When we receive a significant injury, sometimes we have to put our life on pause for a few weeks or months while our body recovers. But sometimes recovery takes longer—or never gets us back to “normal” at all. Whether we suffer from a loss of mobility, a change to our sensory perceptions, an inability to sleep or breathe well, chronic persistence of pain, or even memory or personality changes, our sense of self, identity, and purpose can all be challenged. Our ability to move through previously comfortable spaces or interact with others can be suddenly limited, and how we’re perceived by others can drastically change overnight. Transitioning to a “new normal”—and discovering what it even looks like—can be scary and discouraging, but we are immensely adaptable and capable, with care and compassion, of recentering ourselves and moving forward.
To overcome the anxieties and depressions of contemporary life, individuals must become independent of the social environment to the degree that they no longer respond exclusively in terms of its rewards and punishments. To achieve such autonomy, a person has to learn to provide rewards to herself.
