Lyena Strelkoff
In this profound and touching hundredth episode of "All The Wiser," we sit down with Lyena Strelkoff, a storyteller, artist, and spiritual counselor. Lyena shares her story of healing, acceptance, and discovering unexpected magic after she was paralyzed from the waist down after falling from a tree while climbing for fun. Through her one-woman show that extended from three weekends to a six-month run, Lyena has touched the lives of many, empowering them to see their own strength mirrored in her narrative. She offers listeners a window into the authentic and complex experiences of living with paralysis, the power of storytelling, and the universal truths about our shared humanity. Join us for a conversation that celebrates resilience, courage, and the beauty nestled within life's harshest trials.
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In this episode:
Embracing Life Beyond Control
Navigating Spiritual Transformation
Harnessing the Power of Storytelling
Cultivating Radical Acceptance
Exploring the Impact of Personal Crisis
Guiding Others Through Their Spiritual Journey
LINKS & RESOURCES:
Website: lanternsoulcare.com
Facebook: Lyena Strelkoff
Charity: Canine Companions
WISE WORDS:
I was always respected and admired but I had nobody to eat lunch with. I didn't know how to have authentic, intimate, real relationships. I knew how to take care of people. I was really good at that, but I didn't realize I was dying of loneliness.
I was always looking for where things might go wrong. I was always trying to control how my life unfolded. And it's very hard to live a life when you're trying to keep your hands on all of it to make sure that nothing goes somewhere you don't expect and nothing goes somewhere bad.
I couldn't put myself out there at all because I just had no idea where things were going to go. If I did that, it felt much too risky. So my career was stalled and this relationship was falling apart. I don't know that I would say I was chronically depressed, but I was sort of in and out of depressions and they could last months and months ultimately because I was anxious.
I couldn't let myself live. And that was really depressing. It was really depressing to feel separated from life like that.
This is the moment where the magic really begins. 22 years later, it still makes me cry because in that moment I realized that I had a choice that I could fight to control what was happening. Exactly as I had done all through my life in every different circumstance, or I could do the thing I had been longing for, certainly my entire adult life, which is I could let go.
I don't know if it's because I was just so tired of trying to hold the world together, my world together, or if it's because it's really easy to let go when you are absolutely sure there's nothing you can do. But in that moment, I made a very conscious choice and I surrendered to falling and everything changed.
It occurred to me that maybe I should pray, that this is the kind of situation that people pray in, whether or not they believe in something they're praying to. Then that seemed ridiculous because to pray, I would have to pretend that I was alone. That this presence, source, spirit, God, goddess, whatever you want to call it, wasn't there. Then I would pray and ask to be held and taken care of and it was there. We were one. So there was no need to ask for that. I was already held.
So this acupuncturist came and did what they do, listened to my pulses and, and said your effort to control everything about your experience is like clogging up all of your organs. Like you are making yourself sick. And I realized then that I was going to have to allow my authentic experience, that whatever my intentions were for recovery, I had to get real. And that meant allowing my grief.
L: That was among the hardest things that I had to face, not being able to dance in the way that I was used to. I also had some of the best dances of my life in my chair, but it's.
K: Well, that was your form of expression.
L: It was my form of everything. It was exercise. It was church. It was expression. It was how I found myself again. It was how I processed my emotions. It was therapy. It was everything. It was everything. And to have the impulse to move and not be able to move was maddening and crushing. Absolutely crushing.
Everybody struggles and everybody grieves and experiences loss. Everybody has challenges and everybody feels shame and everybody's scared and everybody loves and wants to be loved.
If you had asked me seconds before I was paralyzed, if I could survive or thrive or be okay as a person with paralysis, I would have been utterly sure that I could not.
That if you take away my ability to dance, if you take away my ability to have sex normally and to feel all of those feelings, if you take away my ability to climb and to run and to hike in the woods, if you take away the things that matter the most to me, that bring me the most joy, I would have been certain that I could never recover, that I would never be happy, that it would devastate me forever, that my life would be unworth living. And I would have been completely wrong.