I'm in pieces, not who I was
Many people with acquired and progressive neurological conditions have experienced a fundamental change following their injury/onset in their condition, in who they are, how they feel in their bodies and perhaps feeling that they are not a whole person anymore. This disturbing, fundamental sense of change is at a deep level and cannot easily be remedied by neuro-rehabilitation professionals. A psychologist can help you to talk about this and make sense of this, or do change your relationships with others to support your own sense of self. An occupational therapist or physiotherapist can help you to participate in new activities that may enhance your preferred identity. But it is likely that for many a fundamental sense of being incomplete or in pieces will still be part of their experience.
Is there an alternative way to manage this experience? Daoism teaches of two important states of mind that may be useful – FLOW and CHANGE
FLOW:
Things that are in pieces may not be able to be fully put back together. However if those pieces were all influenced in the same way, at the same time by something bigger, a sense of wholeness would be achieved for a period of time. in the main picture on some of the website pages, you can see leaves moving in the current of a stream. While they are all individual pieces, the currents and eddies of the stream are moving them all in the same way, at the same time. Part of a bigger flow.
The practice of tai chi offers the opportunity to be temporarily ‘put back together again’ within 3 different levels of flow (more). It is likely that within a few hours of attending a tai chi session and back in your everyday life you will be confronted once again with difficult feelings and obstacles that characterise life with a neurological condition. However, a tai chi class that you can attend once or twice a week will be a repeating opportunity to reset yourself and rebalance your wellbeing and experience (all tai chi practitioners look forward to their next class or practice time). Furthermore, if you have learned enough of the movements to practice it yourself without an instructor present, you can create this state of mind for yourself on a more regular basis in between group sessions (e.g., daily practice).
CHANGE:
Life before the onset of the neurological condition can feel like a time of perfection, when everything was going for you, everything worked as it should, life was full of opportunities. In contrast life now may feel the complete opposite – opportunities have closed down, disability and struggle pervade all experience, nothing works as it used to. You may have read or heard from others that you need to adjust to these changes. This is easily said but not done, especially by people who don’t have a neurological condition themselves. For some people, adjustment is trying to get back to who they were before the onset of the condition. This may not be possible for many. Others find a way to be ‘the same but different’, finding continuity with who they used to be, but in a different way, perhaps as a natural process of evolution or progression. Adjustment can most usefully be viewed as a process or journey, more important than a particular final destination.
What is clear that most people will have experienced some form of change in their lives through the natural progression of time, even if there is now sudden change or life-event, including a medical condition. The Daoists have long reflected on change, and the appreciation of changing states in nature and in ourselves is central to their beliefs and practices. The ‘Dao’ or ‘The Way’ is the idea of a path, journey or change – be it at an individual level or the evolution of the seasons and universe around us. From this perspective, one state is not better or worse than another, just different. The famous ‘Butterfly Dream’ from Daoist literature beautifully conveys this perspective:
“Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou.
Soon I awoke, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.
Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called ther transformation of material things”. Chuang Tzu, cited in Merton (1968).
So instead of investing all of one’s hopes and desires in one particular state (time of life, or version of self), the aim is to appreciate the process of change itself, and be in synch with it, not creating blocks to it or distancing oneself from it through personal suffering. Tai Chi in one’s life following the onset of a neurological condition offers an opportunity to be in synch with the process of flow and change that are all around us and part of us. This may offer a reframing of the difficult feelings that emerge from being solely focused on a time of life or version of self before the onset of the condition.
Is there an alternative way to manage this experience? Daoism teaches of two important states of mind that may be useful – FLOW and CHANGE
FLOW:
Things that are in pieces may not be able to be fully put back together. However if those pieces were all influenced in the same way, at the same time by something bigger, a sense of wholeness would be achieved for a period of time. in the main picture on some of the website pages, you can see leaves moving in the current of a stream. While they are all individual pieces, the currents and eddies of the stream are moving them all in the same way, at the same time. Part of a bigger flow.
The practice of tai chi offers the opportunity to be temporarily ‘put back together again’ within 3 different levels of flow (more). It is likely that within a few hours of attending a tai chi session and back in your everyday life you will be confronted once again with difficult feelings and obstacles that characterise life with a neurological condition. However, a tai chi class that you can attend once or twice a week will be a repeating opportunity to reset yourself and rebalance your wellbeing and experience (all tai chi practitioners look forward to their next class or practice time). Furthermore, if you have learned enough of the movements to practice it yourself without an instructor present, you can create this state of mind for yourself on a more regular basis in between group sessions (e.g., daily practice).
CHANGE:
Life before the onset of the neurological condition can feel like a time of perfection, when everything was going for you, everything worked as it should, life was full of opportunities. In contrast life now may feel the complete opposite – opportunities have closed down, disability and struggle pervade all experience, nothing works as it used to. You may have read or heard from others that you need to adjust to these changes. This is easily said but not done, especially by people who don’t have a neurological condition themselves. For some people, adjustment is trying to get back to who they were before the onset of the condition. This may not be possible for many. Others find a way to be ‘the same but different’, finding continuity with who they used to be, but in a different way, perhaps as a natural process of evolution or progression. Adjustment can most usefully be viewed as a process or journey, more important than a particular final destination.
What is clear that most people will have experienced some form of change in their lives through the natural progression of time, even if there is now sudden change or life-event, including a medical condition. The Daoists have long reflected on change, and the appreciation of changing states in nature and in ourselves is central to their beliefs and practices. The ‘Dao’ or ‘The Way’ is the idea of a path, journey or change – be it at an individual level or the evolution of the seasons and universe around us. From this perspective, one state is not better or worse than another, just different. The famous ‘Butterfly Dream’ from Daoist literature beautifully conveys this perspective:
“Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou.
Soon I awoke, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.
Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called ther transformation of material things”. Chuang Tzu, cited in Merton (1968).
So instead of investing all of one’s hopes and desires in one particular state (time of life, or version of self), the aim is to appreciate the process of change itself, and be in synch with it, not creating blocks to it or distancing oneself from it through personal suffering. Tai Chi in one’s life following the onset of a neurological condition offers an opportunity to be in synch with the process of flow and change that are all around us and part of us. This may offer a reframing of the difficult feelings that emerge from being solely focused on a time of life or version of self before the onset of the condition.
