Transcript: Jumpstarting Your Social Life

HadleyJumpstarting Your Social LifePresented by Lauri DishmanDate July 7th, 2011

Billy BrookshireToday we are going to be talking about jumpstarting your social life. One last thing about comments before I forget it folks, When you make comments, if you would, please keep them fairly short because remember there are a lot of folks on the line today and we want to make sure everybody gets a chance to participate.

Your presenter today is Lauri Dishman. Lauri is the manager of Counseling Services at the Guild for the Blind and you’re going to enjoy her just to the nth degree I guarantee you. So now that I can give her as much time as possible I am going to

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turn the microphone over and Lauri here is the microphone. We’re ready to rock.

Lauri DishmanThank you Billy for bringing me onto this webinar. I am actually going to start today’s webinar with just a passage.

This is a passage that was written by a member of the Guild for the Blind. His name is Jeff Flodin. It is called The Day I Blossomed Like a Spring Flower: “ Three years ago today I moved to Chicago. I moved from Rockford, from a condo off the bus line. There I lived a detached life, rationalized by reading good books, writing bad prose and becoming computer literate. I supplemented physical isolation with emotional unavailability. I depended on others to meet my needs. I sought refuge among the safe and the familiar. My Seeing Eye dog atrophied from disuse. My lifestyle made sense only in the context that I was going blind. I was frozen by fear and I was depressed. Then I moved to Chicago to live with my girlfriend, (now my wife). Our first Sunday together I knocked over a full pot of coffee onto the Sunday Tribune. Later I

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broke the lawnmower running it over the water meter. That afternoon at a garden reception I talked to empty chairs and continued conversations with people who had strolled away. On the way home I caught my favorite shirt in the car door and ripped the entire pocket from the body. I finished by pouring orange juice into the silverware drawer. My wife said ”This has been a tough day for you, hasn’t it?” Probably tougher on you, my dear, I said. As for me I took some risks. Not all panned out but that is not your fault. Some were careless but I don’t feel the fool. I’m still standing and I hope your head is held high. Maybe I should stick to what’s safe but the burden of fear is lifting and I am living a little. I don’t know about you but I can’t wait until next weekend.”

This was written by Jeff Flodin. He is a Guild for the Blind member and he is a blogger on our website, guildfortheblind.org. His blog is called “Jalapenos in the Oatmeal”. I wanted to open today’s webinar with this because obviously we are all logged in here for a reason. We are talking about our social lives. Whether it is your social life or someone you know. We’re here because obviously when we’re thinking about being social oftentimes what holds

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us back is that fear, that what if, what if I make a fool out of myself, what if I say something ridiculous, what if I run into a whole bunch of tables and knock things over, what if I look ridiculous holding my white cane.

These are all thoughts that run through people’s minds, especially people who are visually impaired when they think about going out and being social. Some of these thoughts go through peoples minds regardless of whether you’re sighted or whether you’re blind or you’re visually impaired. We all have this fear of being out in public. It can be completely overwhelming and so when we talk about our social lives. We first have to talk about courage. We have to talk about overcoming the fear of getting out. I really wanted to open up this seminar with this passage to really talk about element #1 that is extremely important when you are out being social and that is having courage to do so.

There is a great book out there. It is called, “The Psychology of Courage” and it is by Drs. Julia Yang, Al Miller and Mark Blagen. They say in order for you to have courage there must be fear. Fear

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must be present in order for you to have courage. So just by logging in today you’ve got the courage to learn a little bit more. It’s funny because John Wayne has a great quote. He says, “Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.” So clearly we’re here about facing the fear of being social and that’s sort of the primary element of getting out there and being social.

When we talk about being social as it relates to individuals who are blind or visually impaired I turn to the Reverend Thomas Carroll and his writings are amazing and his work in rehabilitation and assistance for people who are visually impaired are astounding. In his book “Blindness” which was written in 1961, he talks about the reality contact with the environment and how important it is that regardless what you’re going through, someone might be going through the rehabilitation process or adjusting to being blind or visually impaired that it is important to remain in connection with the environment. With what’s around you, with other people that are not blind or other people who have other specialties or diversity within their lives. So just having that courage to remain connected is extremely important.

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So he talks about detective instinct and we’re going to be talking a little bit more about that when we get more in touch with this idea of sort of the tips or techniques for remaining social and that’s kind of my goal today.

You know we have this idea of courage and we have this concept of remaining connected and being connected within the community as this sort of primary element of having a great social life and I’m hoping today, I’m going to be offering you some insight, or some good tips in terms of how to get out there and just be a good socializer and to have these tips in your tool bag so that when you get out there perhaps you feel more prepared and you have that courage to strike up conversation or just simply to get out of the house and do something that you haven’t done before.

