An interview with Reija Härkönen: By living in a moment life is a gift
Please tell me a little about your background.
I am mother, wife and still a full-time business unit manager in the field of accounting. I live in Eastern Finland. I love my country, all its 4 seasons and can´t imagine living anywhere else.
Can you tell me more about your Advocacy?
My main idea is to spread awareness through my own experience by getting involved with this amazing world wide community via social media. I also speak openly about my situation to anybody who is interested in hearing about it.
In the future I am hoping to be able to be organizing events with my Finnish peers in our country. In our country everyone probably knows about this disease, but they might not know that it is affecting also younger people too.
And I also want to be part of making work life to understand that we can be good employers despite of our limitations.
What is your passion and how did you get involved in Parkinson’s awareness and hope for a cure?
I probably partly answered this at previous question.
I got my diagnoses in January 2024. From the beginning it was clear to me that I would start advocating as soon as I was feeling secure about my own situation. I started by talking about it to everyone at my personal social channels, at my workplace intranet and to other people in my life. I think it is important that everyone knows so I can openly be who I am with this. Then I opened my accounts in Instagram to spread the awareness to give support and hope and at the same time to get it to myself.
What type of goals do individuals with Parkinson’s have when seeing your Advocacy?
According to the messages I have received they have had a need to find someone who they can relate to. And they see me genuine and positive and yet ordinary woman.
I do too believe that people can relate to my ordinarily, that I am ordinary woman, wife and mother. I am hoping that it gives them comfort knowing that if I can live with this openly and do everything I do, so can they.
My goal is to appreciate every day that I am living on this planet. But that does not mean that I am toxically positive. I also am open about my bad days and my fears.
What type of training and how long are the programs?
My routine is to exercise muscle strength 3 to 4 times a week proximately for 30 minutes. Then I go for walks/jogging 3 to 5 times a week for 3 to 7 km per session.
And I do balance training daily about 15 min max. My weakest link is stretching, that I usually do when I feel myself extra stiff.
What effect can your Advocacy have on an individual with Parkinson’s?
I am hoping to get them living like they have done before and start or continue exercising. I hope that everyone still enjoys their life and finds ways to live in the moment as much as possible
What would you like to see as a future goal for your Advocacy?
I would like to see that no one who gets this disease should feel that they have to hide it.
Towards that goal I am working on. I feel that in Finland and probably in the whole world there is still lots to do in this field.
I also believe that if world sees that this is affecting more and more people everyday it will make the fundraising easier and research for finding the cure and better treatments can continue until someone succeeds in it.
What events do you participate in?
I haven’t been able to participate at all because all the events are usually on weekdays while I am working.
In Finland the social security system enables you to participate to an Adaptation Course which is organized for newly diagnosed. And for that I have participated by taking time off from my work.
How does this also assist the caregivers?
I believe that it is good that caregivers see that the person who they are tending to has peers. And hopefully our communities are able to bring caregivers together to form their own support groups.
All in all caregivers need to be given recognition more than they are having now. They also usually need more financial support and also some time off this hard and important job that they are doing.
How can someone get in touch? What is your website?
Anyone who wishes to get in touch with me can find me through my accounts on Instagram: @elama_on_lahja (this is Finnish and means life is a gift) and @yopd_community.
How can others also become advocates for awareness?
In my opinion easiest way is to just start telling your story in any channel what fits to them. Also making connections to other advocates, participating in local and global groups and events.
How do you feel about your life at the moment?
I feel amazingly fortuned despite the illness. I have learned to live in the moment which is the key to happiness, I have gotten so much empathy from other people and have got a sense of meaningfulness in my life.
In your opinion, what is the key to effective advocacy?
To be open and honest of who you are and how you feel about the PD and how you cope. By remembering that it is enough that if only even one person feels that she is able to carry on after meeting you or finding you on social media, you have reached the most important goal.
How can we better fundraise to support a cure for Parkinson’s?
This is a difficult question because there is so many other more known and more scary diseases than this.
I think that we just need to crab every opportunity to be on display, tell our story and demand the cure.
What other activities do you undertake to help improve and support your daily living Eg exercise and alternative remedies?
I take care of my mental health by enabling myself to do things that I love: spend time with family and friends, singing lessons and participating in choir, writing my thoughts, poems and recently song lyrics.
Why should people who don’t have Parkinson’s care about this?
This disease can affect them any day or their loved ones.
Have you had any family members or relatives affected by Parkinson’s disease?
I suspect that few my late relatives might have had it but there is no real proof about it. The ones I know is one of my uncles from my father’s side, he has already passed away and one of my aunties of my mother’s side has this. But they got their diagnosis at an older age.
If you had one song that would tell us more about you or represent your life, which song would it be?
But I did one with the app Suno Pro, ’How can I say why this is me?’ under my Suno name Rebekka. Lyrics are my own, but the Suno AI did the melody according to prompts that I used. I feel those lyrics pretty much sums up my life at the moment.
If you had one final statement or quote you could leave for the Parkinson’s community, what would it be?
You can’t choose everything what happens to you, but you can choose your attitude to life and you can always develop yourself in it. I believe life is a gift. I didn’t always think like this. But when you understand that you have just this one chance here, you start to see it full of little things to be happy about.
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TogetherForSharon® In memory of my mother, Sharon to voice awareness & hope for a Parkinson’s Disease cure. Sharon’s Son, George
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