what traumatic brain injury survivors can teach you about resilience for covid19
I don’t know about you, but my vision board for 2020 didn’t include a global pandemic.
My vision board for 2018 and 2019 also didn’t include recovery from a traumatic brain injury and all of the resulting complications that have completely changed my life over the last 19 months.
Life is funny like that.
Much like my experience with traumatic brain injury (TBI), Coronavirus has required everyone to adapt or die.
Spoiler alert: I’ve been writing a lot about this in my upcoming book.
A year and a half ago on August 21, 2018, I was in car accident that didn’t seem like a big deal at first, much like people thought about Covid-19. Then I discovered that I had experienced a traumatic brain injury that changed my life dramatically.
Similar to how Covid-19 is impacting all of us right now, I:
was sequestered at home a lot;
couldn’t go do my regular workouts;
was suddenly dealing with different obstacles in my environment;
was under an enormous amount of financial stress;
was facing relationship strain.
The overarching theme: There’s a circumstance that I don’t have control over, so how do I adapt. because the other outcome was, frankly, not an option
I’ve had weird flashbacks over the last month.
Right after my accident, I was suddenly home from my busy life and unable to do my normal things. I did not handle it well.
First, I experienced denial: this traumatic injury isn’t going to be a big deal. I’ll be back to my old routines after a couple weeks. I don’t need to slow down; this isn’t going to derail any of my plans for next month (let alone after that).
Any of that sound familiar? Keep reading…
Next up? Anger. The way I experienced anger was towards others, for going on with their normal lives while I was unable to do so. I also experienced anger with myself, for not getting well “fast enough.” I felt anger toward the other driver for causing the accident, and anger at whatever higher power allowed my life to change.
I didn’t realize that I was angry because I was grieving; I couldn’t see it.
Think about what areas of your life may show up with anger during COVID19.
Bargaining was a really fun time, too. Surely if I cancel ALL of my activities, commitments, teaching, etc, do everything each doctor and all of my eight therapists tell me to do, take all of these medications, do all my homework, become the perfect patient, and rest a little, SURELY I’ll be better in a week or two. I would think to myself. Maybe three weeks, tops.
I had no idea that I would still be dealing with symptoms, doctors, therapists, medications, and a new normal 19 months later.
The really fun part of grief no one likes to talk about? Depression. Oof. I had some misconceptions about depression before I experienced it. I thought that depression could be managed/controlled/willed away (that’s a lie). I thought that strong people wouldn’t experience depression (also a lie). I thought that depression was a scary, shameful thing that meant something was inherently wrong with someone (uh yes, also a lie).
I didn’t know I was grieving.
In fact, I told myself I shouldn’t be grieving:
I was alive!
My doctors said I probably wouldn’t have permanent damage!
Other people had it way worse!
I should be grateful, what was wrong with me that I wasn’t just grateful?
living through this experience taught this type-a, control freak, high achiever, science geek that mental health, grief, and loss are so much more complicated than most people will ever realize.
Going through this grief process forced me to confront all of my old, limiting beliefs; I had to challenge my belief systems, values, and perceptions. I had to choose to leave old identities behind. I had to dig deep, and find out who I was without my big brain, my great memory, my energy, my skills, and my career.
Working through this took me about 10 months to finally catch a glimpse of acceptance.
I had to accept I didn’t have control over the past.
I had to accept I didn’t have control over the future.
I had to accept I didn’t have control over what other people thought.
I had to accept I didn’t have control over how quickly or slowly my brain healed.
I had to accept that there was no magic formula to get my old life back.
I had to accept that it was okay to not have all the answers, it was okay to be misunderstood, and it was okay to make difficult choices to support my own health.
I need to also share that I continually go through the five stages of grief — its not a checkmark and thank you, next
That realization almost crushed my soul.
But guess what? Going through what I’ve lived through has reignited my purpose to help others.
When Covid-19 started to affect my country, my community, and my world, I realized that everyone need to know they’re not alone in what they are experiencing
And there is support.
Much like Covid or any long-term chronic illnesses or life events that cause complex grief (not just one thing), there’s a lot of unknown. There are countless unanswered questions. There is a whole lot of grey in a world we like to think of as black and white.
if you are reading this in 2020, it is likely that you are feeling the effects of trauma
Trauma can be defined as when changes happen so quickly that people can’t process the emotions.