Clearly, when we talk about having confidence or getting out that also means just having, maintaining your own self-concept and your own self-esteem and self-efficacy and Reverend Carroll talks about self-efficacy which is our feeling that

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we are good at doing something. So when he talks about that detective instinct he often talks about how in rehabilitation we may have to learn some more mundane tasks which might seem kind of ludicrous, for some. When we talk about the idea of rehabilitation and learning these tasks the hope is that by learning things like making a wallet or basket-weaving or something.

So I’m going to talk a little bit about the importance being a good communicator which is the second element to having a good social life. Is to be present and to actually be a good socializer while you’re out there and one of the key elements to this is to have good people skills. Is being able to connect with people on a very interpersonal level and I’m going to be turning to a book used by a gentleman named Dr. Robert Bolton and it’s a book called “People Skills”.

Anyway, let’s talk about this, about people skills and let’s talk about Dr. Robert Bolton and what he suggests in terms of how to develop these good skills. First of all we talk about listening skills and listening skills as being sort of the fulcrum of having good people skills. And in his book he has a

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quote from a professor. His name is Dr. Jake Drakeford. This sort of differentiates the difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is a good word to describe the physiological sensory processes by which auditory sensations are received by the ears and transmitted to the brain. So here we’re sort of talking about this idea that hearing is sort of this scientific phenomenon. It’s not necessarily kind of relating to anyone on a psychological perspective. So on the other hand, listening refers to a more complex psychological procedure involving interpreting and understanding the significance of the sensory experience. So that’s the difference between listening and hearing is that there is a psychological presence here as opposed to just the science of hearing somebody.

So according to Dr. Bolton there are 3 primary elements to being a really good listener, to being effective in this capacity. So first of all what we have is we have attending skills and these are the skills that you have in terms of there seems to better ways terms of how you are dealing physically with the person that you’re with. So attending skills is sort of leaning towards the

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speaker; facing somebody squarely; listening for where their voice it and facing in that direction as opposed to looking outside or looking someplace else, allowing for appropriate personal space, which in this country, the United States, is about three feet. In other countries it might be different.

In other cases too, modeling the speaker and in this case maybe sort of listening to how the speaker is talking - is this person animated, can you hear dynamics within their voice, are they speaking high, are they speaking low and trying to mirror how the speaker is speaking and trying to mirror that or are they using a very monotone and very level way of speaking. Not a lot of highs and lows. So if that’s case then perhaps just modeling that person and modeling that means of communication. Obviously, you are there with them on a physical level. We are going to talk a little bit about how someone who is blind or visually impaired can kind of better achieve this in just a moment. Dr. Bolton also talks about the importance of following skills and these are skills that sort of help to keep the conversation going to kind of keep the

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flow on a really good level. He talks about this idea of door openers which are just these little sort of cues that you can give to someone to let them know that you’re listening, that you’re with them on this conversation. For example, someone might be talking and say, “Oh wow, the other day I took my children to Navy Pier and we had a wonderful time at the Children’s Museum and we participated in a lot of different activities.”

You as a listener can say “Wow that sounds really interesting can you tell me more.” So those are what they call minimal encourages, “like oh wow that’s wonderful, really?” “I would love to hear more about that.” Sometimes maybe even asking some little questions. Things like, “Wow, so what do you think was your daughter’s activity that she participated in.” Just little ways to sort of keep the conversation going and sometimes even just staying silent and staying quiet can often be helpful in this regard.

And finally, we talk about reflecting skills and I have a quote here again from the book. This is from a theologian, John Powell. In true listening we reach behind the words, see through them to find

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the person who is being revealed. So often times what we use are ways of sort of summarizing. This is sort of what you might use while you are more in depth in the conversation. Skills like paraphrasing which might be just a concise way of rephrasing what was just said. So for example if the speaker says, “My rehabilitation counselor was telling me how important it is to stick to my plan even though some of the activities I am doing seem mundane and boring. I mean when am I ever going to use basket-weaving in real life.” So you as the listener might say, “Wow, it sounds like you’re saying that even though this work can seem a little bit meaningless you’re hoping that at some point there might be some purpose and the speaker might say, “yes, exactly. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” You could also use this technique to sort of reflect the way the person is feeling.

