Life Coach Julie Kuch talks about her experience with Stroke and Concussion and her mission to empower Brain Injury Heroes
Welcome to Season 2 of The Brain Game Changer podcast. I am your host, Melissa Gough. In this week's episode we head to Utah in America, where I had the wonderful online opportunity to speak with Life Coach Julie Kuch. Through personal experiences with stroke and concussion, Julie’s mission is to empower brain injury heroes into a story of strength and acceptance and looking forward to a future with excitement and abundance.
Julie lays it all out on the table with gumption, passion and that light seasoning of humour. Her coaching, advice and supportive tools are helping many people around the world, myself included. Let's get into the interview.
Links:
Follow @thebraingamechanger on Instagram
Email: thebraingamechanger@gmail.com
Follow @juliekuchcoaching on Instagram
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Melissa Gough 0:04
Welcome to The Brain Game Changer, where heartfelt stories, awareness and education can change the game. My name is Melissa and in each episode, I talk with inspiring humans and organisations from across the globe, who share significant adversities. triumphs after tragedy, and those game changing moments to provide you with some useful tools and resources to take with you into your everyday life.
In this week's episode, we head to America where I had the wonderful online opportunity to speak with Life Coach Julie Kuch. Through personal experiences with stroke and concussion, Julie's mission is to empower brain injury heroes into a story of strength and acceptance, and look forward to a future with excitement and abundance. Julie lays it all out on the table with gumption, passion, and that light seasoning of humour. Her coaching advice and supportive tools are helping many people across the world, myself included. Let's get into the interview.
Melissa Gough 1:07
Good morning from Melbourne, Australia, Julie! Welcome to The Brain Game Changer podcast.
Julie Kuch 1:12
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
Melissa Gough 1:15
I'm so happy that you're here too. I'm just going to share that Julie has provided some fantastic tools on her media pages that I can resonate with, and that I've also started using in my everyday life. We'll share a couple of those throughout this interview. But like I do with everyone I interview, we're going to get a bit of a backstory. Where do you live? Where did you grow up? Tell us a little bit more about you as a person.
Julie Kuch 1:44
Yeah, so I grew up in Utah in the USA, and I had a great childhood, I have two siblings and loving parents, and pretty normal life actually, we travelled and I went to school. When I graduated from college, I went on a mission for my church. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So I served a 18 month mission in Brazil, and I absolutely loved that. I love Brazil! I love the people of Brazil, the food, I think I gained about 15 pounds! I just had a great time! I married my husband shortly thereafter, and I had two kids. Then I had the first stroke at 30 years old, the first stroke. I was very young, I was inexperienced with brain injuries, and it was the hardest thing I had been through up until that point in my life.
Melissa Gough 2:34
Well, thank you for sharing. First of all, it sounds like growing up, you embraced all the opportunities that were presented to you. Going to Brazil, learning about the culture, still following your faith and probably even developing and evolving more as a person as part of your faith. Thank you for leaning into what happened when you were 30 years old. As you say, wow, 30 years old is not that old, it's still very young. We're still very vibrant, and most people would consider we're in the prime time of our lives. So can we lean into what happened that day?
Julie Kuch 3:06
Absolutely. Melissa, so I was driving in downtown Salt Lake City, and I noticed that when I got to a stoplight, the light turned green,and I was really confused. I wasn't sure what to do. I looked down at the pedals and was like, which one do I pick? I don't even know. Also, I couldn't see very well, I would look at the address I'd written down on a piece of paper, I was going to a doctor's appointment, I was looking at the piece of paper and it went blurry, then I'm trying to refocus on the road, and that was blurry. I did that several times until I went, I just got to pick one or the other. I don't know what's going on. But I can't go back and forth here. I got to focus on the road, or this address. So I somehow miraculously made it to the doctor's appointment, and when I got there, I was filling out the intake forms, and my handwriting was horrible. It was like you're trying to write in a straight line, and I was writing slanted. And the letters were all small, and that’s not my style of handwriting. I was just like, I don't know why this isn't working. This is really weird!
Melissa Gough 4:10
Do you feel like you're almost having an out of body experience?
