When the clock struck midnight on January 1st, 2021, most people were celebrating a fresh start. Jonathan, at just 35 years old, was unknowingly entering the most challenging chapter of his life. His speech had begun to slur, his head pulsed with pain he couldn’t explain, and within hours he was rushed to the hospital during the height of COVID restrictions.

That moment was the dividing line between the life he once knew and the life he would rebuild from the ground up.

This is a story about what hemorrhagic stroke patients recovery really looks like, the kind that forces you to confront who you used to be and decide who you’re going to become next.

Before everything changed, Jonathan was thriving. He worked in food science — a field he loved, filled with global imports, inspections, and ensuring food safety for the public. He enjoyed hiking, biking, dinners with friends, and a vibrant social life in the city.

He’d finally built independence, moved into his own space, and was exploring a new relationship.

His life had rhythm, structure, forward motion.

But as many survivors later recognize, stroke doesn’t appear at a convenient time. It arrives abruptly, often when everything seems stable. And for people seeking to understand hemorrhagic stroke patients recovery, this contrast before and after becomes a core part of the journey.

In the days before the stroke, something felt off. Jonathan experienced intense migraines, stronger and stranger than anything he’d felt before. But like so many young survivors, he didn’t recognize them as warning signs.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, his speech began to fall apart. Words wouldn’t line up. Sounds emerged out of order.

His girlfriend noticed instantly: something was horribly wrong.

In minutes, Jonathan went from preparing to welcome the new year to being rushed through hospital doors under strict pandemic protocols. He had no idea this day would reshape him forever.

Early symptoms often become the first chapter of hemorrhagic stroke patients recovery, because they reveal how quickly life can break open.

Doctors discovered an AVM — an arteriovenous malformation on the left side of Jonathan’s brain. It had ruptured, causing a hemorrhagic stroke.

The bleed had stopped on its own and even drained naturally, something his neurologists called miraculous.

Still, the damage was significant:

He heard the words “hemorrhagic stroke” and “AVM rupture,” but they didn’t make sense at the time. Many survivors describe this moment as surreal, as if the diagnosis is happening to someone else.

“When your own words disappear, your whole identity feels like it’s gone with them.”

After only seven days in the hospital, Jonathan was sent home in a wheelchair. There were no open rehabilitation centres, no inpatient programs, and no in-person speech therapy available.

Therapists arrived at his family home wearing full PPE, “like a movie scene.” Everything felt unreal.

All delivered at home, all while the world was shut down.

This is the reality for many navigating hemorrhagic stroke patients recovery during unpredictable times: healing becomes a collaboration between professionals, family, and faith.

The physical deficits were challenging, but the emotional costs cut deepest.

Jonathan lost:

Anger, sadness, frustration, and confusion were constant companions. These emotional injuries rarely show up on scans, but they shape recovery just as strongly as the physical ones.

And like many survivors, he wondered:

This is where recovery becomes something deeper than rehab. It becomes a reorientation of the self.

One of the most powerful moments in Jonathan’s story came when he realized he could walk again. And speak again. And see his family. And simply breathe.

He realized:

Gratitude is rarely the first emotion during a stroke recovery. But eventually, it becomes one of the most transformative.

Mindset is one of the greatest predictors of hemorrhagic stroke patients recovery, not because positivity fixes everything, but because a resilient mindset helps survivors keep trying even when the path is uncertain.

I’ve been there myself. When I experienced my strokes, I knew instantly that certain habits and patterns in my life had to change. Not because anyone told me to, but because something inside me shifted.

You begin to recognize what no longer serves you.

For Jonathan, faith became a compass. He studied scripture. He leaned into prayer. He found community in his church and mentorship in his pastor.

Whether someone practices religion or not, the principle is universal:

Faith, in its many forms, becomes a stabilizing force in chaos.

As Jonathan regained strength, he realized he wanted to give back.

He now supports survivors aged 20–80 in both English and Spanish, one of the most unique and powerful aspects of his journey.

The moment a survivor steps into service, their recovery deepens. Helping others expands meaning, connection, and purpose. I saw this in my own journey when I became a stroke advocate and launched this podcast.

