Why You Need to See Your Recovery Before You Can Build It

If you can envision a future of yourself fully recovered, that dream can create the urgency so that you can love the life that you're moving towards and make sure that PCS is not the final author of your story. Hi, my name is David Brimacombe, and after 7 concussions over 20 years, I learned that your dream has to be substantial enough, your purpose has to be big enough So that it can pull you through those deep, dark days of your PCS recovery. This is not pretending that your PCS recovery is going to be easy. It is far from easy. It is difficult. It is arduous. It can be long. But it also is going to be the most rewarding thing in your life. And it is possible. That is the most important thing to understand. Those days that you feel Like your PCS is making you stop dreaming. Like it feels like your world around you is shrinking to the point where it's basically you living in a shell of your body, just trying to get through the day. Your desire to thrive, your desire to become a better person is gone. You are surviving and only surviving. Now, how can, how can we get to the point of that ideal self? That might seem next to impossible. And I'll tell you this, I thought that it was next to impossible until I heard about Dr. Joe Dispenza's Remember the Future: Understand and Create a Roadmap of Where You're Going. Now, when I read that first, I was— had to actually listen to the podcast multiple times because you think, remember the future, strange phrase, what is going on here? But what it is doing is that it is telling your system That you are creating safety in the person that you're going toward. Now, this is the most thing— the most important thing to understand. Your brain cannot tell the difference between something that is vividly imagined and something that it actually has happened. So if I can visualize something happening, I can visualize my ideal self, where I want to get to. I'm actually creating a roadmap in your brain. You're creating that neural pathway. where it's creating safety in the self. Your nervous system doesn't feel as anxious, apprehensive about making those changes in your recovery because it knows where you're going. Okay, this is something that I didn't know at first. I sat in my bed for weeks, for months, and in some cases for years, just thinking about what am I going to do, how am I going to get out of this state. I cannot envision a future Where I am going to actually be successful, where I'm going to be the person I want to be. The problem was is that I wasn't visualizing the future, and until I learned to look towards where I want to go, I did not start my true recovery. Now, for me, it was a really small start. I had a lot of trouble getting up and down the stairs. I would become winded, I'd become dizzy and highly sensitized. After 2 or 3 steps. So my goal originally wasn't to become this perfect ideal self. I started to visualize for a few weeks what it would be like to scale the steps up and down without stopping, without feeling short of breath. So I did that for a while. What I would do after I got up, I would do a few rounds of breathwork to regulate my system. I would then think for 5 minutes, okay, what is it like Okay, I would sense touching the handrails, having my foot hit the step, my thoughts, the sounds around me, any and everything. You want to make this as vivid and real as possible. And I would scale those steps up, and I would scale those steps down. And I did that multiple times in my mind, but my mind could not tell the difference. My brain couldn't tell the difference between what I was imagining And what was actually happening. So over time, okay, I could start to think that it was possible to scale those steps, to go up weight and come down. It's not because that visualization was reducing my symptoms. What it was doing is it was reducing the stress, reducing the anxiety and the danger. Your brain is trying to keep you safe. Your nervous system is trying to keep you safe. They have a job. Keep you alive. And in that moment, they thought that there was an intense amount of danger in climbing those steps because those steps were causing your symptoms to flare, and those symptoms would create more stress, which would cause greater symptom provocation. So by actually visualizing a time in my, my mind where I could go up and down without having symptoms would tell my brain, wait a minute, maybe this is safe. Maybe this is okay. So then I would go ahead and I would climb the stairs. I would go back down. No symptoms. How could this possibly be? I went from being able to step 2 or 3 stairs now to be able to do 14 up and down. No problem. Was it that that magically cured me? No. What it did, it changed the state in my mind. It changed the state in my brain. It told it, I am someone who is able to climb the stairs. This is not dangerous. This is who I am. Now, when you have a distinct future, in this case, to start, it was getting up and down the stairs. It creates a sense of urgency. It creates