Julie Kuch 4:13
Yeah, and I was totally in denial. Like, maybe I just needed to eat some food. Then when I went in to see the doctor, I had slurred speech. My tongue was loose and sloppy, and I said, ``I don't know what's going on, but this is what happened on the way to the doctor's office and my handwriting and she said, "Listen, you have two choices. You know, we're going to call 911 and get you up there to the hospital with an ambulance or you can call your husband or someone and they get you up there." I was like, Whoa, lady, you are overreacting! I'm sure I'll feel better if I get a bagel on my stomach! But she was serious. She wasn't going to let it go. So I called my husband and he picked me up and he noticed some things about me that were not quite normal. We went up to the ER. I fell asleep when they were doing tests, and in the end they said well, it's inconclusive. You're probably having like a midlife crisis or a mental breakdown. And I was like, I'm ok, what, hey, what is going on here?? So they just sent me home, and then from there, I was just a mess! Had a lot of the typical, like brain injury symptoms, but I didn't have any answers.
Melissa Gough 5:16
So you've gone to the hospital, they cannot conclude an exact diagnosis. They've sent you home. What happened when you went home.
Julie Kuch 5:26
I'm home, and I just feel down and really tired. I had two little kids at the time. I don't feel motivated. Someone calls and I just don't want to answer the phone. It's just a lot. I'm snapping at my little kids. I'm grumpy at them. I'm a little bit irritated by my husband, who is the best thing in the world. I don't know what's going on, but I know there's something not quite right. I had a friend that was a nurse, and she said, "you really should go see a neurologist." So I went, Okay, so somehow I made an appointment with a neurologist, and I shouldn't have been driving, but I had no idea. I got there, and they said, "sorry, you have the wrong date, like your appointment is not for, you know, another week or something."
So I head back home, and I head back down to the neurologist, and she also just says, you know, I passed all the tests, right? They have those tests, where you connect your two fingers together, it's kind of like a DUI test. I'm assuming from what it sounds like you count backwards, you walk in a straight line, you try to touch your nose and your finger and I passed all those tests. She was. "I think you're just fine," and that was the first time I learned I really had to advocate for myself. I had to relearn this lesson of advocating for myself over and over and over again, because I wasn't very confident in myself and to advocate for myself was really challenging because I had to go against what people that were way smarter than me thought about me, right? They're doctors, they have all of these degrees, and I would have to say something like no do this, or check this or I don't feel well, what's going on. So the stroke really helped me to gain confidence in myself and to find my voice, which I really didn't have before. At this appointment with a neurologist, I said, listen, I am not myself, I promise you. I don't know what's going on. I know I passed all these tests, but I am a mess. I am grumpy. I am rude. I am tired. I promise you I need an MRI. I don't even know what any of this stuff was, I just knew I needed something more.
Melissa Gough 7:25
Yeah, you had it all down. You're like, this is what's going to happen. I'm not leaving until it does.
Julie Kuch 7:30
Right! So then I got an MRI, and then once I did, they said, "oh my gosh, you had a huge stroke, it's twice as big as a normal stroke!
Melissa Gough 7:40
OH!
Julie Kuch 7:40
So that's when I found out what really happened because the MRI showed the stroke, right? With a CAT Scan, it won't really show a stroke until the next day or two. So okay! So what I had in the emergency room, it didn't help the MRI was a contrast, no contrast, and it showed the stroke, and that's when I started to get answers. Gosh, I was just so devastated when I found out it was a stroke.
Melissa Gough 8:03
I can understand that. Like you say, the age that you are, you're 30 years old, when we hear the word stroke, and this is probably my journey now to advocate. People think that happens to people who are a lot older. So you're sitting there, you have two young kids, you're healthy, you're well, you've been active, you're a woman of faith, and then to be told that news I can imagine it's devastating. It's confusing. You almost do a double tape thinking, hang on if they got this right.
Julie Kuch 8:29
Oh, absolutely.
Melissa Gough 8:30
When they give you all the feedback, it connects all the dots of what you're experiencing between it actually happening, to that moment?
Julie Kuch 8:38
Yeah, you know, it took a while for me to figure it out in my head, like what a stroke meant, and I would just say, my feeling was devastation. I didn't know what it meant for me, but I just felt like my life was over. I didn't have any of these tools that I have now as a life coach to handle all of these strong emotions, and I also felt to blame. I felt ashamed. I felt embarrassed, and I felt like I had to put on a happy face and pretend like I was a version of my old self. I hid, I literally hid for years.
Melissa Gough 9:11
I'm intrigued by this mindset where you felt you had shame. And you were determined to just go back to who you were and show everyone that hey, I'm still me without sort of registering and acknowledging all the different emotions you were feeling.