Jonathan discovered a simple truth:

Visit:

In 2024, against all expectations, Jonathan got married. He started his own mentorship initiative for survivors, still volunteers across Canada, and continues to rebuild his life with clarity and gratitude.

His story is less about “getting back to normal” and more about discovering a new, purposeful version of himself.

Most importantly, your life didn’t end with your stroke — a new one began.

A young survivor’s journey shows what hemorrhagic stroke patients recovery can look like — courage, faith, and rebuilding life step by step.

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Highlights:

00:00 Introduction to Jonathan’s Journey

Transcript:

You may hear something in this journey that feels uncomfortably familiar and surprisingly reassuring. Now, before we get into it, I want to mention something quickly. Everything you hear, the interviews, the hosting, the editing, exists because listeners like you keep this going. When you visit patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke, you’re supporting my goal of recording a thousand episodes so no stroke survivor ever has to feel like they’re navigating this alone. And if you’re looking for something you can lean on,

throughout your recovery or while supporting someone you love, my book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened is available at recoveryafterstroke.com/book. It’s the resource I wish I had had when I was trying to find my way. All right, let’s dive into my conversation with Jonathan now. Jonathan Arevalo, welcome to the podcast.

Jonathan Arevalo (01:23)

Bill Gasiamis (01:26)

Jonathan Arevalo (01:31)

biology and also food sciences. And during that time is what led prior to my stroke, which was in January 1st, 2021.

Bill Gasiamis (02:14)

Jonathan Arevalo (02:24)

for the safety, the safety before it goes out to the public.

Bill Gasiamis (02:57)

Jonathan Arevalo (03:00)

Bill Gasiamis (03:11)

Jonathan Arevalo (03:26)

reading it and as well physically inspecting myself. Yeah.

Bill Gasiamis (04:01)

Jonathan Arevalo (04:08)

and starting like my own life differently. But everything went well until things started to change when it came to relationships and also work and also other things that came along with it over time.

Bill Gasiamis (04:58)

Jonathan Arevalo (05:07)

So different activities like that to stay active.

Jonathan Arevalo (05:52)

And that was leading prior to the stroke and starting the new year. so then pretty much like on the 31st, leading to January the 1st, was the moment that I had my stroke. And then my ex-girlfriend who I was with during that time, which is already almost five years,

⁓ she noticed that my speech was, was, was going off. I had a lot of slurs in my words. I was getting like very intense headaches and it just didn’t seem normal. So she started to question and ask me questions that didn’t, didn’t make sense. So she automatically ended up calling emergency and I got rushed, ⁓ through emergency to, the hospital.

starting the new year.

Bill Gasiamis (07:22)

Jonathan Arevalo (07:27)

Bill Gasiamis (07:30)

Jonathan Arevalo (07:34)

Bill Gasiamis (07:42)

Jonathan Arevalo (08:04)

Bill Gasiamis (08:26)

Jonathan Arevalo (08:49)

that it was also a first time experiencing having a stroke. But I do remember like certain scenarios of being picked up from paramedics and then being rushed to the hospital. And then from there, not that much what happened afterwards, are certain things that I’ve forgotten or it’s hard to remember.

Bill Gasiamis (09:46)

Jonathan Arevalo (10:04)

I was also transferred to another hospital since the hospital where I was at, didn’t have the adequate ⁓ neurologist and specialist for stroke. So I believe it was on the third day or something like that. I was taken to another hospital where they do have specialists, neurologists and all that related to stroke. So they took my case because it was something very important.

And at the same time, they didn’t understand how I survived it as well because it wasn’t just a stroke on the left side of my brain. They found that it was an AVM. So it’s called anterior venous malformation, which could be caused from childbirth. As you get older, it could start to develop where you really don’t know because it’s internal.

So what triggered it was an aneurysm that made it rupture.

