Full Transcript
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to blind abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson.
Rachel Hastings:
Okay, so state services actually played a huge part in everything that I’m doing.
Speaker 3:
Don’t be afraid. Get out there. Meet people, be friendly. Nobody is judging you.
Speaker 4:
Think big. Look at what do you love to do, what do you enjoy doing and then how can you turn that into getting paid?
Speaker 5:
I use my braille display. I use jaws.
Speaker 6:
Put on your Cape, grab your gladiators shield and go get ’em Tiger.
Speaker 7:
Don’t limit yourself.
Jeff Thompson:
Career Expo 2019, such a great opportunity for transition age students to meet up with professionals from a wide variety of professions. Who is the opportunity for students transitioning from high school to college, to the workplace to ask questions from nearly 25 professionals. What is their job like? What tools they use, and to receive encouragement about the possibilities that they too can achieve their dreams and get the career that they want. Welcome to blind abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson and I’m at the career expo in Roseville, Minnesota, part of state services for the blind, putting on this event for transition aid soon. I came across a friend of mine that’s here and I’m excited. Rachel Hastings, how are you doing?
Rachel Hastings:
I am fabulous. It’s so good to be here.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, it’s great that you’re here mentoring and talking to all the transition students. Will you tell the listeners what you do?
Rachel Hastings:
Yeah, so I am a music therapist and I work in Saint Louis Park at a Jewish senior living community called Sholom Home West. I get to work with seniors every single day and I learn so much. I feel like I learn more than I give. I started music therapy cause I love music and I love people. So music therapy fit the bill.
Jeff Thompson:
Can you explain how does music therapy work?
Rachel Hastings:
As a music therapist, what I do is I conduct assessments on each of my clients and during those assessments I find out their medical history, find out their music preferences, and then based on the assessments, I create clients’ specific goals for each client. And then I use music centered interventions to help my clients achieve their goals.
Jeff Thompson:
That sounds awesome. It’s a passion and you get to do it every day.
Rachel Hastings:
Right. I’ll just give you a little example of goal and intervention that I use. I work with seniors and unfortunately a lot of them are experiencing memory loss. So one goal that I use a lot for patients experiencing memory loss is increasing social interaction. A lot of times when a client knows that he or she is losing their memory, they isolate themselves and they don’t really want to interact because it’s really depressing. One thing that I do as a music therapist is I bring people together into group settings. What I’ll do is I’ll have my clients kind of placed in somewhat of a semicircle around me and then I’ll be in the middle and I’ve got the guitar and I sing and I talk with them and I make sure that they can all see me and hear me. And then sometimes I’ll hand out musical instruments just to get them moving and shaking.
Rachel Hastings:
But then a lot of times what I’ll do is I’ll start playing a certain song and I’ll say, what do you guys think about this song? And I’ll call the clients by name and say, you know, so and so, what do you think about that? Do you like this song? I hear you singing over there and just kind of get them talking and get them interacting with me and then get them interacting with each other. It kind of distracts them from the present problems that they’re having and it helps them to reminisce. It kind of brings them back to when they are younger and they heard that song for the first time.
Jeff Thompson:
That seems awesome.
Rachel Hastings:
Thank you.
Jeff Thompson:
So when you were going to school, when you came out of high school, when you went to college, was this your destination?
Rachel Hastings:
Actually I found out what music therapy was from my state services for the blind counselor, Chad bovie. He told me about music therapy and I had no idea what it even was until he told me about it. And I thought, because I love music and I love people that music therapy would be perfect. I wanted to do performance, but realistically it can be really tough to make it on only performance. Plus I wanted a job where I could work more closely with people and I feel like as a performer when I’m just constantly on the stage, I don’t get as much one on one time with people. So it’s not something that I always wanted to do only. So music therapy’s perfect because I get that one on one time and then able to make such special connections with people.
Jeff Thompson:
State services for the blind puts this expo on. How did state services play a part in your success?
Rachel Hastings:
Oh my gosh. Well of course, as I stated, Chad was the one who told me about music therapy. I didn’t even know it existed. And also they helped me pay for my schooling. They helped provide me with books. They helped pay some of the tuition of Augsburg because Augsburg’s kind of an expensive school. Augsburg and the University of Minnesota are the only two schools in the state that offer music therapy degrees. So I was really honored that I was able to attend Augsburg because it’s so small and I was used to smaller schools. So I was grateful that SSB helped me.
Rachel Hastings:
The other thing that they helped me with is job applications. That was actually kind of hard because some of them are kind of inaccessible. I want to give credit to Miss Pam Gowen. She was fabulous. She and I would spend hours on the phone talking and filling out applications to jobs after I finished my internship and then passed my board certification exam. I was applying for all these jobs and it took a while and I needed a lot of help because like I said, some of the applications were really long and they were online and they were hard to navigate with a screen reader. So Pam and I did a lot of that over the phone and I give her a ton of credit for helping me get to where I am today.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, that’s great. Now what advice would you give to transition age students when they’re looking towards the future? They’re maybe doubting it, but there’s opportunities. What would you tell them?