Julie Kuch 9:26
Yeah, Melissa, that's an excellent question. I was always a people pleaser. I thought I could make people happy. I thought that was kind of my job and my role, and I was really pretty good at it. So telling people, I don't feel well, I have depression, I have anxiety. I can't go to the party that was against who I identified myself as. So for me, it was like the stroke, maybe a version of myself that I didn't know how to identify who that person was. So of course, my brain is like, there's something wrong with you. You should be ashamed. You should be embarrassed, because it's not who you are. So my knee jerk reaction was hide, don't tell people, to put on a happy face or make it very light, don't burden anybody with your problems. I also have a story like you're doing it wrong, I'm doing a stroke recovery wrong, because they should look different, and I'm doing it wrong. So I need to hide how I'm doing it.
Melissa Gough 10:19
Those close to you at the time, did they notice the changes and the differences and the struggles that you were having. Because I'm going to lean into one thing that I guess changed some things for you, you found out you got the stroke, you're trying to do your recovery, you've got two young children. As you explain, you've got depression, anxiety, and frustration, and you found different situations overwhelming, but you're also trying to hide it. From researching, you said it was your sister who sort of reached out and said, "do you know what, you need to go and talk to somebody about this." What happened there.
Julie Kuch 10:51
Yeah, and that was my first opportunity to work with a life coach, and I wasn't as vulnerable as I am now. So I still had that shame blanket over me. That being said, though, I was able to open up and express how I was feeling and talking to someone, even just that one visit with a life coach was so so, so helpful. I was able to kind of figure out some things for myself and realise there is something wrong and I need to give this thing some space, I need to acknowledge it and open up to it.
Melissa Gough 11:24
Can you talk us through that process? So you've shifted a mindset of going, let's pretend everything's okay. You've seen the coach, they've started to open up and allowed this vulnerability to start kicking in. What was the process in your recovery after that?
Julie Kuch 11:42
Gosh, Melissa, I'm so stubborn, it took forever! Because I had to re -identify who I was, I had to mourn the loss of a version of Julie Kuch that no longer exists.
Melissa Gough 11:55
I understand that completely. Yes.
Julie Kuch 11:58
It's so crazy. The first years of those, of that first stroke, I was like, God, you made a big mistake. Like this was not supposed to happen. This was not supposed to be part of my journey. I was supposed to be doing this and this and this in my life. Instead, I'm like sitting on the couch and doing nothing. It was like, could you actually just break my leg, instead! The brain idea, it was a bad idea, God. The leg that would have been better! Can I tell you can I counsel you on what's best for my life, you know, I was angry, I was upset. I was frustrated, and I was down. My brain didn't have a lot of capacity, either. Everything was just big and hard and challenging. I'm saying that it was a lot of compassion for me, because I didn't know any better, or really didn't, I know that I did my best.I don't blame myself at all. For that part of my journey. I'm really grateful for it. Because it gives me a lot of love and compassion for my clients, because that's what they're doing as well. But I had to work and work and work and realise like, I don't have to think about my brain injury, I get to think wherever I want, I get to make this brain injury into whatever I want. It can be a blessing, it can be a curse, I can be bitter, I can be a victim, I can be a hero, it can be a villain, like I worked really hard to get out of that place. Because it was really challenging for me.
Melissa Gough 13:13
I'm trying not to swell up with some tears as I hear you say that because I am 16 months in and I'm right in it and I'm sitting right in the middle of a grieving process. I'm grieving the old me. I'm embracing the new me. There's things that I probably love even more about the new me. But there's things that I miss terribly about the old me and you know, what we have is invisible, it's really hard to see. We look the same, we sound the same, people also try to treat us the same. I think as human beings as well. We try to put things into boxes, and we try to fix things. I feel really stressed when people say are you back to your old self? Or are you getting back to normal? When will things get fixed? When will your brain be fixed? When will you be healed? That just sends my anxiety through the roof because it's not so black and white. Thank you for sharing everything that you felt at that time, it is going to make other people feel like they're not alone. It's going to resonate with them because they're like, Well, I'm feeling this too. This must be part of the process.
