Are You Protected?
Bob Miller's Blog Please tell your loved ones to protect themselves I realize that most of us can not qualify for the new type of "living benefits life insurance" I do not want to appear insensitive or make it appear like I am trying to sell something. I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart only wish that people have the right coverage when something bad happens. 7 out of ten people that live to age 65 will suffer a stroke, heart attack or cancer and live. This weekend my 34 year old niece who
just gave birth two weeks ago, suffered several small strokes, most
likely due to a difficult delivery. She lives in a state where I am not
currently licensed to offer The New Life Insurance. Please tell your family and friends to make sure that they have a modern day life insurance policy with "living benefits" The cost is about the same as an old fashion "death insurance" policy, which only pays when you die. Why
not receive up to 1.365 million dollars when you are still alive if
you do have something bad like a stroke, cancer, heart attack or
terrible accident? Money will not solve all your
problems and it can't make your illness go away, but it can reducs
stress and anxiety as well as to expand your options for recovery and to
help one live a more comfortable lifestyle.  ________________________________________________________________________________________ |
Ask Empowering Questions
Ask Empowering Questions
What words or thoughts do you listen to from your mind? Are the statements that you hear empowering or do they often hold you back? Do you ever have thoughts like "I can't, or I'm not good enough?"
Do these thoughts also give you reasons why "you can't?" You're too young, too old, too heavy, too thin, too damaged from the stroke, too poor, too ugly? I could go on and on because I know these same voices, most of us do. These voices are not yours. They came from your early conditioning. You learned these thoughts and you can unlearn them. When they come and they will, be aware that it is just your subconscious that is trying to protect you and to keep you safe.
Ask questions questions like Is it possible?,
Is it possible for me?
Am I willing to put forth the effort?
How can I accomplish this_?
What steps do I need to take?
Then be realistic. Chances are that at 60 years old I won't make it into the NBA, in fact there is zero chance of that happening for me, so that goal would not be realistic.
But what if you were on disability and you wanted to earn a living but no one will hire you?
Perhaps you could think of something that you could do at home, to become an entrepreneur.
Is it possible? yes. Is it possible for you? Most likely, as long as you want it bad enough and believe it. As long as you are willing to do whatever it takes, there are unlimited opportunities.You can learn the skills necessary to make it happen as long as you don't listen to those self defeating thoughts.
ABCD of Success
Bob Miller
Bob Miller Success
Changing Your Mindset Is Actually Pretty Simple.
Changing Your Mindset Is Actually Pretty Simple.
I am not saying that changing your old ways of thinking is easy. It takes lots of practice just like any other skill that we master. Self mastery is a learnable skill, though we may all find different coping strategies. The strategies that I employ may not necessarily resonate with you however I believe we can all benefit simply by immersing ourself in the areas that we want to improve. Like Toastmaster's for learning how to be a better communicator.
Yesterday in my club meeting I was attempting to explain the duty of the "timer" position which I was doing because our scheduled Timer didn't show up. I know the directions by heart but I was explaining the duties to the group and simultaneously reading the directions. My brain got all crossed up and I began speaking something incoherent. It was actually pretty funny because I knew that it was stroke related. Two years ago, I would have been horrified and embarrassed. I would have beat myself up for days, telling myself what an idiot I was.
Now I just laugh because I realize that we are going to mess up, we are going to make mistakes. Making mistakes and taking action are the only way to learn. If we listen to those self defeating thoughts, we will never learn and grow.
The time will never be "just right."Be like Nike and "just do it."
It's Not Your fault
Don't you wish you could stop all of those negative thoughts that run through your hear all day long?
Well I've got good news and bad news.
The good news is that it's not your fault so stop blaming yourself.
The bad news is that you can't stop these thoughts from happening.
Have you ever tried to not think? (there have been times where it felt like I didn't think, but that's another story)
I like Wayne Dyer's analogy of our thoughts where he compares them to the stock ticker at the bottom of a news program. They are continuous. We have good thoughts and bad thoughts, many in conflict with each other.
So what do we do with these estimated 40 some thousand thoughts we have each day if we can't turn them off?
We simply practice choosing the thoughts that we care to nurture. The rest we do what we do to unwanted posts or troublesome people on facebook, we simply delete or block them.
It really is that simple, just do not cultivate these thoughts. Don't let these thoughts grow roots in your fertile garden known as your mind.
Surround yourself with positive empowering people, books, seminars, music and the people and things that you love.
Limit the negative influences like the newspaper, nightly news and tv with the incessant commercial programming.
We can't stop the thoughts but we can influence the quality of our thinking and we have absolute control which ones we choose to feed.
