I remember hitting the beach in November 2014. It had been a month or so since I had a stroke, and I was still dealing with many of the effects caused by a part of my brain dying. I was dizzy most of the time, and my balance was what I’d call “challenging, at best”. I could not climb down steps without a rail or assistance of some kind, and my eyesight was still not as reliable as it once was.
Throughout the recovery process, I took on challenges with a “yes, I can” attitude that I believe helped dramatically speed up my recovery. I would meditate on regaining my vision, internally visualizing the act of seeing as well as the rerouting of the necessary neural pathways. I would use those visualization techniques in learning to walk again, in rebuilding my strength, and in finding the joy that resided deep within me. I would not choose the darkness even in my blindness, and I would not choose being a victim even in my disability.
Instead, I choose my power and decided to “do the best I could”. I set no lofty goals save doing my best, and I would not get down on myself or the world when my best did not meet a prescribed standard. I would accept my “new normal” and let whatever came my way through hard work, meditation, and circumstance to flow.
When the recovery process was complete, my neurologist ask me to confer with him because of what he deemed “a miraculous recovery”. He asked me about my process, about my attitude, about what I saw as a stroke victim who had recovered quite quickly. I first corrected him, suggesting to him that the first key was that I was not a “stroke victim” but rather a “stroke student”. I had experienced and learned so much from being stricken that I could not see myself as a victim. I was a student, and I had be so well taught.
At the end of our many conversations on this subject I asked him what he thought. “I think your attitude, you visualization techniques and your relatively young age all combined to provide you a miracle. I’m grateful to have learned something from you.” At the end of the rehab process he had to test me to release me from his care, and he began to “invent” tests just to try to get me to fail one of them. At the end of that trial, he simply said, “wow”.
That led to that moment on the beach. I made my way slowly down the steps in Ocean City, New Jersey, from the boardwalk to the sands. I walked slowly and unsteadily to the water line, and closed my eyes to listen to the sounds of the ocean. I had picked the beach because I knew I had a high likelihood of falling, and I wanted a relatively soft landing if I fell. As my body absorbed the sounds of breaking waves and the gulls singing high praise of their paradise, I closed my eyes and a vision of me running came. Something inside of me wanted to run instead of my planned walk.
A voice inside my head, the one that spawned from memories of the many times I struggled walking with a walker, the one that had to hold on to the rails as I walked in physical therapy, the one that experienced imbalance in a crowded and wavy pool, spoke to me in fear. “You shouldn’t do this. You will fall, and if you get hurt and it won’t be good. Just take your time, relearn, and don’t listen to whatever that is that wants to run. Be good. Be safe. Don’t venture too far outside your comfort zone.”
Yet, I could only see myself running. The voice would persist, but so would the vision. I inhaled deeply, and made my choice. I would run.
“You can’t do it,” screamed the voice in one final, protest.
“Yes, I can,” came my reply.
I opened my eyes, and looked south. I was near the 27th Street entrance to the beach, and south is a pier that extends into the ocean. I decided I would run to the pier and back which is, if memory serves me right, about a mile in each direction. I intently moved one foot forward, then another, and so on until I was moving in a very slow jog. It was probably slower than a fast walk for some, but I considered it a run. I kept going until that first fall.
It was not a graceful fall. Nor was it painless. But, as most of my falls have been, it was a fall in the right direction. See, when the voice of fear shouted “see, I told you!” so did the voice of “yes, I can!” as I rose from the sand. This time, however, the voice of “yes, I can!” was definitely the louder of the two.
Nothing solidified the “yes, I can!” voice within me like having to overcome the emotional and physical disabilities thrown on me in 2014. That voice is still the loudest within me, even when I hear that says, “no, you can’t”. The one thing that has proven true for me over the years is that whichever voice I agree with is the one that is telling the truth.
“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.” ~Henry Ford.
I finished the run, exhausted and bit bloodied but more confident in its completion. The next time I ran I fell less, and then one day I didn’t fall at all. I then decided to run at night when I couldn’t see, testing my brain’s ability to find balance without sight, and readjust quickly. Of course I hit the earth in that task too, but again I rose until one day I didn’t fall at all.
Perhaps without that “yes, I can!” I’d still be holding on to rails, afraid to run. Maybe I’d still be in a bed somewhere, dreaming of walking again and hating life for not being able to. I realize that not every circumstance ends the way mine did, and I still feel some effects from that stroke, but isn’t the lesson more about standing as tall as you can even when standing seems impossible? I’d like to think so.