“ You may have noticed that I’ve a receding hairline.” said the bald British comedian.
“ What I didn’t realise was that body parts talk to each other...... my gums have taken note and obviously think it’s a bloody good idea to move on.”
Made me laugh. Exactly my situation. No complaints otherwise. I’ve got back to my six rounds of ‘Salutes to the sun.’ on a regular basis and the fine energy released is kicking in.
Swami Satyananda made it clear that if you were to do six rounds each day with full awareness then that would be sufficient. It is literally only a few minutes exercise but the ‘full awareness’ aspect continually escapes me as I wonder whether I’m on two or three and so I’ve taken to doing an extra one if I’m in doubt.
Amid the world mayhem and I go to work at the Group Home and - just maybe - have resolved a conflict there with a work mate which is more about, focus, fine detail and awareness than outright neglect of our clients. Time will tell.
‘Policy and procedure.’ prohibits too much disclosure of personal detail on our clients .... privacy aspects come into play but I can’t see any issue with sharing observation.
Non verbal they may be and developmentally delayed but they know what they like and all four are remarkably self contained. One of the things that I’ve learnt from them is that the preceding sentence can just as equally apply to me.
And do they pick up on the emotional vibrations which, we - as staff - carry into the place? You betcha. The autistic one starts to tense - he hates conflict and will beat himself up if he senses raised voices.
The other three are happy if I get the time, towards the end of the shift, to sing a few songs with the guitar. I don’t always do it but just taking the guitar and placing it near the t.v. seems to lift the spirits of the house.
When I do play, it’s Waltzing Matilda, Knocking on heavens door, You gotta move .... and some of my own and now also throwing in Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah.’
They’re a great audience, they don’t clap or anything and if I give them the choice of “ Whacha reckon? Good or crap?” two of them will answer truthfully while the other invariably says nothing but may start singing ..... or sometimes swearing so ferociously that you know that he’s echoing something from his past.
I’m fortunate to work with clients who have no appreciation of stranger danger, who can’t cross the road on their own, who are ‘limited’ in so many ways yet have no deceit within them, don’t hold grudges and don’t know enough to know that they’re disabled.
I say fortunate because if our clients were less intellectually disabled, the siren’s call of corruption seduction would be, at least, dimly understood ..... ‘let’s be manipulative because everybody is.’
So I come home and have a stiff drink at midnight.