Awakenings

Oprah calls them "Aha" moments. Dr. Phil refers to them as "defining" moments. I like to call them AWAKENINGS. I call them that because when I have them, I feel like I have woken up. Like I've been sleeping and now I am awake. Wide awake.

When I have an awakening, I can feel it physically. It's really hard to describe, but it's almost a tingly type of feeling. It's as if your soul and your mind and your body are one.

I finally arrived to the Son-Rise Start-Up seminar at 3am after an 18 hour trip. That's a story for another time. My goal was to learn everything I could to help Ross. I had read Son-Rise The Miracle Continues and Happiness is a Choice. I'd watched the videos and webinars. I couldn't soak it up fast enough.

Above and beyond learning techniques to deal with Ross's Autism, I had this distinct feeling that I was going to have an awakening while in Massachusets. It was yet another reason why I felt so strongly about going. I felt like I was getting a handle on my emotional state, but I did not have peace yet with this diagnosis.

Each day was amazing! I was eating up every word of every Son-Rise teacher. I bought every book at the book store. I was learning so much about Autism and about myself. But Wednesday was it. My awakening was about to happen.

We were asked to share with a partner a moment when we felt uncomfortable with our child. My uncomfortable moment was when I would make Ross stop spinning. He rarely does it, but I felt like if I encouraged it, he would do it more and then his autism would be obvious to the world (as if it isn't already!). The Son-Rise teacher asked if anyone wanted to come up and try to "work" on this. He would ask a series of questions to see if you could work through this uncomfortableness. I practically jumped up and down to be chosen.

The teacher asked me a lot of things, but the one question that mattered the most was, "Before the diagnosis of Autism, what did you think your role of a mother was suppose to be?" I told him it was to teach my child. I had never put this into words before so it was interesting that I answered it so quickly and succinctly.

I realized that THAT was my heartache. For quite some time I believed I couldn't teach my child and therefore I was not being the mother I set out to be. That was why I felt so disappointed when Ross wouldn't answer me or talk to me. That is why I felt like this diagnosis...this child...was not what I had wanted.

My awakening was that I now knew, with all of my being, that I could teach this child. Ross was exactly the child I wanted. Exactly. I just didn't know how to do it...until now. It came to me the next morning while I was walking in the snow. All was quiet...and I felt tingly all over. :)