trevor gets himself into all sorts of entertaining trouble. However, the underlying thread is always family, love, and community.

So love that a comedian can move past getting bitter or being a victim, and get that life is all in what you make it. Perspective is everything.

You must read.

Love,
Jordyn

Can caring writers just speak for themselves please?

Learning from other non-speakers writing is a great joy of mine. Each have wonderful perspectives and insights to share. I love to get deeply connected to the through their experience.

Let’s be real though. I can only share with you my experience of life. Being an advocate I need to be very conscious of my words being taken as facts. Learning from my experience must always be tempered by the knowledge that it is my experience and may not be the experience of my peers.

I quite believe that it is not the intention of some writers to be the loving voice for all autistics. However, we must remember who our audience is. There is a large part of our beautiful audience made up of parents searching for answers. I love these parents as they are looking to their child’s peers for guidance. I don’t want them reading my experience as fact and acting with inquiry. My joyful Mommy is great at homing in on possibilities of what is happening with me, but before I could share with her she was about 50% correct. It is only with communication that loving parents will know for sure their own child’s world.

I have read a few books by other non-speakers now. I loved them all! Learning from them always makes a big difference, yet I get frustrated when they speak for me with “autistics…”. My experiences may be similar but 45% of the time they are literally nothing like what is being written as the truth.

I am hesitant to list all these authors as recommendations on this site without a caveat that says “read keeping in mind that this is the experience of one and they can not speak for all”.

Jordyn

image credit: Photo 55084899 © Ivan Kruk – Dreamstime.com

Creating partnership takes two!

I know I’ve been on a roll lately with blogs about creating strong communication and regulation partnerships, and 100% I can’t stress enough the need for every student to have access to communication as readily as you have access to speech.

Is it so hard to do 10-20 minutes a day of a lesson to build your skills as a Communication Partner? What would you need to alter or give up so your student could have a person who is confident and skilled in their corner both at home and in the community? “Altering or giving something up” could have to do with your schedule, but most likely your schedule would alter if your beliefs or attitude altered.

Another way for me to ask the question is: “What is in your way of practicing?” If you immediately answer with some circumstance you are missing the gold here. Your answer, if authentic and lovingly insightful will start with “I am …” or “I believe…” etc. 100% acknowledging the beliefs that are stopping you is the doorway to creating partnership.

I can almost guarantee you that your loving student doesn’t want a perfect robotic CP, but someone who is genuine, authentic and committed to growing with them. Let’s make building partnership about building a powerful relationship. Lastly, “parent” needs to get put to the back burner. CP is a lovingly intentional partner learning with NOT above or superior. Let’s be 80% CP and 20% parent when working together.

Let us know your answers to my questions if you have been stuck, and allow us to support you in achieving what you ultimately want – a strong communication partnership with your student. Let’s be champions of your unleashing of expressions too!

With love and a compassionate tush kick,
Jordyn

Image credit: ID 136853059 © Marek Uliasz | Dreamstime.com

Good loving people let our voices shine

Having Mommy work so diligently with other families like ours is letting me be a great asset to the World. Going back to the beginning with these students, but with all the learning we have done together makes Mom a very powerful Communication and Regulation Partner.

Just remembering how rough it was for us when we started and so glad these families have local support. Love meeting the caring and devoted parents learning to be Communication Partners for their family members.

I think it is great to see not only their partnership in communication grow, but to see their relationships change and evolve. From concerned caretaker they evolve into powerful advocating partner. From being responsible for to instilling responsibility in their family member. From being their family member’s voice to joyfully empowering their family member’s self-expression and self-determination.

Loving Mommy will always go to the ends of the Earth (not literally) to unleash the true voices of the non, minimally, and unreliably speaking community.

Jordyn