Remember Me: How my soul connection with animals helped me recover from a severe brain injury by Linda Nija Nations is the author's memoir of the aftermath of a fall from Sestina (later reverting to the original name Rose), a beloved horse, that resulted in a traumatic, life altering injury. Nations' story highlights how this damage, which had her learning how to walk and talk again, cost her friends, family, her marriage, and altered every facet of her day to day living. Despite this, she found a unique source of hope, help, and inspiration: guardian angels in spirit, human, and animal form. Nations was able to connect with the animal guides on a level that most would have trouble grasping, let alone conferring with, but through love, compassion, and mutual respect, a world unknown to all but a special few revealed itself to Nations and brought her more than just physical healing.
Remember Me by Linda Nija Nations might be a memoir, but it reads more like an absorbing novel. For me, the most beautiful story (of many told) is the one of her connection to Barney, an abused horse who was able to convey the offenses against him through a "photo" projected to Nations. This enabled her to let Barney's new human companion, Candace, understand the full scope of what they were dealing with. Nations states, "The animals that allowed me to connect with them have been my teachers. Through them I have gained an immeasurable understanding of their nature." The healing she embraced for herself as well as the animals and people who surround her lend weight to her story. I would absolutely recommend this book to all animal lovers, individuals who are overcoming hardships, and anyone interested in a beautiful tale of survival.
Nothing is as riveting, nor compelling, nor enlightening to a heightened understanding of our own existence as listening to a survivor tell about their restoration from major brain damage. Linda Nija Nations, in her highly personal and touching memoir, Remember Me, adds to the automatic interest stirred by such a devastating event (caused by falling from a horse) with a fascinating adjunct to her own long-term recovery: a life-altering new ability to connect with and understand animals - their messages, their guidance, and the meaning their own lives have for humans. Lest this sound too "flaky" or "new-agey," keep in mind that the author possesses pre-fall, real-world, professional credentials to establish credibility and competence in assessing the nature of her own restoration. She is also candid and forthright in her telling. And besides, "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio .."
Linda Nija Nations' own explanation for her new connection comes quickly in Remember Me: that she is forced by her severe condition to live exclusively in the moment, something wisdom seekers strive relentlessly to do, and that animals by their very nature already do. A more immediate, non-verbal comprehension occurs in such a state that allows for direct communication between those in it. But this part of Ms. Nations' immensely readable account is not the meat of what she has to say. As the reader begins to live the author's renewable life, she comes to sense and understand much deeper revelations about what it means to be alive, to have identity, to have relationship to other beings, to access conscious choice for creating change; all things most of us fail to appreciate but still rely on for establishing our own worlds. Including, of course, those of any species who might be here to help.
Within seven months after suffering a TBI (traumatic brain injury), Linda Nija Nations learned to be in the world again leaning on the care and concern of her beloved pets, along with her encounters with wild animals.
Many years a skillful psychotherapist with a thriving practice, Linda Nations in April 1997 fell from her horse and suffered a violent hit to her head requiring a craniotomy to drain two hematomas. After that she found herself so altered physically and psychologically that she could barely walk; plus, she found it difficult to operate on more than one mindful task at a time. She has published a memoir highlighting seven and a half years of her life, during which time many of her friends and close associates, including her husband, unable to adjust to the new Linda, abandoned her.
Though she was radically altered, through time and patience, and with the help of several of her closest friends, she managed to survive. Her memoir tells how her consciousness shifted so acutely that she was able to connect (and communicate) more intimately with her animal companions, including animals in the wild.
The first half of her memoir details her immediate recovery in Colorado. Then four years later she makes a move to Arkansas to fashion a new way of being, this time surrounded by people who knew nothing of her injury. This change allowed her the opportunity to explore different ways to thrive, to gain confidence and competence. After three years, having cultivated her new self, she returned to Colorado to once again practice her chosen profession of psychotherapy, an activity she was told she would never again perform.
Readers’ Favorite, a professional book review organization, one of its readers giving the memoir a 5-Star rating, declared: “Nothing is as riveting, nor compelling, nor enlightening to a heightened understanding of our existence as listening to a survivor tell about [his or her] restoration from major brain damage … [which allowed Linda] a [new] ability to connect with and understand animals — their messages, their guidance, and the meaning their own lives have for humans. Lest this sound too "flaky" or "new-agey," keep in mind that the author’s pre-fall, real-world, professional credentials establish [the necessary] credibility and competence in assessing the nature of her restoration.”
Linda’s goal in writing this memoir is to help those who have experienced a traumatic brain injury and their families. To help those who have PTSD; to encourage those who wish to relate their own life-altering experiences in writing; and to emphasize the importance of animals to all humans by declaring they are sentient beings, capable of a form of rational thinking, whose consciousness is greater than our Westernized thinking has previously allowed. The reader will come away with a new understanding of overcoming adversity, how to thrive, and how to appreciate being in the moment: the place where we as a species should all be to be aligned with our “horizontal brethren,” as John Muir once called the animals.
Because of the things learned on this journey, Linda now strives to help others overcome similar adversity. She has a successful animal communication and life-coaching business, where she works tirelessly to help her pet-owner clients understand their animal companions better and to empower her coaching clients as they strive to reach their life goals. Her memoir "Remember Me" is to be officially launched in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on April 28, 2018, at an RSVP-required event from 3 to 7 p.m. Please use the contact information below to RSVP.
