Flute, Piano, and Autism

Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Roseburg and this is the program for you as a family caregiver.

We're so glad you're with us. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. I'm going to pivot a little bit to the other side of the world where I'm going to talk with Lisa Williams, who is in Australia. She's the mother of a special needs child and the author of the new book, Hope Wins. Overcoming feelings of hopelessness and special needs families and she's joining us from Canberra, Australia. First of all, did I say that right, Lisa?

Because I do have a southern accent along with my American accent and I will mangle words easily. Canberra. That's it. That's it. Got to get used to my accent, Peter.

It's the capital of Australia. You would think I could be able to say it, but here I am. We're glad to have you, Lisa. First off, it is springtime where I am in Montana in the Northwest US, but it is autumn where you are. Where you are or getting ready to be, is that correct? Yes, we're in autumn and we're heading into winter. So we're polar opposites on the other side of the world here. So we're actually coming out of our La Mena and so we've got a lot of rain and so our summer and our spring and coming into our winter is not what we normally would experience. There's been a lot of flooding over here in Australia. So we've gone from one natural disaster to the next. We started with bushfires, went into a pandemic, now been dealing with terrible floods, not in Canberra, but on our east coast in particular and southeast Queensland.

It sounds like you guys have had a pretty rough go of it, and I hope it's going to be a calm, peaceful autumn for you all. Let's talk about your family's journey. You have a son who has autism.

He's 21 years old. You also have two older children and your family has walked through some challenges. What surprised you about this journey? I think for me, the surprise came because it wasn't the life that I had planned for myself. I talk about being sidelined in my book and feelings of feeling, I guess, a little bit gypped that I had hopes and plans. One thing I resonated, Peter, with you as I've read some of your story is I actually have a Bachelor of Music like yourself and I was a musician. I was going down a performance career with my flute playing and my music.

When this happened, the first chapter of the book I talk about, it was like the day the music died. It was a challenge because at one point I actually have laid down my instruments and I've been challenged by your journey that I will be picking up. I'm so glad to hear that because flautists are wonderful musicians. What else do you play besides the flute? A little bit of piano and I was singing and a tiny bit of guitar. No clarinet or piccolo?

Piccolo, yes. Clarinet, I gave it a go, but I didn't progress very much. It's encouraging to hear that you're picking up your flute because I think it's a wonderful gift of God to have music that helps express what's in our souls as caregivers. For me, music has been a great respite and oasis to deal with my journey as a caregiver and the feelings that come out of it. Hans Christian Andersen said, where words fail, music speaks.

I bet you've got great music yet to come out of you. What other things have surprised you about yourself in this? I think it surprised me how much I could develop my voice and learn to be able to speak about things and be real about circumstances that I never thought I would be able to be so open and honest about. Because early in the journey I wanted to keep things hidden and I didn't want to face the reality of what our circumstances were becoming. And as I've walked through this journey of being able to live in reality and not in denial and embrace this journey and find good things in this journey and hope in this journey and a richness in our family relationships, it surprised me how I've been able to have a voice for other people who might not be able to express their voice and help them find their voice.

It surprised me at how much closer our family relationships have become. And just that admits what could seem to be a really hopeless situation that there is hope and also growing so much closer in my personal walk with Jesus. As a result, as I've allowed him into that struggle, I guess, to produce something of worth and to shine through our circumstances.

So I think that's what's also surprised me. How when we really do grow that way that God can just take what seems hopeless and turn into something that's hopeful. That's what he does and I'm counting on it. I've staked my whole life on it. Your older children, let me pivot a little bit, you have a daughter and older son. How have you been touched by watching your family become cohesive around this?

You guys have been married a long time and the divorce rate in most couples with any type of disability is almost 90%. What are some things that have touched your heart that you've observed that you've witnessed that you'd like to share? Well, we've just observed that we really had to be really real and honest about what our reality in our family was because I do talk about this in the book Hope Wins. That our family was tearing each other apart and we actually struggled with toxic patterns of relating towards one another. And what I observed was that I started my own journey of healing and went to get help and my husband did as well separately. And as we processed out pain, my husband and I separately and then together with God and with the people God put in our lives, that actually had a flow on effect to our older children.

It wasn't easy. They had their own significant struggles, but through that they could see my husband and I, I guess, struggling well. When I say struggling well, I don't want to minimise that this was easy or we are a glory story. And I say that at the end because it has been struggle and there were times when we didn't know if we would make it. But by being real and raw and honest with the people put in our path that God gave us to help us and accepting the help. And being real with our own children and they could see us turning to God, they too both turned to the Lord and have involved him in processing their pain. And it is actually that cliche that says a family that prays together stays together and that has seriously been our story that today my older kids will say, Mum, will you pray for me? Or I'll reach and so I'm praying for you. And we've still got ways to go.

We are not a perfect family, but we are a family that are following Jesus and include him in absolutely everything through thick and thin in the tough times and the better times. Well, that's exactly right. I mean, there's no quick fix. There's no solution to these things. There's just a better way of coping and living with this more peacefully.

It's work. We can't change it. We can't cure it, but we didn't cause it either. What would you say to your younger self?

