“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” Steve Jobs
Living Life with a Brain Injury
Living life with a brain injury can be confusing and baffling, both for those who love us and for ourselves. In the process, we may find that we are trading our judgment for other people’s judgment.
In the process, we may give up on our hopes and dreams. In the process, we may default to living our lives based on what other people may think we can or cannot do, now, with our lives.
In the process, we may find that we are living our lives based on someone else’s truth. Someone who is not living with a brain injury and an invisible disability. Someone who does not have our grit to succeed a little at a time, one day at a time.
With this realization, we may find ourselves asking?
“Whose truth and life am I really living, now, after my brain injury?”
In the event that you are questioning whether you are living in your truth and your life, I would invite you to answer the below questions. These questions may help you to live your truth and your life in ways you never dreamed possible. Ways that will work for you, despite what other people may want or need you to believe.
Believe about your deficits, limitations, disability and brain injury.
Answering the Question (s).
Is that truth working for me?
Have I been living someone else’s truth?
Have I looked for a way(s) to live my truth?
What is keeping me from pursuing my truth?
Am I waiting for someone to define my truth?
What is my truth and how can I live my truth?
Is that truth leaving me frustrated with my life?
Am I waiting for someone to tell me what to do?
How can I use my gifts, talents and abilities to live my truth?
How can I use my truth to live my life and follow my dreams?
Does that truth leave me feeling out-of-place; like a fish out of water?
How can I use my gifts, talents and abilities in ways that will work for me?
If there was nothing “holding me back” what would I love to do with my life?
Am I committed to finding ways to use my gifts, talents and abilities in ways that will work for me?
The Consequences of Living a Lie as an Individual Living with a Brain Injury
A “box” that seeks to define who we are as individuals because we are living with brain injuries.
A “box” that leads the individual living with a brain injury to believe that there are limited options to enhance their ongoing brain injury recovery process.
A lie that limits and places us in a “box” through a diagnosis, a label, stereotype and stigmatization.
A “box” that discourages the individual living with a brain injury to explore how to use their gifts, talents and abilities in ways that will work for them.
A “box” that seeks to convince us that our lives are limited. A “box” that conveys to us that what we can contribute is of little significance.
A “box” that minimizes, marginalizes, dismisses and discounts who we are as individuals because of our brain injuries.
Note: After 2 state Department of Vocational Rehabilitation (one in Florida and one in North Carolina) evaluations it was reported that I was unemployable. I am glad that I did not let that report limit me. My encouragement to you is to not allow yourself to be limited by what test results and evaluations tell you.
My Journey and Process Discovering my Truth
How we respond to what happens in our lives determines whether we move forward with our lives or whether we stay stuck. If I look at what happened in my life and make the decision to learn from what happened or happens to me, I am able to make an empowering choice. The choice to learn and grow.
Learn and grow from from feeling helpless to being empowered by what happened/happens in my life.
Live and Thrive — By Making the Choice
To move from a belief system that leads us to believe that we are a victim of circumstances, to a belief system that empowers our ability to live and thrive. To live and thrive as an individual living with a brain injury and an invisible disability, in ways that work for us in our mind, body, spirit, soul and emotions.
Attempting to Live another Person’s Truth
For many years, I found myself attempting to live in the “truth” of what other people expected of me. Their truth had good intentions, but their truth did not work out well for me. These individuals, for whatever reason, wanted or needed me to live as “if” my life was not being impacted/affected by a brain injury.
Their truth that expected my life to not be impacted/affected by my brain injury and an invisible disability.
Enough Pain
I am so glad that I reached a point in time, in my life, when I had enough pain. Enough pain that led to a spiritual awakening. A spiritual awakening that opened my “eyes”. Opened my eyes to realize that as I attempted to live another person’s truth, my life became bankrupt. Bankrupt by not discovering in my truth.
Bankrupt as I attempted to live in another person’s truth. Bankrupt by my intentions to live my life not impacted. Not impacted by a traumatic brain injury and an invisible disability. Bankrupt from the potential of what I could accomplish with my life by staying focused on trying to convince other people why I could not.
Could not and would not able to live out/fulfill the truth that they had for me after my traumatic brain injury.
Finding My Own Truth
I am grateful for the pain that I experienced in my life. For that pain motivated me to seek and find my truth to answer the question, “Whose truth and life am I living, now, after my brain injury?”
The truth that would help to break me free. Break from a “lie” that led me to believe that I needed to live another person truth to be successful. The truth that helped me to realize that I could live and thrive.
In ways that would make me successful, as I live my life, run my own race and stay in my own lane.
The Life I Imagined
Owning my truth helped me to realize that who I am is of tremendous value. The truth that helped me to start living the life that I imagined. The truth that helped me to move in the direction of my dreams.
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau
“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. Do that which is assigned to you and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
To live the life I imagined. realizing that I can create hope in my life. Create hope in my life, a little at a time. The truth that helped me to accept other people’s truth and what they wanted or needed to believe.
To be able to own my truth that gives me the courage to run my race in ways that work for me.
The courage to own my truth and run my race, in ways, that work for me.
“And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” Steve Jobs
Final thought to Consider
“Whose truth and life am I really living, now, after my brain injury?”
“Believe in yourself, go after your dreams and don’t let anyone put you in a box.” Daya
“Not everyone will understand your journey. That’s okay. You’re here to live your life, not to make everyone understand.” Banksy
“Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” Albert Einstein
“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life. Define yourself.” Robert Frost
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