06/04/2026
Recovering Myself
By: Susan M. S. Lindgren with Brain Training Lounge
recover (verb): to get back or regain (something lost or taken away)
Life inevitably serves up change, and change can be challenging. My mother’s rapidly declining health in 2010 proved to be a life altering change for me.
My mom & I had a very close relationship, but several states physically separated us from one another. At the time, I was raising two young children in our high-pressure world. Being unable to support my parents with mom’s health conditions was incredibly hard for me.
I didn’t know what anxiety really meant until I experienced a complete “nervous breakdown” at age 38 during those difficult, early months of mom’s abrupt decline. Amidst my unraveling, I had my first panic attack in a dental hygienist chair during a routine cleaning. I suddenly found myself struggling with anxiety after a lifetime of not fully understanding how debilitating, irrational, and frustrating it could be to live with it.
I now understand the acute emotional stress and resultant anticipatory grief I was experiencing as I slowly lost core parts of my mom to vascular dementia caused my “breakdown.” She died in January 2014. Navigating life immediately after her death was excruciating. The “year of firsts” without her (even though I had been losing her mind for years already) was emotionally intense. I became a person who struggled with and actively managed anxiety for nearly a decade. Activities that never bothered me in the past, suddenly felt challenging.
I immersed myself into healing what ailed me and committed myself to well-known, conventional advice for years after my mom died. I allowed myself to 'feel the feelings' and gave myself permission to grieve on my own timeline. I had already established a dedicated physical fitness routine. I overhauled my nutrition and drastically cut excess added sugar. I sought out Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) with a licensed professional counselor. I joined a loss/grief group a year after mom died. We worked through ‘The Grief Recovery Handbook’ by John W. James and Russell Friedman (Highly Recommend). I continued routine acupuncture treatments. I tried the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) for a time. Without noticeable benefits, motivation fell away. I learned a lot from a year-long daily practice of meditation with the Headspace app. And yet, these conscious and dedicated practices didn't bring about the change I'd hoped for. I never fully felt like myself.
I avoided & declined prescribed medications from doctors. I wasn’t “that” bad. I was managing and medication didn’t feel like a long-term solution for me. I did carry a fast-acting prescription in my wallet “in case” I had a panic attack. Just knowing it was available to me was helpful, and I faithfully requested it be re-filled at my annual wellness visits for years. At the time, I felt less confident without access to it.
Eventually, I had to recognize I was different, and then I grieved the person I used to be.
Then, one day, our pediatrician suggested we try neurofeedback to help my kids with their stress, anxiety, and overwhelm after years of child therapy proved to be largely unhelpful. Last resort prescription medications had not offered my kids the support we desired. Meds were a trial-and-error process that only added to the stress that we were trying to manage with it. Side effects often made things feel notably worse.
After the pediatrician's suggestion, I found a local NeurOptimal® Dynamical Neurofeedback® provider, and my daughter trained first. Her lifetime of challenging sleep regulated in under 20 sessions. Her face held less tension. My son trained next. His anxiety could be 5/10 intense at the beginning of a session and drop to a zero 33-minutes later. After several months of brain training that was clearly supporting my kids in many ways, I decided to invest in a system for our family. That’s when I decided to train myself in April 2019.
Within 15 sessions, my nearly nine years of incredibly frustrating anxious tendencies completely fell away. I felt like myself again for the first time in nearly a decade. I was much more resilient. I worried less, didn’t (over)react to everything, started sleeping better, felt calmer (particularly under pressure), regained my confidence, and felt hopeful and genuinely happy again.
On a family trip soon after my initial 20 sessions, my husband remarked, “Nothing is bothering you.” He noticed that I felt & carried myself more like the person he had dated and married decades prior. At some point, I forgot to ask for a prescription refill and stopped carrying meds in my wallet…"just in case" I fell into panic. That’s when I knew I had truly recovered a version of myself that I had lost for years.
When my brother was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in 2021, our family was sent into a whirlwind of tumult. I traveled without fear to visit him (I had developed a fear of flying after my nervous breakdown), deeply felt the weight of grieving him while he was still alive without becoming overwhelmed, remained remarkable clear-headed & grounded, and navigated his death just six weeks after diagnosis with a resilience I never thought was possible after my mom's poor health & death changed the core of my being for nine years.
My family’s experience with NeurOptimal® compelled me to open Brain Training Lounge in 2019. This unparalleled nervous system support tool has made our and many of my clients’ lives better. NeurOptimal is a unique nervous system *self-regulation* tool that promotes the brain’s performance and inherent flexibility & resilience which leads to a natural reduction in wide-ranging mental and physical concerns.
NeurOptimal was an essential tool in my grief journey. It could be a tool that enhances your ability to meet change without change negatively & irreparably changing you.
If you are struggling with change or are curious to learn more about an effective stress management tool that works directly with your central nervous system for mind-body wellness benefits, check out www.braintraininglounge.com or book a free Discovery Call with Susan.
Note: NeurOptimal® is a unique brain training system designed to promote the brain's optimal flow & function - whatever that "best" potential may be. The system was designated a General Wellness Product by the US FDA in 2018. It is intended for general wellness purposes only and can be used by everyone. User experiences vary. NeurOptimal® is a product offered by Zengar Institute Inc. Zengar does not endorse this blog.
