Behavioral Health – The Bob Zima Blog

Two Weeks In

Posted on February 14, 2023 by Bob Zima

It is hard to imagine that just two short weeks ago I had an eight hour open heart surgery. It is also hard to imagine just how much recovery I have accomplished and have yet to accomplish. Recovery takes time. And that time can be a curse or blessing.

In my first two weeks, I have watched a lot of television, spent quality time with my wife and daughter and made a few meals. I have also played video games and gone for walks around the neighborhood and in the house. I have a goal of taking more and more steps each day. I am up to 3500 steps daily. Steady and sure.

I have done some “work” as I have continued my education related to my profession via attending webinars and self study. I try to “work” each morning and I leave the afternoons to binging movies, watching new reality shows, playing video games, doze while watching tv and spending time with my animals. I slso complete my breathing exercises for lung strength and walk about the house in between shows and games and interactions with my dogs and cats.

I have found sleeping and showering easier with each passing day and the pain has subsided to dull breastbone pressure with the occasional shooting pain from my broken sternum. Although my ability to remain focus and concentrate for more than two hours still needs time to come back on line, I find that am not bored with the task rather fatigued mentally. Like my body needing time to heal so does my mind.

Three weeks yet to go, if I follow the plan designed to get me pretty much back to my “regularly scheduled life“. Tomorrow, I see my cardiologist and we will see if my experience and evaluation of my recovery matches theirs.

Mental Health, Psychology, Self Help, Story

Growth….

Posted on March 3, 2022 by Bob Zima

So I have this tree. Bought the tree a couple of years ago. Was it Home Depot with my wife. After a long Span in our marriage of great loss, death of two children, Financial bankruptcy and homelessness, and clawing our way back simply to Ground Zero, where we were prior to such that bank, took quite a while. Sometimes when I’m out and about I say to my wife today is a just say yesterday. Meaning we give ourselves whatever we want.

On that day, in that Home Depot, I saw a hibiscus tree. I looked at it, I walked around it, and I started to walk away when I heard the sweet and soft voice of my wife say, “Today, Bob, is ‘YES Day'”.

God love her! I picked up the small tree and put it in our basket. We checked out.

For the first several months of its life with us it lived on my back deck. Bathed in sunshine half the day, wrapped in the warmth of a Midwestern summer, the tree flourished. Then Fall came. We brought the tree inside, my wife treated it for some kind of insect-infestation and then slowly all of the leaves fell off of the damn thing. It had a true Charlie Brown moment.

I found that the following summer I would bring it back. And so in late spring and early summer of last year, I reported it and put it once again on the deck. It was once again bathed in sunshine and wrapped in the warm and sometimes human blanket of a Midwest summer.

It flourished! It flowered. All the leaves came back. Then Fall came but again. What did happen again? What that other shoe drop? Would like so many things in my life I’d have to go through a second set back after working so hard to re-establish, recalibrate, rebuild? I truly detest these moments in life when you have to once again risk everything you have worked for, Hope for, wanted and more.

The tree has been inside since the fall and as we enter early spring I can say, and as the picture shows, the tree is flourishing! It is grown, maintained its leaves, it has truly bounced back. Which gave me cause for pause to ask myself have I done the same?

Being the cynical son of a bitch that I am I sometimes wonder, “Have I?” Have I truly grown? Have I truly overcome, persevered, developed character, develop strength? Have I grown?

Being fair, balanced, making sure that I don’t intentionally beat the shit out of myself because it feels good, I say yes I have and there’s a long way yet to go. That’s the way it is for many of us. The road to Healing is long. It can be difficult. It can be arduous. But it can be glorious. It can be full of moments when we grow. The question is do you continue on the road when things get tough or do you stop?

Entertainment, Mental Health, Story

Dreams on Fire

Posted on November 2, 2021 by Bob Zima

There is nothing like the raw power, heat and allure of a fire. Or racing.

Friction, controlled and uncontrolled destruction, passion, flickering hope dancing toward the sky and dreams envisioned in the glow and breathing of red hot embers and white ash.

Checkers or wreckers is the mantra for the underdog racer trying to ignite a career from a burning passion. White knuckles on a worn steering wheel praying a metal machine right while physically turning left; praying for one more drift in a final turn toward glory on worn tires.

As the flames fan, flicker and fade, the fate of the racer blazes ahead toward infamy.

Mental Health, Psychology, Self Help

Imagination Holiday

Posted on October 31, 2021 by Bob Zima

Halloween is an imagination holiday.

You can be whatever or whomever you want. The only limit is your imagination.

As a kid we are Cinderella or a Pirate. As adults we are sexy nurse or a zombie stumbling though a lost, dead world. Fitting ‘eah?

As kids, our imagination is set loose and a world of possibilities opens. As we become adults and record all of the risks and fails life serves up, the outcomes of our imagination shift. New masks go on. Horror stories replace fairytales and fantasies.

Kids allow their Imagination to run wild creating endless possibilities of success and joy. Sdult imaginations create horror stories of failure and loss. These mind-based narratives fuel anxiety, panic, peril, procrastination and a lack of living.

Kid’s imaginations create narratives of impossibilities, drive hope and lead to triumph.

Try being a kid today and imagine all of possibilities life can bring and create hope in your world. If only for a single day.

Entertainment, Mental Health, Story