Joy is a choice and a right. We all have a human need to practice it in our daily lives. Finding your niche, your groove, your thing, is how you find your bliss. The happy place where healing miracles happen. 

Nature’s Rhythm Speaks to Me

I love the sights and sounds of nature. Rushing rivers mingling with birdsong in springtime, the shifting rhythm of rain and the driving force of thunder and lightning. A stir of rising winds in the distance that often signals change. The song the ocean sings as it caresses the coastline between land and sea speaks to us all. In places like these, we find healing joy that moves with the flow of the universe. 

Motherhood Memories, Art and Music 

I love music with every fiber of my being. Making music and singing karaoke with my kids have been some of our best times. A shared taste in music and painting along with Bob Ross videos became a tradition that connected us across generations. Memories filled with awe and delight as I watched my children's musical and artistic talents blossom and grow.  

Writing Against all Odds

Over the years we learned new crafts while I lost my ability to do others, including my ability to type. For years I experienced burning pain and numbness in my hands due to nerve damage, carpal tunnel and radial tunnel issues that were never surgically corrected. 

Stubbornly I kept writing poetry and scribbling research notes in scrapbooks with fat markers. Never giving up my writer's dream. Holding on to my love of that artform by the skin of my teeth. 

Reclaiming Joy with Clay

While living in rural parts of the country, crafting helped me combat the loneliness of social isolation. Years previously I lost my ability to knit, make jewelry and I have terrible difficulty working the simplest clasp. I started working with clay and I experienced a healing connection. I am both shocked and amazed to discover my shaking and fumbling hands work for me more than against me.

Healing Power of Connection 

Reading, writing, storytelling, and advocacy are the center of my existence while I start life anew. Yes, and all I’ve learned is setting me free from most of my social isolation. While in the past I’ve gathered much of my seasonal bliss and healing flow from gardening, my PD symptoms caused multiple falls. This spring I sow my seeds of love in my stories, each one rooted in hope. It gives me great fulfillment to connect with the PD community and share what I’ve learned.

Walk Your Own Path 

How you tap into your bliss is to find what matters to you for reasons you can’t explain in words. Only in the feeling it gives you. Practice these activities and allow them to distract you from what ails you. Even if it’s only for a moment or two at a time. When you can find what brings you peace, and turn that into something you do regularly, it then becomes an exercise that makes room for cognitive healing. 

Rebirth Through Improv 

One of the most profound shifts in my emotional well being happened when I joined Robert Cochrane’s Jam for Joy improv program. What started as online fun and games became a powerful tool for healing. The day I learned how to “Yes, And”…life  and apply it as an exercise, it set my mind free in ways traditional therapy and self help books don’t . The longer I was involved in the program, the more my symptoms improved. 

Miracles Happen : Unlocking my Hands and Finding My Voice

The most miraculous improvement is the return of my ability to type. Two months into my first round of Cinema Therapy class in 2023, I transformed from having trouble highlighting people's work, into someone who can out-type a much younger version of myself. I still experience pain and off periods of time. It’s nothing like it was before. No medication changes, just finding connection and real emotional support healed me in many ways. Restoring my confidence and giving me a sense of self. 

In a nutshell, by finding my bliss through Robert Cochrane’s Cinema Therapy program, I found a way to reboot my brain. It taught me how to redirect the way I deal with stress, pain and past trauma. Helping me see life for what it can be instead of feeling limited by the negative stigma of what people say we can’t be because of PD. Thanks to the magic words: Yes, And…

It’s Up to You 

Find your bliss. Share your world. Connect with the PD community and above all find a way to tell your story. It doesn’t matter if you share it with an original work of art, a heartfelt song or like me,  a dream come true opportunity to write a screenplay with a wonderful group of talented people. When you can take the focus off what is wrong with you, and instead focus on what is not wrong with your life, you might just find a way to open doors into your wildest dreams. 

Join Our Team  

Yes, and, as the newly appointed secretary for Yes,And…eXercise!, I invite everyone to check out the latest happenings at www.yesandexercise.org Highlighting our Sandlot -  FIeld of Dreams and WIDS (What I Didn’t Say)  developing class projects. 

In celebration of Dave Parker's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Yes, And…eXercise! is hosting a silent auction featuring autographed merchandise from the movie, The Sandlot to raise funds for a future Cinema Therapy class that will help members of the Dave Parker Foundation. You can learn more here: https://www.yesandexercise.org/sandlot 

Or by checking out the Dave Parker foundation homepage:https://www.daveparker39foundation.com/