Saturday, August 1, 2009

Brain Injury Survivor Travels Around the World

...... Ken Aitken ..... The Restored Man ......
..... To illustrate in Real Practical Ways that there
is Real Restoration after even a very

Severe Brain Injury After Fourteen Years ....























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The New Travel Blog For Ken and Harriet Aitken

Are You A Brain Injury Survivor or a Brain Injury Thriver?

I had a severe brain injury falling off a boogie-board in shallow water in the surf at Peregian Beach on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia in December 1995 .... as simple as that. This was over twelve years ago.

Even though I have had a severe brain injury … I have moved from seeing myself and others as brain injury survivors to seeing the possibility of being brain injury thrivers. The outworking of this life is told in my recent story ‘The Rosewater Story' at this Website.

I went through a real transformation of life whereby:

TRANSFORMATION OF LIFE DIRECTION: With my brain injury, I went from being:


1.Outer Physical Gardener (Outer Sustainability) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

2. Inner Life Gardener (Inner Sustainability)

1. Outer Sustainability: In a gardening and agriculture sense ….. can certain practices be maintained….. is what you doing now preparing the way ahead for new life? It was a very difficult business in which to make money, mainly due to the very non-standard and the seasonal nature of the work. My former life was not sustainable ….. my creativity in my business couldn’t be standardised vs. a successful business needs to be like a biscuit cutter …. Making a few $$ off large numbers of components.
This side of the accident since I was hospital from 8th December 1996 to now, I have really discovered people in a big way. I have really come to value people, no matter who they are, what they do or say. I have developed a passion to build inner community with many people around the world especially by e-mail. As I am on a permanently paid holiday through my life-long Income Protection, I have time to spend with people in a way I never could do in my busy business.


2. Inner Sustainability: In an ongoing personal sense …. Can your life be maintained to? ….. is what you doing now preparing the way ahead for new life? I have also discovered the significance of the Inner and Outer Life. Sustainability I have come to see, has to be a wholistic view on life of Inner, Middle and Outer Persons. Problems come because things do not change from the Outside to Inside but from the Inside to the Outside.

An International Perspective: With the freedom of life we have and having no mortgage on our five acres of land plus house we built from recycled materials in 1981 for minimal money, Harriet and I have been travelling overseas every two years to see the world. In between we have been seeing parts of Australia which is a very large country. We are also a member of Wyndham Vacation Resorts Asia Pacific and because they are linked with Interval International, we have available free accommodation in 3 star apartments around the world. These are free of cost.

I believe there are three kinds of people in the world. I compare these people to how they would look at trees in a forest. They are:

1. There are those who see and count the physical trees in the forest .... all they see in the world is the physical things of life.

2. There are who those who see, observe and work with the spaces inbetween the physical trees in the forest .... all they see in the world is the spiritual and abstract things of life.

3. There are who those who count the physical trees in the forest but they also see, observe and work with the spaces inbetween the physical trees in the forest .... they see that you cannot have the spaces inbetween the physical trees without the actual trees .... they endeavour to live whole lives.

Harriet and I are of the third kind of people. When we go travelling, we see and value the physical realities that we are seeing but also the culture behind what we are seeing. We have a great love of history eg. when we were in France in May 2007, we spent a week in Paris, we hired a car and drove throughout Brittany for a week then we drove down through the Loire Valley for another week. See two of the places we saw: Josselin and Perros Guirec.

See my new Travel Blog at: http://travelblogkenandharriet.blogspot.com/

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