15. Overcoming Plateaus: Tips for Moving Forward in Recovery

Hey, what's up everybody, this will just a couple of quick notes before we hop into this episode of the podcast. want to remind everybody that you can certainly leave a review of the podcast if you're enjoying it on your favorite podcast player app. Or you can leave one directly our website, podcast dot lovable survivor.com All the ratings and reviews really do help the show grow. And we'd really appreciate it. Also, if you're interested in learning more about the community that we're building. If you go sign up for updates and details at VIP dot survivor science.com. And without further ado, let's hop into this week's episode. Good morning, everybody. My name is Will Schmierer Welcome back to another episode of The Lovable Survivor Podcast. In today's episode, we'll be discussing how embracing change involves letting go of the old view and welcoming the new you. Now that sounds corny, but hear me out. We're going to talk about understanding the stages of recovery and what happens in between those stages. I call them plateaus, you might call them something else. I'm sure other people call them something else. But we'll talk about the importance of maintaining a positive outlook. And we'll delve into the role of humor and honesty during the journey. And really letting go of maybe the old you previous ways you thought of certain things previous ways you thought of yourself boy, I thought of others. And again, really embracing sort of the new you and again, that sounds a little corny. But mindset is a big ongoing topic. When you are a survivor of stroke, brain injury, honestly cancer, any major medical life event, you're you're going to be faced with different challenges and you know, some you can control and some you cannot and that's why I think you know, for me mindset is such an important topic because it is something you you're in control of, it's something you can get ahead of. Not always but it helps especially when things kind of go off the rails or your mood or lifestyle or just the day to day feels like things are getting a little busy. You know, I think we all face this whether you're a stroke survivor, brain injury survivor, even the regular everyday people have difficulties maintaining a positive mindset you know, over the last couple of years mental health and the way we think about that has changed for the better. I think there's still a lot of work to do there. But also if you're somebody who considers themselves to be pretty self aware, you know, you can get into you can get into little weird situations where maybe you didn't overthink things and then now you find yourself overthinking things it could be life related, it could be work related, it could be business related it could be because your circumstances have changed you know maybe you don't have friends and family in the same sort of headspace or phase of life that you're in so you know this is going to be a little different for each and every person but I think this is that I guess the embracing the new you want to make an important distinction here embracing the new you is you know I think it is accepting what Hey, you have gone through what is a little different in life it doesn't this is a little different than sometimes you hear things like the new normal and that's really I hate that so much. You know, it's fine if you like it, it's just for me it's not really my jam. I guess the best way I could do this is I could start off with some examples. So when I say embracing the new you talking about obviously change after you know that major medical life event or any real life event, you know there's going to be change changes. You're hopefully on a path of discovery, self discovery, awareness growth. These are all sort of natural things that you may or may you may find. Or things that are feelings you're having, these are normal feelings to have. They might not be feeling that other people are having, because they, you know, sometimes it's just takes one of those life events to really change. It's, it's interesting, I had read a, again in that book, hope after stroke, it's it's there was something she talked about in chapter I forgot what chapter but she called the post traumatic stress syndrome, which is different than PTSD. This is like, I'm sorry, yeah, it's called Post Traumatic Growth syndrome, which is interesting to me, I actually haven't heard that used to before. But I think it's something that resonated with me. Now, it may not resonate with everybody, it may have it at different times. But typically, probably, if you're listening to this podcast, you feel like you've had a little bit of an epiphany, or maybe you've had this thought, or, yeah, maybe you have had this thought maybe you haven't heard this either. And it can happen as a result of a big thing. With an event, you know, there it can go one of two ways it can go. The you know, I think we can all be? Well, I think it's something to be aware of, but we all have down days, we can all spiral out of control at times, hopefully that's very short lived. Or you're speaking to somebody on regular basis to work on that, um, you know, but I think once you come come to sort of the acceptance level that I spoke about a couple weeks, couple episodes back, um, you know, this is kind of like an ongoing thing. I was thinking about it, there are there's definitely stages of stroke recovery, right, there's the the first year, you know, and that you could break that up into two pieces. I mean, it's different for everybody. But there's sort of a progression you, you know, you're you're constantly