Bill Gasiamis (11:43)

There’s no big company funding it, no medical organization covering the costs. It’s just me, a fellow survivor doing everything I can to make sure these episodes exist for the next person who wakes up after a stroke and has no idea what happens next. When you support the podcast, you’re making sure these conversations stay online. You’re helping cover hosting and production fees, and you’re making it possible for new survivors months or even years from now to find hope when they need it most.

talking to you on this podcast because I had one of those in my head on the right side, near the cerebellum and it bled for the first time in November, in February 2012 was the first time my one bled. ⁓ But ⁓ I had numbness on my left side, the entire left side for a whole week before I went to the hospital. And then when they scanned my head, they said, we found a…

a shadow on your brain. The shadow on my brain is the white part on the brain scan on the MRI that reveals the bleed and the bleed. The bleed was caused by this blood vessel, faulty blood vessel that they called an AVM that burst and then created a lot of trouble, right? And then the whole journey begins and then it’s just, you know, starting out. So,

with mine, eventually they removed it from my head with brain surgery. How did they rectify the bleed in your brain? What did they do to stop it bleeding?

Jonathan Arevalo (14:15)

Bill Gasiamis (14:19)

they do that. I was told that sometimes they stop on their own and they don’t have to take any further action. But with mine, it bled another two times and they had to have brain surgery. But with yours, luckily, it stopped bleeding on its own.

Jonathan Arevalo (14:34)

and see exactly how did it happen and at a young age and someone that’s healthy and doesn’t have a history of being in the hospital or anything such as that. So that was the miracle itself. So the neurologist ended up ⁓ with their team. They ended up having, I had an angiogram.

And the angiogram was done through the side of the groin that goes up to your head, which they tried to ⁓ detect exactly the AVM. And that’s how they were able to find only one specific one that ruptured.

Bill Gasiamis (15:53)

Jonathan Arevalo (16:11)

Yes, it is. was like an experience that it’s hard to explain, but I felt like electricity in my body. And I don’t know why I felt electricity in my body, but I felt like shocks in my brain or like fireworks. And I was thinking, what’s happening?

Bill Gasiamis (16:19)

Fireworks.

Jonathan Arevalo (16:47)

So like facial, facial expression, kind of like when you feel in pain or something like that, or you’re trying to say things. So I had a lot of difficulty for that period of time. And also, since it happened on the left side of my brain, on the opposite side from arm to leg, I had ⁓ difficulty with my mobility. And also with my memory, my memory was affected.

⁓ about a percentage amount. it was very hard ⁓ my first year. It was very difficult.

Bill Gasiamis (17:59)

was 37 when I had mine and you were 35.

Jonathan Arevalo (18:04)

Bill Gasiamis (18:07)

Jonathan Arevalo (18:21)

⁓ My sister was the only one that had communication with the doctors, with the nurses and any specialist when it came to my case.

Bill Gasiamis (19:02)

After surgery, after you woke up from hospital, the first seven days, you said the better week you’re in ⁓ that situation.

Jonathan Arevalo (19:17)

Bill Gasiamis (19:29)

Jonathan Arevalo (19:35)

Bill Gasiamis (19:59)

Jonathan Arevalo (20:08)

Bill Gasiamis (20:12)

Jonathan Arevalo (20:19)

As if they’re going to see someone who’s with a virus or something. So it was like watching a movie.

Bill Gasiamis (20:55)

Yeah, pretty crazy times. So you did get rehabilitation. They did ⁓ support you with therapy for speech and all that kind of stuff. ⁓ How long did all of those therapies last? Was it?

Jonathan Arevalo (21:16)

Bill Gasiamis (21:20)

Jonathan Arevalo (21:23)

Bill Gasiamis (21:29)

Jonathan Arevalo (21:34)

Bill Gasiamis (21:40)

Jonathan Arevalo (22:02)

she ended up getting everything that I needed, so that way I get that support automatically right away, over the time, yeah.

Bill Gasiamis (22:40)

Jonathan Arevalo (23:05)

And it hurts you a lot because it’s kind of like not being yourself anymore. So you have something that’s been taken away from you. And so I did lose quite a lot. I lost my job. I lost the ability to drive. So I had to sell my car. And I also ⁓ lost that relationship that I was in.

that relationship ended. And I also wasn’t earning any money as well. So the only caregivers were my parents. had to live with them again. And for the past four years of recovery, which I’m still in that recovery stage of stroke, but I’ve improved a lot though.

