Change Your Terrain — A Stroke Survivor’s Guide to Nervous System Recovery
This is a gentle, 17-minute reflection on healing from a severe stroke — and on how changing your environment (your terrain) can change your nervous system. After a massive stroke, I was left with nerve pain, spasticity, locking, deafferentation, and cycles of pain that returned like clockwork. I could not fix my body by force. So I stopped trying to fix the plant — and started changing the soil.
In this clip, I share the 8-stage framework I built from my own recovery: how I learned to notice the patterns, name them, track them, change the terrain, observe, reclassify, see through, and release. I also explain why the sea — the electrical nature of nerve conductivity. Nerves run on electricity. Seawater is electrically conductive because it is rich in sodium chloride and magnesium sulphate — the same ions your nerves use to fire. A nerve impulse is an action potential travelling down the axon, and the sea provides a stable, conductive medium that speaks the language of the nervous system. That is why I changed my terrain — from air to water.
I talk about the reward loop, the change paradox, and the role of social connection in regulating the nervous system. And I close with a full list of conditions this framework can address. This is a video for anyone who feels stuck in a cycle — whether it is nerve pain, spasticity, anxiety, poor sleep, or the emotional weight that comes with recovery. It is not a cure. It is a pathway.
Conditions addressed by changing the terrain:
Nerve pain, spasticity, locking, stiffness, twisting, burning, tingling, cycles, anxiety, fear of movement, poor sleep, fatigue, inflammation, grief, frustration, and the feeling of being stuck. They all run through the nervous system.
