Resilience after concussion: bloom the place you might be planted

Season 2 of the Concussion Tales podcast is right here! To kick off this season, I want to speak about resilience after concussion. Let’s have a better take a look at this quote: ‘Bloom the place you might be planted. Don’t curse what you have already got.’ Be able to get impressed and really feel empowered on this all new season of the Concussion Tales podcast!

What now follows is a transcript of this podcast episode.

Concussion Tales podcast introduction

[00:00 Melanie] If I say there’s hope for full restoration for individuals with a concussion, you say…?

[00:07 Professor McCrea] 100%!

[00:08 Professor Maas] And in reality, you didn’t solely really feel it: you have been outdoors the common medical system, as a result of they weren’t curious about you.

[00:16 Professor Sitskoorn] Neuroplasticity truly opens you as much as the world. It makes it attainable to develop; it makes it attainable to rehabilitate.

[00:25 Professor Wilson] Traumatic brain injury has been known as a silent epidemic for that motive, as a result of it consists of modifications and disabilities that aren’t apparent to different individuals.

[00:35 Dr. Zasler] If, as a doctor, you felt you had nothing to supply a affected person, then I feel ethically, you might want to say: “I don’t assume there’s something I can give you. Perhaps you must see Dr. M.”

[00:48 Professor Diaz-Arrastia] Traditionally, now we have known as this stuff gentle traumatic mind accidents, which suggests that, effectively… It might be a brain injury, nevertheless it’s not going to have nice penalties, proper? And that’s frankly not true.

In regards to the Concussion Tales podcast

[01:05 Melanie] Welcome to Concussion Tales, a Lifeyana podcast sequence crammed with hope. I’m right here to let that you’re not alone in your post-concussion restoration journey. My identify is Melanie and I spent six and a half years studying, experimenting, and coaching to be able to discover a approach to heal myself from post-concussion syndrome.

After making a full restoration by the tip of 2018, I launched into this mission to make the restoration journey simpler for you. For this reason I began this podcast, wrote detailed blog post and downloadable guides, supply coaching and in addition the course that I want I had again after I was recovering – educating you the whole lot that I wanted to know to be able to make my restoration occur.

On Concussion Tales, we dig deep whereas discussing hopeful tales of restoration in addition to the laborious stuff within the messy center. Let’s dive proper in!

Shifting ahead is extra necessary than perfection

Welcome on the brink of a brand new season of Concussion Tales! As autumn began right here in The Netherlands, I obtained the flu like half of all residents on this nation, and sound nasally and am simply out of breath. My apologies! 

After I got down to make this podcast, I made a decision to at all times select shifting ahead over aiming for perfection, and there’s no higher day to follow this than at present. We’ve obtained an entire new season to expertise collectively! So, let’s take what now we have and get began.

Resilience after concussion

I’d like to begin out this season with a brief story. My accomplice’s mother and father watch Hour of Power on Sunday mornings. Whereas making breakfast of their kitchen, I usually hear snippets that I discover myself writing down eagerly. Final weekend, I heard Bobby Schuler say this excellent factor: Bloom The place You Are Planted. Don’t curse what you have already got. 

That went proper onto my quote checklist: that is all about resilience after concussion. Bloom the place you might be planted. The place are you planted? The place do you end up proper now? 

Don’t curse what you have already got

And – right here comes the second a part of the quote – how a lot do you curse what you have already got? In case your character is something like mine, the next questions will resonate with you.

How usually do you blame your self? How a lot do you punish your self inside your personal head, like I did by pondering offended ideas geared toward myself? How lazy I’m. How spineless. 

How a lot do you blame the state of affairs? Do you assume ideas that I assumed, like why is that this taking place to me? That is so unfair.

Do you blame the mind that you would be able to now not depend on? My mind was my identification, and after I misplaced the capability to work and assume like I did earlier than, I used to be so offended at it and fed it crappy meals as an alternative of the whole lot it actually wanted from me.

How a lot do you blame the incident that brought about you to maintain a concussion? The accident that occurred to me, didn’t really feel prefer it occurred to me. I felt responsible. I felt I ought to’ve averted it. I used to be so offended at myself and the truth that I let it occur.