Julie Kuch 14:15
As much as I was on that side of the spectrum during the first stroke, during the concussion that I had in 2020, and then this stroke that I've had this year, I've gone on the complete other side of the spectrum. When someone says something like that to me like, Hey, you look great. You know, you look so good. Julie, I'm more than happy to advocate. I say, well, thank you. There's a storm inside. I'm doing better. But I say it's a marathon. It's not a sprint.
Melissa Gough 14:40
I've also done that when they've said Oh you look so well. You have a bit of colour, have you been out in the sunshine. I'm like, Yes, I physically look the same and I'm physically doing well, but my brain is on the inside of my head and there's a lot going on in there that you can't see.
Julie Kuch 14:52
Yeah, and most of our problems as human beings are on the inside, they're all kind of invisible. This one is very different and it's a higher level, I believe, but it's still invisible. Everybody does have some kind of invisible problem. Maybe not an injury but a problem. Right?
Melissa Gough 15:08
So true.
Melissa Gough 15:13
So as we've stated, the stroke happened when you were 30. You've got two young children, you now have five children. But I'm also going to lean into that time where you experienced a concussion, and it happened 10 years after your first stroke. Can you talk us through about what happened? When I read it? I was like, "oh, my gosh," but I'm going to get you to explain what happened.
Julie Kuch 15:37
Yeah, it was really shocking. I was snowboarding, I had taken my son and a couple of his friends up to go skiing and snowboarding. Let's see how old they were. They were 10 -12 years old at the time, and they love the train parks, right, the terrain parks are where you can do jumps. You can go on all of these, into these little different stunts and fun things. So we go into a train park, and I'm not that adventurous, I just go on the snowboard. I'm just kind of falling behind them watching them do their tricks, and twists and spins and all these fun things.
So we go up a hill, that's a really big hill, we go up and in the middle of this hill is a jump. If you go into the middle, you're gonna get a bunch of air and you're gonna have to figure out a way to land so I don't do that. I just, I go up the hill, I catch maybe a centimetre of air and then I just go down. As I'm going down the hill, there was a boy behind me and a man behind me that didn't see me. He decides to go off of the jump in the middle of the hill, do a flip or wherever he did, didn't realise it, but landed right on top of my head. His ski landed on my helmet, thankfully, I was wearing one! He hits the left side of my helmet, right almost at the top, just to the left, I have a big dent in my helmet, and then he skis on my shoulder, and then across my thighs, because by then I've kind of fallen down right across my thighs and then down. I just remember sitting there for a long time going, what just happened? What was that? How could he miss me? How could it? Why did he do that? You know, I was really upset. Someone from the ski resort had seen the accident, then the guy came back and said, "What were you doing there?" "Why were you right there," and I was like, I believe you landed on top of me, you know!
Melissa Gough 17:28
You were wearing a helmet at this time as well, weren't you?
Julie Kuch 17:30
Yes.
Melissa Gough 17:31
What a saviour that was!
Julie Kuch 17:32
I feel like angels were really watching over me and going okay, if we can just navigate her to move this way and him to move this way. I very well could have died or been paralysed for the rest of my life, depending on where he hit me, because he landed on my helmet on my head. So I feel very blessed that it was like a concussion, and that's all I'm walking and talking. I wasn't paralysed.I knew that these things take time to show up. When you get in an accident, and you think I'm fine, I'm good. You have no idea if you're fine. You need to wait weeks sometimes for a concussion to show up. Don't be like, No, I got it. It's fine. No, you don't know. It was a hard recovery as well. It was different and the same, the same and different, because your brain is injured, and the brain just needs a lot of rest, and that shows up differently for everybody.
Melissa Gough 18:21
So obviously, when that happened, you went home and you started your recovery process, and as you said it was different and the same. What did you have to do as part of that and what symptoms were you experiencing?
Julie Kuch 18:35
With the concussion, I noticed I was very, very light sensitive, more so than with the strokes. I was very, very irritable. I'm irritable without all the brain injuries, you guys! (chuckles). So I don't know, I was more irritable! I'm like oh, here comes Mrs. Irritability, there you are again! My body just ached, you know, it just got jarred up and tense so badly. So my body really just hurt for months and months. Screens don't hurt me as much as they did with the concussion, screens were just painful. So that one was just rest and rest and rest and rest somewhere and no stimulation. Don't even listen to a book. Nothing at all.
Melissa Gough 19:13
Wow! How long did that sort of timeframe take place before you started to feel you are able to do some activities again?
