Story of Joe

Story of Joe

by | Jun 7, 2019 | Resources

Story by Joe Costa 

“I will never, ever give up” 

J.Costa

I’m a stroke survivor. Three years ago (2016), at the age of 57, I suffered an acute stroke that paralysed my left side. I never had high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Few months before the stroke I did a general check-up and everything resulted OK.

It was a great shock!! A stroke can be genetic. My mum suffered a haemorrhagic stroke at the age of 51 and died fifteen days afterwards.

After almost a year of therapy and working hard, I still had no movements in my left arm, when generally you do have movements during the first 6 months. My therapist quit seeing me as she told me to accept reality as it seems very difficult that I will have more movements.

When I returned home, I decided that I will not let the stroke destroy me. The next day I started to work harder and started to do 4 to 5 hours therapy daily by myself at home!

My hobby is photography. I bought a new camera. I needed both hands to manage this camera!!!!

I reasoned it out that now that I have spent almost 1600 Eur I have to do a greater effort. At first, I used a monopod … and now … with the help of God and the support I have from my family and friends … YES, I DID IT!!!

Now I have much more movements in my left hand. I’m still limited because I still have a frozen shoulder and a frozen knee. But at least I became independent again. I’m driving an automatic car. I’m still doing therapy at home as I want to get better … and I will become better … I WILL NEVER EVER GIVE UP.

After the stroke, I had no movements in my left arm and then after eighteen months movements started coming slowly … finger after finger. So I always used to carry a monopod with me. I used to hold the monopod between my left arm and manage the camera with my right hand. One fine day, when at M’Xlokk I decided to leave the monopod in my car and told my wife that today I’m going to try to handle the camera without the use of a monopod.

On our way to a restaurant, I saw dogs having fun with a plastic bottle. I don’t know how with my left arm I got hold of the camera, lifted the camera to my eye, and with my right hand I pushed the shutter. My wife, amazed told me …”Do you know that you lifted your left arm?” I told her “Yes I know” From that day onwards, the monopod remained jobless ? The picture matched with my story is the result ? ?

 

PRAISE THE LORD.

Choices we Make

Choices we Make

by | May 17, 2019 | Resources

Story by Ursula Maria Bell – Family Constellations Therapist

“We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.” 

J.K. Rowling

My last stay in Malta showed a topic that run through private sessions and constellation workshops – it was about choices. So I decided to write this post about the choices that we have in life.

When people choose to do a constellation or choose therapy, sometimes they expect the constellation, the therapist or the counsellor to do magic. Some people are convinced to have no choices in life because of their upbringing, their childhood experiences and whatever they have gone through. Some people ask themselves “why does all this happen to me?”.

Victor E. Frankl, the father of logotherapy and existential analysis, said: “It is not us asking life the question “why?”. It is life asking us: “What do you make of the situation you are in? How do you handle it? How do you give it a meaning?””

And with this, everything changes. He called it the “Copernican revolution”. A revolution, because it turns everything around. It changes us from being victims to being active creators of our own lives. And sometimes it only takes this awareness to make the next step toward a life changing decision.

So we have always a possibility to choose, because we are human beings. Frankl said that we decide in this moment who we are going to be in the next one. And this means that we can take over and/or back our responsibility for our life – in every moment and in every situation.

Here are just a few suggestions for choices that we have:

The choice between blaming a partner for who they are and understanding why we feel hurt by what they are doing (or not doing) and learning more about ourselves.

The choice between repeating the story of our past as a victim and rewriting it as a story about a blessed person who has made it through all this trouble until here.

The choice between continuing being angry with our parents for what happened in the past and finally acknowledging that all our anger will never change anything and the only solution is acceptance and honouring our roots.

The choice between looking at what is missing in our life and looking at what has been given to us or what we have actually got or achieved.

The choice between trying to change other people’s life and concentrating on changes in our own life.

The choice between continuing living in a dream world and facing reality and taking action.

The choice between blaming others for our misery and taking responsibility for our own decisions.

The choice between holding on to who you were before the accident and embracing the creation of your new self.

You have a choice and if the last one is only about accepting the situation you are in. Also, this is an active choice that we can take and that is life changing in itself.

May your days be blessed.

Ursula Maria Bell

http://family-constellations-malta.com/

Video- You are not your body!

Video- You are not your body!

by | May 14, 2019 | Resources, Videos

Story of Janine Shepherd

My dear friend, Cristina, shared this video story with me on the day when I mostly needed it. I was feeling down and frustrated that I still can’t walk, and that my femur and tibia bones take forever to heal. I was angry my doctors can’t do much and that it takes 2-3 months to wait to meet them. I was left with no answers, no certainty what’s next.

I was sad and had a proper meltdown moment.

So… the story Cristina shared was coming at the right timing…thanks Cristi! ?
The story touched me to the core! It also gave me hope I was craving.

It’s an account of cross-country skier, Janine Shepherd who hoped for Olympic medal just to get hit by a truck during her training bike ride. Janine shares incredibly powerful story about the recovery and limitless human potential.
I am happy to share it with Janine’s underlying message that:

“You are not your body, and giving up old dreams can allow new ones to soar”.