hopefully getting a little bit better each day. Sometimes there are those plateaus. And I think it's important to discuss that because it can be unfamiliar for survivors, I don't know that people, caregivers, take care takers, family members, I think it's important to kind of get them involved so that they can be aware of these plateaus. And it's, it's natural, right, because you're doing work at every stage, whether it's you know, three months or six months in, you probably have done a bunch of work at that point. And so you're going to plateau, probably I mean, not everybody does. But I think that would be natural, especially if you've put in an extra work, you're gonna be tired. It takes some figuring out your body, it takes figuring out lifestyle changes, takes figuring out dietary changes, all positive changes, by the way. It's not that a plateau means things are going poorly, it just means, you know, maybe your body's telling you, it's your body's way of telling you you need to maybe take a break, maybe. You know, I think with every stage of growth, there is a plateau where you need to reassess and consider talking to somebody you know, and that looks different for everybody, sometimes just talking to another, another survivor friend, and if they don't have to, you know, I think there's a lot of overlap. When I say survivor, obviously, I am speaking specifically on stroke and brain injury survivors. But I mean, I also have MS, which is not a brain injury, per se, but it's autoimmune. But I think there's definitely a lot of similarities in those two. You know, in cancer, unfortunately, there's still a lot of people that have to deal with cancer at some point in their life. You know, hopefully, it's the kind that is easily treatable. But that's still that's a traumatic thing you're going through and not everybody survives it and it's dead, depending on the type of cancer and the research and, you know, they're they're, not every cancer is the same, just like every stroke is not the same. Yeah, so it's important to understand the process of Recovery, it involves a lot of change. There's a lot of, you know, there is a lot of stress on everybody involved. But there's also a lot of growth that comes along with that. And, you know, it is it is not an easy thing to navigate that that is actually one of the main points of this podcast is to help people that are kind of going through a change and recognizing it and realizing no, you're not alone on an island. You're not weird. I, you know, I honestly used to think the first year or two I was like, Man, I feel like I'm on an island, but I wasn't. Because of COVID. Honestly, I wasn't, there just wasn't thinking I wasn't getting that sort of connect. Yeah, I wasn't able to connect with people on on a level that, you know, where they really understood. Of course, I'm going into physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy in year one, lots of therapy. But at, you know, outside of therapy, I wasn't even able, even in therapy, I wasn't really talking to other survivors and seeing what they were going through a little bit, but not really until, like year two for me. So yes, I did have a lot of underlying underlying conditions that I had to sort of get addressed and focus on in year one plus COVID. Plus, you know, really just getting back to basic life. And then yeah, I mean, I think that is normal. For lots of survivors, some are lucky or fortunate, either either or, I say lucky discuss that. But a fortunate to not maybe have as many deficits, or as many physical deficits, and so you may have some motional changes. So this is just as difficult again, there's not a big distinction in terms of the level of difficulty when it comes to physical or mental, I think they're both equally important and equally difficult to understand SAS, and it takes some time to get through that. And so, again, when I'm thinking about embracing the old, you know, let it go the old view, I'll give you another good example. What I mean with that is like, work, right? When I used to do pretty much anything, I could do it 100 miles an hour, full steam. Nobody could stop me, I could have three, four monitors. I could I mean, I had a mouse on my mouse on, on a screen share with other developers, people would be like, well slow down, like I can't keep up. You know, and that's tough. And that I honestly, I was talking about it just yesterday, and I was realized that I was like, oh, and I really like so the first year after my stroke, it really took me some time to you know, there's these all these changes. You're you're kind of embracing that new you it's it's been a struggle to me because I'm younger. So technology plays a part. But you know, think about things like typing. For me, I was typing 7080 words a minute, and now I'm doing 2530 I still work on it. And I've talked about this on a few episodes now. But it's something that I work on pretty regularly. And I just constantly have to reassess it, it it is not linear. And the fact that I could do a bunch of tech, if I put in 1000 hours, I may not see the same results as somebody else who put in 1000 hours. And I've said this a bunch in the past, and I probably said on this podcast, but for me my stroke really was like And again, not everybody's gonna feel this way. But I felt like in a lot of areas, I was very fortunate. But in some areas, I was not as working on it. And writing and typing, you know, at 37 when I had my stroke basically put me back to almost the level of like a kindergartener, and I'm not joking. It Yeah, and I I I've obviously worked on it and things have gotten better. And I'll be