Julie Kuch 19:21
I still work on pacing myself. It's challenging to slow down, isn't it and then it comes back to bite you when you don't recover, and that's a lesson that I continually learn with myself to slow down. That's something I request my clients to want to do. So months, a year probably if I were to say, you know, it's like about a year. I don't know if you're like this, Melissa, but I kind of want to dismiss a lot of my symptoms or pretend like I'm confused. Like, I don't know, I'm irritable. I don't know why that person is bugging me.
Melissa Gough 19:21
Yeah.
Julie Kuch 19:21
I don't know why. I'm like, Oh, well, maybe it's because I'm not recovered.
Melissa Gough 19:29
Yes, your reels and snippets have certainly helped me and continue to help me. In one of your posts you described,it's really vital that we should schedule in recovery time for each day while recovering or even still living with a brain injury, and it's so important. This will help you make good choices for the things that are most important for your day. That was one lovely nugget of information that I still now do my best to do. Okay, well, if I've got this, I'm going to need a break between here, or if I've got to do this instead, or I've got this coming up, I need to really take it easier the day before. I also feel like people with brain injuries and concussion or recovering with stroke, it's vital. But I think this is just great information for everyone to have about how to be present and how to pace themselves in their everyday life.
Julie Kuch 20:44
It is really challenging because there's that little guy in your brain that says Go Go Go Go Go doo doo doo doo, you'll feel very accomplished, and you'll feel like your value is more because you got so much done on this day. That's all a bunch of baloney! Right! Like none of that, your value can't change, it doesn't matter how much stuff you get done, your value is set as being a human being on this earth, you can't do anything to change that, for better or for worse. So when I know that my value cannot change, I don't have the power to make it go up or down. I took so much noise and garbage out of my head because it doesn't matter what I get done in a day, it doesn't matter. It truly does not make a difference.
So right now, my schedule, Mondays and Fridays, nothing on the calendar, zero on the calendar, that works for my brain feels so good. Just having two days during the week, my kids get off to school, and I have nothing. I've been really good about keeping nothing on those days. I have stuff today, but tomorrow's Friday, and I can do whatever I want, I can do nothing. It feels so liberating to have two full days. Even today, it was about an hour before my kids got home, and I was like, well, I could do that thing. But I thought probably what's best for me is just to meditate for the next 20 minutes.
Melissa Gough 21:58
Beautiful.
Julie Kuch 21:59
You know, there's that like the angel and the devil on your shoulders like no, no, just relax and meditate, no, get the stuff done! I'm getting a lot better about listening to the angel that's like, meditate, you're gonna feel better, you're gonna show up better as a mom, you're going to be more patient, you're going to be kind, you're not going to be snappy. So I did, I went in my closet and shut the door and sat on my meditation pillow, and did that for 20 minutes. And that, that's rest. To me. It feels like rest.
Melissa Gough 22:23
That's so good. So what was the moment we thought I needed to turn this into something, what led you to the coaching?
Julie Kuch 22:33
Gosh, Melissa, I had so much pain and suffering. That first stroke, that was not necessary, and I didn't know it until I became a life coach. Even when I became a life coach, I wasn't sure who I was going to help. I wasn't focused on brain injuries. I still wasn't totally clear about my brain injury at that point yet, but I thought about it, you know, I had thought about it. I definitely had a big heart for people with brain injuries, but I still was working through my brain injury, and I wasn't quite in a place to be able to feel like I'm on the other side of this. So after the concussion in 2020, that's when I really started to go, okay, to brain injuries.
Melissa Gough 23:13
The universe is trying to tell me something.
Julie Kuch 23:15
Yes, yes, there is a fire inside of me. I am so passionate about helping people because now I'm like, I'm going to do this the easier way, I'm going to do this the way I want my clients to do it. I'm going to do this, the way that's graceful and with love instead of shame and embarrassment and frustration. I don't want to have any more brain injuries. Please God! You know what I mean? I'm good, but I gotta use what I've been given, these lemons, what should I do with the lemons? Well, I'm just going to make some lemonade. That’s what I'm going to do, okay, and I'm going to see if it sticks. If it sticks and people want to hire me and they want help, then I'll keep doing it. So far that's been the case, that people want help, and they need it. They need to hear someone like me say there's no bad days, there's only recovery days, and I'm better than before my brain injury and they're like, "What are you talking about!" I'm like, it's true, I believe it to my core! I am better than before, and there's no bad days! There's no bad days, I'm recovering today! My brain needs all the energy, so it looks like I'm taking everything off the calendar and I'm laying in bed and taking a nap for five hours!