For example, if someone says, “I am so nervous about using a cane.” “I am so afraid everyone is going to stare at me and make fun of me and you as the listener could say, “Wow it sounds like you’re scared.” And the speaker might say, “Yeah a little bit. It’s something I’ve never tried before.” So clearly these are just some good ways to be

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with somebody while you are in a social situation and so clearly using these techniques can make you a better communicator; can make you more present with someone. So that you’re there more on an intellectual and emotional level as opposed to just simply hearing what they have to say.

When we talk about how this applies to being blind or visually impaired oftentimes these skills especially the physical presence part of it can be a little bit difficult. So he talks about this idea of the detective instinct and how we can sort of look to our other senses to tell us something about the individual who is with us, for example, just simply using your ears. If you’re standing up for example, or if you are seating with that individual presence. Just simply by listening to the tone of someone’s voice you can tell if that person is male or female, younger or older what is there cultural heritage perhaps. Even shaking that person’s hand and using your sense of touch can tell you is this person a large person or is this person a thin person, are they smaller in stature, bigger in stature.

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This can give you quite a bit of information just simply by using your other senses to give you an overall picture of who that person is or what the social situation is all about. There’s a psychological term that’s used. It’s called gestalt, which is sort of getting the feeling of the entire essence of what is happening of within the context of where you are. So that is really sort of what, when Reverend Carroll talks about that primary element in terms of being visually impaired that can give you one aspect of this. There are other tips that he talks about too. He talks about, you know, for example, if you are in a social situation and perhaps somebody in the group asks a question and perhaps it is geared towards the individual who is visually impaired but the person who is visually impaired doesn’t realize that or may not realize who the question is being targeted to. Perhaps that person can say “was that question targeted for me.” “Was that question intended for me.”

And I think the point here is that when someone is visually impaired or blind it might be important to use your voice a little bit more than say someone might would if they don’t have vision. Obviously to

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get a sense of and to be able to use those other senses to take in that information. For example, it is often common when you’re sitting in a group and my support groups for example, we often go around the room and I ask everyone in the room to just briefly introduce who they are. So a) everyone knows where everybody is sitting and b) So that someone knows which voice is attached to where and where that voice is coming from. So that’s another example.

Another thing that Reverend Carroll talks about is acting as if you are sighted in terms of when you are in a social situation is using similar facial expressions and mannerisms, using gestures or using your face to communicate what it is that you’re feeling in a given situation. For those who are congenitally blind I know that that can be difficult and there are courses out there that can help someone to sort of teach them how to position their face when expressing certain emotions by becoming aware of the muscles in your face and knowing what muscles are out there. I know there was a course here in the Chicago area that was taught by a woman named Karen McCollough. It was a Nonverbal Communications Skills course. It

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actually focused specifically on using these facial muscles and really helped individuals to understand and to better communicate just simply using nonverbal gestures within their facial expressions.

And then finally, Reverend Carroll talks about those mannerisms. He refers to them as blindisms; that rocking has often been associated with people who are blind and the rocking back and forth, rubbing your eye sockets. There are some mannerisms that individuals who are visually impaired seem to pick up. So what is suggested here is to sort of ask others around them. Others who are sighted to give the individual honest feedback and say, “when you’re with me do you notice if I have any of these “blindisms”? “If so can you tell me what they are so that I can be aware of them.” I know that in Karen McCollough’s class she often talks about this and points these out to the individuals in the course and has then throughout this class sort of work on those as a project throughout.

As Billy was saying I am going to turn the microphone off because I would love to get some information from the crowd out there to find out

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what it is that you do to kind of make your communication a little bit more effective when you’re out and about and you’re socializing. So I am going to turn the mike off and allow others to speak.

I am wondering if this might be difficult. It looks like several people were trying to raise their hand at the same time. I am going to try it at the same time. It looked like Jeannie Nylander was trying to say something. Jeannie, I’m going to turn my mike off so you can speak.

Jeannie NylanderGood morning. I was wondering, you were talking about the blindisms is it necessarily wrong. I’m a newly blind person and sometimes when I sort of rock a little bit it sort of centers me just to calm me down. Is that something wrong that we’re not supposed to do?

Lauri DishmanWell, I wouldn’t say it is something wrong. I mean, I think what it is is that it’s all relative and I think

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perhaps maybe what you can do is ask those around, perhaps those who are sighted around you to give you honest feedback to say, “when I do this does this seem awkward to you or does it just seem like everything is okay.” For some people that may not bother them but for others it might put them off a little bit and I can’t say that it’s right or wrong or that it’s black or white. It could be something that might; especially if you’re in a social situation with new individuals you might not know how they are responding. So it might be, it could be something that could throw others off. I’m not saying that it will and I’m not saying that it won’t it’s something that could happen and by getting feedback from individuals who you can trust judgment or you feel comfortable getting their opinion from that might help you to determine whether in your situation that might be “right or wrong”.

