Those who know me would describe me as a "lifelong learner". I love to learn. I learn informally through everyday life experiences and I also learn formally by attending trainings and conferences.

I had many learning and networking opportunities on my personal and professional agenda for 2018. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend some of them due to my current health condition, but I wanted to let you know about these upcoming conferences. The ones listed below will be held either in Hershey, PA or in State College, PA. Let me know if you plan to attend any of them and please share with me what you learn. 
 
January 8, 2018 - Pennsylvania Inclusive Higher Education Consortium's Symposium 2018 – The Journey of Inclusion: Experiencing the College Years. An interactive day of learning, reflection, initiative and application with international leaders, innovators and award – winning authors: John O’Brien, Bruce Uditsky and Cate Weir.  Please register at -https://PIHEC.regfox.com/symposium-2018-the-journey-of-inclusion-experiencing-the-college-years (If you register for the Everyday Lives Conference, you can attend this Symposium for free!) - Hershey Lodge, Hershey.

January 9-11, 2018 -  Everyday Lives Conference. Eric Carter, PhD & Al Condeluci, PhD will be speaking at this conference - Hershey Lodge, Hershey. 

February 26-28, 2018 -  Pennsylvania Department of Education – Bureau of Special Education Annual Conference – Making a Difference: Educational Practices That Work!   . Dr Rosemarie Allen will be one of the Keynote Speakers at this conference. Limited parents/caregivers scholarships available - Hershey Convention Center, Hershey.

March 22, 2018 -  Family Coaching Implementer’s Conference - Nittany Lion Inn, State College.

April 30, 2018 - May 3, 2018 - 20th Children’s Interagency Conference, “We Are Better Together - Penn Stater Conference Center, State College.  

May 22 - 23, 2018 -  2018 Pennsylvania Positive Behavior Support (PAPBS) Network Implementers’ Forum –  Hershey Lodge and Convention Center, Hershey 
 
July 25, 2018 – July 27, 2018 -  2018 PA Community on Transition Conference - Pathways to Success: Transitioning into Tomorrow Together,  The Penn Stater Conference Center, State College.

August 6–9, 2018 -  National Autism Conference. Limited parents/caregivers scholarships available-  The Penn Stater Conference Center, State College.

​I hope we all continue to learn, grow, and inspire change in our communities.

I know that I don’t have to write a blog post each week, but this is a goal I set for myself. It keeps my brain and fine motors working. Writing has been so therapeutic to me, I get to work on so many therapy/recovery goals in one exercise. Hence, I will do my best to write a few sentences each week.
I’ve been home for five days now. I already had one trip to the Emergency Room, that was scary. Thank God, I’m back home. Home Health services are going well. I was looking forward to being home but being home has also been very overwhelming.

However, it’s a joy to see how much my children have grown during this time. On Monday, I watched my middle child get yogurt and cereal from the kitchen, serve himself, sit at the table to eat, then clean up the table. He also returned the yogurt and cereal to where he got them from and washed his bowl. He did all that before getting his shoes and coat on for school. He will be 6 years old in a month and completing all those tasks took lot of effort and planning. He had to overcome many organizational, fine motor and sensory challenges, but he did it! I was so proud of him.

This past weekend, my 11-year-old daughter, the oldest, asked to mop the kitchen floor. I kept telling her not to worry about it, but she found many reasons to do it and assured me she would be safe. She sure did! She moped the kitchen and the upstairs bathroom and has been cleaning many other things around the house.

Last night, the youngest of our family (he will be four years old in a few days), applied lotion on my very dry legs. He loves that texture, so he had fun doing it but when he was done, he said to me, “does that make you feel better?” I had tears. I thought I was giving him something fun to do but he was more concerned about taking care of me.

In their unique ways, my children have been taking good care of me. I’m a blessed Mama, I have great kids. I also have awesome friends who shower me with love and take care of my children and me during this time. Thank you all for your prayers, visits, cards, calls, texts, emails, messages, gifts, meals, and encouragement. You make me brave and I thank God for each one of you! 

I like that Grace & Hope Consulting, LLC....
- Changes lives
- Helps others integrate their faith into their emotional wellness and other services they receive
- Was inspired by life experiences and continues to keep it real

Grace & Hope Consulting, LLC has a new riverfront office located at 2843 North Front Street, Suite 203 - Harrisburg, PA 17110

Remember why I reduced my work hours this summer? Well, here's what we've been up to:
​
- My daughter is taking piano lessons. She also started gymnastics again.
- My middle child is making new friends and having new experiences at my friend's house who takes care of him on those 3 days that I'm working.
- My youngest has been busy expanding his engineering skills, taking things apart and sometimes putting them back together (and this is not always a pleasant experience for the owner of the item :)
- As a family, we have fun going to the creek and enjoying nature once a week. We also visit our local libraries often and enjoy the summer events. We are finally putting our YMCA membership to use and going for a swim and I started walking on the track again last week. I'm hoping to resume with the aerobic classes as soon as my lungs get stronger.
​
Speaking of those lungs of mine, some of my bloodwork came back with some deficiencies but those still don't explain why my lungs are not getting enough air so, more tests are coming my way :( But I have felt the power of those prayers and I wanted to thank all those who have been praying. I'm feeling a little better each day and had more energy to do some fun things with my kids, like impromptu dance parties and going to the playground. I've  not been feeling the best but we found ways to have fun.