I’ve improved a lot and which I’m very, very thankful. And that just goes based on just having faith. And that’s where I started to change my life. I started to change my life the moment I started to change my mindset, the way I think. And because the moment I started to change the way I think, it was the moment that I was just much more grateful for even though I lost everything.

I was simply grateful to be alive. And that was much, much more meaningful than everything that I had.

Bill Gasiamis (25:08)

Jonathan Arevalo (25:11)

Bill Gasiamis (25:20)

being grateful to be alive. Well, that was an easy one for me as well. I totally get it. That’s what I went through. And I had another opportunity to make things right, to support ⁓ myself in a different way, to think in a different way, have it, to try different things and experience things that I’d never experienced before. What, what was the thing that kind of made you feel grateful to be alive? I know that

Do you know what I mean? There’s a layer beneath that. is, I’m alive, okay, but what does that mean that you’re grateful to be alive? I get it, but there’s more to that.

Jonathan Arevalo (26:33)

four years, and it’s going to be almost five years, of the opportunity to reflect, of being thankful for, as you said, a place to live, for having my parents, for having my sister, and for having other loved ones that were there praying for me so that way I may live and not die. And at the same time,

⁓ Just being able to walk, to see, to speak, to understand. I was able to regain all of that that was lost. those were the reasons why I was grateful for.

Bill Gasiamis (27:48)

I want to go back to how things were before stroke. And I’m like, I didn’t want to do that. Like, that’s not a good place to go. You’re smiling. So I’m imagining that you think a similar way.

Jonathan Arevalo (28:30)

or does good for others or even for ourselves. So myself, I can say that I had everything that I wanted and I had the opportunity to do pretty much everything that I wanted. But at the same time, I wasn’t completely happy. And at the same time, we carry certain bad habits because we think according to society, where society will

will accept you based on the things and the patterns that you follow society. When it comes to doing certain bad habits that you think that’s good, but in reality, it’s not really good because you’re actually hurting and damaging who? Yourself. Which is something internally, both mentally, physically, and emotionally. But over time,

When you start to reflect on your old habits that weren’t completely fulfilling or bringing that happiness or that peace or that joy, then in reality, it’s nothing good. It’s only for the moment. And sometimes we keep on rushing and doing things for the moment to get that pleasure. But that pleasure only lasts for a moment.

So I had to change. And this recovery over these almost five years was a recovery not to just change myself, but to change the way I think, the way I speak and the way I act, because it’s a full connection. And that full connection is the reason why now what I’m currently doing is helping other people, other stroke survivors and other people with disability and also mental health, because we find it that each day

The world is getting worse, not better, but worse. Why? Because we live in a broken world. And the fact that we live in a broken world is a reason why there’s many, many men and women that are looking for pleasure, but for the moment. And that’s something that I had to learn for myself the hard way. Even though I wasn’t in drugs, even though I wasn’t an alcoholic,

even though I wasn’t doing harm to people, but I would still have bad vices or certain things that still didn’t make me happy. So that’s the main reason why.

Bill Gasiamis (31:38)

thought was a good idea at the time, but not really something that is meaningful, purposeful, useful in life. Smoking was one of those things I used to smoke. And people, often I had a friend of mine who would say that that thing will kill you if you keep doing it. And I was like, yeah, don’t worry about it. That’s a problem for Bill in the future. It’s not a problem for Bill today. However, Bill of the future had a bloody brain and…

a brain AVM bleed in his head. that became a 37. Really, that became a problem for Bill. Now. And I was smoking from about the age of 13, something like that, on and off. And my friend was telling me that from probably the age of 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. It didn’t take a lot of years to get to 37 and then be experiencing

you know, negative impact of a health situation. And I realized that I’ve got to make some massive changes. And obviously, to me at least, it was the most obvious thing that I have to give up smoking. Also alcohol, even though I wasn’t an alcoholic, I had to stop drinking alcohol. And now I very, very rarely drink alcohol. Even 13, 14 years past the first bleed, I very rarely have an alcoholic drink.

