Feeding your soul
This particular topic may seem odd, but believe me, it's essential. My friend Ed, also lent me some very good advice. I was complaining one day about something, feeling sad and low, I think. He said that I needed to "feed my soul". What? I go to church, isn't that feeding my soul? Not exactly. While that's a vital part of many people's lives, that's not really what I'm talking about.
"Feeding your soul" in this context means doing something that is just for you, something that makes you feel good, or something that gives you a feeling of accomplishment. Something to look forward to, that is just for you and your well-being. It's sort of like a hobby, but it's not just for relaxation. It can be something as simple as listening to your favorite song, or as involved as re-learning, or making adjustments in an activity that you used to be able to do. It's something that reaches all the way down inside you and makes you feel content all the way down to your toes. And let's face it, when you've had a stroke, no matter how much or little you recover, it (the stroke and it's after effects) is always there, even if it's just the shadow of fear that it might happen again.
One of the ways I feed my soul is working in my flower bed in front of my house. It's something I've always enjoyed, but it's even more important to me now. It's something that makes me feel good, and something that I can look at and think, "I did that!" Not only that, I look forward to doing it every Spring. I change it and refine it a little every year.
It's something I can do, and it's good for me. I sit on the ground while I'm working on it. I lean on my weak arm (weight bearing is good for it), and am forced to use that arm in other ways. It also works on my overall balance and coordination, as well as just being good exercise.
The summer of 2003, a year after my stroke, I put in the border and the wood chips. Some neighbor kids "helped" and found worms and threw dirt clods. I seem to attract the kids in the area, probably because my theory is, "If you try to run them off, that makes them want to stay even more, if you let them help, they get bored fairly quickly and gradually wander away." In the mean time, you can get some pretty good help out of them. Sometimes you need help, even when you don't particularly want it.
This web site is also another way I feed my soul. My feeling is that if I can tell my story, maybe someone will find something useful in it that will help make their stroke experience a little less scary. Hopefully the humor makes it a little more palatable, and it's therapeutic for me. If you ask some of my friends, they might tell you that seriousness was never my forte anyway!
Sometimes, other people can help “feed our soul”. I get this feeding through spending time with my daughter. Hannah was only five-years-old when I had my stroke. The trauma and chaos turned her little life upside-down for a while. She’s
a very mature eight-year-old now (as of July 2005) and is very sensitive to my needs. She tries to help me whenever she can, although, I try to keep her life the way a little girl’s life should be. She has a whole menagerie of pets including, four dogs, four birds and a varying number of tropical fish. We had a dog adopt US this fall (2005). He's a big dog who loves kids and, when taken in by the next door neighbor, climbed the fence to live in our yard and hasn't left since! (I love animals, too, or we wouldn't have so many.....guess who gets to feed them and clean cages most of the time?) We do many activities together, and she encourages me to exercise and to take care of myself. Her encouragement perks me up when I am feeling down or frustrated. She’s my little cheerleader and I wonder what my life would be like without her.
Sometimes a girl just needs
her best
Hannah with
her birds Puff and
Peanut
buddy: her sweet dog Blossom
Anyway, the point of this is to find something that you can do (sometimes with some modifications), that you can look forward to, and something that makes you feel content. Satisfaction and achieving goals is something everybody needs, especially those of us who have had something like a stroke affect our lives. “Feeding your soul” by doing something or spending time with someone you love is good for us all.