Do you have an ‘Eye Inspire’ story of #Emerging Proud through Eye Sight Loss you’d like to share?

Please GET IN TOUCH HERE

Or contact: yvette@syncinspire.org

Justin Bishop from Las Vegas knows how it feels to lose everything you’ve worked hard for, and discover that this does not have to mean the end; in fact, it can be the beginning of amazing opportunities. Being told he’d go blind when he was a child led Justin to push himself hard to be the best he could be before sight loss took hold. After a journey through depression, feelings of failure and dreams lost, Justin’s determination has led him back to his original destination. Justin’s inspiring story proves that anything is possible if you follow your dreams…

Imagine sitting in a doctor’s office being told you have a genetic disease that causes blindness. Now imagine being eight years old and being told you will be blind one day. It is pretty hard as an eight year old to think about adulthood and the consequences of a genetic decease. They might as well have told a kid they would also have a mortgage and must pay taxes. Well, that is what happened to me. Twenty-five years ago I was told I had Retinitis Pigmentosa and it would change my life forever. As a child I was ignorant of what that would mean for me. That ignorance would turn into denial. That denial eventually turned into acceptance, then depression, and then back to a realization that I could have a normal life. My name is Justin Bishop, and today I am a blind amateur skateboarder.

When I was diagnosed with RP it really meant nothing to me. I understood it was important, and it was always in the back of my head, but just did not affect me. This ignorance allowed me to have a pretty normal childhood. In my preteens I found my passion for skateboarding and it consumed my life from that point on.

The first time RP started to affect me was years later when I was seventeen and driving home from work one late night. I realized I could not see very well in the dark anymore. My drive home was stressful, terrifying, and downright dangerous. One of the first things RP effects, is night blindness, which is your ability to have your eyes adjust in the dark. Up until this point, I had been ignorant of my condition. This ignorance quickly turned into denial. I spent another year driving home in the dark, when I should not have. All because, I was not ready to admit I was becoming visually impaired.

When I was eighteen, I admitted to myself, my family, and my work that I could not drive at night anymore. I realized one day soon I would be blind. Those words I heard ten years ago, were coming true. I will be blind. I knew I was in a race for time, so I doubled down on skateboarding and what I loved so I could have as much of it whilst I could see.

Around this time in my life, I was a mad man when it came to skateboarding. This sport consumed my every waking hour. If I wasn’t working, I was on my board. I picked up some local sponsors, won some competitions, and made my Dad proud. Fulfilling my dream of being a skateboarder before I lost my sight was really important to me.

When I was twenty, another major loss happened to my sight. I lost my drivers license because a milky gloss started to happen to my eyes, and I was no longer able to pass the DMV eye exam. Everything I was looking at started to look as if I was looking through a dirty window. It was blurry, and nothing was defined. Even though I lost my license, I could still see enough to skateboard. Not being able to drive, and now not being able to work, I went harder on my skateboarding. At this point, I was spending every hour skateboarding and focusing. I was good too. That is, until I was twenty-five. I remember this week vividly, because it was such a dramatic loss in such a short time. Usually with RP, it is a short loss over a long period of time. You don’t notice what you can’t see until your next eye exam or test. In one week, I lost most my sight, independence, and what felt like most of my life.

It was a summer day in Las Vegas. Nice and hot at the skatepark. I was there just skating, and practicing, and I realized my skateboard was getting blurrier. I couldn’t really tell where the top of the board was when I flipped it. I remember telling myself to shake it off and get some sleep. The next day I was there, and I realized I couldn’t see the ramp or rails directly in front of me. I could only see them out of the corner of my eyes. My board was gone, the park was disappearing, and it hit me. My skating days were over. Everything I worked fifteen years to gain was all gone in a matter of 48 hours. I was too blind to see what I was doing.

With an eye exam, I found out I no longer had central vision. The RP started to fully affect my central sight. I could only see out of the corner of my eyes. It hit me all at once. This has happened, I am blind now. I wish at this point I could tell you I was strong, picked myself right back up, and learned how to be blind, but that is not true. When a human loses anything they grieve, and I went into a depression.