Rachel Hastings:
Oh man. The most important thing, the mantra that I think about is how important it is to persevere. It can be really tough for blind people to find jobs and it can be really frustrating. I definitely had my seasons of doubt, but a lot of times the greatest antidote is just perseverance. You just keep trying, you keep applying, you keep studying, you keep working hard. You’re never going to go wrong with hard work and it always pays off. When I was in college, it was tough and I’m not afraid to tell people that. When I was giving advice today with these students, I was telling them about some of the things I went through in college and it’s not easy, but it’s possible. I think that perseverance is key. The other thing that
Rachel Hastings:
I want to say that I always tell people is blindness doesn’t have to be a disability. It can rather be an ability. A different ability to accomplish your goals and to go after your dreams. I told a lot of the students that I saw today that actually being legally blind and losing my vision in my early twenties gave me a greater sense of empathy for the clients that I work with who are seniors who’ve lost a lot of independence. Some of them have even lost their vision, some of them have lost their hearing. They’ve lost a lot of dignity, they’ve lost a lot in their lives in sometimes really short amount of time. I’m really grateful overall that I’ve been given this greater sense of empathy in being that I have also lost my vision and I have had to learn, kind of almost relearn, how to complete certain activities of daily living because of the vision loss that I had. First of all, perseverance. Second of all, not viewing blindness as a disability, but rather an ability. Having a good outlook on your situation is key to success.
Jeff Thompson:
Speaking of success, perseverance, there’s something that I’ve got to bring up here. You just got back from Boston, Massachusetts, right?
Rachel Hastings:
Yes.
Jeff Thompson:
You were running around out there a little bit, right?
Rachel Hastings:
I was running a little bit, yeah, I was kinda-
Jeff Thompson:
Quite the accomplishment. The under four club. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about that?
Rachel Hastings:
Yes. Oh my gosh. So I ran the Boston marathon and I ran it in a time of three hours, 55 minutes and 38 seconds. That’s my fastest marathon. It was my third marathon so far. I had a lot of obstacles. I had a really, really hard training cycle. It was filled with a lot of physical and mental illness as well as injury. And I didn’t even think I was going to be able to run the marathon because of all of those factors. When I was standing at the start line, it kind of felt surreal. I hadn’t been that nervous in a long time, but I thought to myself, God wouldn’t have brought me all the way to Boston if I weren’t going to finish. I was terrified I wasn’t going to finish. But I ended up finishing in a faster time than last year. I ran six minutes faster than I did last year despite a rough training cycle and having to miss a couple of weeks of training. So it just goes to show that God, he’s always present and he always knows what we need, when we need it. So I’m really, really honored that he brought me through that and I still get emotional when I talk about it cause it was just so awesome. It’s one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Jeff Thompson:
You did a great write up and I want to get that out on the Blind Abilities blog, share it with people because there is a part in this story that, you were doing so good and everything was going good and all of a sudden you ended up on the wrong side of the water.
Rachel Hastings:
Yes. My guide, my sited… Blind runners, just for those of you who don’t know, blind runners have to run with a sighted guide obviously. Because for me, I don’t have enough vision to run alone. My sighted guide is a fabulous athlete, but he had a rough day. Right before mile 25 he felt like he was gonna pass out. So he had to be taken off the course, and I was alone. I couldn’t even ask if he was okay because the medical staff had to take him away into the tent. So I was a little delirious. At Mile 25 of 26 you’re not quite thinking clearly. The only thing on your mind is finishing. So I took off by myself and I was running down the road and I fell into one of the water stations and I ended up behind it.
Rachel Hastings:
I was basically yelling as loud as I could. I need somebody to run with me. I need somebody to run with me. I’m blind and I don’t have anyone to run with. Somebody please help let me finish. I was obviously frantic because I’m like, there is no way that I’m stopping. I’ve gotten this far and I’m not quitting, ever. After everything I went through to get to the start line in the first place, I got mad and I was scared. The volunteers ended up pairing me with this man. His name was Scott. I was like, what’s your name? He goes, my name’s Scott. I said, I’m Rachel, let’s go. We just took off, but then he couldn’t keep up with me, so he passed me off to this lady named Kim and she and I ended up finishing the marathon together. I didn’t know her at all. We were complete strangers, but she did an amazing job with me and we connected on Facebook and she ended up finding out that I finished in third place in the women’s visually impaired division. I just basically told her that she was my hero and I couldn’t have finished without her. It was an emotional day and it was really, like I said, one of best things that’s ever happened to me, I’ll never forget it.
Jeff Thompson:
Rachel, the Human baton in the Boston marathon, handed out. I think you really captured it. The whole team, people back home, people during the race. Congratulations and thanks for coming to the expo and sharing your story and talking to the transition students who are embarking upon their own careers.
Rachel Hastings:
Thank you. It was such an honor and such a privilege and I’m so happy to be here. The other day I was just sitting at my desk on my computer using jobs with ease and it just dawned on me how far God has taken me in the past 10, 12 years. Sometimes it just hits me and I’m eternally grateful that I’m able to do things like this.
Jeff Thompson:
I’m sure a lot of people are learning from you, so thanks.
Rachel Hastings:
Yay.
Jeff Thompson:
Be sure to contact your state services for the blind. Your Voc. rehab, and find out what they can do for you. Live, work, read, succeed. Big shout out goes out Chee Chau for his beautiful music and you can follow Chee Chau on Twitter @LCheeChau.
Jeff Thompson:
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[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
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