Any other comments?

DarlaThis is Darla. I have a problem sometimes with putting my hands to my eyes. I did it a lot when I

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was younger. So I guess this is just kind of a habit I have or maybe, anyway, I try not to do it when people are around. If you could give me some general thoughts on that.

Lauri DishmanDarla, I got the end of your question. I wasn’t sure exactly what you said at the beginning. Could you repeat that for me please?

DarlaI was just commenting that I had the problem of putting my hands up to my eyes. With my real eyes this would be real brief. They hurt all the time when I was little so I kept them closed. I put my hands up there and so I guess now sometimes I still do that and I won’t even think about it until someone says something.

Lauri DishmanThank you for sharing, Darla. Again this is just simply the idea of how is this affecting those who you are and those you are closest with. Again it may not bother anyone and then again it might

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sort of put people off. Again the key here that Reverend Carroll really talks about I this is, you know, first of all, how ready are you for that feedback and how ready are you to perhaps you know be open to finding out whether or not it is something that bothers someone. It might not at all. I mean you might get along great in social situations and it does not affect anybody at all but for some it might. And so it is just a matter of how ready you are for that particular situation.

It looks like I have a question here from Jen Boze on the chat room. It says, “Any suggestions for how to approach people who are already in conversation with other people. If you are not able to communicate well with them nonverbally and want to talk to them without interrupting their previous conversation. What is a graceful way to do that.” That’s a really great question and I think this applies to people who are visually impaired as well to people who are sighted. Sometimes you just have to wait and listen for a pause in the conversation by being keen in terms of if someone is really engaged it might be inappropriate to interrupt right away but if you can hear a lull in the conversation or someone is talking about

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something and you have something that you can add. Sometimes just interrupting just a good lull can often be a great entry point into it and that’s the key to good conversation. I think that’s a really great question.

It’s interesting, I was going to talk about this a little bit later on and I mentioned Karen McCullough before but she has a great technique for when she goes into a crowded place and she is at a conference or she is at a wedding or she is at some kind of a place where there are lots of people and lots of tables. She has really good mobility skills so she takes her cane and she walks slowly with her cane in front of her and she just taps it along. Sort of taping it front of her and eventually she will, you know she might hit a table and if she does it is just very gently but if she hits somebody’s shoe or taps somebody gently she can say, “oh excuse me,. I am so sorry.”

She holds out her hand and she says, “Hi, I am Karen. What’s your name.” It’s a great way to get people to say. “Oh my name is such and such or my name is so and so.” If someone is put off by that she’s just like “Well that’s your problem I’m

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just going to move on and I’m going to find the people who I feel comfortable with. Another good tip she says she has especially when she is in business situations is she wears a jacket with a pocket and she has a business card and she just hands them her card and says, “Hi I’m Karen McCullough.” And then this way people have her card and they know who she is so it is really great. I thought those were really interesting tips.

I have Franklin Johnson. He has his hand up. I am going to turn my mike off and allow him to ask his question. Go ahead Franklin.

Franklin JohnsonWell, actually I have two recommendations. Number one is we were talking about that part of communication and one of the key things to communicating with sighted people is eye contact. That’s something that sometimes we as totally blind people or visually impaired people are not aware of. If you aren’t looking at them quite frequently they think that you’re not attending, that you’re not paying attention. That’s something that’s easy to do, that’s eye contact. The other

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thing that is just important in social activities. Number 2 is to shake hands or not to shake hands and that is a subjective issues and down through my lifetime I finally have come to the decision that rather than being embarrassed by somebody having offered to shake hands and me not having my hand out there I automatically, whether it be male or female, when I meet them stick my hand out and 95% of the time they will shake and so those are two things I thought would mention that can be helpful about any tremendous effort on your part

Lauri DishmanFranklin, I thank you very much for those comments. Those are definitely very valid suggestions. Especially, the eye contact, which when we talk about that in the, for those who are blind or visually impaired, it’s almost like the eye role comes forth but it is important to look in the direction or put your eyes at least or your body in the direction where you’re speaker’s voice is coming from to show that you are definitely wanting to listen and you’re wanting to hear what that person has to say. So I definitely appreciate those contributions.

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Some people often ask too, how do I become a good socializer. Well there are some people that are just naturals at it. They can walk into a room and they can work it like there’s no tomorrow but others and I would say most of us are a little bit uncomfortable about that. What I’ve found for myself is that often times it’s based on a lot about what you know and how in depth you know about things and so there is several articles that I had read about this in terms of how do you become good at small talk and most of them talk about immersing yourself in culture and again this relates back to staying in touch with your environment and staying in touch with your environment and staying in touch with the world around you.