Blaming others

Do you typically, or oftentimes, blame your family members who – regardless of how laborious they struggle – simply don’t appear to perceive? I remoted myself from family members, and satisfied myself that I felt so alone. I felt alone, however the extra I assumed I felt alone, the extra I created it, too, and I obtained increasingly more remoted.

Do you end up blaming the medical doctors who basically inform you to go residence time after time? Throughout my restoration, I used to be liable to anger and at instances, even rage. One instance of after I felt it coming over me, was throughout a go to to a neurologist, who acted because the embodiment of patronization by implicitly disregarding the bodily origin of my signs stating that I, as of but, nonetheless skilled signs as a result of I failed to include my ‘classes’… I solely expressed the craze after I was residence alone, so no person else obtained damage that day.

Feeling determined after sustaining a concussion

Oh, I do know, there’s a lot and there are such a lot of individuals guilty. As a result of why is no person serving to me? That is despair. I do know it effectively. And I anticipate chances are you’ll understand it, too. It’s an emotion that’s all too human.

Despair is rooted in hopelessness

Did you see how shortly I obtained to despair and the conviction that no person helps me, in any respect? From a deep rooted sense of injustice and life being unfair I went to blaming and lashing out, and from there, the highway to despair was solely quick. 

Have you learnt the perspective that underlies and drives that spiral? It’s a way and perspective of hopelessness – which was default through the first 2 years of my restoration, so please don’t mistake my sincere reflection for blame: this can be a protected area the place we focus on the depth of our feelings. 

If you wish to learn the way come hope is an perspective, and the way you your self can change from a state of hopelessness to a state of hope and management, have a hearken to episode #11 on post-concussion hope of season 1. 

Treasure the individuals who love you

Bloom where you are planted. Don’t curse what you have already got. If we curse what we have already got, we throw away the very issues or individuals that may assist us get out of this case. They’re our springboard. And I do know this in your coronary heart. 

Breaking the blame cycle

So, find out how to transfer ahead? If you’re like me and acknowledge all the above, the factor that may set you free from the cycle of blaming and never shifting ahead in your restoration, is acceptance. No, not of the state of affairs. Set your purpose, goal excessive – please discuss with the season 1 episode about hope once more, as a result of cultivating hope has to do with purpose setting too. 

Acceptance is essential

However acceptance is essential – acceptance of the very fact that you might be right here, on this state of affairs that’s removed from good. And – possibly most and hardest of all 

• – half 1 – that you simply wish to be pleased about what and who you have already got in your life. As a result of, and I don’t say this so actually because your state of affairs is actual and it’s to be taken critical, however right here it comes: regardless of the state of affairs, it might actually virtually at all times be worse;
• and – half 2 – make it your resolve to do what it takes to get out of right here – you wish to bloom the place you might be planted. Cease cursing what you have already got and settle for that the place you might be is messy, however you’re going to work with what you could have, develop higher instruments as you progress ahead, and can bloom the place you’re planted. This dump would be the basis on which you constructed your most lovely life, the weeds will turn into your compost and the manure might be your fertilizer. 

All the time select hope

If I might change one factor in my put up concussion restoration course of, it might’ve been to by no means lose hope. It actually value me years. Don’t let it’s this manner for you. You’re in control of hope. Settle for that the place you might be isn’t good. Embrace and love what you do have. Resolve to bloom the place you’re planted, take the weeds and switch it into compost, and also you will flourish. That is the mindset to succeed. That is how one can construct resilience after sustaining a concussion.

Season 2 of Concussion Tales

With that, let’s kick off the brand new season. In season 1, episodes might get fairly lengthy, and season 2 will characteristic shorter episodes of about 10 to fifteen minutes every, to make them simpler and lighter to digest. On this second season, you’ll meet cutting-edge practitioners and researchers I recorded on the international conference on brain injury in Dublin on the finish starting of 2023. And naturally, we’ve obtained many interviews lined up! 

Repeating my intention for the podcast

Beginning out with the Concussion Tales podcast 2 years in the past, my focus for each episode has been to supply 2 issues:

1. recognition – by holding area for compassion for all of the laborious – and sometimes unstated – issues, we notice that none of us is alone on this
2. hope & positivity – by sharing insights, hopeful tales and new views

At the beginning of this new season, I repeat these intentions as I say them out loud proper now – might the episodes that observe make it easier to. I’m sending you’re keen on and energy.