I had no confidence during this depression. I stayed this way for months, until my Dad sat down and talked to me man to man. He told me something very important. He said that it was ok to be sad. What happened was a big deal. But I had been sad long enough. I needed to realize I was not the first person to go blind. That statement woke me up. It made me realize life if not over and I had to keep going. The next day I did everything in my power to start learning how to be blind. From getting my first cane, to taking mobility training, and learning how to make technology more accessible. Most importantly I learned how to live an independent lifestyle. This process did not happen overnight, but after two years I was a confident blind individual.

Although I retained my confidence and some independence, I still struggled with being fulfilled. I wanted to contribute and get a job. Trying to obtain a job for someone blind or visually impaired is one of the hardest obstacles I have encountered. Either you are over qualified for tasks they would trust a blind person with, or you are flatly denied an opportunity of trying a position just because you are holding a white cane. After months of being denied work, even washing dishes at a bar, I finally had my luck turn around. I came across a job opening for an ABA therapist in the autism community. They were looking for someone to teach kids on the spectrum how to skateboard. A skill I had spent much of my life honing. Obviously, this seemed like a dream job for me with my background. I applied and was fortunate to get an interview. I wish more blind people could have interviewed with the owner I have had the privilege to work for. He was understanding, and instead of turning me away, he gave me an opportunity to prove I could do the job. A chance to show that my sight did not stop me from teaching.

I was doing my dream job teaching children how to skateboard, at an amazing company, that supported me by making what I needed accessible. I had joined a community that fully accepted me. Even though I was working around skateboarding, I still did not get back on the board. Emotionally I was too hurt on how much I had lost when I lost my sight. That all changed when one day at work a friend asked me if I could still drop in on a halfpipe. I told him, no, probably not. If I can’t see the ground, I can’t see where I am going. I knew skateboarding was over for me. Him also having a passion for skateboarding, he would not accept no for an answer, no matter how many times I said it. So, I tried to drop in. I remember grabbing the skateboard, setting the tail on the coping to drop in, and standing up on top of the board ready to drop in with so much fear. Not fear that I would get hurt, but the fear of looking stupid in front of everyone. I shook it off and went for it. I dropped in for the first time in years, and I landed it. A flood of ecstasy hit me at the same time I realized the other side of the halfpipe was coming up. So, I quickly prepared to do a rock and roll on the other side of the coping. When I got there, I got into the rock and roll, but I got hung up and fell straight to the bottom of the halfpipe. Everyone rushed to me to make sure I was ok, just to find me with tears streaking my cheeks and a huge smile on my face. Laughing and crying at the realization of how much I loved skateboarding. I love the successes, and even the failures of getting hurt. I was laughing because I was so happy I had found my love of skateboarding again and crying because I was so angry for ever having let it go. So angry that my biggest fear was looking stupid in front of other people. From that day on, I was like a sixteen year old kid again, skateboarding every day. Relearning tricks I had already mastered, now having to use timing and pure luck. This is the part of my life that I realized how lucky I am. Most people only get to learn how to skateboard once, and I got to learn twice. With all the same joy and excitement, I had as a young boy.

From this point on I started skating with my friends again. Getting out of the house and making skate videos and reconnecting with the skate community. Before I knew it, I had companies reaching out wanting to sponsor me. A friend did an article about my skating, and that sparked an interest from Zappos, Electric sunglasses, Nixon, Element Skateboards, Nike SB, Independent Trucks, and many more. Now I am an Amateur Skateboarder getting to travel the world doing what I love. If I can pass one thing on from my story it is to just keep moving forward. You never know what possibility you might be missing due to your fear holding you back.

Follow Justin on social media here:

Facebook is Justin Bishop

Instagram is @justinthebishop

Twitter is @justinthebishop

Come spread the light 

Founder and CEO of ITTC

The Institute of Transformational and Transpersonal Coaching

When the going gets tough, the tough certainly get going! That perfectly describes not only the inspiring online initiatives that are popping up everywhere as a result of our current social distancing scenario, but it also perfectly describes our incredible

 7th KindaProud Peer Pocket Book Rep, Yvette Chivers … 

Due for publication around summer 2020, this inspirational little pocket rocket book Eye Inspire; #Emerging Proud through Eye Sight Loss, will be packed full of dreams being fulfilled and won’t fail to inspire even the most ardent disbelievers.