So immersing yourself in culture. Often times people think, “Oh my gosh. This is going to cost me so much.” I know in the city of Chicago there are dozens, if not hundreds to do in a given week that are free. We have concerts in the park, we have our culture center. There are music groups and book groups and discussion groups. There is a website called meetup.com where you can sign up and meet up with individuals who have like

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interests. Professional groups often have free meetings that you can go to. Even just looking at your local bookstore that often have book talks or book discussions. If you can, going to concerts. Going to museums. Kind of being in touch with what’s going on in your community so that when you see people you can talk about the same things and sort of be on the same page and that is often a really good tip.

The other tip is to find opportunities to actually chat people and practice your chatting skills and this means you can do it anywhere. You don’t have to wait to be at an event. You can do it while you’re waiting in line at the grocery store. If you’re taking an S/l JAWS class and you have other people in the room, talk to them. If you’re on your paratransit system or public transportation it doesn’t hurt to chat it up with the person sitting next to you. If you’re sitting in the waiting room in your doctor’s office. We had a local sub shop giving away one dollar subs the other day and there was a member saying how they were waiting in this long line and just started chatting it up with people in the line while they were waiting. Granted, she had a guide dog so I think that made

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a little bit easier. There are always opportunities to chat it up with somebody. The worst that can happen is the conversation doesn’t go well and you just pleasantries and you move on and you then you try talking to somebody else but the key is you’ve got to a practice. Otherwise it isn’t going to come.

Another tip is just to try something new everyday. It could be signing up for a new class. It could be just taking a different route to work everyday. It could be going into a brand new store that you haven’t gone to. It could just simply be buying a style of clothing that you’ve never bought before. Just trying something a little bit new, a little bit different every single day can kind of get your brain unstuck from the routine or from the mundane. So that’s the idea here, again to try something new, to take a risk, to find that courage to think outside the box if you will.

Of course practicing this, chatting with people also includes chatting at home. Make a list of different topics and then practice talking about them and talking about what it is that you know about them. I’ve often read that for people who are visually

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impaired. Even though you might not be able to see yourself to still stand in front of a mirror and get a sense of your presence reflecting back to you in the mirror so that you can get an idea of how you might feel you are interacting with others or if you have some vision you can get a sense of how you’re reflection is sort of reflecting back to you. So that’s often a good tip for individuals.

Another question that I often get is where do I meet people and yes we talked about how you can chat it up anywhere but often times people ask, are there are good places to meet people. Are there better places than others where I might be able to meet people? There is a really good book, another good book that I am going to recommend. It’s called, “A Foot in the Door.” It’s by a woman named Dr. Katherine Hansen. She is one of the founders called Quintessential Careers. It is called quintcareers.com and if you’re someone who is job seeking it’s a great website for finding tips for what to do in any capacity for looking for a job. She also relates this to being social and where do you meet people and how do you start networking and striking up conversation. She had a list in her book of top places to network. I just picked a handful.

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There were over 50 of them in her book but obviously I’m not going to read all of them. She talks about professional organizations, volunteer organizations, charity and fund raising events, civic and community groups like the Lions, the Rotary or the Kiwanis clubs; getting involved in your religious community; getting involved in political campaigns. Political season is heating up, this would be a great time to get out and meet people, being on airplane. Waiting to get on a plane is a good place; of course, watering holes, Toastmasters. I don’t know if anyone is familiar with Toastmasters but it is a group that enhances your public speaking skills. It’s a free group and it’s a way to practice your public speaking in front of a constructive group of people to give you good feedback and how well you’re doing in those situations. Book clubs are a great way to meet people, alumni clubs, speed networking events.

If you have kids and they play sports or you have nieces and nephews. Just the sidelines of these games there are lots of people that are chatting. Jury duty is often a good place to meet people. Wine tastings. Art gallery openings. I don’t know about in your community but in Chicago there are

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art galleries that have free openings all the time and have wine and cheese receptions so that is often a great place to meet people. Coffee shops, waiting rooms. You know these are all places where conversation can be struck up.

It was also interesting because she had a list of the unusual places where people have met people. She had surveyed some folks and asked them, “Where was the most unusual place that you met somebody or you struck up the connection or you networked with someone and these are some of these places that she listed: On a ski lift, in a cadaver lab, while getting a mammogram, while donating blood, at a psychic fair waiting for a tarot card reader, during a prolonged rain delay at a baseball game. These are just a few places where people have met others. I would love to hear from you guys if you want to chat a response or you want to say a response of, “what is the most unusual place where you have met someone. I’m going to turn my mike off and hope that some folks might respond.