You've been dealing with this for some time. You go back to the moment you got the diagnosis with your son and all the feelings and so forth that came out of that. What are some things that you would say to that younger version of Lisa and other young mothers, things that you've learned through this process? To stop striving.

I think coming out of the performance music background, I think there was that striving, that desire to perform, to do well, to perfect. And I wanted to be a really good special needs mum. And as I look back at this book that I've written and I even look at how the tone of my second book, which will be Hope Prevails or similar to haven't completely decided on the title, I can see a different me already writing my second book because I'm learning to rest more in Christ and trust him on the journey and to know that I don't have to have it all together.

I don't have to have managed all of the therapists and the finances and all the things that go with running a special needs family. But that, you know, I can actually just let go and let God and trust him to move mountains that just seem impossible to move in the natural and to not be so pent up about that. And just to take that pressure off, because like you said, it is what it is and coming to that point of peace and acceptance and to not resist and fight all the time to want a different life or to want things to be different from how they are. I think only wears you down.

It has an impact on your health as a caregiver and can even put a block in your own with God because you continually feeling cross or resentful or these other feelings when he's just saying come to me. I want you to rest in me. I've got this. I love you and I want to be able to do life with you in these circumstances. Well said. There's a statement I live by perfection is the enemy of the good. And I think for us as caregivers, we try so hard to be perfect, but it's not going to be perfect. It's going to be messy at times, very messy. You know, and as a musician, this has been a principle for me when I was studying formally in classical music, everything had to be spot on, you know?

Yes. But then I switched over to jazz improvisation and that's when I stopped trying to perform a piece of music in a rigid sort of way and just started expressing and playing music. It was a different mindset for me. And it's not that I want to play it sloppy because I don't. I just want to be able to express and play and let it out as opposed to make sure that I rigidly perform something. I think the music in us is more important than the perfection we're trying to demand of ourselves.

Michael J. Fox has a great statement that he made once. Perfection is God's business. Excellence is ours. And I found that we can be excellent at what we do without putting these unreasonable demands as caregivers for us to be perfect. It's going to be what it's going to be. And sometimes it's going to be less than perfect.

In fact, every time it's going to be less than perfect. And you and your family know this and you've embraced this. The book is called Hope Wins Overcoming Feelings of Hopelessness in Special Needs Family and your website is? So you can find me on www.leisawilliamsauthor.com. That's www.leisawilliamsauthor.com. And I'm also on Amazon. So if you just Google search Hope Wins Overcoming Feelings of Hopelessness in Special Needs Families, you can purchase the book there on an e-book or a print book. It will be mailed to you. But I also have some videos and resources and reviews of people who have been our care team and been doing the journey with us for many of them over 15 plus years.

And I do talk about and resource particularly on my website, the value of having a powerful care team and connecting and remaining connected as a caregiver with other people who can support you and your family. I will now be sure to link to this through our podcast. And two things I'm going to have you back on because I love your story and I love your heart for this. And then also I want you to play some flute. Send me a recording. I won't put it out unless you give me permission. But I want to hear you play it. I want to hear you singing and picking up the guitar even.

How about that? Okay. Well, you have inspired me and I'm definitely going to get back into it because I need to do that.

And I need to do it for my own soul and my own healing. And I think it is now definitely time. I look forward to hearing it. Lisa, I've enjoyed our time together. Thank you so much for checking in with us all the way from across the globe. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is Hope for the Caregiver.

We'll be right back. Hey, this is Peter Rosenberg. Did you know that you can recycle used prosthetic limbs? No kidding. We've been doing this at Standing with Hope since 2005. For six years, I did it myself out of our garage. And sometimes on colder nights, I'd sit by the fire in our den and I'd be surrounded by a bunch of prosthetic legs that have come from all over the country.

And I would disassemble them and store the feet, the pylons, the knees, the adapters, the screws, all those things that can be re-salvaged and repurposed to build a custom fit leg. Then a wonderful organization in Nashville partnered with us to help take it out of my garage and my den and into a better system. This is CoreCivic, CoreCivic.com. Now, they are the nation's largest owner of partnership, correctional, detention and residential reentry facilities. And they have a lot of faith-based programs. And I'm proud to say that Standing with Hope is one of those programs and has been now for over a decade.

Inmates volunteer to help us disassemble those used prosthetic limbs. Reports show that inmates who go through faith-based programs are better equipped to go back into society. And the recidivism rate of returning back to prison is so low.

They don't want to come back and society doesn't want them to come back. And faith-based programs are a big part of that. And that's something that CoreCivic really believes in. And we are so thrilled that Standing with Hope is one of those programs. I remember the first time we started, an inmate looked at me and said, I've never done anything positive with my hands until I started doing this program with Standing with Hope. Another inmate told me, he said, I never even thought of people with disabilities until I started doing this. And it's an extraordinary partnership and very moving to see this.

See, we can do so much with these materials. But a lot of family members have a loved one that passes away. They don't know what to do with the limb. They'll keep it in a closet or sometimes even worse, they'll throw it away.

Please don't let that happen. Please send it to us through Standing with Hope. Standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Standingwithhope.com slash recycle. And let's give the gift that keeps on walking.