Living life to the fullest is not waiting for the problems to go away, it's finding ways to enjoy the life you have today. How about you? How are you incorporating some fun into your life?

I hope you have a fun fourth of July and a fun week!

​Chou

Are you sick & tired of being sick & tired? “The Sick Mom’s Guide to Having Fun Again” will lead you through a journey of fun and laughter, so you can LIVE your life again, not just exist. Filled with 19 missions of fun, 100 fun things to do with the kids, even when you’re exhausted, and much more, the Sick Mom’s Guide will keep you smiling and help you rekindle your joy. 
​ 
Check out what happened when Chou Gabikiny​ and Jen Hardy​  had a virtual meeting to talk about Jen's book and how to starting living beyond our diagnoses and enjoying life to the fullest.

The book is available TODAY! Grab it at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0714H94MG?ref_=pe_2427780_160035660

Three years ago, I left my comfortable position as a Case Manager so I could be fully devoted to the care of my sick child. A year and half later, I launched Grace & Hope Consulting, LLC as a mental health counselor and a disability consultant.  Why am I sharing this?

Well, it’s been a year in half since I became a business owner and I have not looked back since. I enjoy what I do and my family gets to be part of it all. My own mental health journey led me to helping others achieve wellness but it was my children’s medical and developmental needs that opened my eyes to the needs of people with disabilities and chronic health issues, their caregivers and siblings, but also the professionals who support them. I first became a disability advocate because of my children, then three years ago when my own physical health started deteriorating, my passion for the disability community grew even bigger and I decided that I needed to extend grace and offer hope to people with disabilities and chronic illness, and the people who support them.

Grace & Hope Consulting, LLC started because of my own struggles and my children’s challenges. I stayed home because of my children and as this endeavor grows, I’m reminded of where I started, or rather why I started all of it: my children and my determination to live beyond diagnoses. There you have it!
​
It’s summer and my children need me, not because they are sick but because they are well and this summer we are making it a priority to have wellness memories, and that’s why I’m changing our business hours for the next few months. I want to be fully present with the people who make me who I am, a mom, a caregiver, an advocate. As I shared in one of my videos, I’m on a quest to live on purpose and this summer we will do just that. We might not have anything extraordinary planned but we decided that we will make everyday life feel extraordinary.

​Stayed tuned!


Chou, living on purpose

Today is the last day of May and to end our Mental Health Awareness Month, I felt compelled to share my mental health story. It's okay to be vulnerable, it's okay to seek help. Let's end stigma, one recovery story at a time! #mentalhealthawareness#letsthinkagain #endstigma #pleaselive 

​TRANSCRIPT
Hi everyone, this is Chou Gabikiny again.  For those who do not know me, I'll reintroduce myself again.  I'm Chou Gabikiny, the founder of Grace and Hope Consulting, and my organization provides training, consultations, and counseling to help people achieve emotional wellness, reach their full potential, and live fulfilling lives.

Today I want to talk about person-centered practices in the home.  Those of you who are familiar with what I do know that I'm a certified trainer for person-centered thinking. Often when people think about person-centered practices, they think about person-centered planning and how we use it to plan for services for people, but it's actually a way of thinking that looks at the individual, what's important to them and for them and being able to make the distinction and actually incorporating that into everyday life.  So I'm just going to share a little bit about how I use person-centered practices in my home.

I have three children, they're all very unique, just as your children are, and they're all very different, just like any of the children out there...but knowing what's important to each of my children helps me parent them in a way that is more supportive to them.  So I'll talk about my daughter for example.  

My daughter does not like to be rushed, this can be true for all three of my kids, and it goes beyond just the feeling of being rushed.  When she's rushed she gets very overwhelmed and then it becomes hard for her to actually plan her next step.  Since I know that…that's who she is, that's something that she needs, then the way I parent her I give her extra time to complete tasks.  That's just one way I use person-centered practicing in my home.

I have my son, Gabriel, the middle child, he does not like to be bossed around (to put it bluntly).  He likes to have control over things, he likes to have control over what impacts him.  So knowing that...again I'm the parent but I can power struggles with him forever or I can find a way to respect what's important to him and incorporate that into my parenting style.