⁓ So it’s amazing what came to my mind. I immediately knew the things that I had to change. No one had to tell me, ⁓ well, since you’re ⁓ having a stroke, since you can’t walk properly yet, since your left arm doesn’t work correctly, why don’t you think about fixing this, changing that, doing this, doing that? No one had to tell me. Inside of me, instinctively, I knew

what I was doing that was not supporting me, was not supporting my mission in life and my goal in life. And it was the easiest thing to change. ⁓ I did receive some help though. I didn’t do it alone, right? So I had a counselor, I had a coach, a life coach. ⁓ I sought out the wisdom of people that were older than me, smarter than me, know, been on the planet longer than me whatever.

And I did it together with other people, not just on my own, because change is not very easy, especially when you remove an old habit and then you have to replace it with something. Initially, replacing it with something feels a bit strange and you don’t know if it’s the right thing that you’ve replaced it with and how that’s going to look like in six months or 12 months. So that’s what I found was that in order to help me find the right things to replace the things that needed to be left behind.

I needed to seek the support of other people, counselors, coaches, et cetera. Did you have some support in that part of your recovery so that you can kind of make sense of all the changes that were happening in your body, in your emotions and in your life?

Jonathan Arevalo (35:15)

And they do this within all of Canada. And also through Heart and Stroke as well, which is another nonprofit organization, Heart and Stroke. So both of them, would do this virtually where I would seek support to talk to someone based on what I’m going through, my thoughts, my emotions, and also telling my story.

And from that moment, I said to myself, I want to do the same. I want to give back to the community and to other survivors. So I ended up becoming a volunteer. And for the past three years, I’ve been a volunteer at ⁓ March of Dimes and also Heart and Stroke, where I ended up becoming an advocate.

for both nonprofit organizations. And you can also see me on their website on both of them where it tells my story, but also the fact that I volunteer helping out people from the ages of 20 to the ages of 80 years old in two languages now. So I do it in English and Spanish. And it feels really, really good. It really does.

Bill Gasiamis (37:09)

You know, it’s a very important part of, well, why did this happen to me? I don’t know. You could come up with a lot of negative reasons why something bad happened to you, but what am I going to do about this? And how can I transform this in a way that can help other people? Well, that is a better question to ask. And then volunteering is the best way to do that. I volunteered probably from 2013 through to about 2019.

we are aligned in our mission to support others and make a difference and not to make it just about us because that’s a really difficult thing to ⁓ do is you you become anxious and depressed when you just make it about yourself so making it about other people’s stops that thinking pattern ⁓ and I just love the journey that you’re on because you’re very early on in the journey and I can see it’s going to continue ⁓ to be that kind of

meaning making journey. I found that I said that I discovered my purpose after the stroke. Now you would have thought that somebody who was married had two children, had plenty of purpose in their life, plenty of meaning. Why do I exist for my children? To support them, to teach them, to make them great men, to ⁓ give them the opportunities in the world, in the community, except

They move out of home eventually, and then they become independent. And then your purpose and meaning has to shift. It cannot just be about them. You can include them in your purpose and meaning because you love them, they’re your children, et cetera, in my case. But, you know, they don’t need me now to be the guy that shows them the way of the world and…

educate them and prepare them and all that kind of stuff. They are doing it on their own. When they do need me, they come for five minutes or 10 minutes. We have a conversation and they’re done. So it’s important to shift that energy that I had as a parent to other people who need support in the early days of their experience when they have a negative health experience so that we can help guide them through

that adversity and overcome and then maybe grow and be a better version of themselves in a few years down the track.

Jonathan Arevalo (40:41)

to be a man of righteousness, where he shows a good example through his good actions, but not only through words, but through actions, right? Because sometimes we may speak and say a lot of things, but we don’t live it. But when you live it, it makes a huge difference. And whenever we show those examples, whether it’s…

to anyone, any family members, strangers, or anything like that. We need to be like that everywhere we go. And that’s something that I’ve learned a lot, that we need to be a good example to anyone.

Bill Gasiamis (41:47)

Jonathan Arevalo (41:59)

I had one of the pastors being my mentor ⁓ for a year and a half, and he ended up helping me out a lot. And it was a big amount of support that I received also from my dad and my mom and my sister. So I always had ⁓ a close family support. Yeah.

