Just the Way You Are

Exchange Yourself with Your Child

Exchanging myself with my son is both a practice and a way of life. My relationship with him blossomed when I started putting myself in his shoes, imagining the world through his eyes. This simple shift changed everything for both of us.

When my son was 17, we took a vacation together—just the two of us—for nine days straight. My wife stayed home, and he and I traveled out of state. This trip became one of the most transformative experiences of my life. I used those nine days as an experiment in complete devotion to his needs and pleasures. Being away from home and isolated from our usual routines gave me the perfect opportunity. No distractions, no work calls, no household chores—just us. We stayed at a recreation area with countless activities, and I made a decision that would alter my approach to parenting forever: I would spend the entire vacation imagining what I would want if I were him, then acting on those impulses.

For those nine days, I didn’t allow myself to even ask the question, “What do I want to do today?” Instead, I remained completely focused on him. I put myself in his mind, imagined his desires, and acted on them without hesitation. When we woke up each morning, I’d think, “If I were him, what would make me happiest today?” Then we’d do exactly that.

I won’t pretend it was effortless. My mind resisted for the first few days. That little voice kept popping up: “But what about what you want?” I gently pushed those thoughts aside and kept focused on his happiness. By the fourth day, something magical happened—it started to feel natural. I noticed two things happening simultaneously: the joy I obtained vicariously through him increased dramatically, and the pleasure he got from our activities multiplied.

By immersing myself so completely in this practice, I came to fully understand and appreciate its power. It was genuinely one of the best vacations and most meaningful experiences of my life. There was a freedom in letting go of my own preferences that I never expected to find.

Today, I engage in this practice all the time, though not with the same degree of selflessness as during that vacation. I’ve developed a deep understanding of what it takes to put his interests ahead of my own. Most of our daily activities now are things we both enjoy, and we’ve found a nice balance that honors both our needs.

Put Yourself in Your Child’s Shoes

Exchanging self with others means thinking and acting in the selfish interest of another person. It sounds counterintuitive—acting selfishly for someone else—but that’s exactly what makes it powerful. Try practicing it with your special needs child. Ask yourself what’s important to them without regard to what’s important to you.

Of course, you’ll need to apply your own wisdom about what’s right and wrong and what’s truly best for your child. But the key difference is that you don’t weigh their interests against yours. You consider only what they want in your decision-making. The result is that you often end up doing things you wouldn’t choose for yourself because it’s what they want to do and what’s best for them.

The surprising part? It doesn’t feel like a sacrifice. When you truly exchange yourself with your child, their joy becomes your joy.

Selflessness is not martyrdom. Many people develop personalities as people-pleasers, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with wanting to please others. But martyrs sacrifice themselves to gain sympathy. Martyrdom in personal relationships becomes a source of power and a means to control others. It’s selfishness in disguise.

True selflessness means giving to another without regard to personal gain—even if that gain is merely recognition from others. One reason I chose to write this book anonymously is to prevent any possibility of martyrdom or accusations of seeking praise.

This practice goes beyond empathy. Empathy is imagining what another feels and giving weight to those feelings when making decisions. But you can imagine how someone feels, consider it important, and yet act selfishly anyway. People excel at finding justifications for putting their own interests over others’ wants.

Many of our social concepts work to justify selfishness. Our entire economic system revolves around the idea that selfish actors can somehow produce good for the many. Hollywood produces movies like “Wall Street” where characters declare that “greed is good.” Our religious institutions often focus on personal salvation first and foremost. In this context, acting selflessly for others is sometimes considered weak or undesirable.

Considering someone’s feelings isn’t the same as acting on those feelings as if they were your own. That’s the difference that matters.

Remember the phrase “love your neighbor as yourself”? This is widely misinterpreted as a general instruction on being a good person. But it’s actually an instruction to exchange yourself with others—to love them exactly as you would love yourself. To treasure their desires as if they were your own. To act in their best interest, and even in their selfish interest, within reason.

The Joy of Selflessness

Exchanging self with others is the source of much joy. Taking pleasure in the happiness and accomplishments of others creates a special kind of contentment. Being responsible for the happiness of others is deeply gratifying. Bringing others pleasure becomes an endless source of satisfaction.

I’ve found this practice to be one of the greatest rewards for raising a special needs child. When I focus on creating happiness for my son, I discover happiness for myself that I never would have found otherwise.

Treasuring Your Child Instead of Yourself

These concepts provide motivation for practice. Treasuring others over yourself fulfills both your wishes and theirs. This practice is essential to raising a special needs child as they often can’t take care of themselves the way typically developing children can.

My son can’t take care of himself in the ways most people can. He doesn’t have sophisticated or underhanded interpersonal strategies for getting what he wants from others. He lies so rarely, and does it so transparently, that my wife and I find it amusing when he makes the attempt. He occasionally tries to conceal behaviors he thinks we don’t want him to do, like wasting toilet paper, but his efforts are clumsy and unsophisticated. We always catch him.

