Finding My Superpower: Resilience by Beckett Johnson
I first found out about LoveYourBrain through a panicked random search on traumatic brain injury (TBI). I’d just left the hospital after my TBI and really had no business being on a computer, but I had no medical coverage and therefore felt like I had no help. I felt so alone and lost.
Now, in 2020, I feel so far away from that person that felt like he was drowning with no life preserver out there to help him when I first sustained my TBI. Today, six years in my TBI journey, I no longer feel so lost or alone. While medical coverage can still be an issue, what I have learned in my journey is there are always other ways, opportunities to seek out that which you need. I found ways of obtaining therapies I needed in so many various ways, none of which are anything short of miraculous. I have learned that when you set your intention on something and seek out what you need, it has a way of meeting you there, right when you need it. Faith in yourself, and your journey is just so essential and one of the many tools I have used to keep moving forward in my healing. Today I feel so emotionally, and physically stronger than I ever have and I am even grateful for my TBI. It has been one of the greatest gifts of my life, although one of the toughest roads I have ever traveled.
LoveYourBrain has been one of the key components in my healing and finding a new resilience within me to thrive in amazing new ways. At the first LoveYourBrain Retreat I attended, I found people who understood me and my injury. People who didn't judge me, but took the time to hold space for me and offer guidance on how to help me live with these new disabilities. I found new modalities I may have never considered, like yoga and nutrition.
This experience is one of the greatest blessings of my TBI journey. The LoveYourBrain Retreat allowed me to process my injury in my own time and with others who were going through the same thing. I could see myself reflected in them, and that made me not feel so alone anymore. LoveYourBrain has also helped me embrace something I was already passionate about: helping others just like me. I never want anyone to have to go through the tough journey it has been due to lack of medical coverage, or lack of support.
I now serve as a LoveYourBrain Ambassador, helping other people get connected to this healing, accessible community. As an Ambassador, I get the pleasure of meeting other amazing TBI survivors in a new way. I get to hold space for them to be seen, hold workshops, and share the tools that helped me - along with my own personal learnings - in hopes that it helps others in finding their way along this tough path.
The self growth, resilience, and amazing people I have gotten to meet along the way supersede the dark times I went through. It has helped me to realize my life’s purpose of coaching others through their trauma and back into thriving at life.
LoveYourBrain has made the world a better place for TBI survivors. They help show that when humans help humans - no matter their circumstances - we all flourish. LoveYourBrain will always hold that special space in my heart for the essential role it has played on my own personal journey but it also reminds me that while we need the support of organizations like LYB, we also need to remember that our own inner resilience is key. The healing journey will always be changing, as will the people and organizations that help us along the way. The best thing we can do as TBI survivors is to embrace the impermanence of that journey, embrace that change is the only constant we can count on and allow ourselves to get comfortable in the uncomfortable because that is our true superpower to thrive beyond our injuries.
Beckett lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and sustained a TBI in 2014. He is a certified Spiritual Life Coach, Mindfulness Facilitator and Sound Healer. He owns and operates Resilience Alchemist Coaching. He has co-created a 6 week online course called TBI: Transformation Beyond Injury. His series provides tools on how daily mindfulness and meditation practices can help survivors to process the heavier emotions that come up (anxiety, sadness) as well invoke self empowerment to help them thrive as they navigate their healing journey. For more information: www.resiliencealchemist.com