honest, yes, I'm very lucky. I did not have major aphasia. I did not have really a lot of cognitive things you know, obviously right side affected think I've said that a bunch some hand issues right side walking you know the MS got the left side so that's why walking was particularly our for a little while. Oh, but you know, that has come back. And again, these are things that I embrace. And I kind of. Yeah, I mean, I struggle at times with remembering the way I used to be and wanting desperately to be that way. And the reality is, I may never be that way. So it is a mindset shift. And yeah, I just think it's, it's really important. But on the other hand, you know, every time I think of that, I think about how I've gone out in the last six months I went from now I think it's, we're, I think we're almost seven or eight now. But since October of last year, I really changed my mindset after 39 years and 10 months of living on Earth. Hated running, hated running with a passion. And last year, I figured out a way I got into the peloton, got into nasal breathing, these are things that I found along the way that I got into. And they sort of helped me get to running now I also think no longer smoking and drinking obviously play a big role in getting back getting on to running. But, you know, I think my brain is kind of rewiring itself. And so while there are parts that I miss, and desperately want to get back, and I'm still working on, I'm also simultaneously embracing those new ones. So, you know, I just encourage people to stick with things. And, you know, I think the last point I'll make specifically around bracing the new you is like, how I got to running is, is interesting, right? Because breathing was a big part. The other big part, and this is hard. And I don't know if this is the result of turning 40 last year. So this is I don't know if this is age related or stroke related, but I'm gonna touch on it because I think it's important. I got into running and I just stopped caring about going fast. Now, I love to go fast, because I'd love to just kind of speed up the time after 678 months of running, working on it, but I just thought I was in a wheelchair three years ago for most of 2020. I don't care how slow I run, I just like the fact that I'm running. And I have to remind myself that I'm no longer 20 I've had a stroke at a young age of 37. I really care about speed. You know, and I think that has been a big change and a big mindset shift because I don't think the will. Even the will that was almost a quarter ton at the time by stroke. Like I think I cared too much about what other people thought. And I would feel embarrassed because I couldn't run faster. Now I feel lucky to be able to run. So it is extreme. But I think the stroke actually helped in a lot of ways in terms of really getting into running because like, again, the option for me was like, why? Yeah, I was in a wheelchair. So the fact that I came run at all is amazing to me. Yes, I'd like it to be a little bit better. But wouldn't mind going faster, but I'm okay with where I'm at. So that was you know, I just thought that was a big point to bring up. Because I think when I think about letting go of the old EU, that running example is a good one. And I think the screen thing is a good one too. Because, you know, I really What does anybody need three screens. Like, it's nice, because I can open things and put something on the side. So it is helpful. But um, you know, I think just kind of reevaluating. And I say that all the time on this podcast, but I think just starting to be able to let go of the way things used to be and sort of accepting the way things are now. And yeah, just being if you want them to change, they can change, but you got to start somewhere. And so I think that's really important. You know, with the understanding of embracing the knee, you let's move on to the journey of recovery itself and the stages and really the plateaus. And I think, you know, these are going to be different for everybody. But I'm a little bit into year three now and I think you know, there are there's stages there's there's your one, you know, there's probably the first six months that everybody talks about, and I think you can even break that up into smaller chunks, there's the initial, right after you had the stroke, chances are, you're going to do some initial therapy, whether that's inpatient or outpatient, you know, for the first month or so, post stroke, depending on, you know, the level of assessment and severity of the stroke, and what insurance in the States at least allows for. And, again, I did touch on this earlier, but then, you know, you get into that six month, and that six month is a big one. And there's, then there's, you know, I think it's six months, you're looking at sort of the first level of stability, I would call that sort of out of the weeds, so to speak, and then you're stable. And then you're, you know, I think the next stage is like, you're stable, and you're doing pretty good, and you're feeling motivated. And then there's like, Alright, I'm starting to feel normal ish, you know, and I think you eventually go from stable to good, to good enough. And then there is sort of a final. And really, there's a couple of stages. I mean, they're not super clear, but I think there's about five or six stages. And where I'm at, I think is I feel like I've been a good enough for a while. And I just really want to get to that next, the next level. And that's what I talk about a lot, especially on Twitter, and it's going from good enough to unstoppable. And I don't know if there's a stage after that, but I think I'm definitely