Billy Brookshire

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While people are getting ready to ask questions or make comments, Lauri, I’m going to jump in. Gary Yoke had a question awhile ago. He was talking about we all have had this situation where somebody that you know or knows you from across the room says hi and you need to let them know that you don’t recognize them. Is there any socially acceptable way to kind of let them know that you don’t know who they are and still maintain their friendship.

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Lauri Dishman Yes, actually I have some tips in here that I’m going to go through for those types of situations. That’s a great example and often times what I suggest to people is just to say, ”You know what it’s great to see you too and I’m glad you’re here. Unfortunately, my eyes are just not working as well as they used to and I cannot make out the face. Can you please tell me who I am speaking with?” Just be honest and just be blunt about it and it puts the responsibility of the awkwardness on you the speaker as opposed to the other person. The key is to try not to make that other person feel embarrassed but more for you to take on that responsibility because not everybody, especially for those who are sighted always understands the right etiquette and we always understand how to interact and so often times you might have to take on that responsibility but that is a really great question.

Some of the other issues that people ask me about is what happens when I’m talking or I’m in a conversation and somebody just walks away from me and I often say to them it’s just that it happens and it’s inevitable and it’s going to happen and the

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only thing that you can sort of develop a thick skin and just recognize that not everyone again is going to understand the right protocol to say you know, “Hey Joe, I’m going to leave right now I’m going to go off and get myself something to drink.” Not everybody does that and the key is to accept that that is going to happen.

Another thing is we talked about navigating a busy space. We talked about people coming up to you and starting to talk to you. Often times when people grab your arm and you’re in a social situation and they might grab your arm and they might lead you just lead you to where you want to be whether that’s across the street or to a table or what not and that’s often very off-putting to someone who is blind or visually impaired. Now clearly, I would imagine for most of you who have had mobility you’ve learned the Hines Break technique and can sort of politely and physically remove yourself from that individual but again your voice is important here to say, “I appreciate the assistance but I would please rather do this myself or if you would like to help me if I might, can I grab your arm above the elbow and you can offer me some sighted guide.” Again, just to use your voice.

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We had a really interesting, Margaret Cain, when I asked where was the most interesting place you’ve met someone, she responded in the ladies room.

Again, I’m going to turn my mike off in hopes that someone might want to respond.

CallerYears ago I was traveling in Texas and I asked someone where men’s restroom was and was told and went in and was in a booth tending my business and I hear this click-clack of high heels coming in and I think, hmm, she’s going to be confused when she finds out she’s in the men room. Well she left and another couple came in and so when they left I finally had figured out that I was in the women’s rest room. So what I did I started to get out and leave and as I got to the door and opened it this lady came and started to scream and I explained what happened and quite frankly it was a gal I went to college with and dated her for quite some time later.

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Lauri Dishman Thank you for sharing with quite an interesting story. Somebody had a question on the chat, asking what is the Hines Break technique and that’s from the Veterans Administration. It is just a technique where someone is grabbing you and it is hard to describe this on a webinar. If you have a mobility instructor I would ask that you have your mobility instructor show you because I certainly describe it adequately but it is simply a way of being able to twist your arm like over your head and back and twisting your elbow so that that person’s arm is removed arm is removed yours. And again I really can’t describe it that well. I would obviously seek the assistance of a mobility instructor who can actually show this particular technique.

What I want to do to kind of end is I want to read another passage and this is from another Guild member and her name is Stella DeGenova and I think this sort of summarizes everything that we’ve talked about and this is from a blog that she has. It’s called “Visions through Words”.

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She says, “I am starting a new movement, Blind is Beautiful. And why not? There have been all kinds of movements, The Women’s Movement, Flower Power, Black Power, Gay Pride. Well you can belong to any or all of those groups and also belong to my movement. Movements build solidarity and confidence and that’s just what we need. Living with blindness builds strength and character and that’s what we have. Don’t laugh. How can blind possibly be beautiful, you ask? For starters, we have exceptional extrasensory perception. We see with our ears and our noses and even intuition. That’s almost like superpowers. Beautiful. For another thing what seeing person can take a deep breath and step out of the door into the big world with there eyes closed everyday? Exactly. That alone makes us courageous. Beautiful. And how may people can bump into the don’t walk here cones and even a street pole, shake it off and keep walking as if that didn’t just happen.