Bob Miller
ABCD of Success
My Personal Paradox
Bob Miller's Blog My Personal Paradox (I hate talking about sickness and death) It was about a year ago when I first learned about a new type of life insurance with "living benefits." What this means is that the insured has more options than they once had with the "old fashion death insurance" You see with The New Life Insurance,
a person can collect up to 91% of their death benefit if they have a
stroke, heart attack, invasive cancer and a whole slew of other bad
conditions. Sounds like a great program? It is, and this is where my personal paradox lies. I hate talking about sickness and death. I like to focus on health and healing. But
there is one thing that I hate more than talking about sickness and
dying and that is talking to people whose greatest asset has been
snatched away because of illness. I know money is not the most important thing in life but try living your life and paying your bills when your income stops. Do you know that there is a 70% chance that a person will have a heart attack, cancer or stroke before age 65 and live. That's right, because of modern science, people are now living much longer after suffering a critical illness. But what happens when your income stops? Who picks up the slack? Who pays the bills? In most cases it's the husband or wife who end up working extra to pay the bills. That is of course, if they stick around. Some do and some don't. The point is why pay for some old fashion form of "death insurance" that only pays when you are in a box? My
other paradox is that I am preaching to the choir because most of my
contacts have already suffered some type of major illness like a stroke.
It's too late for you. But it's not too late for the one's you love. Ask
yourself this,"Is there anyone that you love and care about that you
would like to save from the stress of financial disaster if they become
one of the 70%"? If the answer is yes, have them visit The New Life Insurance and contact me personally before it's too late. ________________________________________________________________________________________ It's Not Your Fault Don't you wish you could stop all of those negative thoughts that run through your hear all day long? Well I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that it's not your fault so stop blaming yourself. The bad news is that you can't stop these thoughts from happening. Have you ever tried to not think? (there have been times where it felt like I didn't think, but that's another story) I
like Wayne Dyer's analogy of our thoughts where he compares them to the
stock ticker at the bottom of a news program. They are continuous. We
have good thoughts and bad thoughts, many in conflict with each other. So what do we do with these estimated 40 some thousand thoughts we have each day if we can't turn them off? We
simply practice choosing the thoughts that we care to nurture. The rest
we do what we do to unwanted posts or troublesome people on facebook,
we simply delete or block them. It really is that simple, just
do not cultivate these thoughts. Don't let these thoughts grow roots in
your fertile garden known as your mind. Surround yourself with positive empowering people, books, seminars, music and the people and things that you love. Limit the negative influences like the newspaper, nightly news and tv with the incessant commercial programming. We
can't stop the thoughts but we can influence the quality of our
thinking and we have absolute control which ones we choose to feed. |
Stomp Out Stroke
Imagine a cure or reversal of all neurological disease and disorder
including stroke, Alzeimer's, Parkinson's MS, and spinal cord injury. I
don't know if we will see this in our lifetime but I like to believe
that this dream is possible. My optimism was strengthened recently after
reading an amazing book titled Abundance, The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter Diamandis
The
book focuses on the possibility of global abundance through the
exponetial growth in technology, education, science and even our
population.
Keeping alive the concept that our lives and life itself can improve will not guarantee our success but it will certainly raise our consciousness of possibilities.
Create a unique username and password
What do I mean by creating a unique username and password? Think of
your username is how you choose to identify yourself. How do you think
of yourself? Who are you?
I'm not asking what you do or did for a living. What you need to ask yourself is who are you deep inside?
What is your spirit like? Are you good? Do you picture yourself as someone who helps others, someone who looks for an opportunity to take advantage to step on others in order to succeed or are you somewhere in between?
As complicated as life can be, these pretty much sum up our choices.
Do you see yourself as good, bad, neutral or somewhere in between?
Personally, I look at myself as a good person looking to serve God, my fellow man and our world and it's inhabitants to the best of my abilities. This is my username.
Do
I always accomplish this goal? Unfortunately no, and it hurts knowing
that I often fall dreadfully short in many areas of my life.
By
being your best and focusing on being good while not purposly harming
others you will do mostly good however we will all disappoint ours self
and others from time to time.
This is where the password comes in as illustrated in the picture above.
Regardless
of how things turn out in our life if our inner password is something
empowering like choosing to love, to learn, to grow and forgive, especially by forgiving our selves how can we go wrong?
If I did this poster over and I think I will, I will add the words and trust in the love of God. What else is there really?
The good news is that as long as we are here, it's not too late to change your username or password.
The Newborn Syndrome
The Newborn Syndrome
On April 2nd, this past week I was blessed with my second grandchild, Kody Hunter Maginnis. Kody is the brother of my first precious granddaughter Kayleigh Grace Maginnis who is now 1 1/2 years old.
Kayleigh
will no longer be "the baby". She will be forced to "grow up quicker"
and that's a good thing. Life is all about growing and learning.
In our stroke support community, we are fond of referring to the date the stroke happened to us as our Re-Birthday. It's our renewal. It's not unlike being re-born.
In our case we are very fortunate to survive because the mortality rate is about 33%.
We are like newborns because in most cases we need to relearn how to walk, talk, dress and feed ourselves.
It's
not just because a part of our body is no longer working properly, in
many cases we literally don't know how to do those simple tasks that we
once took for granted.
Parents, in particular the new mothers
are enthralled with their new bundle of joy. It doesn't matter how long
it takes for our child to walk. It could be 10 months to over a year,
mom won't give up on them.
But what happens when your spouse now finds them self playing the role as parent once again, only this time to their partner?
