Episode 1082 Resilience and Innovation: A Second Life's Journey

Hi everyone, welcome to episode 1,082 of Blind Magic in Alice Springs. I am your presenter and host, Murray Stewart. In the last couple of episodes, I've spoken about my second life, my new life. That's right following my strokes the heart attack and of course the seizure that arrested my heart and my breathing and through the agency of magnificent first aiders and of course an ambulance crew I have been brought back I have and thank you thank you to all of our first aid and emergency responder workers throughout this nation. They're helping all sorts of people to maybe have a second chance. And in my case, as a Christian man, I know that Christ saved me for a purpose. I know he did. And so here I am.

So in terms of my second life, I'm wasting absolutely no time, because I want to achieve incredible things for me, first of all. But also for my family, my friends, but also for you. So with that in mind, I know in the most recent times, with my battle with my brain injury, that I have developed an incredible understanding of how the brain works. This has happened because of my seizures, but it's also happened through consultation with a neurological specialist and through discussions with people that I trust. But most importantly, the qualities that I have begun to develop in fighting my brain injury have been because I have walked toward my fears.

That's right, in more recent times, I was in Darwin. And the biggest challenge in Darwin was not at the athletics track at the Northern Territory Athletics Championships as an athletics coach. It was at the room of the hotel that myself and my support worker was staying in. Yeah, that was my biggest challenge. Honestly, it was so, so foreign to me. I've never experienced this before. Since my acquired brain injury, my spatial awareness has been my greatest deficit. That's right, my greatest deficit. Combined with total blindness, it makes being in unfamiliar environments very, very unfamiliar, very, very unique, I can assure you. And it's not easy. It's absolutely not easy.

So you've just got to keep trying and trying and trying again until you start to get things right with that new environmental context. And although I didn't master at this time in Darwin, I know I didn't, it does not discourage me from putting myself in those sorts of positions into the future because the more I keep trying, the more I can develop brand new neuro pathways in my second life utilizing the brain's magnificent neuroplasticity. That's right. The neuroplasticity of the brain is so, so pliable, so workable, and lends itself to neuroimprovement. It does. And so not only do I intend stabilizing the decline of my neurocapacity and my spatial awareness, I also intend to improve beyond the current position that I now find myself in.

That's right. In my second life, I intend to make maximal improvement from the current circumstances I find myself in. I am so, so determined to do that. I have a second life. I have, therefore, a second chance, and I am going to make the most of it. I truly am. And in doing so, I'm developing brand new skills that I can pass on to you, to pass on to my friends, to pass on to my family, and to pass on to the athletes that I coach.

Okay, so I've often spoken about the fact that I am the only totally blind athletics coach in the world, and I am. Well, throw something else into the mix. Now I am not only totally blind, I am also brain injured, but I am still an athletics coach, and I intend bringing the skills that I have acquired as a result of attempting to challenge my acquired brain injury to my coaching table. Yes, I do. And therefore, delivered straight to my athletes. And that is exactly what I'm doing.

In the last 48 hours, I've developed a brand new method method. That's right. Aimed at giving my athletes the edge. And it's based not only on my blindness and my history as an athlete and having to listen to an athlete's footfall and listen to an athlete's breathing to decide if I had an athlete broken or whether I needed to push harder, to break off the athlete who was competing against me. But also, of course, I've had to, in my own life, develop these skills as a totally blind person of touch and of hearing in order to be a survivor in life. And therefore, I've passed on those skills to my athletes. But now I have a whole new set of brand new skills that I can now pass on to my athletes.

Yeah, my greater understanding about the brain and how it works is. And spatial awareness and the absolute need to create continuity between the left and right hemispheres of the brain have all married together, in order that I am now developing some brand new methodologies that I will lend my athletes in order that they can get the edge. Oh, yes, I have, in order that they can and will get the edge over any other athlete that they are competing against. I won't give away too much more because that will be a secret held between me and my athletes here in Desert Australia. That's right. They will be Desert Australia secrets between myself and my wonderful junior athletes who you will hear of in the future, I've got no doubt.

Yeah, listen out for athletes such as Bula Akundu, Harry Mircec and James Lloyd. Yeah, those names you will hear into the future. Because they will have the secret powers from the desert delivered by me to them in order that they can achieve, because it's absolutely about those athletes first, second, and third.

This has been episode 1082, and it has been a Blind Magic Communications production.