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According to the calendar, summer's not over, but with my
daughters off to college soon, it feels like summer is rapidly coming to a
close. So I thought about what I did this
summer. Though I'll admit I don't want
to do it again anytime soon, and I needed extra help from my Feldenkrais
Practitioner Joyce, I managed a stay of over a week at a hotel. Once
home again, I went to a total of three stores - that's a LOT for me - with my
daughters. I spent some time at the Chicago
Botanic Gardens with Ron and the girls, and last but not least, I've dealt with
house construction projects (unfortunately not quite done). I took care of myself, and managed to do all
of this without having a setback.
My stay at the hotel, and the really intense home project
this summer were too challenging. I felt
overloaded, but my take away is that if I really need to do something REALLY
hard, I'll find a way to do it. I don't
like feeling overwhelmed and overloaded, but taking on new challenges can be
good. It's a question of cost vs.
benefit. I did not go to the Ravinia Festival
(a large, outdoor concert venue) this summer.
After several attempts over the last few years, I decided it's really
hard, and the benefit isn't worth the cost.
The Gardens work well for me.
Challenging but worth it. That's
how I want to approach getting back into my Vision Therapy at home, and
tweaking my Feldenkrais home therapy. Challenge
that's worth the pay off.
I didn't do nearly as much VT this summer as I had been
doing. VT, though very helpful, is a
strain on my system. It also takes
cognitive processing resources I just didn't always have. I was encouraged though, that when I DID do a
VT session, I hadn't lost ground - I was able to do difficult stuff. Which makes me think about the fact that if
you want to make progress in any kind of rehab, you have to challenge yourself.
If you get completely comfortable with
where you are, you won't make progress. On the other hand, if you push too
hard, or too fast (or both), you can overload - your brain can't absorb the new
so that doesn't work.
The trick is to find what some refer to as the
"sweet spot" - like Goldilocks finding the chair, cereal, whatever,
that's "just right." Easier
said than done. It's not really a
"spot," and I think it shifts and changes. It's a gradual - sometimes more, sometimes
less - incline. It's about finding the correct titration of, and mix of
exercises. It's nice when doing an
exercise isn't too difficult, but a certain level of difficulty is necessary. I need to always be open to changes in my
therapies.
Joyce always says "if you're bored, if you're not
noticing anything, you're not learning...". Dr. Margolis, who supervises Ann (VT), always
says that rather than doing one big chunk, it's better to do a few minutes at
different times during the day. So for
me, I need to listen to my body so I know when to stop vs. when to push just a
little bit further. And how many bits I
feel up to that day. I need to communicate
with Joyce and Ann about all of this.
For me, doing rehab means making myself temporarily feel
bad - maybe feeling off-balance, maybe dizzy, a headache. I don't want to feel
bad for an hour, but needing a few minutes to recover is OK. I don't like it, but that's an acceptable time
limit. Of course, it's also a matter of
how intense the reaction is. Falling
down would not be OK. Feeling so ill
that I can't continue, and need to lie down right away is also not OK. But needing to sit with no light or noise for
a little while IS OK.
I typically need a few minutes at the end of my VT
sessions - even if I've paced myself during the session - to sit quietly before
I leave. The same is true for my
Feldenkrais. One big difference between
my FT and VT is that VT always pushes me.
My FT sometimes pushes me, and sometimes is more to ground me, get me
back to where I need and want to be after having been VERY challenged. It depends on what's been going on, and what
I've been doing.
Bottom line: rehab is not static. Rehab is as individual as the person doing
it, and needs to be reviewed and changed whenever you - or in this case *I* -
get too comfortable for too long. That
makes me uncomfortable; I am not by nature an adventurous person, and this
means exploring a bit, trying something new.
Something that may feel a bit scary to do because of my invisible
disorders. So I have to trust my therapists.
I'm very fortunate to work with really good people, and I know I need to
do this, to let things not be static, in order to make progress.