All 16 Contributors, in addition to Rep Yvette, have faced going blind at some point in their lives, and all the turmoil that foreboding brings. But rather than become victims to futures of darkness, each and every one of them have used this darkness to spark their inner light. For Yvette, this inner light set her on a creative path of utilising another of her senses to another level. Here she sings her personal song…

I was born with quite severe myopia (short-sight) and a lazy right eye, so eye clinic hospital visits became the norm as I went through the toddler-phase and into nursery. Through junior school I vehemently refused to wear my national-health, thick-rimmed, thick-lensed spectacles and absolutely hated the patch I had to wear regularly to ease the lazy eye that continued to make me squint. In the ‘80s, being the speccy one at school was a feat to deal with in itself! When I turned 16, and contact-lenses became available to me, it was like a new lease of life. I felt more confident, and less of a nerd. I felt like I had transformed into a different person. The negative connotations I had developed about glasses and generally having bad eyesight had stuck with me, but at last now I could shake that off. Little did I know that I had a LOT more to contend with in the future with regards to my sight and my self-belief.

I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) after a routine eye test at a high street opticians whilst I was living and working in London, having moved there from Cambridge to start my career in creative advertising. The optician spotted something in the back of my eye and referred me to Moorfields Eye Hospital for further examination. Since I was a teenager, I had seen tiny white flashing lights in my vision, the only way to describe it is like a static TV screen – the information is there, but with millions of minuscule gaps in it. But I always put it down to being part of being short sighted, and I noticed it more when I was tired. Unfortunately, I experienced a difficult diagnosis period – Moorfields sent the results to a consultant at a private hospital I was then with, who said there was nothing wrong with me. But by this point I wanted a second opinion, and my childhood optician back in Cambridge confirmed it as textbook RP. The following month I was made redundant from my dream job. A few months passed in a daze and I moved back to my family home, as I was just treading water in London and spiralling out of control mentally. After going back to the hospital eye clinic that I attended so regularly as a child, for confirmation of the degenerative disorder and to gain some form of support, I was told that generally most sight would be lost within 10 years’ time. I was just 24 and thought my life was over, or at least, thought that the life I wanted to have was gone. 

A lot of the rest of my 20s are still a blur, but during this time I developed a love and skill for DJing. I think it was the one thing I could rely on, knowing that I still had my hearing. I had always been a music lover, collecting vinyl as a teenager and taking my second-hand Philips flat-pack record player from University to every shared house I lived in. My love of Motown and old soul records was evidently passed down from my Dad, and back in Cambridge I started event nights playing out Motown, funk and soul with other DJs who were into the same music. I was also a keen club-goer and my DJing soon developed into playing dance music. I really have no idea how, but through my passion and perseverance, I ended up running my own monthly club night in Cambridge for ten years, and DJing in super-clubs such as the Ministry of Sound in London, warehouse parties in Berlin and on amazing stages at huge festivals including the Secret Garden Party. I do believe that the absolute love of the music, and my no-fear attitude enabled me to go into situations not really knowing if I could achieve the goal at hand, but just giving it a damn good go anyway. When you are presented with losing your sight, you can either let it consume you, or you can just take every opportunity possible. I did a trek in the Himalayas and The Andes for charity, I did crazy things like bungee jumps and skydiving. I wanted to experience as much as I possibly could before my sight totally left me.

 

Don’t get me wrong, it took me a long time to get to that “no fear” point. I was depressed for a long time, I couldn’t or wouldn’t get into any meaningful relationships because I didn’t believe anyone would want to be with a girl who would be blind soon. I had huge issues with my self-esteem and unfortunately self-medicated on binge drinking and other forms of escapism. Apparently, a lot of degenerative eye-sight disorders come with a denial phase, and I remember being told that RP denial is roughly 10 years. I am not kidding when I say that the veil of total uncertainty finally lifted when I was in my early thirties, almost exactly ten years after I was initially diagnosed. 