in the stage of going from you know, I passed the initial phases, I've been good enough for a while, I've been pretty good. You know, and I'm really just looking to keep leveling up a little bit each year. So I don't know if it'll ever be unstoppable. And I don't know if there are things that I necessarily like, sometimes I think about dunking a basketball style, and I'm like, do I really need to be 40 years old and dunk a basketball, it would be nice to be able to say, but I don't know that that's absolutely necessary. But the running is a big one. For me, that's I can't believe that happened in the last class, you know, this part of this year and last year. So I know there, I always encourage people that just because they only say X, Y and Z can happen in one, you know, the earlier years, I do think it is and you hear a lot from other survivors, they talk about the pot, you know, there are plateaus, both physical and mental. And it's it's something to be aware of, but it's not something that can't be overcome, if you want to overcome it. And it is, again, it does go back to mindset and sort of the overall mentality. Of course, you might run into issues, you want to be safe when it comes to physical things, you want to talk to your team. And I think that's why I talk to my team every year because I know I can get better. I know there are things that are not really 100%. And, you know, again, you have to assess your own situation. But it's like for me, I feel like there's still room to grow in those areas. And I feel like with a little bit of work and a little bit of help. I can get there and I could probably honestly, I could probably do it on my own. But I you know, we pay for insurance might as well take advantage of it. But yeah, I think that is you know, really important thing. And that's one of the things I like to help you know, I want to help with this community has helped people go through the various stages navigate those, but also get through those plateaus because it can be a real. Again, they're necessary. And they're, they're going to happen. I think there's there's no real avoiding it, per se. Sometimes they're just easier to get through and sometimes they can be difficult. And that's, again, that's going to be very individual and it's you know, I think it's important to actually solve when you feel like you're hitting a plateau. Is it because I can't do any more? Is it because I need to take a break? You know, I think it really gets back to that curiosity about you know, being no have to be anything but I think being self aware and you know, realizing, have I am I tired have I peaked? Should I talk to somebody, maybe to get an outside opinion? All very important questions too. to ask yourself, you know, and I think if I'm being honest, I think that really kind of goes into my sort of third topic today. And it's the if this isn't going to make a ton of sense, but I don't think, you know, I was thinking about this a lot. For me in the community, that I'm building survivor science and sort of just everything I do, I'm online and as a creator. Never underestimate the value of humor and honesty. And I know those don't necessarily often seem like they go together, but they're sort of the very base of me, and the brands that I build the things that I want to do. And what I want to talk about here is that with, I guess, when it comes in regards to the plateau, and the plateaus that may happen at the various stages of recovery. You know, I'll hop into honesty here, but honestly, when I talk about honesty, I'm talking about honesty with yourself. And again, I believe I've talked about this on previous episodes, but you can take time to be honest with other people. When it comes to your recovery. For the reasons you, you may not want to get ahead of yourself, you may be unsure. I often struggle with that, like, am I? If I hit a wall, do I am I short? Do I, you know, I'm I'm feeling like on this island by myself sometimes like a you know, I'm standing here and I'm looking around, and I'm like, I say things and it's like, am I the only one who's thinking this? You know, and sometimes that is the case? But um, yeah, I think when I just encourage you to when you're on these plateaus, really be honest with yourself, ask yourself the hard questions. Because asking yourself hard questions and sort of working on those things, allows you to really assess where you want to go and where you maybe need to put more time and effort or just make note that you'd like to work on this thing. Whatever it may be whatever part of the recovery. So I'm just big on being true to yourself. And not sugarcoating it. And I know not everybody is great at this, a lot of people are not great at confronting other people. And I'm not really suggesting you do but I think you do need to confront yourself when it comes to your recovery, because the only person who's charged your recovery is you at the end of the day. And if you're not honest with yourself, it's going to be really hard for others to I mean, yes, teams are first and extract the information, but only to a certain point. And if you if you really want to utilize the tools at your disposal, and and really take advantage of this second chance that you may or may, you know may have been given as a survivor. It is important to to, you know, be honest with yourself. And that way. You know, you can make the progress that you really want to be able to make at the end of the day. Um, but I will say there are times where it's not so easy, and it's not so clear. So yeah, as long as you're you know, I think I yeah, just I don't, you don't have to do