A letter to my brain………

A letter to my brain!

I wrote a letter to my brain to try and acknowledge my feelings and to help me move forward. Sometimes the brain gets in the way.  A letter to my brain!

Dear Brain,

It has taken me a whole year but now I have proof.

Dear Brain,

My pain feels ok, yet when you overload me with stress it sets me back…. it twinges sometimes so much just to let me know you crave control.

Dear Brain,

Please stop filling my head with self-doubt making me feel small and worthless. I know I can do it. I have proof!

Dear Brain,

Please stop bringing up childhood memories that I would rather forget. I look at my proof and I fight them off.

Dear Brain,

I know that saying keeps surfacing ‘Someone is always worse off than you’. Why do you make me feel like I am worse off?  I am not. I know I am not.

Dear Brain,

Don’t you understand to make progress I have to defy you? You keep trying to hold me back. Why do you tell me I can’t move? I have proof!

Dear Brain,

The fatigue you trick me into feeling cannot stop me.

The Struggle

One year ago today, I was struggling to start exercising after an injury that left me with an impairment. I have come a long way with my own physical healing journey but I know I will never recover 100%.

I live on a farm and was very active prior to my injury.  Long term pain and fighting workers comp for too long had done a lot of damage to my outlook.

At one stage I was sent to Melbourne and back from Tasmania four times every fortnight.  Each of these days were long and draining, catching the first flight out (last plane back) having to wait around for appointments, spending hours in the airport, no money (as my pay had been stopped six months before) only to be berated by a retired surgeon sitting opposite me behind a big desk calling me a fraud and telling me I was trying to cheat the system.   It used to take me two days to get over the trip physically. Recovery from the mental anguish took much, much longer. That cranky retired surgeon was just one of many doctors I was sent to.

The Rose Garden. My Proof.

A year ago we re-covered the weed matting and were going to fill in the area with pine bark. Placing a few upturned pots on there to stop the wind blowing it away. I was still struggling to move around easily, let alone exercise and begin to regain strength.

Gazing out my bedroom window at the garden every day – at the pots holding down the matting – gradually an idea began to form. I remembered hearing of a book called ‘The Clothesline Diet’ by Karen Gatt and Sue Smethurst, about lady losing a lot of weight by walking around a clothes line. She moved from a place of helplessness to strength by building up gradually.

And so it began.

I began ‘my electricity pole walk’.  I took my doggies with me every day (or rather, one of them took me! She pulled on the lead like a husky pulling a sleigh!) The other needed the sensory stimulation. https://michelineandrews.com.au/charlie-girl-charlie-brown/

On the first day I walked to one telegraph pole and home again. I repeated that one-pole walk every day for a week and every time I went out I collected a rock and carried it home to place on the garden bed.

After that week I had seven rocks greeting me in the morning as I looked out my bedroom window. Reminding me of my accomplishment and inspiring me to make it to the second telegraph pole.

Slowly, so slowly, I continued my progress over the course of the year.

Two weeks ago I celebrated my first year anniversary and really wanted to write this down to share with you all.  My proof. Proof that I can do it.

I can now walk so much further. Still not as far as I would like, but look at all those rocks! I have done it, despite the occasional day I missed. Despite that doctor and his ‘desk’. Despite the odds telling me I couldn’t.  Every day I wake up and look forward to collecting my next rock.

That idea turned into a revelation and it has allowed me to use the ‘pole-walk’ as a mind tool to help me with life generally. Every rock in that garden bed is a reminder that I can achieve ‘the impossible’.

It’s time to move forward. Time to fulfill my vision. I am well on my way to sharing my passion and building a shiny, strong future.

Dear Brain,

Move over. I have proof to show you I can override you and progress and move on!

I am looking forward to seeing the roses in bloom 🙂