“Every wall is a door.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
I was born with a visual impairment and spent a chunk of my life blaming my “disability” for anything that wasn’t working in my life. I came to a crossroad in my early 30’s when my mother was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. Did I want my mother to die with my life moving in the direction it was? At the point of her diagnosis I was a college drop-out with substance abuse issues. Or did I want her to know that I had made the choice to stop blaming situations and move in the direction of a successful lifestyle? I picked success. I had a lot to learn.
I immediately had to take ownership of the idea that it was my thinking that was crippling me and stop using my visual impairment as an excuse. I had to weed out the facts from the feelings, something I do with clients. I had to start creating ways to make what I wanted to happen in my life begin.
I went to an eye doctor for the first time in ten years and was told I was legally blind. They fitted me with my first pair of low vision reading glasses. I slowly began to be able to read printed text. I became clean and sober. At 32, not more than a week after laying my mother to rest, I kept a death bed promise to her and returned to college to finish my undergraduate degree. I finished and graduated college magna cum-laude; this after dropping out years before with failing grades. The president of Western Michigan University even talked about my journey at graduation.
I went on to complete an MFA from the University of Michigan and became the first legally blind, visual artist, to receive an MFA from the university. I love creating things and adore the visual arts. Irony, right? I think the degree was more about proving something to myself, I needed to know that I could do whatever I set out to do.
In graduate school I developed and taught an interdisciplinary course called Creating Your Life. I taught students how to use the creative process to create whatever they wanted. I told them, “if you can make dinner you can make anything, including yourself, into what you want; making the world a better place because of it.” I utilize much of this same process with my clients as I help them go from concept to completion with their projects.
I help clients find the “I can” in themselves. I support my clients, but I will not rescue them; there is a subtle but significant difference between the two. When you make things happen for yourself, you own them and the feeling is remarkable. I don’t want to rob anyone of the feeling of soul filled success you get when you make things happen for yourself.
A set-back or disability will not cripple you. Only your thinking can do that. — Rachel Z. Cornell
CLICK HERE to read more about my eye sight and what “legally blind” means.