You might hear people saying, “It’s just a weird time” or “I just can’t wrap my head around it.” When the US-Canada border was closing late March, a dear friend said to me, “I just can’t believe this is happening.”
When we feel like we don’t have the ability to understand what’s going on, that could be trauma because there’s a loss of safety, control, and a sense of the future.
When I learned I had a traumatic brain injury, I struggled to accept that I was dealing with trauma. No one died, I had no visible symptoms, therefore it didn’t exist. When I learned I had lost my eyesight in my left eye as a result of the head injury, I struggled to grasp that I had experienced trauma. Denial was a way of coping with something I couldn’t handle emotionally.
A global pandemic certainly meets the standards to be classified as traumatic.
From the “big” experiences, like losing a loved one to COVID, to the “small” experiences, like high school seniors who don’t get to have their prom (by the way, I encourage you to not judge your experiences or others and compare them. Trauma is trauma, big or small).
what are your mindset and beliefs?
With my TBI, I thought, “If I just do everything right, this will go away” (hello, bargaining). Similarly, as a collective we have thought, “If I just stay home social distancing for two weeks, this coronavirus will go away” (me: currently at home for four weeks and counting). The great news, for both my TBI and for coronavirus, is that these methods do work — just not in the timeframe we hope.
The game-changer for me was cultivating resilience.
Being a research doctor meant that I knew what “most people” needed to do to cultivate resilience, and I had to work through my own resistance to practicing these methods (it turns out that I still prefer to tell people what to do, rather than do it myself. So despite the brain injury, my stubborn streak is alive and well!).
Mindfulness (practices that cultivate presence in the “right now” moment), like meditation, yoga, breathwork, journaling, mindful eating, or anything that helps a person to be in the present moment, can rewire our brains to become stress resilient.
As a former athlete, and having a 15-year career in the health and fitness industry, my idea of movement was hard core. After my TBI (and even still today), I can’t move the way I used to move.
My idea of movement had to change.
I created my 30 Days of Mindful Movement course to support people who are finding themselves suddenly at home (or even busier than normal at stressful work environments). We are facing new roles (home school teacher, full time caregiver, recently unemployed, working from home, taking college courses from home, learning new technology, etc) in an uncertain time while the world seems to be going crazy all around us.
Mindfulness can anchor us in the present, versus worrying, fearing, and thinking about the past or the future
I’ll tell you a big secret: I have a love-hate relationship with yoga.
I know that is strange to hear from a yoga teacher, but that relates directly back to me preferring to tell people what to do rather than have to do it myself.
My issues with yoga and mindfulness were that:
I thought I needed to be “good” at it (there is no “good”)
I thought I could decide to meditate and my brain would be magically clear/still (nope, not even with a TBI)
I thought I didn’t have time to lay around and breathe when I had 500 million things on my to-do list (turns out that is exactly why I need it)
I compared myself to everyone at the studio/on instagram, thinking they had it down so much better than I did (they don’t)
Do any of these sound familiar?
If so, you should consider enrolling in my course. I created my course specifically for you: I know that it can change your life.
If you are even slightly intrigued, check out the details here. The next live course launches May 1, and enrollment closes that evening.
Because I adore my lemon loves readers, i’m sharing a sample day from my 30 days of mindful movement course, just for you! this will take approximately half an hour. you can do all of this with a yoga mat, towel, or on your bed or couch.
As we start, lets take a quick check-in:
How are you feeling today?
Excitement? Nerves? Hopeful? Scared? Overwhelmed?
Take a deep breath and allow yourself to fully feel these feelings.
When you're ready, we have a little work to do :-)
Guided mindful exercise video:
This is a simple, 3-minute video on breathwork.
A 3-minute mindful practice to connect body to mind to soul.
Guided mindful movement:
This is a 15-minute guided full body stretch, with a little extra hip work.
Start with this gentle, 15- minute mindful movement practice.
Journal worksheet:
Consider this quote as you work: "Culture and values provide the foundation upon which everything else is built." --Jeff Weiner
Daily Mindful Minute (I love to save these to my phone as a little reminder to make a mindful minute happen any time).
Discussion question for the group chat:
Introduce yourself! You can give your name, where you currently are, and what you are most excited about for this course.
(In the program, there is a private chat for all participants. Here, you could leave your intro in the comments!)