Melissa Gough 24:22
I love the fact that you're turning it into something for yourself and for other people, and I can hear the passion in your voice. One thing that is part of Julie's philosophy with her coaching is there's three main points that she wants you to achieve, to change the story of your painful past into a story of empowerment and strength so that you can stop being stuck. You can love and accept your present self and stop hating yourself and you can create a future you can look forward to with hope and excitement instead of dread and fear. They are such strong, powerful tools to teach someone. Probably out of all of them, the third one is the one where I question a lot. Well, what's my future going to look like? What am I going to be able to do? And to also probably let go of trying to control what that's going to look like and to be present is something that I'm working on.
Julie Kuch 25:11
Yeah. It's crazy how the brain, when you have a brain injury, goes, I guess it's all over, I guess doom and gloom from here on out. Your future is just horrible, you know. The brain does that to protect us from, like, leaving the cave, and, you know, getting eaten by a sabre toothed tiger or something. It's very misguided, and it doesn't actually know what's best for us. So I really work hard with my clients so that they can manage their thoughts and manage their brain, and they can create a future for themselves. Because listen, the future is unknown, anybody's property, anybody owns it. So you can decide what you want to make of it, you can go, my life is ruined, because I had these brain injuries or this brain injury. Or you can think, Okay, I have this brain injury, what do I want to make that mean about me? What do I want to make that mean about my future? It doesn't take away our agency to have a brain injury, you know, we still have our agency, we get to decide. When we come from a place of victimhood, it leaves us in a very powerless place.
Melissa Gough 26:09
So, true. So you had another stroke back in January this year, 2022. What happened there?
Julie Kuch 26:20
Yeah. So I had just arrived at a client's home. She has had several brain injuries, and that's left her about 95% blind. I go to her home, because she obviously can't drive. I walked in, and I felt kind of dizzy and different and confused. I tried to act normal for a long time, I kind of leaned against the wall as I was walking into her house, and I sat there and I just wasn't quite myself. I could tell I was really trying hard to make sense of what she was saying, and it just wasn't working. Then I got a headache between my eyebrows, and right then in my heart, I was like, I'm having a stroke, I'm having a stroke! For me to go from denial from the first stroke to being sitting on her couch and saying, I need to go to the emergency room right now, because something is not right, and I think I'm having a stroke! Of course, I knew now, I didn't know what I didn't know, butI know it now.
I got a ride to the ER, and it's so funny because the first one, they said, "hey, we're gonna just do a CAT Scan on you." I said, listen, I've had a stroke, you're not gonna be able to see in the CAT scan, you should just go ahead and do an MRI. It was a total contrast, because I started advocating for myself right there. Eventually, they did an MRI and they saw that it was a stroke, and they put me in an ambulance and took me to a hospital that could serve my needs better. I got in there, and as the guy was kind of putting my blood pressure armband on and my heart monitor on, I looked at him and said, Hey, listen, I just want you to know, I'm the perfect person to have a stroke. He's like, "sure you are!" (chuckles).
Melissa Gough 27:55
Sure lady! The medications kicked in, and I'm gonna get a spray of whatever is gonna come out of my mouth. Here it comes!
Julie Kuch 28:01
This is gonna be an interesting hour. He's probably thinking as we ride down to the hospital, I was being sincere. I know, it sounds crazy! But I'd already gone through with the acceptance. I'd already known how it was going to recover. I mean, I didn't know how but I knew that I would. So it was just such a contrast to tell this cute guy, but he's like watching me go on, saying, I'm the perfect person for this!
Melissa Gough 28:21
Sure. I can imagine the handover as he's turned up to the hospital. He's like, good luck with this one, guys! She's coming out with all sorts! It's a great story. So you do automatically have a chuckle to it. But through that story, as well as the strength and the resilience and the determination, you're going, okay, well, I can do this. I'm going to let everyone know that I can do this.
Julie Kuch 28:40
It was much easier because I accepted help this time. When someone said, Can I bring food to your family? Can I make your family a meal? I said absolutely. I need help. You know, a great part of recovery for me is that I accepted help from others. Can we take your kids here? Yes! Can I take over and just assign drivers for your kids to get places? Yes, you can. No shame, no embarrassment, fully accepting what is, and accepting my symptoms. I couldn't drive. I couldn't make any food. I couldn't clean my house. So just go yeah, you're gonna clean that toilet. Okay. Do it! Thank you!
