Would you like to join in supporting the Brain Injury Association of Maryland's outreach initiatives like
#5ThoughtsFridays ?
We are launching a new
Special Summer Membership Campaign:
- Individuals with Brain Injuries: FREE
- General Membership (including Families) : only $35
- Professional Membership: only $95
There is No Brain Injury Association of Maryland
without Members.
That means there is no Brain Injury Association of Maryland
without YOU.
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#5ThoughtsFriday is Powered By:
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#5Thoughts Friday
The
Edition
08/28/2020
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Here are the 5 things we thought were
worth sharing with you this week:
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Last week I introduced BIAMD members to Hal Elrod’s The Miracle Morning™ to provide tools for restructuring our lives in the context of quarantine. To recap, Hal Elrod is a traumatic brain injury and cancer survivor who has written numerous self-development books, the most popular of which is the The Miracle Morning™. The central concept of the book is that by starting every morning with positive habits, you will incorporate discipline, clarity, and personal development into your daily life. The Miracle Morning™ routine is based around the acronym S.A.V.E.R.S™ which stands for silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing. By starting your morning with these habits, your are setting yourself up for a successful day filled with energy and productivity.
This week, I am focusing on how we develop and sustain positive habits. Starting a new routine like The Miracle Morning™ requires us to change our habits. Changing habits has become particularly challenging for people during quarantine because our normal habits have shifted and been replaced with new habits.
What is a habit? Habits are behaviors that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously. Your life is created by habits. Your habits can be positive or negative, from brushing your teeth to biting your nails. The total of all of your habits is what creates your everyday life, and changing up your daily habits has a significant impact on your life.
So why is it so difficult to implement and sustain the habits we need to be happy, healthy, and successful? Change is painful! Whether psychologically or physically, once a habit has been reinforced through enough repetition, it can be hard to change. In addition, good habitats need an effective strategy in order to stick. One of the primary reasons people struggle to create and sustain new habits is because they don’t know what to expect and they don’t have a strategy.
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CLICK HERE to read more about a strategies to manifest your goals.
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COME JOIN US ONLINE AT TODAY's
Group Check-In Chat
from Noon to 1pm.
Please CLICK HERE to sign up using our online registration.
Once we receive your registration, we will send you the link.
We hope to "see" you there!
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We are witnessing mandated social isolation and social distancing on an epic scale. As part of BIAMD's interest in serving Maryland's Brain Injury Community, we are starting what we call "Check-In Chats".
We would like to "check in" with anyone looking to share their experiences and challenges with either an individual or in a social group setting.
Even though we can't meet in person, there are many ways open to us, and, if you are interested, we would like to hear from you about your needs and how we can help you feel more connected.
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The players say doctors use two scales — one for Black athletes, one for white — to determine eligibility for dementia claims. |
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Two retired players have accused the N.F.L. of “explicitly and deliberately” discriminating against hundreds if not thousands of Black players who filed dementia-related claims in the landmark concussion settlement reached in 2013, making it harder for them to qualify for payouts worth as much as $3 million.
In two legal actions filed Tuesday in United States District Court in Philadelphia, the players asked that the judge stop the league from insisting that race-based benchmarks be used to evaluate players’ claims. They also asked that the scores on Black players’ neurocognitive exams be recalculated using “race-neutral” scales that would put them on an even footing with white players.
“In effect, the settlement, as it has been administered, has a white door and a Black door,” said Cyril Smith, a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder and the lead counsel for two players who are Black, Najeh Davenport, a former running back, and Kevin Henry, a longtime defensive end. “Although the neurocognitive tests behind each door are the same, the raw scores for Black and white former players are interpreted differently when they are converted” to scores that are used to determine whether a player is eligible for a payment.
The allegations of systematic discrimination are the latest and perhaps most damning criticism of the settlement, which has been stung by delays, predatory lenders, accusations of fraud and a lack of transparency since players began filing claims four years ago.
They come at a particularly awkward time for the N.F.L., which has battled the perception that it has dismissed the concerns of Black players, who make up about 70 percent of the league’s active players.
Smith said using two scoring curves, one for Black athletes and one for white, violates federal law and unfairly hurts Black players. “The N.F.L. has a choice to make: Live up to its word and treat Black players like their lives matter, or continue pushing them aside,” he said.
CLICK HERE to find out yet another avoidable tragedy of the NFL's concussion policies.
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My daughter and I were playing tag, or a kind of tag. Before that, we traced the letter P and we danced to James Brown’s “I feel good,” a song she selected from the iPod. We laughed as we danced, she with a natural rhythm striking for a 4-year-old, and I with my irretrievable gracelessness. Next on our plan was “Sesame Street.” It was about 2 p.m. on May 28. A day complacent with the promise of no surprises, like all the other days of the lockdown, shrunken days with shriveled routines. “When coronavirus is over,” my daughter often said, words filled with yearning for her preschool, her friends, her swimming lessons. And I, amid snatches of joy and discovery, often felt bored, and then guilty for feeling boredom, in this expanded boundless role of parent-playmate.
