Well, it's been over two years since I was able to stand on stage and share the story of transformation I called, "He Hit Me Happy": Overcoming Injury.  Considering one in three people who experience what I went through choose to end their own lives by suicide, I'm one of the lucky ones.  Life may have taken a three-year detour, but I'm back on track, sharing my gifts as planned, now with a powerful experience to bolster my work.  Making my healing journey available to the public is a triumph for which I am extremely grateful.  You can watch the video embedded at the bottom of this post or on the home page. Feel free to send me an e-mail about your story, comment below or at YouTube.  Stay tuned for opportunities to join a movement to share your stories as a healing art!
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December 18, 2017:

To the stranger who punched me in the eyebrow with a flashlight, sending me into five years of rehabilitation for a traumatic brain injury:

I forgive you.
I have found the blessings in the challenges, including a career serving others, that I can work towards over the next two years. I am grateful to the state of Michigan for supporting me through this crisis.

May you find peace.
In love and light,
Kristy

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Augugst 2017:
Smile

Will you answer? I am a person reaching out my hand... Here's an opportunity to walk your talk with a button click... You probably don't know me, but let me start with a couple of questions: Would you be there if I called your name? And who would answer your request, even if they didn't understand? Please comment below, tag your loved ones, and even those you don't love but could use a smile!!! Better yet, watch my attached YouTube video and comment there if you would like others to courageously share their stories.

Ever since a recent conversation with a new Kalamazoo neighbor inspired an extreme simplification of my life purpose, I have been happy again. My faith in hope and strength carried me to this day of re-membering freedom and joy.

Something I never would have thought would bring me joy is now a tool of making someone smile each day: Facebook. And even more surprising, I click that little button of recommendations and my customized news feed is instantly a life coach.

Of course, I have been intending to use the platform as a 'positive media blog'... getting back to my passion for writing, sharing and empowering.

I wore myself out having loads of fun this month, (mostly trying to work again for a few days, a year too soon, but I couldn't help it! I loathe being unproductive.); and so I've reached a day of intensive self care. It's time to review the miracle of my rehabilitation, the transformation of recovery, the magic of kind support.

As much as my struggles led me to want to give up, I didn't let my demoralization turn me into a victim. I saw the opportunity for the transformation of a lifetime and I paddled as hard as I could, looking for anyone who would pick up an oar and also travel forward. I choose trust. Again; and again; and again.

The people I appreciate the most in my life are the ones who allow me to change; they don't keep me tied to a past that no longer fits. In my case, following a traumatic brain injury, I am quite literally not the same person. I still look for the blessings in the challenges, and that habit helped me enjoy the process of reinventing mySelf -- a gentler, more accepting self. What's so is simply what's so; gone is the need to control the outcomes.

For a while, I had no instructions about how to become my Self again. Inside of a long-lasting crisis of identity, is a scary world in which to live. The fact that I survived the year following thirteen months of Post Concussive Syndrome (PCS) is a miracle, as far as I'm concerned. You see, they say that only 2 out of 3 in my situation choose to say no to the easy out of suicide.

I have faced, head-on, the growth offered by depression since I was in high school. I even attempted suicide as a cry for help. It was quite a different story the week after I came back to self awareness following PCS. When I realized the desperation of my life, I most definitely did not want it.

For an entire week, I was cleaning up my affairs to say goodbye. It hit like a light bulb that no one even knew anything was wrong with me. I lived alone in the country, self-employed. And, the nature of a brain injury is such that no one who knew me, not even myself, could tell anything was different for those thirteen months. Of course, I didn't know that I didn't know.

As luck would have it, I lived in the state of Michigan, which has done an exemplary job of using the Reagan-era psychiatric institution shut-down block-grants. Within one week of learning about three pilot programs that could help, I had moved an hour away.

