Luke Anderson Is One Cool Dude (Deep Thoughts on Grief, Healing, and Accessibility)
It was my honour to welcome Luke Anderson to This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life! Luke Anderson is a speaker, singer, dancer, harmonica player, accessibility advocate, and athlete of the body turned athlete of the spirit. He is relatively famous for co-founding the revolutionary StopGap Foundation, a registered charity that builds bright and beautiful ramps across Toronto and North America. StopGap’s mission is to “bring people together to take practical steps to make spaces more accessible.”
I think about this interview every day. Please enjoy!
Luke Anderson: “I’ve developed a way of life that recognizes the possibilities of what I have now. And the way that I’ve chosen to recognize my physical situation right now is that, at the time of my injury... I was experiencing a piece of the pie of life. That was my periphery, that was my field of view, a slice of the pie of life. And because of the pie of life. And because of my injury and it helping me broaden my perspective, I’m now able to see a new slice of that pie of life. So, that kind of speaks to what I was saying... to see that moment, that injury I sustained on October 27, 2002 as a gift. It gifted me an opportunity to see life through a new lens.”
Links and Resources
Luke Anderson on Instagram: @lukewanders_on
The StopGap Foundation: stopgap.ca @stopgapfoundation
StopGap on HotDocs: Stop Gap Measure
StopGap, The Luke Anderson Story: Watch on YouTube
Luke's Harmonica Teacher Nico Tyson
Erica on Instagram: @erica.j.schmidt
Erica's website: ericajschmidt.com
Erica's Interview with Luke Anderson
00:00:00 Riveting clips from Luke Anderson’s Interview. Watch and understand immediately why you MUST listen to the end.
00:01:48 This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life Theme Song + Luke Anderson’s bio
00:04:55 Language in the world of disabilities. How to empower, connect, remove barriers, and create a sense of possibility?
00:12:13 Living with a high-level spinal cord injury. Luke’s physical experience and need for assistance 00:18:08 Athlete of the body turned athlete of the spirit. An afternoon of mountain biking that would become Luke’s Day of Rebirth
00:28:06 The inner knowing that came over Luke soon after the accident. How this mysterious calm would help him help his friend Johnny save his life.
00:31:48 Early days at the spinal rehab centre. Did Luke every imagine himself beating the odds and find the cure to spinal cord injuries?
00:35:39 Navigating grief after injury. Climbing the ladder of consciousness and growing skills of patience, acceptance, empathy, compassion. Learning to embrace the grief and sadness when it comes up.
00:41:43 Erica asks Luke for wisdom on emotional regulation, among her life’s greatest challenges
00:49:56 How to find meaning and purpose in the face of grief and loss.
00:54:52 Friendships and dating when you have a disability. On being a serial online dater, navigating relationships new and old, and transcending rom-com stereotypes.
01:02:02 Dating with a disability continued. Whether to disclose your disability on the apps. People with specific preferences for dating people with disability. Feedback and insight from Luke’s past partners.
01:13:18 Meditation to feel more. And invigorating a fading life force.
01:20:16 Everything StopGap. Bulding ramps and perspective. Transforming despair and frustration into creativity: How the StopGap Foundation was born
01:30:33 Luke Anderson’s first spectacular TED TALK, stage fright, and what's on for Luke's TED talk 2.0
01:38:46 Record-breaking harmonica playing on This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life. Luke rewrites the theme song and it’s awesome.
01:43:29 Final credits and wrap-up.
THANK YOU SO MUCH, LUKE ANDERSON! THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR LISTENING! LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!
And if you enjoyed this episode, you might also like: No Surrender with Hollis Peirce, How to Be a Writer with Kyle Stevenson, and Stories from L'Arche with Jimmy and Isabelle
To support this independent podcast, please consider purchasing a Lil and Bud dog greeting card at ericajschmidt.com/merch. You can also make a one-time donation here at The Donate Button. Feel free to get in touch for other sponsorship possibilities. My infinite thanks for all of this.
More infinite thanks, as always, to Taes Leavitt (darling big sister, Big Heart Journey), Sherwin Tjia (technical and creative advisor, Sherwin’s Quirky Events, Episode 22) and my dearly departed aunt Eileen Gun, whose generous gift helped to fund my new podcast equipment.
Stay tuned for more episodes extra soon. Don’t forget to follow This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life on your favourite podcast platform. And if you enjoyed the episode, I would be immensely grateful if you could share it with a friend and/or leave a kind and enthusiastic rating and review.
