Sharing your survival story is pivotal to moving forward and prevailing through hardships. But sharing your story also:
1) Spreads awareness and encourages understanding, 2) Inspires positive direction and action, and 3) Gives others hope to overcome. In other words, sharing your journey and challenges creates change. Sharing your survival story matters more than you might think.
Big changes don’t happen overnight. It’s important to remember one day of practicing these methods to improve your life isn’t enough. Keep at it, build beneficial habits, and reap longterm rewards. You might not notice immediately, but overtime your results will speak for themselves. Listed below are five of these practices that you can look at as daily gifts instead of repeating obligations.
There is power in writing your story. There is honor in sharing what you’ve gained with others. After waking up paralyzed from the neck down at 49, I realized there was no instruction manual I could refer to during this time, no resource I could lean on to find my way through dark hours, no guide on how to find my way forward. But now, there’s a book in the works that points readers toward proactive vs. reactive recovery approaches, methods to overcome obstacles, and tips on how to avoid letting “I can’t” rule your vocabulary. My journey has taken unexpected turns, and it’s time to pass on what I’ve picked up: Finding Forward: You Have the Will Within hits bookshelves on October 12, 2021. Read on to find the link to preorder!
For so many of us who find ourselves facing a new disability, the challenges that come along with it can be both small and immense. However, despite this collision with fate, a little ingenuity and awareness help us discover we can succeed in overcoming our setbacks. These 7 steps will help you create an inner peace and find your way forward after a disabling event.
However, as time goes on it’s easy to start feeling withdrawn, as though you no longer feel a connection with those who are trying to help you. It’s by no means the people: sometimes it’s the devastation and type of trauma experienced which causes a conflict and the inability to hear and accept the words of peace being bestowed while you’re trying heal. Their words and actions are forthright, but unknown to those helping is what they intend is better suited for people like themselves instead of what you face and fight for each day from the time you wake up until the end of your day. The more these polite and caring actions occur, the more it’s easy to feel withdrawn and not accepted. For instance, how does one explain what life is like in a wheelchair if those receiving the message have never spent time in one? How does one tell someone with PTSD everything will be ok if they’ve never experienced what caused the PTSD? The message by those people intending to help may only come across as noise, or notes on a sheet of music and void of lyrics. In other words, the people offering help and the person who needs it are more than likely speaking two different languages and neither understand the other.
There are a few things to consider here from both parties. For the person who is injured consider the following:
Everybody at some point needs an escape for mental refreshment or healing. Because each of us are at different ability levels, advice on traveling for mental healing will be capably acceptable for some and not the best fit for others. With this in mind, here are 5 tips for traveling to encourage reflection and mental healing:
I would like to say to all the family members, friends, and caregivers who are currently helping someone who is disabled in any way that your patience and efforts never go unnoticed and are always the kindest of gifts and the best of blessings. You are heroes to all of us who struggle and combat our daily bonds in one way or another. Whether or not we realize it, you make each day worth fighting for, and what afflicts us goes away even if only for a few short moments. You have the ability to help us heal through happiness by pulling our thoughts toward something or someplace much better.
It’s never easy to do what you do for us. You may beat yourself up wondering, Was what I did today enough? Did I say or do the right thing? Did I spend enough time? Am I actually helping?
Setting goals is actually quite easy and fun if you allow it. However, to do so, the first step is a leap of faith to acknowledge and allow yourself to let go of what is burdening you so you can let your mind calm down and find some much needed peace. What I’m saying here is that you have to let a little self-confidence seep in so you can let “I can’t” seep out. If your mind is full of today’s list of aches and pains or doubts, then tell your brain the complaint department is closed. With those concessions you can now get down to business and move on to setting a few goals and achieving them.
Why should you choose to keep living? There are so many ways for me to discuss the answer to this question. The first and easiest response is yes, absolutely, without any doubt, you should keep living and fight for your life every single second of every day. In the beginning you may be consumed by the shock and devastation of your trauma. Your brain is grappling with who you were before the event and will you be that person again after you heal. Each person’s circumstances are different and our ways forward may not be the same, but they are pointed in the same direction: ahead of us. There are many things to think about as you contemplate your initial steps and believe me, each step is worth your time.
Healing isn’t a linear equation. Progress sets its own direction and pace.
Since I know each day will bring its own set of challenges, I know that if I go into that day with a positive attitude and possibly something funny on my mind then I’ll meet those challenges with a smile on my face. A good old friend of mine Tom Keck used to tell me, “Some days it’s chicken, and some days it’s feathers.” and other than always finding that statement hilariously funny, I found this was a good way for me to approach two steps forward and one step back in my recovery.
Words like paralysis, stroke, or trauma (of any sort) are just words, and they by no means define who we are as human beings. If you’re finding that fate has chosen a new path along your journey of life, and you’re wondering why, look upon those new paths as a fresh start or a new beginning and set the word “why” off to the side for a while. These were my initial thoughts as I lay on a gurney, shut off from my entire body. Yes, I could have chosen to lie in panic, and my initial reaction was indeed that, but I chose a different path. My mind still worked; I could breathe, speak, see, and hear. Now all I needed was to create that first step in my mind and achieve it.