Melissa Gough 29:14
I love the fact how you've talked about the journey of advocating and you do again, a fantastic post. I'm an educator, so I've stood in a classroom where we've had to advocate, but now like you say, our journey is we also have to advocate for ourselves. We would not hesitate to stand up for our own child, or a child with autism or a child with an invisible disability or an invisible injury who needed certain resources to support their learning or to help them navigate through their environment. A brain injury, or TBI or concussion is also invisible. So sit down and ask yourself, am I also advocating for my own needs? How am I feeling? Am I saying to others, this is how I'm feeling and this is what I may need. I love the fact that you've used that analogy because people can resonate, needing to be the words and support for a child.
I loved the way that you made this connection that, hey, sit and reflect on that for a moment, maybe write down, am I truly advocating for myself? Am I saying how I am feeling and it is okay to say how I'm feeling, and it is okay to ask for help. Because like you, I'm an independent person, I pride myself on my independence, but I had to really surrender that I had people coming to dress me, I had people making my bed, and that was big for me, that was huge for me. I had to totally surrender to that. So you've given really great examples about the advocating, which is really appreciated, and I'm going to say to everyone, please check out Julie's page, check out all the valuable tools that she puts on there, they're just little nuggets of great resources that you can bring into everyday life.
Julie Kuch 30:55
Thank you, Melissa, that's very sweet of you. My heart is full of love and compassion and grace for everyone recovering from suffering, working through any sort of invisible injury, especially the brain injuries. Yes, absolutely. Advocate for yourself, sometimes our brain is not well enough to advocate for ourselves, yeah, sometimes you're just not there. Just keep on giving yourself grace, but when you can do it. If you would love a child enough to advocate for them, learn to love yourself enough to advocate for you.
Melissa Gough 31:24
So true, so true. Now, I'm also going to lean into the support you've had. You mentioned earlier in the interview, your husband, who's the best thing that's happened to you, as you described, your first stroke, you had two children, and now you've got five children. You've got a community of people who turn up to help turn up to support and you also embrace it. Can you tell us how that journey has been? When did the other kids come along, after the stroke?
Julie Kuch 31:57
It's been, for sure, a learning experience for both me and my husband, because you just don't know what you don't know. So I had my first two, and then shortly after that, the first stroke, when I was 30, I got pregnant with my third child. Then I took a break, because I couldn't really take great care of those kids, you know, or I felt like I couldn't. I waited about four years to have more kids, and I had my daughter, Ava, and she's eight years old now, and my son CJ, who is six, and I just love it. I have a senior in high school right now that's going to graduate from high school and go to college next year, and I also have a kindergartner. So I have the whole spectrum of kids, and I just love it so much. I still was able to luckily make my dreams happen and have more children after that first stroke. It's been a learning process for them too. I could feel bad and guilty and sad that they've had a mother that has had brain injuries. I haven't always shown up as the version of me that I would like to, but I have to realise that's also part of their journey. To learn from me from my weaknesses from my brain injuries, and for whatever reason it's serving and helping them as well.
They're not victims, either. They're empowered, and they have so much more knowledge about people that have depression and anxiety and brain injuries. I hear them talk and I'm just so proud of them, because they have an understanding that you can't get from a textbook, you can't learn that anywhere else. I've learned so much my husband has learned so much. He's already just naturally a very patient, non judgmental, understanding human being. "You know, I'm going to tell you, Julie, there's something that bothers me about you." I said, oh, what is it? He says, "I just think that you should just rest more and just relax," you know, which is very kind and loving. Because we have five kids, we got lots going on. For my husband, the thing that bothers me is that you just need to relax and rest more and just take it easy. It's very loving and caring. I got the winning lottery ticket when it came to my spouse, who was very understanding and very loving towards all of this. All I know is that doesn't happen with everybody.
Melissa Gough 34:07
No. What a credit you all are to each other, and it's so beautiful to hear that. Would you say at times, it's also brought you closer together?
Julie Kuch 34:16
Yes, absolutely. As they've seen me struggle and figure things out, I've been transparent with them. Like, I can't think of the right word, you guys, what's that word? I can't make dinner, you know, so they've had to step up their game as well, and I feel like they've learned to give me grace. I feel like when you give other people grace, it also in turn, gives you an opportunity to give yourself grace. So yes, we've learned a lot and I talk with them about it.