He doesn’t understand money, so he can’t bribe people. Any form of manipulation you can think of is beyond his abilities. Without these typical foibles of human interaction, he can only get what he wants by asking for it directly and hoping the answer is yes. Since the only way my son can get what he wants is by asking us or by us anticipating his needs, his quality of life completely depends on our attention and favorable treatment. This is both a responsibility and an opportunity. Fulfilling this responsibility can either be a duty we dread or an opportunity for joy.

We chose joy. And in choosing joy, we fulfill our wishes for a happy life as well as his.

Protection from Suffering

Treasuring others protects them and you from suffering. If you’re focused on your own suffering, then you are suffering. If others are suffering and you notice it, you’ll feel compassion—a virtuous feeling. Your compassion will motivate you to relieve their suffering, benefiting both of you.

Prior to making my son the primary focus of my life, I was a typical struggling man trying to advance my career, elevate my status, and make more money. In that respect, I was completely ordinary, following the same script as everyone else. Since I was totally focused on my career, my standing, and my income, I was constantly upset by perceived failures. I wasn’t happy because I remained focused on myself, what I lacked, and my problems. Some might think I must have been a loser, so devoting my life to my son was an easy choice. Others might assume I must have been successful to have the means to stop worrying about those things and take working with my son as my primary purpose. Whatever you might think probably reflects where you are in life rather than where I was when I made the change.

Once I started focusing on my son instead of myself, my entire life improved dramatically. I suddenly didn’t have very many problems. I still had business affairs to tend to and job tasks to perform, but they became merely items on my to-do list rather than huge problems that needed solving. I didn’t have troubling thoughts about who I was, who I was supposed to be, or who others thought I was. When I stopped caring about my identity, at least 50% of my thinking simply evaporated. I was astonished by how much time I’d spent thinking about myself. My stress level declined by 80% or more. Without worries about my problems and concerns over my status, the sources of my stress disappeared. Plus, I replaced those thoughts with thoughts about my family, the things I was thankful for, and how I could make my son’s life even better, so my mood naturally elevated.

Not surprisingly, when I started focusing on my son, his life improved too. Whatever you give attention to will bloom. Your attention is like water and fertilizer for the seeds you’ve planted in your mind. If you attend to your weeds, your weeds of disturbance will grow vigorously. If you attend to your special needs child, your child will blossom.

The Joy of Treasuring Others

Treasuring others brings joy to your life. Joy is the pleasure and satisfaction you gain vicariously through others. Treasuring their happiness and working toward it brings you joy in return. This is the true reward for raising a special needs child.

If I didn’t believe this were true, I wouldn’t have bothered to write this book. I didn’t write it for money or fame. If the best I could do in my own life was to find a way to grin and bear it through my challenging circumstances, I wouldn’t have a message worth sharing. Treasuring my son has made all the difference in my life, and I believe it can do the same for you.

Giving and Your Special Needs Child

Special needs children provide natural opportunities for giving. They are often helpless and need assistance. They are your family, so you should be naturally inclined to help them. Giving to your special needs child should become central to your daily life. Much of my motivation to complete this book was an extension of the giving I practice with my son—giving love, attention, special experiences, travel, entertainment. It’s all good, and it all matters.

Generosity can be learned and cultivated, even in special needs children. My son understands and practices generosity. He will offer food and other items to us to please us. We’ve cultivated and rewarded this behavior over many years. He does it reflexively now, and he gains pleasure in the giving. He always surprises me when he offers something I know he really wants for himself.

Love and Your Special Needs Child

What is Love? For a topic that is so widely discussed, you would think there was a universally accepted definition of love. There isn’t.

Is love a thing? Is love a feeling? Is love an action? The dictionary defines love as “an intense feeling of deep affection.” Most people define love as a feeling, and many confuse their feelings of attachment for love. People often believe love is a random feeling, a passion outside their control.

There’s a kernel of truth here—the conditions and characteristics of people that create an initial spark of attraction are mysterious. But the feeling of love, the deep affection for others, can be cultivated and enhanced. People often make life decisions based on the intensity of the feeling of love. Most choose life partners this way. It’s a good start, but as the high divorce rate proves, it isn’t the best or most important criteria.

The intensity of the feelings of love ebbs and flows. An old saying in chivalry dictates that love is either increasing or decreasing but never in a steady state. Any emotion will change in intensity over time; love is not unique in this regard. The problem arises when people make major life decisions based on these changes. The feeling is a critical part of love, but it’s only a part. Love is supported by action.

The Bible has a wonderful description of love based on actions rather than feelings: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” This focuses attention on the actions associated with the feeling.

Love is patient, accepting people as they are with no resistance. Love is kind, expressing feelings of warmth and performing acts of service. Love shows no envy, does not express or feel jealousy. Love doesn’t boast, isn’t proud, doesn’t feel superiority over others. Love doesn’t dishonor, doesn’t act in ways that harm others. Love isn’t self-seeking; it puts the interests of others over the self. Love doesn’t get angry or hold resentments.

In Tibetan Buddhism, love is described as “a virtuous mind that creates only peace and happiness.” Buddhists define love by going back to the source—the thoughts in your head. The mind is the forerunner of all things. The thoughts you cultivate generate feelings. When you cultivate thoughts of love, your heart responds with love, peace, and happiness. When positive thoughts support a joyous heart, the outward manifestation becomes acts of kindness.