From this point, and leading up to founding the project Eye Inspire, I realised that without the support I had from friends and family, as well as meeting other young people with sight-loss, and from counselling from charities such as Cam Sight in Cambridge, I would not have regained the confidence that I am so glad I now have. I managed to set up and run an international music remix project that is now in its 10th year, working with amazing famous music artists and producers. I work with music colleges, amazing electronic music labels and large professional music equipment brands on various creative projects and events. I went to Japan on a four-day round trip as the agent of an internationally renowned electronic artist, which was a crazy experience. I feel extremely lucky to be in this position of working in an industry that I love so much, and over time I have created my own role which enables me to work within my own abilities and mobility – I now have a guide dog, who does come with me to many events and music talks that I deliver, but I definitely don’t take him clubbing!

I wanted to give back in some way, and to encourage other young people with sight-loss that anything really is possible. There will be sad and difficult experiences, but whatever you want to do, you can achieve. There is no boundary to your capabilities. Most sighted people haven’t been to the places I have been or achieved what I have in terms of music or career, and it’s truly been down to a bit of hard work, a sprinkling of luck, but fundamentally a lot of passion. I have never had much money, I’ve not been in a privileged position that way, but I have still gone to Peru and Goa on my own when I simply and firmly got the idea in my head. Where there is a will, there is a way. And from my story, and the many amazing stories in this book from people I have met on my own journey, I hope that you will be inspired to go for your dreams and aspirations. If you want it, you will most definitely achieve it. I am a great believer in positive mental attitude.

Please do CONTACT US if you would like any help in training or work experience in an area you are passionate about. We want to support any young person with sight loss to gain the links and contacts to help achieve their goals. We will be planning a series of talks to youth groups in the UK and internationally, for young people with sight loss, and some talk-based events in the UK which will be live-streamed on social media for global viewing and listening, featuring some of our amazing contributors from this book. For information about these events, do visit www.eyeinspire.org for more information and to join the newsletter. If indeed you are reading (or audio book listening to) this book after the events have taken place, the recorded videos and audio will be on the website.

I hope you enjoy the many stories of inspiration in this book, and I’ll finish my contribution with one of my favourite quotes:

 “Sometimes you need to shake up your own world and the people around you”

– Sander Kleinenburg

Yvette Chivers, AKA DJ MissChivers xx

www.eyeinspire.org

Follow Eye Inspire’s insp-eye-ring work at:

Twitter:  @eyeinspire2020

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eyeinspire2020/

Instagram: eyeinspire2020

Do you have an ‘Eye Inspire’ story of #Emerging Proud through Eye Sight Loss you’d like to share?

Please GET IN TOUCH HERE

Or contact: yvette@syncinspire.org

This event is triggering people to the core. Especially those who are already “WAKING UP”… I believe we can help wake up the rest. But we need to help one another to work through the collective trauma that this experience is unearthing.

Unfortunately, this may be a necessary global trauma. The world needs reconciliation and healing, for which trauma is often a catalyst. It’s pretty sobering and humbling. But, while we are in lockdown, global emissions are going down. This means that as we hurriedly implement strategies to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, we are creating the necessary infrastructure to also deal with the climate crisis.

I believe that the way we deal with COVID-19 can provide a blueprint for how we can effectively address the climate crisis. There are many parallels. Yet, we are responding far more swiftly to COVID-19 because it is an ACUTE crisis. It is here, we have no choice but to adapt. Quickly. Whereas, the climate crisis is CHRONIC. It still seems abstract to many.

I am feeling this crisis like many others will be. Very deeply and traumatically. Some days I am struggling to maintain my sanity, while other days I am feeling more alive than I have ever felt. It’s a roller coaster.

I have started documenting my experience in real time. I feel this is the kind of event that warrants such a project. I want to appeal to you to share your story too. Here is Part 2 of my experience:

View at Medium.com

 

Dr Kylie Harris is a research psychologist and activist. Her doctoral research is in the area of spiritual emergence(y) and she continues to advocate for this community. She has published peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on topics such as mediumship and shamanism. Kylie has a passionate interest in indigenous rights and shamanic healing, as well as the climate crisis. During this time of change, she believes these themes will converge, highlighting indigenous wisdom as the lifeblood of our planet, necessary to address the current crises we face, and the role of the spiritual emergence(y) community to lead this effort.