“Now that is resilience. Beautiful. Visually impaired people do have heightened senses. We are courageous and resilient. We may have to remind ourselves of that from time to time but it is

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true. We can think of famous people through history that were blind who have inspired the world. We can think of famous people today that are blind that affect people’s lives through music, words or actions. We may be everyday people but we are not ordinary and we all inspire others in one way or another. I am inspired by the man who is completely blind and navigates his way through the city with only a cane or a guide dog to assist.

“I am inspired by the woman who keeps the office running and can navigate the computer like someone with 20/20 vision. There are big accomplishments like blind people who have their own business or are in charge of programs but just as importantly I am inspired by the person in the support group that shares the personal experience that makes everyone else in the room feel more hopeful and not so alone. Everyday brings new challenges and everyday we persevere. Yes, we sometimes we feel pain and sadness but we also sing and dance and laugh. We are life. We are art. I am starting a new movement so join the movement and spread the word. Blind is beautiful and we are proud and we are here to stay.”

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I want to thank all of you for logging in today. This has been very fun. I have never done anything like this before and I have really had a wonderful time and hope you did to. Thank you.

Billy BrookshireLauri, that was absolutely wonderful. I loved the reading you had at the end and your techniques you have are just beautiful. I appreciate them. I wanted to share about something else I read a few years ago. I believe it was from the Braille Monitor and I believe it was written by Barbara Pierce but she was talking social skills and two things she mentioned have always stuck in my mind. One was that when you go to a party if you’re a little on the shy side and you want to make an impression prepare three stories.

Think about three things that happened in your life recently or whenever that you want to talk about and take those to the party with you so that you don’t come empty handed and you’re there with something to talk with folks about. The other thing she talked about was dropping hints and that is that some individuals think that if you’re blind that

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you’re very fragile and that you don’t enjoy waterskiing, for instance, or other kinds of things. So she said one thing you can do is to drop hints to get into the conversation and talk about last week when you went waterskiing or last week when you did a ropes course or did some mountain-climbing whatever it is you happened to do that shows that you’re not a fragile individual.

We’ve got some time I think, Lauri, if you’ll stay with us for some more questions if anybody’s got a few more. Anybody got a couple last questions they want to throw in there? Okay folks, try again. Some how or another we froze the microphone there. I saw some of you lining up and wanting to get started. We also have a question Lauri from the chat room that says, “How can we educate visually normal people about our needs so that our social interactions are better,” from Azar.

DarlaI just wanted the spelling of that lady’s last night Katherine and the name of that book again. I could hardly hear what the speaker was saying.

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Lauri Dishman The name of the book for the social is “A Foot in the Door.” It is by Katherine Hansen. That’s the name of the book and then the individual who wrote the blog, her name is Stella DeGenova. Her blog is called “Vision through Words,” and you can access her blog through visionthroughwords.com, I believe and that’s how you can access her information. Any other questions? Oh, and to address this question from Azar; educating visually normal people about our needs so that our social interactions are better. That’s tough. We have to be advocates for ourselves, you know to perhaps when you can find those, what they call those educating moments, when you’re in a situation perhaps.

For example, when someone, we talked about how if someone says hello and you don’t know who they are and you say, “you know what I have trouble with faces now because of my eyes.” “It’s great to see you. You know what really help me is from now on when you greet me if you could just tell me who you are that would be very helpful.” Often times we just find those teaching moments and that can be a great way to at least start to educate

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those around us. That might be a good place to start.

Billy Brookshire My friend Franklin who is here on the line with us has a technique that he used to use. He uses lots of humor. Franklin you could share some of those things but I remember one thing he used to do is if you’d bump into somebody you’d say, “sorry didn’t see you there,” and it always opened a very humorous conversation where you got to know somebody.

There is another question here too Lauri that Margaret’s put up a couple of times and its, where to learn about facial expressions. Do you know any specific training anywhere that somebody might access either via the web or in person.

Lauri Dishman You know I don’t know off-hand. This training that we had at the Guild for the Blind, Karen McCullough was creating this. She is actually in the process of writing a book and I don’t know how

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far she is with it. I can’t think of any resources off hand. Perhaps just maybe googling facial expressions or using muscles or the muscles used in facial expressions. Perhaps that might give someone. Or facial expressions for the blind perhaps might do something but I honestly don’t have any specific resources. My apologies.

Billy BrookshireI used to travel around the countryside with one of my cohorts named Jay Stiteley who is now at the Tennessee School for the Blind and we taught people about body language. We did teach some facial expression stuff but its stuff that you really have to study closely to learn and usually there is some hands-on kinds of things you need to do to learn those bits and pieces.

