Speaker: Suleika Jaouad
TED2019
Date: April 2019
Location: Location, ST
Description from TED website:
“The hardest part of my cancer experience began once the cancer was gone,” says author Suleika Jaouad. In this fierce, funny, wisdom-packed talk, she challenges us to think beyond the divide between “sick” and “well,” asking: How do you begin again and find meaning after life is interrupted?
My Review / Notes / Thoughts
While I’ve not encountered the health difficulties that she went through, I do understand what she went through once she was considered “well” by the medical community. I went through a similar phase once my doctorate was done. I spend so many years focused on achieving that one goal, that I felt empty and lost once that goal was accomplished. It takes time to get your life back up under you in a way where you can move forward, but the point is that you must make that effort to move forward with your life.
I think this talk would be an excellent addition to a counseling program. I believe it is wise to let students hear about these types of situations so that they have a better grasp on how to work with and help patients navigate through the “after” of a major life event.
My personal thoughts are that this type of talk should be paired with a reflective paper. Baring that, a discussion would be beneficial as well to the students. It is not enough for them to just listen to the talk. They need a way to process what they’ve heard and apply it to the material that they have been learning through their academic programming.
What do you think? How would you utilize this talk in your course or curriculum? Could you see this talk being leveraged in other fields of study?
Until next time … live long, life-learner!