My favorite definition comes from Wikipedia: “The unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another.” As a parent of a special needs child, my duty is to provide unselfish, loyal, and benevolent concern for my son. This mindset informs my feelings, which motivates my actions.

Love as Feeling and Activity

Love is both a feeling and an activity. The feeling of intense affection can be natural and familial, or it can be cultivated. In meditation, you can extend love from family to friends and eventually to others. One of the most powerful meditations for overcoming resentments and practicing forgiveness is to meditate on love for your enemies. It is one of the most difficult and most rewarding meditations I practice—at least it used to be. I’ve released the enemies from the prison in my heart.

The feeling inspires action. Virtue springs from love—giving, forgiving, accepting. The actions, in turn, generate more feelings, creating a virtuous circle where feeling drives action that increases feeling. Kindness is the cultivated state where loving feelings and actions intertwine. Cultivating a mind of love takes practice. Love is more than a feeling; it’s a feeling supported by action. Love grows when you hold positive thoughts in your mind and heart. Love diminishes when you cultivate thoughts of anger, resentment, and hatred. Love grows when you give, forgive, and practice acceptance. Love grows when you act out of kindness and friendliness toward others.

Loving a Special Needs Child

Feeling affectionate love for a special needs child can sometimes be easier than for others. When someone is helpless, compassion arises naturally. When it’s your child, this tendency is even stronger. When the child doesn’t have the desire or capacity for competition, many barriers to love simply don’t exist. Any barriers to feeling affectionate love are within you. Do you view your child as broken or unworthy? As unruly or difficult to manage? As demanding and needy? Abandon these thoughts, and affectionate love will strongly arise.

I practice a Buddhist meditation called lovingkindness. The meditation starts by bringing to mind a person who generates strong feelings of affectionate love. Once you generate the feeling, you bring others into your heart and try to sustain those feelings by wishing them love. I always start this meditation by thinking about my son. He never provides any resistance or reasons not to love him. My feelings of affectionate love for my son are pure and untainted by complications.

Manifesting Kindness as a Way of Life

My life has been completely transformed by my special needs son. He has been the focus of my spiritual practice for many years. At first, I had to form key mental disciplines to stop myself from becoming depressed. Later, I came to appreciate the benefits these disciplines provided. This encouraged me to explore and experiment with other disciplines to solve other mental and emotional problems. Through it all, there was my son—my beacon of hope, my reason for putting in all the work. I was determined to make his life as wonderful, meaningful, and joyous as it could be. As my inner and outer worlds changed, he blossomed. Over time, I came to understand more deeply what it means to live a good life.

Inwardly, a good life is characterized by an uplifting mood with continuous feelings of joy and happiness, with limited disturbances to this emotional state. Achieving this state of being is the purpose of all spiritual practice. It takes mental discipline to enter this state and to fend off the disturbances that take you out of it. But if you achieve this state of mind, how does it manifest in the world?

Outwardly, a good life is characterized by a kind disposition, emotional stability, and actions that benefit others. Training with gratitude or thankfulness elevates your mood and inclines you toward acts of kindness. The diminishment of self-importance and the practice of moral discipline makes you worthy of friendship. Humility makes you approachable and likable. Refraining from judgments about people and events makes you more accepting of others and reduces conflicts.

Remembering impermanence reduces your attachments and makes your behavior toward others more respectful and less manipulative. Practicing giving endears you to others because you focus on bringing them joy and happiness. Practicing rejoicing makes other people happy and makes them more inclined to share their joys with you, improving the quality of all your relationships.

Practicing acceptance eliminates anger and allows others to be happy in your presence without concern that they must defend themselves. Practicing forgiveness helps people know that if they make a mistake, you will still be kind toward them, making them more comfortable in relationship with you. Practicing compassion demonstrates that you have empathy and genuine concern for another’s well-being, allowing them to feel completely safe in your company.

Practicing love makes people feel special and increases their desire to reciprocate good feelings and kind actions. In short, practicing all these disciplines makes you a person others strongly want to be around. You exude positivity, acceptance, and love, you give generously, and you act in ways that bring others joy and happiness.

Who wouldn’t want that?

Daily Life with Kindness

When you embrace the mental disciplines I’ve described, you no longer spend most of your time and energy focusing on your personal problems. Rather than experiencing a lower quality of life from lack of attention to your perceived problems, you experience a higher quality of life because what you previously considered problems simply evaporate. You still do what’s needed when it’s needed, but you do it without worry. Over time, the number of problems you experience in daily life falls to near zero.

In place of problems, your mind gravitates toward joyous things: thankfulness for all you have and your enjoyments, satisfaction in the joy you bring others, ways to give more to others to bring them joy and happiness, and thankfulness for the opportunities you have to make a difference. Your mind rests in a quiet peace permeated by the bliss of simply being alive.

Your mind will still get caught up in your enjoyments or passions. I spent many, many hours enjoying writing this book. But even when your mind is engaged in other activities, there remains a background blissful feeling that never leaves you. This is the gift that raising my special needs son has given me—a path to genuine happiness that I might never have discovered otherwise.