I woke up at 3:30am. My skull endured a dull throb. I had been calmly dreaming of awful things. Not a nightmare exactly, more like the banality of mortality sitting crisply on my face.
There was nothing to tend to. No emergency to soothe. Nothing new, anyway. I was deeply exhausted yet alert. Now what?
To help soothe me back to sleep, I played an audiobook I’d read before. Lost and Found: recovering your spirit after a concussion by Elizabeth Pierce. I knew listening to Elizabeth’s narration would maybe help me stay compassionate.
I’ve learned a lot about brains since receiving a concussion in 2018.
What I have learned (and keep forgetting and relearning) is how much energy it takes to do things that don’t seem all that brainy. Like, basic functioning. Feeling your feelings. Trying to be “normal”, whatever you imagine that to be.
The difference is this: Two people are listening to someone tell a long winded story. One person may be entertained, or bored or indifferent. They might leave that conversation making a joke about how draining it was, and then move on.
The person with a concussion was listening as though they were being charged $100 for every word they heard – and they were already in debt to begin with. It’s a feeling of being flooded and doing your best to try and navigate which words are important, because you literally can’t afford to process every one.
You will pay for this later – no matter how many people agree that you “look fine”.
Additional charges:
- do you feel safe enough to speak up? If they don’t understand (you look fine! we’re tired too!) everything doubles in cost.
- panic about whether this inconsequential conversation will drain you of your capacity to explain why you need to excuse yourself, and leave you with nothing to get yourself home.
- service fee for the work of doing all this mental sorting in the first place
- taxes for any other random sounds or motion in your periphery
If you have a concussion, your daily brain allowance is a small fraction of what others might receive. They can afford to over exert a little and feel at ease knowing they will be reimbursed shortly. You pay way more, and receive way less.
I think my brain bill became so long, that eventually I started doing what Shannon Simmons describes in Worry Free Money as “f*ck it” spending. You’re so deep in debt already you can’t imagine your way out of it. So you say “f*ck it” and buy yourself something that will make you feel human for the time being. What difference could it make at this point?
Even though I had read Elizabeth Pierce’s memoir before, at 3:30am that night I heard new things. I felt a wave of mercy come over me. I have been ungrateful. I have been pushing myself. I have been rushing my healing. It has been unkind.
Self love has allowed me to have moments like this. Where I can see the harm I’ve been doing to myself, and feel the shame of it. I can do this, because I know that I have made a commitment to love and accept myself. My self marriage vows hold space for healing. And healing means relapses. I can acknowledge how I have been unkind. And I can love that unkind self. And I can make amends. I can surrender to the discipline of healing, again.
Maybe through Elizabeth Pierce I needed to hear this reminder, exactly now, at this current stage of healing. And maybe you needed me to share it, exactly now, at your current state of self love.
Stop Hunting for the Healing
Therapies need time to work. Are you allowing them time to work?
Are you always listening to the next podcast, reading the next book, joining the next webinar, taking the next course? What self care practice did you introduce and then bury in a heap of other self care practices?
Do you tend to take on one self care practice and then feel like it’s not enough? Read that again.
You are worthy of love and mercy. Whether you are healing from a brain injury, enduring another kind of loss or simply learning to treat yourself as someone worth loving.
Allow yourself the time it takes to receive the benefits of one therapy or self care practice.
I know, you want to make a lot of changes. You have a lot to heal – and you want it all now. Trust me, I know. But you can be as hungry as a lion and have that means nothing if you don’t allow yourself to swallow and process one bite at a time.
You will be fed the healing you need, one bite at a time. Piling your plate high with self help books and even the most wonderful therapies will make no difference until you slow down, open up, and receive what you have the capacity to receive.
Yes, this is not only enough – it is effective.
Thank you Elizabeth Pierce for writing and sharing your story. I needed the reminder.