A Stroke of Insight/Choreographer of Life

I recently listened to Jill’s TED talk on her “Stroke of Insight”. The book was intriguing. The part I remember most was how she felt sleep was the most reparative therapy of all, as I agree with that.

I had an ethically hard time with waking up patients for therapy as I often felt they needed the sleep more than anything else. Not of course if it was “depression sleep”, but if it was healing sleep. I know there are plenty of studies that say otherwise and that the mobility is important, blah blah blah. My personal belief is that sleep is often more important than anything else, when in the beginning healing stages. 

She comments that after her stroke, “I was no longer the choreographer of my life.” I love the poetry of that statement.  All of us have felt out of control at times, and to varying degrees of severity, and it’s often for that reason, that loss of ability to choreograph. The carefully constructed dance of life that was ready for primetime and yet had to be discarded, either permanently, temporarily, or partially. What grief must accompany that feeling, that sense of loss and helplessness. One of our jobs as OTs is to empower our clients to get back to their own life choreographies.