James's Notebook

      One challenge that I have had while I was growing up and still deal with now is identifying when I am feeling angry or when I am upset. This is challenging for me because sometimes I often have a hard time with recognizing when I feel frustrated with something. The way that I have overcame this issue is to first recognize my body's signals toward something that has happened now or something that happened in the past that made me feel angry or upset. Then I would take a couple of deep breaths and ask myself "why do I feel so angry" and if there is an answer to that question I would then ask "how does that affect me now". following this I will then try to find a solution to the issue that would work best and if it was something that happened to me in the past I would try to ask myself what could I learn from that experience.

      I have had a lot of people pour into my life and I want to take the time to mention how much I appreciate what they did for me, I am very grateful for how they have impacted me. The reason why I value these people is because they have mentored me to become a better version of myself. they have also taught me so many things that I never would have figured out on my own, whether it would be teaching me martial arts, teaching me ways to gain my ability of speech or by showing me how to rescue someone as a lifeguard they have taught me the skills that I need to become a better version of myself, be successful in life and achieving my goals whether it would be a grand or small one and not by expecting anything in return as payment.

      A n issue that I have had while growing up was building up a conversational repertoire and the way that this was challenging for me is because I have noticed that if I had something to say I would have a habit of blurting or rambling. But the way that I have overcame this issue was by listening to what other people had to say and try to understand their feelings and thought process. Then I would add some of my thoughts on the matter in a way that doesn't sound as if I am criticizing their ideas or them. following this i would take the time to make sure that i understand what they are saying by asking open ended questions which could help me understand more of the task at hand or the individual.

       In two of my old posts titled how martial arts helped me and other ways martial arts helped me I discussed how learning this skill helped me gain other skills that are required for me to be successful in life, and I feel that it would be best if I share the reasons why I started learning martial arts. Before I was in martial arts I was originally in a gymnastics class and the teacher was not understanding of what I had and my parents just found out through my diagnosis that I have high functioning autism. after figuring that out they learned that I needed intense physical activity to help me process information and to help me become more aware of my surroundings and myself. following these events my parents decided to have a meeting with my martial arts instructor and since then I have been studying martial arts since.

        A challenge that I have had when I was young and in school was being over reliant on teachers assistants. The reason why I was over reliant on them was because the assistants that worked with me would use a method of assisting me that would not help me understand the material better and would sometimes do the work for me. I understand that at the time I was young and thought that this was for the best but as I got older I realized that this was not helping me. so to remedy this issue I had to figure out what I needed to do to get better in my school years. The solution to this was to first have tutoring to help me catch up with my classwork and to help me understand that I needed to take ownership of myself and my actions. Then as soon as my parents realized that I was over reliant on the teachers assistants my parents had to change my I.E.P which made me not have an assistant. Eventually I was able to work on my own and figure out how to get my classwork don...