Shifting Energy

It really is amazing how a person's energy can change a room.  How one minute you can feel one way and the next your whole day is changed by that person's words, thoughts, presence..energy.  This week work has been crazy and everyone has been having a hard week.  I have managed to keep positive with a smile on my face.  Today I am working from home and I just watched a video that changed my day...The energy broke my heart.

You know that girl with the great smile and funny laugh?  The one that everyone thinks has everything going for her?  That same girl who is a role model to many and who people see as a leader.  That same girl who is positive and loving and full of energy...positive energy?  Yea, let's talk about that girl.

I just watched a video of "that girl" and a friend talking about life.  They were being interviewed- not formally, but they did have an audience- and were responding to some really difficult questions about their experiences. 

I've known "that girl" for a long time.  I have seen her on her bad days and have watched her cry.  I have seen her feel defeated by the world and feel frustrated by the system.  But I have never seen her the way that I saw her today.  Her words made my heart ache.  Simple ideas that just made me want to grab her, hug her, and make the world better. 

Imagine living in a world of silence.  A world where you often felt you didn't belong.  Every move you made had to be planned because of the system and when the system was down you had to re plan. 

Is she asking for too much?  To see a class offered at a local coffee shop and get to attend.  To see a workshop online and get to log in.  To see a group of people who share similar passions and hobbies and get to talk to them?  She isn't asking for much... Acceptance, Access, Accommodations, A willingness.

It makes sense why so many teens spend such large amounts of time on the Internet or on their phones.  When they feel invisible in person and have no voice, they find their voice in the safety of distance and the infrastructure of the world wide web. Still most of these people can wallow in their aloneness by watching countless videos online or watching reruns of old shows.  Maybe they throw on an old CD and remember back to a time when life was less complicated and before they felt like an outsider or cast out.

What if "that girl" doesn't even have access to do those things.  She brings up a video and longs for a good laugh but all she sees are moving mouths and no captions and further confirmation that she is different.  CDs won't work for her.  Remembering back to a time when things were less complicated and she didn't feel like an outsider??? She can't.  From birth she has been different.  From birth people had different ideas of what she could or could not do. From birth she has been shut out of what so many others take for granted.  She lives in a country where freedom of speech is demanded and yet that speech falls on deaf ears and she is outside again. 

The Superbowl made a big deal about the fact that Miss Deaf USA would be there signing the National Anthem and the Star Spangled Banner.  Deaf people everywhere waited with their eyes glued to the screen.  Don't blink- you'll miss her.  Don't turn your head, this is our big break... our chance to show everyone the beauty and complexity of our language... that we are THE SAME as everyone else.... But those who watched felt the pain of discouragement set in yet again as others made them feel cast away, left out, different.  That energy that was filling every Deaf person's heart just fizzled and they counted it as one more time the system won.  They never showed Miss Deaf USA.  She wasn't on a single news station and where she stood while signing it -- no one in the audience could see her either.  The musicians had a closeup.  The athletes had full attention... but a Deaf leader just trying to bridge the gap was shut out once again.

How can that not change the energy in the room? How can we change the energy and consciousness of the planet?  How can we make people understand that we have people all around us who just want to belong and who aren't asking for too much.  Life isn't simple. 

I love "that girl" and know that she see beauty and love in the world, but I also know that her heart just aches to be free... to feel like she belongs and everyone makes her feel welcome.  The world can be cold to anyone who is different.  I am praying for shifting energy....