I’m fine

People always ask how I am doing.  Not because it’s expected, like, “ I’m fine, thanks for asking”,  but because they really care how I’m doing. So I thought I would answer the question. If you don’t know,  I am doing this as a way to relearn how to write. So be forewarned, there will be some writing happening before the answer.  

I am in a support group with a few other people who had an ABI, acquired brain injury. It is facilitated with a therapist from Mt Sac college. Last week we were talking about fatigue. It is a huge deal for people with brain injuries.  It is a big deal for me.  And we were discussing recognizing triggers that could cause fatigue. I haven’t been able to figure that out, it seems so random.  I can see when it’s happening, and I shut down, but I can’t figure out the things that cause it. For several months I tracked what I did and how I felt, but because I could not figure out what was going on, I stopped.

But the therapist encouraged us to monitor how we felt and how it affects fatigue.  Actually, it was an assignment.  If you knew me as a student you would know that I take assignments seriously. So I am monitoring it again. When I first began doing this, I used a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being “sick” and 5 being “good”, and in between was “not good,” “so-so,” and “okay.”   What I monitored was how I felt in general, my body (B), and how my eyes felt (E).  This time, I decided to rename my scale. Starting with hurricane, and then, raining, cloudy, sunny, and ending with blue skies. I guess I thought maybe it was cute, and I really like the idea of blue skies.

And I did something else, I added a new category.  As well as my eyes and my body,  I’m also tracking my spirit (S). Three categories. I realize now that I was tracking the wrong thing. My spirit, my heart, my soul.  I can’t really define it.  But it matters so much.  Everything you do flows from it. So I’m tracking it.

Tracking what triggers fatigue is important, but there’s not a lot you can do about it, except  trying to avoid it. There are some things that sometimes work, things like diet, exercise, rest, but they are just ways to cope with what has happened.  And that is okay.  I want to be able to cope well with my mind, my eyes and my body, but the fact remains that my left eye is blind, half of my body doesn’t work very well, and my mind isn’t all there. My spirit is different. My soul, my heart, my spirit, I still have that.  I still have some control over it.  

Maybe it is a gift from God. I woke up in the ICU with gratitude in my spirit. I had an experience when I felt an amazing sense of God’s peace, in my spirit. I heard God’s call that morning on my porch, I heard it in my spirit.  Today,  somehow I have a tender spirit. I don’t know how that happened.  It had to be a gift from God. 

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.   Proverbs 4:23

The bible tells us to guard our hearts. We need to guard it because it is so important. We need to guard it because it is fragile.  Our hearts can become hard, they can become polluted, they can wither up and die if we are not careful.  

This gift that God sent.  To me.  I don’t want to squander it. I don’t want it to become polluted. I don’t want it to be hard.  So I am guarding my heart, as best as I can, because I want to experience blue skies.

So, how am I doing?  Honestly, it was a cloudy/rainy week, but blue skies were there as well. And that makes all the difference.  If my spirit is in blue skies, everything else is just weather. 

“You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.”     – Quote by Pema Chodron