Curiosity & Resilience in ABI Rehab
Resilience has many steps to it. First you have to have a little bit of resilience to prime the pump if you will. Once you can do basic things you can begin to start developing some curiosity. There are many things to be curious about at first. The professionals’ need to embrace this; I had one therapist whom I would always have good discussions about brain injury rehabilitation. This started my thinking processes again. Just analyzing and evaluating in a quiet, calm and relaxed manner did me a world of good. Then real therapy started and it was all about fulfilling the professionals’ desires – almost regardless of whether it was good therapeutically for you. This ability to question the basic practices of the professionals is lacking until you get out of their paradigm a bit and reflect back on it with a broader understanding of what the process is all about.
Curiosity can be nurtured about many other things though. Physical device problems are one big area, another is the culinary arts. Learn to ask questions. This also needs to be done during therapy; what will this help me with and why do I need to do it this way. This is not singular process though. One area of curiosity leads with drive and problem solving to resilience in that area. Another area of curiosity leads to resilience in this area – and so you come to resilience following many areas of curiosity and follows through to end up with that most desired result: resilience.
The curious mind is active and open to alternate ideas as well as broadening one’s outlook by giving a different perspective of reality. The resilience definition used for these purposes is “The art of returning to the previous existence”.