The Brain Knows: Reprogramming Our Healing Story

Simply Flava | Lady Flava Reflections from the Front Desk and the Heart

There’s something powerful about watching the mind and body work together — and just as powerful when you see them fall out of sync. I’ve spent years in healthcare — six of those at Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Las Vegas — surrounded by people rebuilding themselves after strokes, heart attacks, and major surgeries.

When you work in that kind of place long enough, you start to recognize who’s going to walk out the door again and who might never make it home. It’s not always about the procedure or the prognosis. It’s about the will. I’ve seen people whose bodies were broken, but their minds were sharp, determined, and unwilling to surrender. And I’ve seen others whose spirits had quietly decided it was time to let go — their bodies just followed suit.

That kind of discernment comes from living and paying attention. My daddy knew it too. He used to say, “If you take me to that hospital, I won’t come back.” And he was right. He understood something medicine couldn’t measure — that the mind has its own timetable, its own authority.

J’s momma reminded me of that this week. She waited — waited to celebrate her birthday, waited for her daughter and husband to go out of town — and then she let go. That’s not coincidence. That’s knowing.

Now I work in the Swedish Neuroscience Institute Neurosurgery Department, and I see the other side of the same truth every day. People recovering from brain and spine surgeries, bodies stitched and wired back together — and still, it’s their mindset that determines how far they’ll go. I’ve lived it myself. Last year’s pain felt endless. This year, after injections and a mental shift, I’m moving with less pain and more gratitude.

Science calls it neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to rewire itself, to adapt, to heal. But I just call it faith in motion. The way we think, what we believe, how we speak over ourselves — that’s the real treatment plan.

We are always programming or reprogramming our own story.

And I’m learning to choose the version that leads me back to life.