anything, honestly. But I think it's important to be honest with yourself. Because again, that's that is that is how you're eventually going to get to where you hope to be one day. And I when when I say Be honest with yourself, just be honest, you know, and if it's not something you can achieve this week, or this month, or even this quarter or even half a year may be a long term goal. Just you know, be honest with yourself, because yeah, it's how you're going to get to, like I said to that place you want to be and just I guess be compassionate towards yourself. Don't be don't beat yourself. Have up if you're not where you want to be yet, yet is an important point. Because there are times where I want things to be better and faster, or already. And still year three, it is it is difficult. And there are people who've had been stroke survivors for 1015 years who they're still working on, you know. So I think that's why sharing stories are so important, because I don't think I'm, you know, many stroke survivors. Maybe you are super ambitious pre stroke, it's super fast and able to do millions of things, and it just changes it, it's hard to kind of wrap your head around, it takes a couple, it takes a while. And so I think when I talk about embracing all these things, and navigating the stages and the plateaus, compassion is a really integral part of this. You know, and I think, even when it comes to finding meaning in what you do know, it takes it also takes courage in these difficult times and all this mindset stuff, it's not easy. It's valuable. It's absolutely valuable. And it's just, it's, it's just, just know that it's not easy. And like a lot of people in life, we're all just kind of figuring it out it but I think it's important to embrace change and be introspective and be compassionate towards yourself. As well as seeking support from professionals. Whether it's a psychologist, maybe, maybe it's talking to your therapy teams, physical occupational speech teams, about recovery, resetting expectations. You know, I know this is oldest time, honestly, I was thinking about this yesterday. I feel like I learned in college, I learned how to plan for projects at the end of every semester. But in life, I sometimes get away from it, and I never, everything takes longer than you planned for in life. And that only gets harder after being a survivor after having children. You know, try to remember to it sounds so easy. I think you hear people say it all the time. But really even even people that are not brain injury survivors, or stroke survivors or cancer survivors or haven't gone through that medical life event, even even the most agile, nimble, sharpest people, things take time. And so that is important to remember. And the last thing I'll touch on today is humor. Because I know I say it every week, I feel like these episodes get really a little bit heavy. So I'm going to try my best to really make sure that I'm incorporating humor in these episodes. Because honestly, I mean, this nobody, nobody wants to be a stroke survivor. Let's just put that out there. Right. Like, I didn't choose to be a stroke survivor. Honestly, one of the things that held me back for the first couple of years I don't take was my underlying issues with me. Yes, I played a role. Yes, it does take time to figure out oh, okay, maybe, like here, here are some of the difficult things for me. And you might find this to be the same. You know, I think when you have a stroke, and a major medical life bent, and you are not on track to like, I was never a hypochondriac and I'm nothing against people who are you know, but I think I struggled with even doing this podcast for a couple years because I didn't want people to feel bad for me. I don't, I mean, I barely feel bad for myself, I recognize that I made some life choices that were not the best. You know, and that's something I have to live with. And I don't think honestly, I think if I had been in a place where somebody you know, maybe things could have been different had I spoken to the right doctors or gotten the right medication. And I guess what made me think of this as a friend of mine is he's 37 bigger guy, you know, better shape than I was in that At the time, but similar story to me, thankfully, not a stroke survivor. Sounds like he's got some things under control. And I guess, you know, looking back, it's like, after my stroke, I got, you know, the CPAP. And it was diagnosed with sleep apnea. And I do think I had my stroke in my sleep in the hospital, which is probably why it went undiagnosed. Oh, by the way. Quick thing in the middle of this rant is that this is May of 2023. And I do want to remind everybody that it is Stroke Awareness Month, I am a stroke survivor of talking about stroke all the time, you're listening to this podcast, you probably know this is primarily about stroke and brain injury. But I didn't want to forget to mention that is Stroke Awareness Month. And what made me think of it was I was thinking about this story, how I had the stroke in the hospital. And we're talking about things like, you know, the acraman, acronym, be fast when it comes to stroke and how, you know, the faster people away are sort of aware, the faster the stroke survivor, or person having a stroke can get to the hospital, perhaps they can get, you know, immediate medical treatment, where they're able to sort of stop the stroke, or from doing all the damage that it could do. And, you know, I think back to my stroke, and I never blame the hospital. And I really want to be very clear, I don't, I do not blame the hospital, I I had made some poor life choices. You know, I don't think