When Joshua was 13 years old, He lost his Grand mother.... As he was coping with his grief, he became obsessed with Legos. I really didnt know what they meant to him, until one day. He would become so upset if the Legos would get under a chair, or he couldnt get all of them when they fell. He would have all of us finding each Lego. We would enter his obsession with these Legos. One day, as I entered his room. I stopped. and I couldnt move. The Legos were in a small form of what to me looked like a quilt piece. My Mother quilted, quilting was her passion. I understood in that moment what the Legos had meant to Joshua. I did cry, as I stood and observed my son, finding his way of coping with the loss of one of the most significant women in his life. Joshua was very close to his Granny. I shared this story at a conference that William Stillman was presenting at in Harrisonburg,Va. at Madison University. He smiled and said, I had given my son, Compassionate Accommodations. Make compassionate accommodations. Have you ever been trying to read or listen attentively to something, and someone near you is constantly coughing? You can react one of two ways: either with annoyance, or with consideration. Reacting with annoyance will only foster bad feelings between both parties; you may feel as if the person should know to be more socially considerate, and the person, who may be struggling to care for themselves, may feel hurt or attacked. Reacting with consideration may include gently approaching the individual to offer them a cup of water, a mint or lozenge, or to simply commiserate about a human experience we’ve all endured at one time or another. Responding with the latter approach requires discounting initial impressions and making a compassionate accommodation, not only in our thoughts but in our deeds. In considering compassionate accommodations for the individual with a different way of being, think in terms of prevention instead of intervention. Prevention means knowing fully what an individual requires in advance of a situation, environment, or activity in order to feel safe and comfortable and able to participate. This relates to the ability to think, communicate, motor-plan movement, and assimilate with the senses. It means foregoing the antiquated model of multiple, overwhelming community integrations (which often sets the overloaded individual up for an intervention) in favor of simple, subtle, and interest-based activities in a qualitative relationship context.(from the web site: williamstillman from his article on Presuming Intellect.) I do hope this is a helpful story, and a revealing one, May all of us realize the impact and power of Compassionate Accommodations. Many Blessings....
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 13:31:08 +0000