Hit a Brick Wall, Turn Left

When my speech first started deteriorating in early 2005, I hoped it was a temporary thing and I had no idea that I would eventually lose most of my voice and clear speech within four years. While I was managing to live a full life despite my bad joints, from the disease called Pseudoachondroplasia I was born with, the growth of a bone spur in my neck impinging on the nerves of my tongue and vocal cords came out of left field. It meant that I could no longer continue with the career I loved, producing and presenting my radio show, Full Circle, exploring consciousness, spirituality and wellbeing. For fifteen years I felt like I was doing what I was born to do, and so I thought I would be doing it for a very long time, but it was not to be.

So I needed to find a new way of earning a living within my new limitations, in addition to occasionally DJing at Zorbas Dance Club in Fremantle. Then my ninety-one year old father died suddenly, and I offered to make a slideshow for the funeral. I found that all the skills I had learnt from fifteen years in the media – audio editing and mixing, Photoshop and video editing – all came together to produce a tribute to my father. It was such a powerful thing to do, to channel my grief into doing something sacred that honoured him, and do justice to the man he was. We chose Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony to go with the photos and video, given he loved classical music and nature, which lifted the slideshow into a touching, moving experience. It added a whole other dimension to the funeral service, and brought to life the eulogy my sister gave, and conveyed what words could not. It also gave space for reflection and remembering at such an important time.

I showed the slideshow to my friend Gitika who said “You know, you could make a business out of this. When my mother died I would have loved to have had someone make something special like this for her.” I was dismissive of the idea at first, uncomfortable about making money from people’s grief. But when I kept asking “What can I do to make a living?” the idea wouldn’t go away, especially when I realized slideshows can be used for any special occasion (birthdays, weddings, anniversaries) and events and business promotion on websites and Facebook. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed perfect for me. I could do it from the comfort of home, sitting at my computer, and it is sacred and creative work, which is what I like to do the most. There is a sense of rightness, that it is a culmination of many of the skills I learnt over the past fifteen years, so it has some poetic justice about it, and it feels like the idea was blessed by my father. So I developed a business called Celebrate a Life on DVD. It doesn’t take long for people to get used to my speech and they are able to understand me, even though I’ve lost a few customers from our first phone call, I have many happy customers both from Perth Western Australia where I live, and around the world. The slideshows unfailingly add a moving experience to any occasion, where people laugh and cry, and share the life story of someone they care about.

Here an excerpt of a story of a business. The video can be put on Facebook or a website, or can be played in waiting rooms and venues:

And here excerpts of a ten minute DVD celebrating a 21st birthday:

Hitting a brick wall of an obstacle doesn’t mean a dead end, it means we just have to think laterally and we may be surprised at what new direction will unfold.

Suchita grew up in Perth and discovered Osho at the Fremantle centre, then took sannyas on the Ranch in 1984. Her career: Environmental Scientist in the management of national parks in Western Australia; her own radio show, Full Circle, exploring consciousness, spirituality and wellbeing (15 years); founder and DJ at Zorbas Dance Club in Fremantle (1995 – today). In 2010 she started her new business Celebrate A Life on DVD. She is writing a book with the working title “Little Body, Huge Life – How A Small Woman In A Challenging Body Learnt the Keys To Living Well In Any Body.” www.celebratealifedvd.com.au – facebook.com