So what does that look like?  Instead of me telling Gabriel, "I need you to do this right now." I could do that, there are times where I get to a point where I say that, but what works best for my son is when I explain what's going on: "This is what we need to do...this is why we need to do it...and this is how you can help us do it."  By doing that I just gave him the power to actually be part of this end goal that the family has, and he feels empowered to contribute. When I’m asking him to do something I'm not just bossing him because 
I'm the mom, but I am actually helping him to make those decisions, make those choices so he can be part of something bigger and do something to help the entire family.  He loves that, and it works!

My younger one, he has sensory issues. In another video I did, I talked a little bit about it. Because I know he has sensory issues, then I address those needs because it's important to him that things are done a certain way. Instead of just doing whatever I want, whatever will work for me as a parent, what will make my life easier, I kind of turn it around and do what will make life easier for my child.  And that doesn't mean I'm going to enable every behavior out there, no; but it actually helps me prevent behavior by including what's important to him.

The focus of Person-Centered Thinking is finding that balance between what's important to someone versus what's important for someone.  When we think about what's important for someone, we're focusing on health and safety: people taking their medication, people living in a safe environment, people being somewhere where they're not abused, so we think about those things. Health and safety are the main components of what's important “for” someone. 

By the way, the best for people is going beyond that. I can be safe and healthy but be miserable.  I can be safe and healthy and be bored, that's not fun for anybody.  So person-centered thinking actually incorporates this added value to people's lives that is what's important “to” someone, what makes them tick in a good way, what are the things that make them smile, what are the things that bring joy to them, what are the things that actually make a whole lot of difference in their life, like the things that they like to do. It can be that they like their coffee cold, maybe they like it with two cups of sugar, might not be healthy, but again, it's finding that balance.  Supporting people in a way that incorporates what's important to them help them have meaningful lives.  

If you're just providing health and safety, people will be miserable and then you get more behavior, now you might get more attention. Then you're not meeting your outcome goals. You're not meeting your goals because people are just not happy.  All of us want to live a life that's free from constraints whatever that be, we don’t like somebody to have control over us.  

When we incorporate what's important to someone it actually helps to give people power, instead of serving people or supporting them in a way where we have power over them. When we use person-centered practices, we're actually having power with them because we're incorporating what's important to them so they can have meaningful lives. We’re showing them that we value what's important to them, we value what they want, and we do our best to make that happen.  And that doesn't mean that we have to fake it. No, if we cannot do it right, find someone who can do it right, but it is important for all of us to do it.  

This thing is just not for people with disabilities, it's not just for people who need extra help per se, this goes for all of us. Person-Centered Thinking practices are for all people regardless of age, regardless of gender, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of your background or your ability level, your function level, it doesn't matter.  We all want better lives, we all want meaningful lives, we all want lives that make us happy so that's why we must practice Person-Centered thinking.

If your agency can benefit from this strategy if you can benefit from it… Honestly as a parent, my goodness, just learning about those tools myself made a lot of difference in how I parent my children. It made a lot of difference in how I even treat myself.  

The Person-Centered Thinking training is usually two full days. I can break it down into four half days. Through this training, you learn to gather information about the person and find meaningful information that you can use to help them have better lives. 

We look at tools like important to and important for. In trying to make that distinction and incorporating that throughout all the other tools that you learn for the training. We also look at other tools like the morning routine...what are those things that make for a good day for someone.  We do what's working, what's not working, so looking at certain situations and it becomes a good decision-making tool.  

This one, for example, I just had to use it recently when I needed extra care for my child and we tried a setting and we had all these little things that just did not work and made it more stressful for me and more overwhelming for my child.  I had to sit down and use that tool (the What’s working and What’s not working). 

Once you get comfortable with these tools and you actually get to the point where you're not using it like on paper all the time, it becomes this thinking process; cause before you plan you have to think. And if you start thinking in a way that's person-centered, then your planning, your actions, your treatment plans, become person-centered.  So again, that training is really useful for all of us.
I just shared a few examples, of how I changed the way I parent to be a more person-centered parent... but you can use this for an agency.  You can use that at home, in society. All of us can benefit from Person-Centered Thinking training.  So if you need it, want to find out more about it, please contact me. I'll be glad to share information and set time to talk with you.

Alright, thank you.  Remember everybody's meaningful, everybody's important and everybody wants a better life. Be the person that allows others to have the best life that they want for themselves.  And that's why I teach person-centered thinking.

If you need hep finding resources in your community, please do not hesitate to contact me at chou@graceandhopeconsulting.com or 717-216-0230.

I know it's past 8 pm here in Pennsylvania and most people are done with Easter celebrations and they are now getting ready for the work and/or school week ahead. Why am I posting Easter wishes at the end of the day instead of this morning?