My daughter picked up a green balloon pump, squirted the air at me, and ran off, around the kitchen counter. When I caught her, squealing, it was her turn to chase me. I was wearing white slippers, from some hotel somewhere, back when international travel was normal. They felt soft and thin-soled. I recall all these clearly, because of all the things I will be unable to recall later. I turned away from the kitchen to make the chase longer and something happened. I slipped or I tripped or my destiny thinned and I fell and hit my head on the hardwood floor.
At the beginning of the stay-at-home order, plagued by amorphous anxieties, I taught my daughter how to call my doctor husband at work. Just in case. My daughter says that after I fell I told her, “Call Papa.” My husband says I spoke coherently. I told him that I fell and that the pain in my head was “excruciating,” and when I said “excruciating,” I seemed to wince. He says he asked my daughter to get me the ice pack in the freezer and that I said, “Thank you, baby,” when she gave it to me.
I do not remember any of this.
CLICK HERE for more on the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's encounter with healthcare's "new normal".
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CLICK HERE for more information about the the services, resources, and connections you can make with through the Maryland Coalition of Families. |
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ONLINE Brain Injury Support Groups
Severe Brain Injury Caregiver Group
Zoom Room Internet Conference
2nd and 4th Sunday of the month, 7:30 p – 8:45p
Tom Gallup 301-502-8420
BIAMD Check In Chats
Every Friday at Noon
To register for a Check-In-Chat please visit
Young Stroke Group
The first and third Fridays of the month from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET.
Rockville Brain Injury Support Group
2nd Thursday, 6:30p – 7:30p
Tom Wilkinson 240-493-8472
Anne Arundel County Brain Injury Support Group
3rd Tuesday, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Debbie Cottrill (410) 320-8948
Brain Injury Support Group
1st Monday, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Candice Rebuck (410) 448-6303
Caregivers Support Group
4th Tuesday, 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Gwen Alexander (410) 448-6311
Stroke Support Group
Meets monthly 10:00 a.m. – Noon
Brandy Breaux (410) 448-6821
Call for the monthly calendar
Online stroke support and information resources
The John “Jack” Godfrey Brain Injury Support Group
2nd Tuesday, 6:00p – 7:00p
Dawn Moreland (301) 618-2364
Brentrell Spencer (301) 618-2134
BIADC Support Group
3rd Wednesday, 5:30p – 7:30p
Gemma Rosas (NRH) (202)-877-1192
Joan Joyce (NRH) (202) 877-1420
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Feature Event : Sept. 22 and 23, 2020
Workgroup Sessions : Sept. 24, 25, 28, & 29, 2020
Podcasts Available : Beginning Sept. 22, 2020
Post-Intensive Workshop : Sept. 29, 2020
Format
This event will include a combination of live and recorded sessions in a variety of formats and an exhibit hall for event sponsors and attendees to network and collaborate.
Rate (Covers the entire event.)
$250 for Members
$300 for Non Members
CEUs applied for APA, SW, and CRC.
Location
All events are virtual.
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2) What We are Reading This Week |
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From the bestselling author of Life's Little Instruction Book comes a collection of insights of heroes and champions from all walks of life--some famous, others just ordinary people. Interviews were also conducted with medal-winning Olympians and Paralympians, great champions like Mary Lou Retton, Ralph Boston, Wilma Randolph, Peter Vidmar, Bonnie Blair, Dan Jansen and many others.
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1) Quote We Are Contemplating...
- "I am thankful for the adversities, which have crossed my pathway, for they taught me tolerance, sympathy, self-control, perseverance and some other virtues I might never have known."
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Have you ever clicked on the pictures posted at the end of every #5ThoughtsFridays? Try it. You might learn something fun! |
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HAVE A WONDERFUL
WEEKEND.
(THANK YOU FOR PRACTICING "SAFER AT HOME", SOCIAL DISTANCING, AND WEARING YOUR MASKS IN PUBLIC SPACES.)
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Did you enjoy #5ThoughtsFriday? If so, please forward this email to a friend!
Please let us know your requests and suggestions by emailing us at info@biamd.org.
Which bullet above is your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Let us know! Just send a tweet to @biamd1 and put #5ThoughtsFriday in there so we can find it.
This blog is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute endorsement of treatments, individuals, or programs which appear herein. Any external links on the website are provided for the visitor’s convenience; once you click on any of these links you are leaving BIAMD's #5ThoughtsFriday blog post. BIAMD has no control over and is not responsible for the nature, content, and availability of those sites.
Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful weekend.
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