anything I was doing directly led to the stroke. But it was kind of a combination of all the things I had done up to the age of 37. I mean, you do have to do a bit of work and make a couple of wrong choices to really get to that point. But again, it is Stroke Awareness Month, I do want to say that because this episode will probably come out here in the middle of May of 2023. And I think it's important to talk about and back to the story. I was really glad to hear that he is making some lifestyle choices changes, because I think, you know, hopefully, a few people listen started listening to this podcast that maybe don't want to have a stroke, because I feel like I'm very good about not sugarcoating it. For better or worse, I made some people like certain coding things, I don't see a ton of value in that. I'm sure it's hard. You don't want to have a stroke. And you definitely want to be able to hopefully find the help you need before it gets to the point you're a stroke survivor, because nobody wants to go through that I think every survivor listen to that knows that they would not have chosen this path, if given the choice. You know, but again, I think going back to what I was talking about earlier, is that I struggled to even talk about stroke in this journey initially because I don't want to be you know, I don't want to seem like a victim. I don't consider myself a victim. That's never the intention when I share these things, whether I'm sharing about my running journey on Twitter or sharing out briefly, you know, I share a ton about breathing because I really feel like that's been another big game changer for me. And I really want to help other survivors who may be fighting I mean, honestly, it's still difficult to find a ton of good resources out there. I mean, I talked about this new book that I found a couple couple months ago now hope after stroke. It's such a good book, it's I might change some things up but I don't think it's worth I would only be writing a book at this point. Because to serve my ego I don't think nothing of the world needs more books on stroke. I think this is a really good starting point and jumping off point. Again, the author is Sequoia in going yet townsmen I believe she's the read a theoretically a stroke coach, which is interesting to me. Being that I used to work primarily as a coach as well for last two years. full time full time working with moms and women in particular. For the most part and I love coaching I feel like I'm good at it. I'm good at asking questions. I'm good at getting to the rules of route of broke problem. I hear the things that people aren't saying typically. To be fair, sometimes I think I assume that and but you know, I have a pretty good track record. Good, I'm assuming correctly. That being said, you know, I mean, I get into the whole thing about coaching. And I think there's a lot of great things about coaching, I think, you know, with the community, one of the things I want to offer is, well, I want to offer a lot of things for the community, for Survivor science, but I think, you know, one on one coaching, because I think there are sort of generalized problems, of course, and there are certainly resources that can be shared and peer to peer is great. But I want to make time available for people that have individual questions, because I think that is equally important. And yeah, I know, I just feel like I know where I feel like, we're often talking about mindset here. And it's just, there's a lot of value in it. And I guess the thing I want to talk about, just to wrap it up today, you know, the topic of today's episodes are really embracing the new you and it's or letting go of the old way of thinking, for really the way you, you embrace life. And this ties in perfect, because if I'm being honest, I grew up in Jersey, I'm now 40 years old, I if you I would have thought 20 years ago, life coaching was a stupid thing. You know, I did think it was the stupidest thing on earth. I think the world has changed, and I've evolved and I've grown. And through, you know, unfortunately, it took having a stroke, which is very drastic, I don't recommend it. But it has really I've changed my life as a result of stroke. And, yeah, I wish I would have listened sooner in hindsight now having gone through it, but I'm lucky to be alive. I do believe people can change if you want to change and you put in the work. And yes, sometimes I give tough love, because I honestly frankly, needed tough love. Even after I had my stroke, the first couple, you know, it took a little while for me to wrap my head around things and get my get my shit together. If I'm being honest, you know, it takes some time. And I think there there's that old saying, you know, the only constant in life is changing that. That's certainly true. And I think that faster, you become aware of that and start to embrace that the the easier it will be to navigate the recovery and the different stages and the plateaus and really get back to a life that you enjoy. And for me, that's one of just honesty and humor. And I feel like Yeah, I mean, there's not I could say I could probably say more next week, but I think we'll leave it there. If you stuck with me this long today, I appreciate you. I do want to let you know you can sign up for the newsletter again, that's you go to podcasts at low bulsara.com Over there, right on the right hand side, you can sign up for the newsletter and also if you're into it, you can leave a review right there on the website, top menu. Again, podcast. I love Bill software.com/reviews. Really appreciate it. Hope you have a good weekend. We'll talk next week.