We
think of how sad it is for the survivor, and it is. But what about the
husband or wife now forced to feed a 70, 60, 50, 40, 30 20 year old
newborn?
We have a Caregiver Community Group
comprised mainly of the spouses and other caregivers, usually family
members of the survivors. There are some survivors like myself in there,
who do their best to offer support and insight.
This group is
WAY different than any of the other support groups that I belong. We
hear stories from the perspective of the spouse. Over this past year I
have had my eyes opened widely and I have learned so much about what it's like from the other side.
If
there was one bit of advice that I could share with survivors who are
blessed with a spouse or partner, it would be to instill the message
that as bad as you might think your life is presently, please do what
you can to not keep your spouse feeling like that are caring for a
newborn again.
If you are a survivor reading this, it probably does not pertain to you because you are obviously pro-active.
The needs, wants and desires of your spouses and partners did not disappear just because you are being re-born.
They
still need to be taken care of and loved. They still have their
emotions, fears and goals except now the fears may have grown while
their aspirations may have subsided.
Love them. Don't push them away. Push yourself. Pull yourself up. We're all here to help you but they don't have the same options of support that we do. Thank God for them. Thank God for our Caregiver community.
Sexuality-Intimacy-Passion
Sexuality-Intimacy-Passion
Knowing that this topic was going to be our feature in our weekly newsletter, I posted a few different questions in some of the groups. The topic got everyone buzzin. Some responses numbered over 200.
I am far from being an expert on the subject but because I was married for the same woman for 33 years only to see the marriage end after the onslaught of stroke, coupled with my experiences with Strokes Suck and our Caregiver community, I believe I have gained some valuable insight into the workings of relationships.
I still view it from a male perspective however, hopefully I am able to offer some lessons that might help the survivors realize sooner that their spouse/caregiver did not automatically lose their own needs and desires just because their partner suffered a stroke.
There are so many emotions connected to this topic like Guilt, Shame, Worry, Fear, Blame and Anger
But there are also emotions on the positive side, the biggest and strongest of all is Love.
The question that got the subject off the ground was:
What would you do if your spouse had a stroke and you were no longer attracted to him/her but your spouse still wanted/desired intimacy from you?
The answers were varied but the most prevalent sentiment seemed to indicate that love and respect go hand in hand. It's not always about the actual act of making love that show one's love for another, rather it is our caring, our touch, our words and our actions.
People's views and level of intimacy differ greatly depending on a myriad of situations.
If the relationship was not a loving giving one before the incident, chances are that patience will wane much sooner and the relationship is held together by one or more of the negative emotions and not one of Love.
Sadly, some spouses simply lose the attraction and ultimately the respect that was once there because their partner is "no longer the man/woman who they married."
But this is true to everyone, not just people with illnesses.
It is extremely difficult on a spouse to maintain a sense of attraction when all of a sudden they basically become a parent figure to their partner
People who measure what they receive in relation to what they give are involved in a transaction, not a relationship.
Others said they were worried for the health of their partner.
In very few cases is this true. If you truly cared and loved your partner, you would find a solution.
Some very dedicated loving spouses said that it would never matter and they would never deny intimacy from their spouse. These is obviously a relationship built on love.
I believe that it all breaks down to love and respect. If someone truly loved their partner, they would find a way together to make sure both partners needs were met, even if it was just through hugs.
If intimacy is used as a weapon or it is withheld while the other is willing and desirous, the person being hurt needs to make a decision whether or not to continue the relationship. The act of denial from a partner is a "deal breaker"
Two of our basic human needs are for significance and love.
Can we truly love another if we don't first love our self?
We need to remember that we need to love and respect our self first before we can give love to another.
We have to have something to give in order to give something away.
In short there is no easy answer other than love and respect. It needs to come from both sides and if it was truly present before the illness, this love can and does grow and even prosper.
A complete collection of Bob's blogs can be found at www.Strokes Suck.com
It's Not My (Stroke, depression, disability, or whatever)
A while back, I don't even remember exactly when, I made the conscious decision to drop the term "my stroke" from my vocabulary.
Now I refer to the stroke that I had in 2006 or the stroke I experienced in 2009.
But they are not mine. I had them. I experienced the wrath of what a stroke brings and they do not belong to me.
Strokes are certainly life changing and I
am in no way saying this as a form of denial, but I think that it
really helps to separate the event from the person who lived through the
trauma.
This strategy works just as well for one of strokes constant companions, depression.
Strokes
are depressing, particuraly initially. Everything you once knew or
thought you knew about your thoughts, your body, your relationships,
occupation, vocation and your finances has literally been changed 180
degrees.
That scenario is most certainly depressing. There really isn't any wonder why so many people are diagnosed with depression.
But it does not have to remain as "your depression." You do not have to take ownership here either.
Let's use an example of a sprained ankle that you may have had 10 years ago.
You no longer refer to it as "my sprained ankle" You say, "when I sprained my ankle or when my ankle was sprained."
But then the ankle got better and you improved.
These examples are simple strategies that you can use to move on with your life that I have found helpful.
I hope that by sharing this it brings if nothing else, a little perspective on what it takes to move on with our life.