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Perhaps I have mentioned before that I wrote extensively during the worst years of the traumatic brain injury recovery. The distance and time of that season is measured not in weeks or in moths, but in years, beginning in October of 2015. Over eight years later, I am now beginning a non-linear and quite random process of reading what I wrote. Much of the writing was done in what could be called the valley of the shadow of death, or dark night(s) of the soul. Recounting the post-traumatic brain injury syndrome journal entries (yeah, that’s a mouthful) was actually the first idea I had for these essays, but I wasn’t quite ready in early February of this year. I did publish one entry previously and may now begin to publish more and more of them as I go along. For the first time, I feel like I may be ready to revisit those days, knowing that many gifts came out of them and through them. And that many gifts were written down for later use and not only my eyes. I’ll proceed with a few scattered bits and pieces of entries, the first of which was written almost a full year after the traumatic brain injury that sent me into a free-fall, led to the end of my career, and closed one door of life after another. By the time of writing, most of my identity markers were gone, I was in near-constant pain, always dizzy and nauseous, migraining, losing vision, losing feeling, and the symptoms were getting worse and worse. The days and nights were quite dark, but as I re-read what I wrote, there was also light. “How shall my heart be unsealed unless it be broken?” asks Kahlil Gibran. Certainly, there was much breaking and much unsealed. To stay true to the entries, I will write them as closely as I can to the way that they were written, which may or may not be all that helpful to the reader and listener sometimes. Perhaps I will cobble together more again soon and come up with a more organized plan. Perhaps not. We’ll just see how this experiment goes and adjust as seems right. And, it may have to wait a bit. Getting close to the lived experience of that season again is revealing wounds that are still healing. ———————— October 16, 2016 Evening Yes, that is my voice you hear. The more you listen, the stronger it gets. I have clarity for you and as you listen to me, you will know what to do and how to do it and who to do it with. It will not take long for you to become clear. Each time you listen, you open up exponentially. Almost everyone is opened up in the days and moments before their last breath here. You need not wait to see who you were to become. You can become it now. If you listen. A flood of amazing waits. Fall into it. October 27, 2016 “I have what you are looking for.” Heard in the night and wrote it down. Very real sense that I was also the speaker. November 10, 2016 Thankful for wholeness at the core even when there are broken pieces. February 20, 2017 Ringing in the ears was intense last night. Tried fighting it. That was crazy-making and led to cognitions like, “How can I live like this for the rest of my life?” Then I tried to make it go away by using opposites. Nope. Got “worse.” Became even more aware of it. At some point, I sensed that I was focusing all my energy and attention toward the ringing and corresponding sensations and thoughts. As soon as I welcomed the ringing and allowed myself to hear it and THEN began to direct attention to sensation in other parts of my body (for some reason, I was able to identify strong sensation in my right big toe), I fell fast asleep. When I awoke, I noticed the ringing, but then went back to the big toe and then to sensation of the toe and sensation of the ringing…back and forth…and then fast asleep. Woke up with the thought: “pain is a concept.” ———————— I found these entries scattered around a symptom journal that accompanied me to doctor’s visits, visits that were becoming increasingly discouraging as “We don’t know what to do, so let’s try…” became the constant refrain. I fairly despised having to keep the symptom journal because it felt like I was looking for things that were not going right, putting so much energy into trying to prove myself and explain myself. Invisible injuries like TBIs are especially challenging to navigate. I do know that I wrote much about the challenge of looking fine on the outside and feeling that I must have been making it up because no one else could see that anything was wrong from the outside. Yes. That was its own particular agony: trying and having to prove to others something that I didn’t want to be “true” in the first place. When we have a broken arm, it’s easy for others to see that we are injured and there is a standardized, accepted course of treatment. There are specific things that the patient can do to actively recuperate. I am a star when it comes to recovering from those kinds of injuries and have even been referred to as a “Super-Healer” by several doctors. But the brain injury recovery did not work that way. It was invisible. And there wasn’t a standardized course of treatment. And I was not a “Super-Healer.” In fact, my determination to recover often led me to being overactive in my “work to recover” and kept me from the deep rest I needed. Hmmmm… I will pause now as I am feeling waves of emotion rising and falling in my body. There are the waves that are joyous and whole and full of strength and gratitude and hope. And there are waves that are sad and grieving and waiting for their story to be heard and told. Wave after wave washes over me as I sit here. Wave after wave. I am reminded of Ram Dass recounting the following anecdote. Someone asked him, “Ram Dass, are you sad?” “Yes.” Ram Dass replied. “Ram Dass, are you happy?” “Yes.” Ram Dass replied. Yes, I reply. Yes. Peace.