Stepping out of your comfort zone is a journey, but it can help you reach new heights.
“I like to think about how we can approach fears in a way that is going to lead us somewhere really neat,” says Tara McDonough, experiential therapist II with Rogers.
She got to put that into practice last fall, when she and fellow experiential therapist Katie Lindemann say they jumped on an opportunity to teach a 12-week course as part of programming at Journey 21.
“Journey 21 is doing really hard but great and important work,” Tara says. “Both Katie and I have a passion for supporting the population Journey 21 serves.”
Based in Oconomowoc, Journey 21’s mission is to “provide safe, supportive, and enriching living and learning opportunities for adults with intellectual or disabilities.” As part of a 12-week semester, Tara led students in recreational therapy and Katie in art therapy, though they say the skills they taught complimented and built off each other.
“A lot of it with art therapy is diving into those emotions and coping skills and talking about how we can manage those big feelings,” Katie says. “It’s learning how to effectively communicate with each other.”
“During the semester, Katie and I would piggyback off of each other,” Tara says. “While Katie focused a lot on talking about the emotional side of things, when they got to me for the recreational side, I could say, ‘You guys have been talking about emotions. Now we’re going to feel them.”
The students both took to the water in canoes and got off the ground, taking on Rogers’ ropes course, which was accommodated to meet their needs.
“The director of Journey 21 told the students, ‘You’re going to face hard things just like anyone else would. Your ability or disability does not stop you from having those experiences — or from making the choice to step into that,’” Tara says. “That was really cool, because every day, the students showed up for themselves. Journey 21 teachers that supported during the sessions would say, ‘Wow, that’s amazing,’ or ‘That never happens.’”
“The students saw that they’re capable of hard things, too,” Katie says. “They were so excited and appreciative. Not only did we see growth in them, but they noticed it in themselves, too.”
Tara and Katie didn’t just show students the ropes on the course; they say the participants can take the emotional and communication skills they learned with them, wherever their journey takes them next.
“They showed up each week, taking one step further into the discomfort and unknown, facing their fears,” Tara says, adding that each of them showed up for themselves to do a final climb despite some hesitation. “Maybe they weren’t ready a couple weeks before, but over the 12 weeks, they saw their peers and received the encouragement they needed, and they began to trust themselves and their team. There were some tears, but more importantly, there were a lot of triumphs.”
You can learn more about Journey 21 here on their website.
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