Have a Wee bit of inspiration for the New Year!

by Stephen B.Chadwick, MA Counselling Psychology.

www.cowichancounselling.ca

Dear Friends,

I have been quite busy (unexpectedly) during this Christmas -- Yes, I am saying the "C" word, just as if I would be saying Hannukah -- the "H" word or Ramadan -- the "R" word.

Quite possibly if more religious traditions were respected and understood, one could go back to saying such things, rather than saying: "Seasons Greetings", which regrettably means very little and doesn't convey much of a concept of good will towards your fellow human beings other the winter season greets you with an arctic kiss.

However, I shall be putting out another video very soon on a mental health topic and of course I will return with more information on mental health articles very soon. But for now, here are three "inspirational" videos from three very different women: Lizzie Velasquez, a Texan Woman with a rare disease that does not allow her to gain weight and also a devout (gasp!) Roman Catholic, Maysoon Zayid, an American-Palestinian Muslim woman with Cerebral Palsy and Stella Young, a disabled atheist Australian woman who died recently.



Part of the problem with "inspiration", is that, as one speaker says, we tend to turn handicapped persons into objects. And of course I have already spoken about objectification in another post. Objectification can be  a good thing, provided that the person is not only just an object, but also a person. So to use someone else's misery as a tool for our own inspiration to help us deal with our own lot in life is good.

But in every life there will always be someone who has more advantages than you and fewer advantages than you. And in every life there will always be people who will have more obstacles than you and fewer obstacles than you. Even having "obstacles" can be a problem, as we see with Oscar Pistorius. And sometimes having those obstacles, which may be overcome, may put a person at a disadvantage.

And sometimes, as another speaker says, what misery or misfortune has been placed before us, may indeed be the making of us. It may help us to define how we identify ourselves and how we decide we wish to carve out our lives for ourselves. As I have mentioned in an earlier post, how we identify ourselves and our identification in some ways is only dependent upon ourselves.

But for now, three inspirational, but otherwise ordinary women:
Take Care,


Steve.
I welcome comments, questions for clarification and dialogue respectful to this post and any others.
If you are interested in this or other posts, why not click on the Google + button or submit your email, either way, and follow this blog?

Lizzie Velasquez:

Maysoon Zayid

Stella Young