‘The Revolution of Consciousness – Shifting Myths in the Modern World’

The presentation below was part of a day of sharing and discussion organised by Cambridge Consciousness Forum on the theme of ‘The Revolution of Consciousness – Shifting Myths in the Modern World’ on 21 March, 2020. This day had to be cancelled due to Covid-19.

The idea for the day came out of the experience of living in a world in crisis and addresses the question of how we find personal meaning and a sense of direction through our experience. It offers one way of answering that question drawing on Carl Jung, Ervin Laszlo, Stan Grof, Maria Papaspyrou and James Hollis.

These authors point to the vital importance of engaging with our inner depth – the personal and collective unconscious – to find wisdom and healing. They suggest we need to revalue the archetypal Feminine which Western culture has devalued and repressed, to restore a sense of inter-connection and a balance in how we live.

Engaging in this work, facing archetypal levels of consciousness and the individual and collective trauma held in our Shadow, can be very challenging. It may involve experiences of ‘ego-death’ as our everyday awareness is overwhelmed and our sense of personal boundaries is temporarily suspended. We look at how two archetypal myths, that of the Hero’s Journey and of the Great Mother (Anima Mundi), can inspire us and guide us through such encounters.

The presentation considers, if the numinous power of particular myths to guide us is relative to time and culture, whether we might be going through a time of a waning of these two myths, prior to a new myth emerging.

At the end of the presentation a number of prompt questions are given for discussion, as well as a number of books I have found helpful.

A bit about the presenter;

Jeannet Weurman is a healthcare assistant in the day therapy centre of a local hospice. Following a long existential / spiritual search and a desperate desire to ‘know’ experientially that there is more than the material reality, she tried Stan Grof’s Holotropic Breathwork in the mid-1990s and went on to train with Grof as a facilitator in the technique. This, and a mild experience of kundalini energy triggered by the breathwork, fuelled her interest in the use of entheogens (psychedelics), meditation and breathwork as a way of entering non-ordinary, ‘mystical’ states of consciousness. During a year’s sabbatical from her work as a mental health advocate she went to live in California. There she engaged in a period of extensive meditation and experimented with various entheogens (psychedelics), culminating in a six-week retreat at Mapia in Brazil (a Santo Diame community deep in the Amazon forest). She participated in a number of ayahuasca ceremonies during what was an extremely challenging time. A month as work-scholar at Esalen (therapeutic community in Big Sur) offered a time of ‘grounding’ through work in housekeeping. She had one further, what felt like culminating and deeply healing experience with psilocybin, which rounded off this period in her life. She returned to the UK where she resumed work as advocate and social worker in health and social care for around 15 years, before feeling the need to return to further deep work. The exception to this was a number of periods of a few months each of spontaneous kundalini activity triggering non-ordinary states and drawing her in to meditate. In the last few years she has participated in a further residential ayahuasca retreat in Holland and has been participating in Holotropic breathwork workshops several times a year. Jeannet volunteered on the steering group for Emerging Proud and shared her personal story in our first Kinda Proud pocket book; #Emerging Proud through NOTEs

We are very grateful to Jeannet for sharing this work and the effort made to make it accessible online.

Are you experiencing or have you experienced Spiritual Crisis/Emergence and in need of support to integrate it all?

A spiritual crisis or “spiritual emergence” is a turbulent period of spiritual opening and awakening that can become unmanageable for a person. People may experience psychological challenges as a result.

Our peer support/sharing group in Oxford for people who are experiencing/have experienced spiritual crisis/emergence is open to new members…

Oxford Emerging Kind Peer Support/Sharing Group

When? Monday 6th April and Monday 4th May at 7pm monthly meetings

Where? The Mind Centre, 46 Cowley Road Oxford OX4 1HZ.

If you think that this might be of interest to you please contact Alan at: alan@emergingkind.org

Group Aims

To be a forum where our spiritual experiences can be validated

To provide support to people experiencing spiritual crisis/emergence

To explore the positive transformational nature of spiritual experiences

To explore the spiritual significance of what may have been seen as a mental health issue

To learn from each other and increase our knowledge of spiritual crisis/emergence

To explore how we can best integrate our experiences

To explore how we can use our experiences to aid our spiritual growth and quality of life