Hi there,
Jessie here.
Welcome again to these reflections on brain injury and how mindfulness can be such a beautiful bomb to support us every day.
And I welcome you here if you're in Gander or Guangzhou or Glasgow or Greensboro.
And I've been loving watching to see where my followers are from,
But some people don't have their location noted and I would honestly love to just hear from you,
Get to know you,
And it's not a gimmick,
But it's my true heart wanting to know you.
Now,
I'm sure you know how hard it is to have a brain injury.
Some people it's more mild,
Some people it's more intense,
Some people's life situation makes it more challenging than others,
Some people have had a larger trauma related to the event of how they got a brain injury that adds more strife,
And some people have had other difficulties in their life,
If you face any oppression of any type,
It's just going to make it harder to manage a brain injury.
And today on this track,
What I want to lead you in a guided meditation about is the importance of acknowledging the reality of this situation right now as it is.
And I'll just start with a little story about that,
And that's when I was about two and a half years after my car accident,
I saw a neurologist and he said,
Jesse,
You know,
The woman who was in the office before you,
She's been struggling with her brain injury for four years.
But she has not recognized the reality of this and made the necessary changes so that she could live with it.
She's trying to live her old life,
And she's killing herself,
You know,
Always stressed,
Always up against the edge of her symptoms,
Always doing things that bring on her symptoms and not changing her life so that she can do less of those and do more care.
And in that moment,
I felt my heart sink,
I felt almost like my world fell away and I'm hoping that's not the case for you.
But you may feel a bit of that,
That like,
Oh,
Wow,
That's me.
Maybe placing your head on your heart.
It's so hard to acknowledge this reality.
And it doesn't mean that her symptoms will go on forever or that they'll be the same as they are right now.
But,
But a lot of research is that for people who have had ongoing symptoms,
I mean,
I want to just tell you right now,
That through mindfulness,
I have dramatically reduced the frequency,
Intensity and duration of the difficulties I have with my symptoms.
I do have ongoing symptoms,
But it's so different than it was now that I made that choice in that moment to choose care.
I reduced my workload.
And I basically thought of self-care as my second job.
I know that I'm really privileged to have the ability to do that.
I can tell you that it was so worth it.
I had to battle the grief I had about reducing my workload and that reduced many of them.
And I never regretted that choice of the relief I felt in having time to care for myself.
So continuing with your hand on your heart,
If it feels right,
Cueing in that sense of relaxation that we've talked about before,
The unclenching,
Noticing where you're holding tension and just gently encouraging it to let go without grasping for it to be anything more than what is available here today.
Taking in a breath with me and a long sigh out.
Notice that the exhale was longer than the inhale.
Let's try that again.
Inhale and exhale.
Really feeling the support of that hand on your heart.
Feeling the sense of community of all of us around the world in this.
And taking a moment to acknowledge this is how things are right now,
But I have agency.
I have power around this.
And the important part is to recognize that our symptoms,
Whatever they may be,
And they're different for you and they're different for me,
They're one thing.
But if you think about it,
It's so often our reaction to our symptom that is actually so much harder,
That just makes it worse than it is already.
And I'll give you an example,
If you think about,
You might have a headache,
And the headaches aren't fun.
But from the headache,
You might notice your mind tense up around that,
Your muscles tighten,
Your chest,
Your stomach,
You can feel the stress rising about this headache,
And on and on it can go.
Letting go of that reaction and learning through mindfulness to turn it into a response instead is so beautiful.
It's not easy,
But it makes everything so much easier when we can make that move.
And one of the ways that we can learn to make those moves and those moments and those hard moments that come is gently listening in for the signs that maybe a reaction to our symptoms is coming along.
We might notice it in a change in our heart rate,
Speeding up or those muscles tensing up,
Or our hands beginning to sweat,
Or our thoughts becoming fast and spinning,
Any strong emotions that might arise.
Those are all signs that,
Oh boy,
I might be starting to have a little need to think about what will support me now.
What will support me now so that I can move towards a response rather than a reaction.
Hand on the heart,
Taking a few long slow deep breaths,
Acknowledging this is how it is right now and I can support myself.
Taking a moment now to reflect on how this lands in your heart.
It's not easy.
But choosing this kind of mindful self-care can make all the difference.
Learning to stop trying to live that old life and instead build a big beautiful new life that includes walks in nature,
Time for yoga,
Time for long slow deep breathing,
Time to learn mindfulness and meditation,
Time to visit the professionals who care for us without it being just on the side of the desk,
Time to connect to friends and family in ways that fill us up rather than freak us out.
I so hope this for you and I hope that this kind of acknowledgement doesn't mean acceptance feels like too much,
You know,
That's kind of maybe too much to ask,
But just acknowledging that and choosing choices that serve us rather than beating ourselves up about what we can't do from the past.
And lastly I want to say that in our old life,
Like so many people,
We constantly pressed the override button.
We constantly did too much.
And what's beautiful about a brain injury is that our override button is broken.
Hallelujah for that.
Let's throw that button into the ocean because this is the cause of so much suffering in the lives of everyone around the world.
And we're lucky because we have very loud signals that say,
Take care of yourself,
Slow down,
Savor the good,
And let go of the reaction to the bad and lean into a wise response.
May you find some ease today.