a sense of destiny, of, of safety in the self. This is something that your brain needs when you have Post-concussion syndrome. Because at that moment, everything has shrunk. Your world has shrunk. Your desires have shrunk. You're basically just living. You're getting up, you're going to the bathroom, you're eating. Maybe you're going back to lie down. Maybe you go to work for a little bit. Maybe you don't. But it is basically just your brain is on survival mode. So that is what it thinks is normal. That is part of your identity, is I am someone who just simply survives. You need to fix that by having a future self, okay, that you can lean into, that your brain knows that it is possible. It creates possibility in the self, which allows you to therefore add things that will help you. Add gratitude, add maybe meditation and an improved diet and stress reduction. And maybe you start to go see some specialists, some vestibular work and ocular work. But all those things were preceded by the fact that you created a future self, a future self that your brain understands is possible, is plausible, is going to happen. It's not an if, it's a when. And therefore, you have now created a roadmap. You created a path that you can walk down. Now, this is information that took me years to figure out. It is something I wish I had at the beginning of my recovery. I would sit in bed and think and dream and hope, and then that was that. Again, that is step one. I had the desire, I had the intention, but I did not act on it by simply thinking, "I hope I get to that point." Your brain does not rely on hope. What it relies on is a state of this is the person I am. When you are rehashing and visualizing. That perfect state with great detail and clarity. You have to tell yourself, I am someone who is able to climb the stairs. I am someone who is able to get out of bed without symptoms stopping my day. It is not I want to be, or I hope to be, or I don't have symptoms anymore. It is a positive present tense. I am someone who— fill in the blank. Okay, so this is how I started my recovery. This is one of those initial phases that got me from that, basically that deep, deep dark rut of my recovery, to get myself moving up. Now, if you're at a point of your recovery but where you don't have that initial momentum, that motivation to get going, you feel like you just, you get up and you just don't have it, I want you to look below. For a link to what's called the Belief Reset. So this is a 10-minute audio. You can play it whenever. What it is, is it's me walking you through to change that internal dialogue in your mind. Now understand that 95% of your thoughts are from the subconscious. Your subconscious loop is like an elevator track playing in your brain, constantly playing that same old song, that same old song you don't like anymore, but it's been playing it for 10 15, 20, 30 years since you were a kid, and it hasn't changed the track. I want you to pull out that disc. I want you to snap that disc in 2. We're going to insert a new disc. That belief reset is your new disc. It is your new identity. It is your new beliefs. It is you thinking about that future self and being able to walk towards it, okay? So that when you have that 95% of your thoughts, that internal dialogue, these are now going to be positive, of motivation, of future casting to the person you want to be. So that belief reset, again, down low, you can click the link, you can listen to it, you can download it. But the big thing here is it's providing you that initial push, that initial set of belief to start your recovery, even if you're halfway through. I found I use this still today. I think it's incredibly powerful. Again, link below. When the, the next thing I had to do— so once I created that roadmap in my brain, I then had to determine when I had those symptoms and they were going to come up, how was I going to deal with it? What was I going to do? I had to negotiate ahead of time with those symptoms. So I think of this as you're negotiating the price of your recovery. Now, this is not like you're going to go ahead and buy a car or buy a house. These are things like you're negotiating how much energy am I going to use, how much money am I willing to spend, how much time am I going to allocate per day. I decided early on that the 2 times in my day that I struggled the most— first thing in the morning to motivate myself and right before bed to downregulate before sleep. So I negotiated at the beginning of my recovery, once I created that future self, I knew I was going to get there. I needed to start. So I negotiated first 10 minutes, last 10 minutes of the day. That is mine every day. It didn't matter how I felt. I negotiated ahead of time. That was my time. I was going to do 3 things. First thing I was going to do, feet on the floor, I'm going to tell myself today is a good day. I'm setting a groundwork, a framework to live by. The second thing I did was I did 5 rounds of down-regulating breath. Basically, it means that I was elongating that exhale. So I'd go