Endorphins and Right Brain Activities Help in Recovery

Grandfather Mountain

After every adventure, there comes that time one must go back home. However, you don't go back empty handed, so to speak.  You take back with you what you've gained.  You look back and figure what worked and what didn't.  More importantly, you work out WHY it worked.

What happened in those ten days away with my cousin that was so beneficial?  That caused me to stop stuttering and worked on my cognitive abilities so that I was able to go change planes AND terminals in Dulles plus go through customs in Toronto all be self when those skills were lacking just ten days previously?

My therapist when I saw her next, asked me what we'd done in those 10 days.  

We'd taken day trips with my cousin driving, we'd revisited spots that had meaning and memories from my childhood experiences including visiting the area in Winston Salem which held the tobacco processing sheds.  Although they were in the process of being torn down, a little bit still remained including a whiff of the tobacco smell I remembered so clearly from childhood days.

I took pictures - lots and lots of pictures - which provided memories.  Apparently reliving these memories through the pictures allows the release of something called endorphins in the brain.  Apparently endorphins are some kind of chemical release in the brain which provides a feel good feeling - and promotes healing.

We did have new adventures such as Grandfather Mountain and the Mile High Bridge and others,  Again, we took pictures.  Lots and lots of pictures.  Which help us relive those memories, those good times, those good feelings anytime we desire.  Which, if you haven't guessed already, is something I've been doing with these last few posts.  Even looking at the picture at the top taken on the way to Grandfather Mountain, fills me with a peaceful feeling.

We laughed.  We talked.  We shared meals together (she cooked).  In the evening, we watched DVDs from her collection.  We rested.  She made this visit about me.

My cousin affirmed me.  She's one significant person in my life.  She knows me ... and loves me anyway.  Unlike all the criticism and condemnation I had experienced in the workplace, she affirmed that there was good in me.  That I wasn't the person I was led to believe I was in the workplace.

My therapist affirmed that all these things were the right things to be done.  They allowed to right brain, the creative part,  to take over and the left to rest, the one which constantly keep trying to find logic in the illogical experience in the workplace.

I had brought some crocheting stuff with me and was even able to dress this five in doll.  (Remember I had said that I couldn't read books, recipes or patterns with my disheveled cognitive state when I left to visit my cousin?  Those functions were starting to be restored.  And here's the proof.  We eventually named her Penny and she now resides with my cousin as a souvenir of our time together.

*****

This isn't to say that healing was a one-stop affair, completed in one brief span of 10 days.  No!  It was the beginning of the process.

Recovery from workplace abuse seems to be a never-ending affair ... at least for me.  It's comprised of experiences like the one recounted in the last few blogs.  It also has it's darker moments when re-injury occurs.

For me it's a process of taking things slowly, analyzing what worked and what didn't, listening to my body, forming coping strategies and, most importantly, when I fall down, to pick myself up and try again.