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About one month ago I received a message from my brother Rama ( Sifu Rama , Shaolin Wahnam chief Instructor for Costarica and South America ) .
He asked me to visit his mother Milly , in the hospital in Pietra Ligure , a small town in Italy , not far from Finale ligure , the town where I live .
I already knew that she went to the hospital a few weeks before to make a few ordinary exams and , while she was inside the hospital , waiting to pass the exams , she had a moment of disease and , consequently , falled in the ground . She had a broken wrist from that , but I was quite surprised to know that she was still there after so much time .
Rama was in contact from Costarica with her and with Victoria , the girl that is assiting her all the time , and , even for him , it was unclear why she was not back to her house already .
Besides beeing Rama's mother , Milly is a lovely elderly lady and , for me , she is also a good friend ; so I immediately went to the hospital to see what was going on .
When I arrived , Milly welcomed me as usual , with her warm and happy attitude ; from what I could understand , she seemed to me to be in good shape . Nice colour in the face , nice voice , full of energy and optimism ... and so I asked her when was she supposed to go back home .
She replied that she did not know because the doctors wanted to be sure that she was not going to fall again , risking to provoke some other damages .
To me , that seemed to be absolutely reasonable , but .... she was in bed since almost one month and , in the last days , she was also starting to miss the capability to go to the toilet on her own and she needed to be assisted in bed also for these basic functions .
The whole situation was a bit .... strange ; I did not know what to think , so I decided to spend some more time with her , talking a bit more , and I invited her to have a little walk with me inside the big rooms of the hospital .
Unespectedly , she had a repentine change and , basically , refused to walk with me because it was dangerous .... she was afraid .... she was weak , tired ....
Everything in her was getting different , within a few minutes , her attitude got worse and worse .... I understood that she really was full of fear .
I gave her about ten minutes to relax a bit and I also needed some time to figgure out what to do ...
Then , I decided to tell her very clear that her fear to fall again was understandable , but if she remained in bed in the hospital , despite the kindness of the hospital staff , but because of their philosophy of keeping patients in bed , she would find it harder and harder to walk with each passing day and she might become unable to walk for life if she did not attempt to do it as sooner as possible .
At the beginning it was hard for her to take these words and she was really upset ; so , in the most soft but firm possible way , I explained her that she was capable of walking , but she was afraid to do it because of the fear of falling again . This fear was progressively making her really unable to walk and I convinced her that it was safe to walk on her own , with the assistance of Victoria and me .
Finally she accepted to try .
It took some time , because she was not used to do it anymore ; when she started to stand , her head was turning , so Victoria and me remained very close to her , ready to catch her in case she was going to fall and so , slowly slowly ..... she finally could do it .
Obviously , the first time it was just a short walk , but in the following days I went again to visit her and I could see the progresses .
About one week later , Milly came back to her house and , from the informations I receive , she is getting better and better .
Now , I think that I have not done anything special .
I , probably , just helped her in changing her attitude , her mind set , that was locked in the fear of falling . Once she had again a positive mental attitude , even the work of the hospital staff became more effective and , in fact , she could recover very quickly and she had good results in short time .
I , basically , followed my instinct , without thinking too much , I sensed the situation in front of me and just responded accordingly , a bit like in a Tai Chi Chuan sparring with one of my brothers ....
Now , probably we can say that the WORRY to become unable to walk anymore could overcome the FEAR of falling again , like EARTH destroys WATER and so on ....
but I don't want to speculate too much and I just hope that this little story can bring some inspiration to some of you , as it happened to me .
big hug to everybody
smile from the heart .... always !!!
Attilio
He asked me to visit his mother Milly , in the hospital in Pietra Ligure , a small town in Italy , not far from Finale ligure , the town where I live .
I already knew that she went to the hospital a few weeks before to make a few ordinary exams and , while she was inside the hospital , waiting to pass the exams , she had a moment of disease and , consequently , falled in the ground . She had a broken wrist from that , but I was quite surprised to know that she was still there after so much time .
Rama was in contact from Costarica with her and with Victoria , the girl that is assiting her all the time , and , even for him , it was unclear why she was not back to her house already .
Besides beeing Rama's mother , Milly is a lovely elderly lady and , for me , she is also a good friend ; so I immediately went to the hospital to see what was going on .
When I arrived , Milly welcomed me as usual , with her warm and happy attitude ; from what I could understand , she seemed to me to be in good shape . Nice colour in the face , nice voice , full of energy and optimism ... and so I asked her when was she supposed to go back home .
She replied that she did not know because the doctors wanted to be sure that she was not going to fall again , risking to provoke some other damages .
To me , that seemed to be absolutely reasonable , but .... she was in bed since almost one month and , in the last days , she was also starting to miss the capability to go to the toilet on her own and she needed to be assisted in bed also for these basic functions .
The whole situation was a bit .... strange ; I did not know what to think , so I decided to spend some more time with her , talking a bit more , and I invited her to have a little walk with me inside the big rooms of the hospital .
Unespectedly , she had a repentine change and , basically , refused to walk with me because it was dangerous .... she was afraid .... she was weak , tired ....
Everything in her was getting different , within a few minutes , her attitude got worse and worse .... I understood that she really was full of fear .
I gave her about ten minutes to relax a bit and I also needed some time to figgure out what to do ...
Then , I decided to tell her very clear that her fear to fall again was understandable , but if she remained in bed in the hospital , despite the kindness of the hospital staff , but because of their philosophy of keeping patients in bed , she would find it harder and harder to walk with each passing day and she might become unable to walk for life if she did not attempt to do it as sooner as possible .
At the beginning it was hard for her to take these words and she was really upset ; so , in the most soft but firm possible way , I explained her that she was capable of walking , but she was afraid to do it because of the fear of falling again . This fear was progressively making her really unable to walk and I convinced her that it was safe to walk on her own , with the assistance of Victoria and me .
Finally she accepted to try .
It took some time , because she was not used to do it anymore ; when she started to stand , her head was turning , so Victoria and me remained very close to her , ready to catch her in case she was going to fall and so , slowly slowly ..... she finally could do it .
Obviously , the first time it was just a short walk , but in the following days I went again to visit her and I could see the progresses .
About one week later , Milly came back to her house and , from the informations I receive , she is getting better and better .
Now , I think that I have not done anything special .
I , probably , just helped her in changing her attitude , her mind set , that was locked in the fear of falling . Once she had again a positive mental attitude , even the work of the hospital staff became more effective and , in fact , she could recover very quickly and she had good results in short time .
I , basically , followed my instinct , without thinking too much , I sensed the situation in front of me and just responded accordingly , a bit like in a Tai Chi Chuan sparring with one of my brothers ....
Now , probably we can say that the WORRY to become unable to walk anymore could overcome the FEAR of falling again , like EARTH destroys WATER and so on ....
but I don't want to speculate too much and I just hope that this little story can bring some inspiration to some of you , as it happened to me .
big hug to everybody
smile from the heart .... always !!!
Attilio
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