ahead and I'd do a four count inhale, and then an eight count exhale. Now the reason why you elongate the exhale is because on the exhale your heart rate actually drops, which lowers your stress, which makes you feel more relaxed. So I'd start the day with a positive thought. I'd get myself into a positive state, and then I would do. One point of gratitude. I am grateful for today. I'm grateful for my morning routine. I'm grateful for. I'd write it on a sticky, put it on a mirror, put it on a wall. I'd walk past that point multiple times in the day, reaffirming everything that I wrote on there. Okay? At night, I'd invert my schedule. I'd go and I'd look at that gratitude. Remind myself I'm grateful for whatever was on there. I then go ahead and do my. 5 sets of breathwork followed by my mantra of today was a great day, I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Put my head down on my pillow, it was time to sleep. Okay, and again, this was point A. I negotiated this price when I started to negotiate other things in my recovery, like how much I was going to pay for supplements or for therapies, or how much time I dedicate to other protocols. I negotiated that price ahead of time. Because if I didn't, on those days I felt symptomatic, on those days I didn't have the energy, I wouldn't do it. And it's okay to miss a day, but when you start to miss 2 or 3 days, you start to change that identity, that rhythm of your recovery, and it makes it harder to get back in it. Okay, it's all about consistency, starting small and scaling later, but being consistent in how you behave. So the biggest thing from this video I want you to take away is you need a reason for your recovery. Your recovery isn't going to happen just because, just because, you know, I want to feel better. That is not strong enough. You can think of people recover because of 2 things: out of desperation or inspiration. Both work. I would say desperation typically works more, but desperation is when you're at rock bottom. When there's nowhere else to go but up. Okay, your desperation is that maybe that you're going to lose your job. Okay, maybe that you're going to lose— your wife's going to leave you. Whatever it is, that is a point of desperation. That is a point of no return. You can also move from a point of inspiration. Maybe you see me as a guide, as a mentor, as someone who has walked this path. Maybe you look at other inspirational videos online, or you talk to people through group chats. Okay, but either way, desperation or inspiration are going to move you in the direction where you want to go. Have a reason. Okay, I am going to become the best version of myself. I'm going to visualize that every day. I want you to negotiate this price in your recovery. Negotiate the time that you're going to take for this. 5 minutes every morning, I'm going to visualize my future self. And again, every little nuance So when you get up in the morning, what do you hear? What do you smell? What are you thinking about? What are you going to do thereafter? So when I would do this, I would sit in my bed, I'd lie down, and I'd think of myself getting up, putting my feet on the floor, looking out the window, listening to the birds, walking, and just going about my whole day thinking about all the little nuances. And the whole time thinking about, this is amazing, life is good. Having those positive affirmations, you can't always stop that first thought from occurring, but you can always stop and negate all that second, that third, that fourth thought from coming into your mind. Okay, you have great power in your recovery. The main point in this channel, okay, and for these first few videos is to set the foundation and then to layer up from there. The thing I wish I knew. 20 years ago was that in any kind of recovery, you have a substantial say. You are a powerful change agent in your recovery, okay? If anyone tells you otherwise, they probably haven't walked down this path. Because I learned that if I changed how I, how I thought, I changed my routines, I changed my diet, my sleep, okay, who I associated with, okay, what I did in my day That it was inevitable my recovery would happen. And again, I've said this before on my videos, I feel better today than I did prior to my first concussion. I've created systems and protocols, and I've created a sense and a mindset that I am someone who I'm proud of now. I wasn't necessarily proud of who I was before, but I have taken time to work through this. I future casted myself. I use this still today. What am I going to be like in 5 years, 10 years? And I think about that and I visualize it with great detail because I know it works. It is the thing that pulls me when I'm in my deepest, darkest moments. It pulls me along, and I hope it pulls you as well. Thank you very much for listening. If you haven't already, okay, review, comment, like, subscribe. I want to get this video out to more people like yourself so that they understand they can be part of their recovery as well. I hope you have yourself a great day.