Get the job done.
Take responsibility.
Dad responsible for lots of men.
He won awards for doing what he did better than anyone else.
Never passed over for a rank.
Mom set us up with a new house, got us into school, uniforms, enrolled, doctors
It made us grow
step up and start over a lot
to make new friends
different climates, one side of the country to the other
these all shaped us for being capable of moving into unknown circumstances
somehow, part of the first-child role, expected to take over and take charge
the entertainer, the babysitter,
first child is the most responsible one
expected to take charge
expected to be more mature
mom and dad made moving an adventure; we drove across the country, we camped we had
our animals
I always had to be different
I wanted to
Didn’t want to be a regular teacher when she decided to be a teacher
I wanted to be Margaret Mead
I wanted to make a difference
In the world
And I learned through the years to narrow that down to one person at a time
It didn’t have to be the masses; didn’t have to be Mother Theresa….would have been nice,
I wanted to be a teacher when I found out about Special Ed
Something more challenging
So it all leads up to being diagnosed with Parkinson’s and

Wanting to find a support group
By that time she had three years of Warner Erhardt workshops and training
And the whole thing “speaking yourself being”
And speaking out
I had more confidence too
Don’t use: Experience with Warner
It’s not fun if you don’t play the game
Conversations in your head: what they do to accomplishing things in your life.
If you have this conversation that you’ve gotten Parkinson’s and you got this idea that your
life is going to be stage one two three and then death kind of thing
Stories we well ourselves.
The story doesn’t have to end that way
Some of that is how I take on what I do with the group
It’s about you don’t have to accept that that’s the way it’s going to be.
Just because
One of the things she found working with special education was you can be disabled by
what someone says about you, or what a test says about you. You can be capable of doing
something and all of a sudden someone says you aren’t good enough or you aren’t where
you should be and all of a sudden
You believe it and it disables you. More than doing nothing would have done.
What seems to have the most power for kids and adults is to be an action of some sort.
Creating your life; making
Take action in some way, reading a book, talking to a counselor, be an active part of your
healing.
It’s more powerful
Instead of waiting, go and make it happen.
Be in charge of making a difference in yourself
So giving people
That’s kind of what I bring to the support group
To explore alternatives not be closed to possibilities the MJ might help, learning about how
even as a dead body you can make a difference
By body or brain donation