I met Karen out there, Lauri, when I was doing that and she and I were working at APH to write books at the same time and she was at the last time I talked to her same thing, she was still writing on her book putting the bits and pieces together but I bet she gets it up there one of these day. I like the idea of searching the web.

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Okay folks we still have time for a few questions. Franklin, I am going to release the microphone and you can talk with folks of you’d like. Tell us a little bit about how you use humor.

FranklinActually, what I was going to mention was Dr. Karen Wolf may have something, Billy, on that too. I don’t know but she has all of the different things over the years but that was my only comment at this time. Thank you.

Lauri DishmanI love the idea of humor being, somebody else here, Michael Walters, also talked about humor. Humor is such a big piece of all of this and it also comes from just how good we feel about ourselves. I would love to come back and talk about happiness and self-confidence and all that kind of stuff. You know I do seminars on a lot of those types of topics and being comfortable in your skin is really another one of those, in conjunction with finding courage is one of those top elements to being a good socializer and with that when

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someone is feeling good humor just comes naturally and I just love the idea of using humor because it really offsets the situation. Puts people at ease and it often strikes up some great conversation.

Billy BrookshireAnd folks we have come to the end of another broadcasting day here I just realized. So I’m going to cut off the questions for right now and Kenneth if you’ve got a question you’d like to write me or Lauri, please by all means send it on.

Just a reminder folks to close out our session today that this seminar, like all the seminars we do here at Hadley is archived. If you want to hear this one again or if there are other things you’d like to listen to all you have to do really is go to past seminars on the Hadley website and you can listen to them all.

Related Hadley courses: Let me tell you about some things you might be interested in if you enjoyed this presentation. In our archives already are several things that are related. One is

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connecting and networking using Facebook and Linked In if you want to do it the technological way. There is also a presentation on dating basics if you want to get out there and meet somebody new. There is a great presentation that was a panel called, “Sharing Solutions, Effective Strategies for Socializing and it was a just a panel that talked about the different kinds of techniques they used. There is another presentation called, “The Straight Skinny about Self-Esteem.” And finally there is one called, “Backyard Entertaining.” All of these talk somewhat about how to get along with people at parties and how to socialize so you might enjoy some of those as well.

Courses that you might be interested in: There are a couple in the adult continuing education program that are good. Effective Listing comes to mind immediately. That’s really got some good techniques regarding communication. There’s another on self-esteem and adjusting with blindness that talks about some of the things that Lauri’s mentioned, courage, self-confidence and communication. In the Family Education and the Hadley School for Professional Studies there are a number of courses on social skills foundation,

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especially for younger children might be interesting to check out and also on using self-help groups. So just some things you might want to think about.

I’d like to thank you all for participating today and especially Lauri; I’d like to thank you. That presentation was absolutely wonderful. I learned a whole lot of different things that I appreciate you sharing and for those of you who shared your own techniques, thank you very much. It is always helpful to hear from the group and the different techniques they’re using.

If you have any feedback about today’s workshop or if you’d like to talk to us about future seminar topics just send a message, an email to feedback@hadley.edu, that’s feedback@hadley.edu and we will respond as well we can.

Any final farewell message Lauri for the folks today?

Lauri Dishman

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Courage. Find the courage to get out and do something new. I’d love to hear about any new activities that people do. I think it would be fun to kind of find out how people have used this information.

Billy BrookshireThanks Lauri, and again absolutely wonderful.

Well folks, that’s it for today. If you’re interested in continuing education credits stay with me and I’ll talk a little bit more about that and the rest of you it has been good being with you. Thanks very much.

Here’s the stuff on continuing education credit hours folks. If you want to earn continuing education credit you need to do a separate registration payment process and you can find that link at www.hadley.edu/seminar or just go to our website and look at Earn Continuing Education Credit Hours. Again the website address for registering for continuing education credit is www.hadley.edu/seminar and it will tell you all

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about how to take the quiz and get continuing education credits.

You can access any information on this webinar again at past seminars and you can still get continuing education credit if you go to the past seminar, listen to the clip. You can still take the quiz and get continuing education credits. So be aware of that. We will have the test up next week for those of you who want to come back and get credit.

That’s all I’ve got to say folks. I guess maybe one last thing and that’s that if you run into any tech problems with continuing ed or whatever else go to helpdesk@hadley.edu Just send the message to helpdesk@hadley.edu and we will help you there. If you’ve got general inquiries about anything related to Hadley go to info@hadley.edu, that’s send an email message to info@hadley.edu

Thanks again for coming folks. We’ve enjoyed this very much and thank you Lauri bunches and bunches. This was wonderful.

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Have a great weekend. We’ll see you next time.

[End of Audio – 0:57:41]

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