It is Never too Late to Relax

Since my traumatic brain injury, I have lived with many invisible consequences. Along with the injury to my brain, I also fractured bones in my face. At the time, however, there was little recognition of those injuries and no treatment for the symptoms that would emerge.

Later, during rehabilitation, my attention shifted. I began experiencing strange sensations in my face—my cheek, lips, beneath my nose, and especially in my tongue. I pressed my tongue against my teeth so hard that it left deep impressions. It took time to realize this was self-soothing. My nervous system was searching for relief.

This realization led to an important discovery: I had sensations consistent with Trigeminal Neuralgia. This condition involves the trigeminal nerve, which carries sensation through much of the face. For some, it appears without warning; for me, it followed trauma.

My search for answers was frustrating. For years, I struggled to explain what I felt. Doctors often looked at me with confusion. One neurologist said he had never heard of such symptoms. I turned to the internet, as many do, and quickly recognized myself in the descriptions. More than two years passed before I received treatment.

Even today, I continue to experience sensations in my face and mouth. However, over time, my perspective has changed. These sensations are no longer simply symptoms; I now understand them as signals that help me respond more effectively to my needs.

They tell me when I am tired. They tell me when I am overstimulated. They tell me when I need to stop, lie down, or rest.

I used to see these sensations as an enemy, but now I recognize them as messages about what my body needs. In the mornings, I feel my best, and as the day goes on, I notice these signals increase. This gradual shift in understanding has changed how I respond to my body.

Building on this, I have recently discovered something else: a kind of relaxation deeper than anything I understood before my injury. Not relaxation as a reward after productivity, but relaxation as a way of being.

To reach this state, I move backward through memory. I recall my childhood, my teenage years, and my young adulthood—each phase shaped by work, heartbreak, family expectations, travel, uncertainty, and fear. One by one, I invite these past selves to soften, integrating past and present.

This process has helped me understand that these versions of myself never disappeared. The body remembers. The nervous system remembers. Every experience I have ever lived still exists somewhere within me.

Perhaps this is why relaxation is such profound medicine. When I relax deeply, I am not simply soothing my present self, but also every part of me conditioned to brace, endure, perform, protect, or survive. In doing so, I offer comfort and healing to all those parts shaped by past experiences.

Living with chronic nerve pain has changed my understanding of healing. Healing is not just the absence of pain; it means tuning into my body, softening my responses, and actively reconnecting with myself.

Through all this, the nerves in my face—altered by injury—have also become guides. They remind me that every part of me longs for the same thing: ease.

And perhaps the greatest lesson of all is this: It is never too late to relax.