Weekly WINGS
Wisdom and Inspiration Nurturing Growth and Success
One of the biggest “ah-ha” moments in my journey as a parent was shifting away from a deficit perspective to a strengths-based approach.
There were so many challenges in those early years after my son Hiro became a part of my family through adoption….
Just one look at his health history and diagnosis list on doctor reports would be enough to make anyone gulp. He had over 30 issues listed, including disabilities, mental health challenges, and life-threatening diseases.
Our family life at home was chaotic and full of crisis in the early years because he had so much early childhood developmental trauma, school trauma, and medical trauma that caused extreme and sometimes dangerous behavior episodes.
However, Hiro is way more than a list of diagnoses, and he has incredible gifts, strengths, and potential.
Just like Hiro, every one of the children that you serve — whether as a parent, teacher, or other youth-serving professional – has a unique soul design and a purpose on this planet.
Focusing on their unique gifts, talents, interests, and personality are clues we can use to discover how to help bring out the best in them.
Instead of fixing what’s wrong…
find and nurture their HeartSong
Mattie J.T. Stepanek was an amazing young poet and philosopher who died at age 13 in 2009 from a rare form of muscular dystrophy.
In his short lifetime, he managed to write several best-selling books of poetry and received many honors and accolades, including tributes at his funeral by former President Jimmy Carter and Oprah Winfrey.
At age 3, Mattie began telling his mother Jeni, “God places messages in my heart to shape and share with purpose”.
At age 5, Mattie began talking and writing about his purpose using the word “Heartsong.”
He said, “A Heartsong is our inner beauty – our sense of why we are here and how we can keep going. We each have a Heartsong, rooted in purpose, or our reason for being. In sharing our Heartsong with others, it goes out into the world, and somehow, circles back to us.” – Mattie J.T. Stepanek
From “Chapter 4: Sharing Heartsongs” in Messenger: The Legacy of Mattie J.T. Stepanek by Jeni Stepanek, PhD (Penguin, 2010)
Mattie’s philosophy of nurturing our HeartSong can bring so much hope and healing to children with lots of challenges — whether they are medical like Mattie’s were, or in the realm of mental health, behavior, or circumstances and obstacles that just make life extra hard.
What you focus on grows
When we focus on deficits, everything is a problem to be solved.
When we focus on hope and strengths, life is an exciting adventure to be lived!
In the early years of parenting Hiro, I spent hours and hours of fighting for services, advocating for his needs, emailing teachers, taking him to medical appointments and mental health therapy sessions, trying multiple treatments and medications, and countless other attempts to “fix what was wrong” with Hiro.
But… his life force was withering away right in front of me, and he began to lose hope.
I realized that he had begun to feel we were all treating him more like an experimental guinea pig than a human being.
So, I made a decision to make a radical shift in the way I was approaching things.
Instead of dragging him to another specialist, I bought him more art supplies.
Instead of trying yet another medication, I asked him what movies were coming out soon that he was looking forward to.
Because life isn’t worth living if you don’t have something worth looking forward to.
Just to be clear — I am not advocating that we give up all medical and mental health treatment. In some ways, these have been very helpful in Hiro’s journey, and many children and adults do benefit from these, especially when the medical and mental health professionals use a trauma-informed approach.
However, I think that focusing on problems all the time can be devastating if we do not also focus on what brings our souls and the souls of our children to life.
We need to move beyond what’s wrong to nurturing their HeartSong.
In our programs at HSI, we emphasize how to discover each child’s unique strengths and nurture “Optimistic Narratives of Growth” to give our children hope and a sense of courage and pride in who they are and their potential for success, whatever that looks like in their lives.
This is a gift that will last a lifetime and build the resilience they need to move through any challenge.
In Hiro’s case, one of his most obvious gifts is his talent with art.
When Hiro is making art, he feels such a strong sense of creativity and purpose, and I have no doubt that finding this HeartSong has been one of the main reasons he is still alive and thriving today.
Here is one of his drawings:
Children, families, and teachers all over the world are having such a hard time right now, in so many ways. And there are a lot of people who are focusing on what’s wrong, instead of helping children and adults nurture their HeartSong.
“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.” – C.S. Lewis
We need to be the parents, teachers, and trauma-informed, heart-strong leaders who help children and adults remember who they really are.
We can do this by building relationships of trust and always being on the lookout for growth, potential, and tiny increments towards more joy, purpose, and success.
For those of you ready to take it to the next level…
You can become a Trauma-Informed Specialist, Certified Parent Coach, or Certified Educational Trainer and provide practical, compassionate support for families and teachers to support the growth and healing of our most vulnerable and challenging children.
Step into trauma-informed leadership
If you are passionate about using your lived experience to become the compassionate, trauma-informed, healing-centered leader that children, families, and teachers really need today, then we would love to talk to you about joining our one-of-a-kind certification programs!
These programs provide the tools and strategies you need to become a confident expert who can be a role-model and change-maker in schools, communities, and families.
Many of our graduates have also found that the program has made them better parents and teachers of their own children!
If you are passionate about using your lived experience to become the compassionate, trauma-informed, healing-centered leader that children, families, and teachers really need today, then we would love to talk to you about joining our one-of-a-kind certification programs!
These programs provide the tools and strategies you need to become a confident expert who can be a role-model and change-maker in schools, communities, and families.
Scholarships: A limited number of partial scholarships are available on a first-come, first-served basis to those with financial need.
Download and read the brochure, then click the button below to schedule a Zoom meeting (choose “meeting – 30 minutes”):
I hope this Weekly WINGS has been helpful to you!
Nurture your HeartSong and the HeartSongs of others this week, and I’ll see you here again next week!