It turns out that the disease model now recognizes that addicts have brain malfunctions that are not all that different from PTSD and traumatic brain injury survivors. Having spent two years side by side with those in recovery from substances and mental illness has given me a new affinity for the disadvantaged, the disabled.

I am disabled and I am proud that I utilized the resources of my government to make the long climb back to a semblance of productivity. It only took three years. Even doctors attribute my fast rehabilitation, (which will never actually be over), to my ability to tap the available resources. Of course, fifteen years of studying mindfulness and holistic health provided an advantage.

So many don't know how to ask for support. We, mere strangers, must help. The best way is to be present and kind, have a conversation based in love and genuine curiosity, with a desire to connect with our family of fellow human beings. You can't know what another is going through unless you ask. Compassion is key.

We all deserve respect. Love the lonely. Make someone smile every day!

There is a time and a place for looking back, to grasp the lessons, commit to a vision of evolution, and reconcile oneself to the actions of upliftment. The time is now!

So, do me a favor -- I'm calling your name; Comment below with a request for support, an offer to comfort a stranger, a promise, a plea, an inspiration, a gratitude... this opportunity to dialog is as boundless as the possibilities ahead on our paths. Travel light.
Jump off the cliff and build your wings as you soar.
#LiveAsAWorkOfArt

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September 2016:

To those of you whom have expressed compassion for my situation, when the tribal response is to reject the weak with a heavy dose of social stigma... THANK YOU for your generosity!

I can literally feel my brain reorganizing, forming new pathways as I intentionally expand my capacity to process information. Brain science has always been a passion of mine. It has been rewarding to experience profound triumph.

Sitting at a computer, I'm using the long-ago-very-familiar Microsoft Excel, for the first time since an assault and battery led to a hard-reset of my brain cognition over three years ago. For a few months now, I have had a return of the executive function of the higher brain pre-frontal cortex.

After a long climb, I can again do some of the same things I could do before a brain injury/post concussive syndrome/PTSD. The difference is, everything I do is WAAAAAAAY slower than before.

The benefits are obvious; I am more calm than ever before, having reached a vantage of acceptance out of necessity for survival. I am grateful to have remembered to be curious and forgiving, fundamentals for a peaceful existence.

Please comment at below, or on my Facebook Page: www.LifeCraft.us

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November 2015:
View a short video about transformation by Kristy Jo Putnam - "He Hit Me Happy": Overcoming a Physical Injury - A long-term student of holistic wellness, with a traditional background in finance, Kristy Putnam is the manager of Peacock Place Vacation Rental in Harbert.

Tired of feeling sick and tired, almost two decades ago, I started a quest for how to naturally heal from chronic illness.  So many common symptoms are dismissed by Western Medicine, or worse, covered over with pharmaceuticals.  I was committed to finding a different path to being comfortable in my body.

My health pilgrimage driving across the United States for over five years in my home on wheels introduced me to all sorts of new ideas.  The country is full of people who want to feel better, body, mind and soul.  To my surprise, I landed for five years in NYC, the hub of cutting edge health information.  I made a career as a wellness practitioner, coaching others in the diverse methods I discovered, calling my business LifeCraft. 

A few years after moving home to the Midwest, beginning in 2014, a whole lot of life happened.  Following a head injury to my eyebrow from a random act of violence, I survived thirteen months of Post Concussive Syndrome.  In the next years of physical and mental therapy, I rebuilt my life, my memory and my identity.

Recently relearning the knowledge of so many healing arts puts me in a unique position to assist beginners.  As I swim through the chaos of conflicting information, years of memories resurface.  My intuition is confirmed by reexamining the experiments of my past and by the support of colleagues in health research. 

As I begin a new quest to cleanse my body and purify my mind, I will share insights, struggles and triumphs.  To overcome generations of confusion and dis-ease, I will slowly head towards a diet of low-sugar fruits and non-starchy vegetables. 

I invite you along on my journey of transformation.  Together, we can heal and Live As A Work Of Art!