There are a few reasons. On a personal note, I have been caring for a sick child all weekend and didn't get to work on this l earlier today. However, it makes absolute sense for me to send this message now. You see, I wanted to talk about my favorite Easter hymn "Because He lives" and share how much it encourages me throughout the year and not just on Easter day. The phrase "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow" speaks hope to my heart. 

I might not know what you are dealing with tonight or what you might have to face in the morning, but I know this one truth...When we believe in something bigger than ourselves, our fears of the unknown and fears of what tomorrow might hold no longer paralyze us. No matter what tomorrow brings, we can face it because He lives!

I pray that your heart is filled with hope and peace as you trust in Him to fight your battles.

Your friend,
​
Chou
"Because He lives, I can face tomorrow!"

Can you help us help others achieve emotional wellness, reach their full potential, and live fulfilling lives? We have 1,000 brochures to share with the world. If people who visit your business or place of worship could benefit from our services, then please consider sharing our brochures with them.
We can mail or drop them off at your location (if you're in our area). Let us know by emailing chou@graceandhopeconsulting.com. Thanks in advance for helping us reach others! 

​Have you ever worked so hard on something but it didn't turn out the way you expected? 

My last newsletter did not work out too well, at least from my perspective. When I worked it on it, things looked fine on the editor/creator side of things, then I hit submit and I was not happy with the outcome. The layout was not the same and the pictures were larger than intended and crowded the page...It just wasn't how I wanted it to be. Nobody complained about it, but I wasn't satisfied. I actually got a couple emails from people who liked the new logo (thank you for focusing on the positive :)

On my end, everything looked okay; not perfect, but acceptable. The published version did not look like what I saw before hitting "submit". I only viewed the newsletter from one angle (my editor/creator screen) and not what it would look like once displayed on the reader's screen. I did a preview before sending out the newsletter and that was fine as well, perhaps I should have sent out a test email to myself before sending it out to everyone.

Needless to say, I was disappointed with the program that I used to manage my subscribers and send out my newsletter. I was also disappointed in myself for not investigating other options to ensure the quality of the newsletter. I assigned blame...to the system...and to myself.
Blaming technology and blaming myself did not fix the problem. This reminded me that things are not always as they appear. I only have a limited view of things, of the present, of life. Since I can't see it all, then I can't control it all. If I can't control it all, then stressing about it doesn't change a thing!

This newsletter mishap forced me to research other programs that would be more effective in helping me connect with others. If this didn't happen, I would not have looked into programs that offer more features and would allow me to do even more than I did before. I now have more options to enhance my communication system. Sometimes, things don't work out so we can find better options to do better and be better.

After this ordeal, I switched to a different program and this is my first correspondence with the new email system. I would appreciate it if you could let me know that you got this email. With a new system, comes a time of learning and a time of adjustment.  I'm getting the hang of things and I like the additional features that are available in this new system and I can't wait to try them out in the future. But I also realize that it will take some time to get used to doing things a different way and I need to allow myself the time (and grace) to adjust to this transition. When we find that better option, it doesn't necessarily mean that things will be easier at first. It might be a rocky road as we take on those first action steps but if our projected outcome outweighs the difficulties of the present time, then we can rest assured that our path will lead to a safe destination in the future.

What about you?
Is there an area of your life that you need to gain a different perspective on? Instead of blaming yourself or others, consider how limited your view might have been. You probably made the best decision with the information you had at the time. Well, just like I cannot control it all, neither can you. Just like I can't foresee the future, neither can you. So don't be too hard on yourself...

Are you going through something right now that might require you to seek for an alternative route? It's okay to know your options and take advantage of "additional features" that might enhance your life. Just because you've done it a certain way for so long, does not necessarily mean that it was the best way. Maybe it was the only way you knew how to do it, and that's ok, but now you have options. So don't limit yourself...

Have you already decided that you need to change course and steer in a different direction? Deciding is the first step, but an idea without action is only an idea. So act on it...

And when you're turning those action steps into reality, remember it took a long time for you to get where you were and it will take some time to get where you want to go. So be patient with yourself...

I hope this email encourages you to soar toward higher grounds and reach your full potential. 

Here's our April Challenge:
Find one thing that you want to change in your life, write down why you want to change it, and what life will be like after the change occurs.
Write this down somewhere safe, like in a journal. I will send out additional action steps in a few days. 

Until next time... remember, you are worth it!
 
Chou
 

The US Social Security Administration provides benefits for people with disabilities and those who are retired. The disability benefits that the Social Security Administration offers are Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The two are quite different and the chart below highlights some of the nuances between the two. To find out more or to apply, call 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778) or check out https://www.ssa.gov/​.