So…get cosy for incredible 18 minutes of your time for: Janine Shepherd talk: “A broken Body Isn’t a Broken Person”

 

 

Cross-country skier Janine Shepherd hoped for an Olympic medal — until she was hit by a truck during a training bike ride. She shares a powerful story about the human potential for recovery. Her message: you are not your body, and giving up old dreams can allow new ones to soar.

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxKC, an independent event. TED’s editors chose to feature it for you.

Much love,
Kasia

What can we learn from Near-fatal Accident?

What can we learn from Near-fatal Accident?

by | May 13, 2019 | Resources

Story of Josephine Rees

It has been almost a year since my accident, and I am still recovering. It can take much longer because of my severe femur fracture, so no walking yet. To find comfort and to feel part of a community, I signed up for a support group called “Car Accident Survivors Support Group”. This group is abundant with tips and stories that motivate, inspire and give invaluable information that I wouldn’t be able to get if I had to deal with my post-accident issues alone.

There is one particular story that touched me and I am happy to share it with the author’s consent.

Josephine Rees is a Dutch-British 25-year-old who, in 2017, survived a near-fatal road accident in Cambodia. Like me, Josephine’s femur was severely fractured in her accident. With a long road to recovery, she still relies on various mobility aids on a daily basis.

Living in Amsterdam, Josephine soon realised there was a lack of accessibility information in her city. Hoping to share valuable tips with others, Josephine started ‘Able Amsterdam’, a website “promoting wheelchair-friendly places in the Dutch capital”. The website includes a personal blog and hundreds of accessibility reviews of restaurants, museums, gyms and more. Through ‘Able Amsterdam’ Josephine aims to “shatter disability stereotypes and encourage fellow mobility aid users to get the most out of this exciting city”.

Josephine’s accident was intense, and damages to her body were beyond comprehension…yet she is standing tall sharing her beautiful spirit, positivity and resourcefulness with others. Hopefully, her story can inspire other accident survivors to keep going and stay motivated throughout their recovery.

Here are the 16 Things Josephine learned from surviving a near-fatal road accident:

Part 1: https://www.ableamsterdam.com/personal/16-things-i-learned-from-surviving-a-near-fatal-road-accident/

Part 2: https://www.ableamsterdam.com/short-lists/16-things-i-learned-from-surviving-a-near-fatal-road-accident-part-2/

 

 

 

Much love,

Kasia

Is there something to learn from my accident?

Is there something to learn from my accident?

by | May 11, 2019 | Resources

Life kicks us left and right. But is there something from it to learn? What’s the New Age Perspective tells me about it?

“You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it’s important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.”

– Michelle Obama

What helped me understand my own suffering, are different cultural perspectives towards illness, neatly described by Ken Wilber in his book: Grace and Grit.

Each of the next five posts will be dedicated to 1 of 5 cultural perspectives. Here is the first perspective that I find relevant and short descriptions of what it means to me:

1. “New Age Perspective – illness is a lesson. Disease happens as there is something important you have to learn from it to further your spiritual growth and evolution.”

My dear late friend, Lee Jones used to say: “Everything happens for a reason”. My accident, loosing my boyfriend and huge trauma is an extreme form of suffering. Is there something in it for me to learn from? I believe so. I believe that there is something more behind suffering than just suffering. My situation presented me with a lot of challenges. Patience is one of them. Acceptance is another. I choose these two to become my spiritual teacher.

As I am stack in hospital bed and can’t ‘control’ my life as I used to, patience is the most challenging.

What is patience? I actually need a dictionary to define it as it is too alien trait for me. I must admit, it was never my virtue. Not sure how I managed 4 years as a teacher or last few years with my boss. Dictionary describes patience as “the ability to endure difficult circumstances such as perseverance in the face of delay; tolerance of provocation without responding in annoyance/anger; or self-control when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. Patience is the level of endurance one can have before negativity.”

For most of my life I was like a bullet, acting quickly, expecting short-term rewards and running rampant to achieve my goals. Before I would have called it an ambition…. but no, now I see it was just BEING AFRAID OF UNKNOWN. I tried to ‘control’ my life and the outcomes by putting enormous pressure on myself and others instead of trusting and allowing life to unfold with minimum interference.

Now my situation pushed me to be present without certainty what’s going to happen. Will I ever walk? When will I walk my dog if I walk? Will my knee ever bend? Will I ever dance, travel, drive?

Patience forces me to be present without certainty. It also creates an unsettling feeling around my loss of control. Yes, I worry and I am anxious because of that. But at the same time, I feel patience, even though it is so hard to practice, helps me endure my difficult situation. In the moments when I am patient, I feel true peace and soothing surrender.

The spiritual teacher Meher Baba stated that “One of the first requirements of the spiritual aspirant is that he should combine unfailing enthusiasm with unyielding patience…spiritual effort demands not only physical endurance and courage, but also unshrinking patience and irrefutable moral courage.”

Famous novelist Leo Tolstoy summarized the importance of patience with the following: “The strongest of all warriors are these two – Time and Patience.”

Fu*k the speed and control. I lost both anyway. Or maybe they were just a delusion from the very beginning?

Let me try to win the battle with my two new and very quiet friends – time and patience; ok, ok, to be realistic, I am allowing myself for delusional sense of control from time to time. Born control freak died control freak. Except that now I will be more patient.

Much love,

Kasia