I talk with them about my day. I talk with them about brain injuries and what I'm going through and it's valuable information for them.
Melissa Gough 34:50
Sure is. You also talked, that you're a woman of strong faith, when you went through what you went through. Did it make you question your faith? Did it make you challenge your thinking, or did you feel, okay this is obviously part of the journey my faith wants me to experience?
Julie Kuch 35:08
That's a really good question. I was confused at God, I was really confused. Like I said earlier, like, I think you've made a mistake here. So I was confused, and I would say angry. I never questioned my faith at all, I just was born with a lot of faith. So I'm not surprised about that, but how does this fit into my journey? That was my biggest question, how does this fit into my life journey? Because I actually had a plan for my life, and this is not it at all. Like, this is not it. It was really hard for me to change routes, right? I'm driving this road, and I'm supposed to be on this route, and then my car goes, and it goes this way. I'm going, No, no, no, I'm supposed to be on that highway, not this highway. What's going on here? So that was the hardest part for me. If anything, I feel like my faith helped me to get through this. I felt like I had, I mean, I did have a bad temper, especially for that first stroke when I didn't know how to manage my strong emotions, and I would yell at my cute little kids, when they were just playing or fighting.
I thought that they were in charge of my emotions, and so I would yell at them to calm down, and then I would feel horrible. I remember just praying, like, I don't want to be that kind of mum that yells at her kids, I don't want to be the kind of mom that thinks it's other people's problems, when I don't feel well, and that I have to yell to gain control of the situation. With my faith, my temper did simmer down a lot. I also feel very directed and guided to learn all these coaching skills as well, I feel like I wouldn't have done it had I not had a stroke. These skills that I have as a life coach will have a ripple effect not just to my life, but my kids and my clients and my clients, families and their friends. I mean, the ripple effect is beautiful. So I do see God's hand in it.
Melissa Gough 35:19
I'm just a little fish in your big pond of the ripple effect. I wouldn't have met you if I hadn't gone through this myself. I think one thing that I can say is on my road of recovery, the people that I'm meeting, the people that I'm interviewing, I would never have met, had this not happened. That's probably where I'm finding those gifts in the amazing humans that are out there really creating a difference, and I feel richer for it.
Julie Kuch 37:20
That's beautiful, Melissa, that's really great.
Melissa Gough 37:28
So, I've got one more question that I'm going to ask. The name of this podcast is called The Brain Game Changer: where heartfelt stories, awareness and education can change the game. If there's one vital piece of information or that golden ticket, that golden nugget of advice, what would you like someone to take away from this conversation today?
Julie Kuch 37:43
Oh, that's a really good question. I would like everyone who listens to Melissa's wonderful podcast to have a little more grace with themselves. If you think about what grace is, it's giving yourself kindness, it's giving yourself an allowance, it's being gentle with yourself. It's not being so hard on yourself. A lot of people think that if I'm just hard on myself, and if I power through, I'm gonna get better. That doesn't seem to be the case yet. I haven't found anybody that it works for. I have found that when people show themselves some grace, some kindness and forgiveness, some allowances that their recovery gets better than they do so much better. And they show up in their world as a kinder human being. Grace recovers people, Grace helps you to be kind to yourself. There's lots of roads to travel with recovery. Honestly, the best one is love, which is a version of grace. If you are on the road to recovery, and that's paved with love. It's going to be a beautiful recovery. I'm not saying it's not going to be hard, but it's not going to be pushing against the grain, it's going to be more natural, it's going to be more effortless than doing it on a road with hurrying and rushing and frustration and anger. So you're just going to feel so much better, and you're going to love the version of yourself on the other side of this.
Melissa Gough 39:04
Julie, that is just beautifully said, very poignant, and please take that away with you today, once you've heard this. Julie, thank you so much for being with us today.
Julie Kuch 39:13
Thank you, Melissa, I've loved being here with you.
Melissa Gough 39:17
Thank you for listening to this episode, and I hope you found the show really valuable. If you'd like to learn more about the podcast, our guests and the topics we discuss, please head over to our Instagram page @thebraingamechanger, and make sure to subscribe and tick those five stars so you never miss an episode. In the meantime, continue embracing those game changing moments. Have a great week and see you again soon. Take care.
