Momentum, Healing, & Embracing Reality

Over the past few weeks, I’ve fielded a particular question more than once: “how are you feeling?” The question is always in reference to my concussion – an unexpected health obstacle that I navigated in the spring of this year. Every time someone checks in on me I’m grateful for the kindness and the thought. And I’m always a little unsure of how to answer.

Because in many ways, I’m feeling great. I’ve spent the past few months immersed in practice and study, and I’m feeling connected to my body and my creative energy in ways that I hadn’t since long before the concussion. My mind is alive with ideas about teaching and pottery projects. My sense of gratitude for all that I have in this life is overflowing.

So by all accounts, everything is going pretty well. You could say that I’m “back to normal.” But while my body has healed from the concussion, I still experience the mental and emotional fallout from the ordeal. 

One of the biggest challenges is navigating the sense of lost momentum. Before the concussion, life was flowing smoothly. Much like now, my ideas and passions were coming to fruition, and there were lots of opportunities in both work and play on the horizon. 

The concussion brought all of that to an instant halt. The past five months have been a bittersweet journey of finding my way back to myself, and in some cases, carving a new path entirely.

Surrendering To Rest

In the first few days after my emergency room visit, I basically lived on the couch. I drifted in and out of sleep, drank copious amounts of tea, and spent a lot of time daydreaming with my eyes closed. Light, words, screens, sounds – every stimulus was overwhelming.

Every time I felt a little more like myself, I’d explore the limits of what felt accessible. And without fail, I would always have an energy hangover afterwards. One day I’d feel well enough to water all the plants in the house, and the next day I’d be too tired to get up off of the couch. The phrase “two steps forward, one step back,” was painfully accurate.

Begrudgingly, I recognized that trying to heal through pushing my limits wasn’t going to help. Instead, the name of the game was rest and waiting.

At some point in the first few weeks, I shifted my strategy. I stopped trying to expand the limits of what I could do and focused on enjoying what was within reach. I savored the hours snuggled up to my husband on the couch. I sat outside in the sun and listened to birds. I channeled gratitude for my husband’s attentive care, and for the friends and family who connected me with resources for healing.

It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. Healing was a daily cycle of sitting with feelings. First came frustration, anger, grief, and impatience. Then followed gratitude, humility, inspiration, and even joy. Around and around – it was a steady practice of self-noticing and self-compassion.

There was a lot of fear, too. Even as I began to accept that healing was (and always is) a waiting game, deep down I worried that I wouldn’t ever really be myself again. It was a mild concussion, so I knew that I would probably be fine. But what if I wasn’t? What if I never quite found my way back to where I was? What if all of the things I was excited about – the programs I wanted to run, the pottery progress I had made – would never resurface?

Reconnecting & Reorienting

Fortunately for me, healing from the most acute concussion symptoms did happen. And it happened fast – faster perhaps than I was emotionally ready for. It only took a few days for me to find my way to the kitchen and make a cup of coffee. The simple ritual was more challenging than I expected (coffee math on concussion brain is a whole new experience), but I practiced patience and celebrated my success. It was deeply comforting to do something, anything, that felt familiar.

About a week after the concussion, I attempted a slow and easeful yoga practice and it didn’t go well. My body awareness was fragmented; when I reached my arms up the ceiling, I felt completely disconnected from my feet. It was humbling, a little alarming, and a clear sign that if I wanted to practice, I needed to change my approach. In place of flowing movement I chose restorative shapes and seated meditation.

Healing progressed this way; with each day I marked a new milestone, one more signal that I could find my way back to my life.

There was a lot of doubling back on rest, but gradually I found myself feeling better. A few weeks into healing my neurologist suggested I try a little physical exercise – a light jog or some time on a stationary bike. “If your symptoms come back, you know you need more rest,” she suggested.

I’m happy to report that the jog went well. In fact, it felt glorious. Exercising helped me see that I could, in fact, exert my body and move – something that I had been craving since the moment I hit my head. And it showed me that I could trust my body again. Up until this point, my body felt foreign and fragile. In shifting into rest, I had started to fear strong movement. I worried that if I pushed too hard, I’d fall back into the murky space of concussion symptoms. So going for a jog meant a lot more than just being cleared to exercise; it meant I could embody myself again.

One of the biggest lessons I learned through this time is that forcing myself beyond my limits wouldn’t serve me, but neither would avoiding discomfort altogether. The sweet spot, the middle ground, is a little of both.

Finding My Way Forward

The process of healing has been a slow, steady dance. A gentle push forward, a soft step back. A shift to the side, and repeat. This truth – that healing, making progress, and life in general aren’t linear – has become the lens through which I see just about everything. Five months after the concussion, I’m healed up and navigating the rhythm of my life. But the rhythm is different. In some ways, the fears I had in the early days of healing have come true. I’m not back to where I was; I’m somewhere new.

I notice the change often, usually in pottery or in my yoga practice. I picked up a mug in my cabinet the other day and realized a shape I’ve been struggling to master – a straight mug with an angled foot – is really similar to one that I had been practicing before the concussion. And back then, I was starting to get the hang of it. It’s taken me months to reacquaint myself with the craft, and I’m always a little shocked when what feels like progress today is actually just circling back to something I already learned. Put another way, I never lost the skill; I just lost access to it for a while.

With yoga, the impact of the concussion is a little different. It’s not so much like there’s a gap between pre-concussion and post-concussion Amanda. No, it’s more like my practice and teaching took a side-step in April, and the journey has continued forward from there. I’ve continued to practice, but I practice differently; my movement is much more oriented to grounding my energy than it was before. In teaching, I’m revisiting many of the same ideas that I had before the concussion, but I’m approaching them with new eyes.

There are a lot of things in life that can interrupt momentum. I’m well aware of the parallels between my concussion journey and how many of us continue to navigate a “post-covid” world. Sometimes the interruptions aren’t so bleak; a busy summer can interrupt well-worn patterns from the winter and spring, the holiday season often throws routines out of rhythm. In reflecting on my healing process and re-engaging with life, I recognize that I’ve felt this way before. And I expect that there will be plenty of instances where I lose momentum – or rather, change direction – in the future.

I’ve come to realize that my sense of lost momentum is just perception. Viewed through one lens, my concussion was a brief pause in the timeline of my life. But through another lens, the concussion and subsequent healing was a period of re-orienting. Rather than try to make up for lost time or find my way back to where I was, I’m doing my best to be honest about where I am today and focus on what supports me now.