Thursday, December 27, 2012

Day 363: Rebooting Your System


Rebooting Your System

This year I had the wonderful opportunity to reboot my brain. It happened as the result of a head injury. I’ve had frequent migraines and a headache that never went away, a  siren in my left ear that just didn’t stop, neck and back pains and virtigo. On some days I couldn’t move; still, I knew that I was better than I had ever been.
The beautiful and simple truth is that the brain heals itself; but it takes a year or more to do so. When the specialist told me that my brain had to reboot, I told him that I would use the time to delete old files.
While the physical and emotional pain was at times excruciating, it’s been a most beautiful journey because instead of processing everything so thoroughly in my head, I’ve had to live in my heart.
I had been living a life of compassion, but this just kicked it up a notch.
 Once when I was watching a young girl perform a lyrical dance, I noticed water running down my face, I actually looked to the ceiling to find the source. It was me; I was crying tears of joy from the beauty of this young woman’s dedication. The connection was so clear that I could almost see her rehearsals.
Afterwards, I spoke with the young woman and her mother and learned that she has suffered from several concussions and had been depressed. We shared the same symptoms but she had not been fortunate enough to have the same incredible doctor that I’d had; so she struggled in school, dance and just with being. I shared information with her mother and the young woman smiled in relief.
I hadn’t planned to write about this, I wanted to share a lesson without the pain; but I have come to see that my greatest lessons have also been the most painful.
You don’t have to hit your head; unless you want to and that’s another blog written by another person.
When your phone does not work, the blender stops blending and your computer has the blue screen of death, we somehow know what to do; we shut them down. The plug comes out and we have that moment of silence where we pray that everything will be fine.
This is what you must do. Please do not wait until things don’t work, unplug today. Turn off the TV, the computer and the not-so-smart phone at least an hour before going to bed and leave them off until you get up the next morning.
Reboot your system from the inside out. You have been taking on the stuff of someone else’s emergency, the late night infomercials that tell you you’re not good enough and the emails that just keep on coming.
Shut down and reboot your system before you crash because if you do, the healing process is so much longer, more painful and a little humiliating.

Experience is the best teacher, so please; learn from mine.
Be you, be well, reboot.
Bertice Berry, PhD.

1 comment:

  1. As the mother of that wonderful young lady, it brought me great joy to share your commentary with her. Once again you brought a smile to her face. While there are still challenges to face, she is still dancing and her symptoms are decreasing as her body "reboots" itself. We love your blog and truly treasure the opportunity to share common ground with you. Continued Peace and Blessings, Proud Mom

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