Bill Gasiamis (42:54)

communities who come forward, support them and give them ⁓ the things that they need to kind of get them settled and in some kind of routine where they can continue recovery in their own way. ⁓ But there would have also been hard times, right? Where, because most people, and on my podcast, we talk about all the amazing things that stroke survivors do and they overcome, et cetera, but there’s also a…

really, really hard times. I went through what I would call rock bottom moments, found myself in the abyss. Did you find yourself there at all? Had you experienced kind of that really down negative part of stroke ⁓ in your mental state and your emotional state as well?

Jonathan Arevalo (44:09)

helped me a lot to kind of take away those negative thoughts. And also getting into the church where I had support with the pastor. And then myself just changing my mindset where I had to start looking more into, more to God because I find it that without God we’re nothing.

And based on my faith, that’s what gave me the strength, the encouragement, and the joy that was taken away the moment I had my stroke. So my faith in God was what gave me the strength and gave me the encouragement to move on forward.

Bill Gasiamis (45:31)

We have to put our kind of our life in the hands of other people. That’s what we’re practicing for people who don’t have faith in God or who don’t have a God or don’t believe in God. You still have to practice faith and you practice faith every single day. ⁓ I wanna go and receive one of my medications. You have to have faith in the medication that is going to work for you and it’s going to actually do the job.

that it’s meant to do. Keep your blood pressure down, for example. I’m on blood pressure medication. ⁓ When I drive my car, I have to have faith that the other person is gonna stay on their side of the road and they’re not gonna come on my side of the road. And you know, 99.999 times out of 100, that’s exactly what happens. know, ⁓ when I have, when I’m driving the car, once again, I have to have faith that the lights that I stop at are going to, in fact,

when it’s red on my side, it’s going to be green on the other side. And at some point it’s going to switch and it’s going to go green on my side and it will definitely go red on the other side so that we don’t collide. You know, there’s faith. We practice faith all the time throughout our day, throughout our whole life without even really knowing it and without needing to practice faith in a religious way. ⁓ And that’s what I’ve kind of got out of my whole, my whole journey is

I didn’t find God so much in that I see God differently these days. I kind of believe that God is me. I am God, God is within me. So when I request a solution, if I use the word God in the sentence, God guide me to find the answer to this difficult question, what I’m actually doing is I’m having an internal conversation with myself.

And I’m asking myself, my unconscious self to guide me to find the answer in this particular way. And that way I can combine God, the non-religious version of God, we’ll call it spirit or our creator or whatever you want to call it. And I can embody that and then make it part of me. And then in the right context, I can access

the wisdom of God, the creator, nature, whoever, and I can be guided instinctively to follow my gut to an answer. And then if I go down a particular path that was not that way, and I find the wrong path, I can redirect, go back in, redirect and go again. So I became

I suppose more, maybe the word is spiritual, it’s probably not the right word, but it’s how I kind of practice my, what you might call connection to God and faith. That’s how I practice it. How does that sound to you?

Jonathan Arevalo (49:08)

and all that, that’s God who does that. there was this, the other day I was reading and it’s ⁓ in the Bible in the book of Isaiah, who’s a prophet. And it was based on the story of a king and the king is his name is Hezekiah. And Hezekiah had an illness, but not only that, it said, actually, can I read it in?

in a second. So it says in his book that

It says in Isaiah 38, it says, In those days, Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, went to him and said, What is what the Lord says? Put your house in order, because you are going to die. You will not recover. Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord.

Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes. And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah. Go and tell Hezekiah, this is what the Lord, the God of your father, David, says. I have heard your prayer and seen your tears.

I will add 15 years to your life and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Azariah. I will defend this city. This is the Lord’s sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised.” So when I read that, I said, wow, how amazing God is that not only does he give promises to either

kings and all of that during 2000 years ago in history and how God is still faithful to each one of us. Why? Because each one of us have a purpose and because God has created us with purpose is the reason why his love and mercy is so great. And that’s why I’m thankful for it I know that God is faithful and because his faithfulness

He’s given me a second opportunity to live.

Bill Gasiamis (52:16)

Jonathan Arevalo (52:21)

Bill Gasiamis (52:28)

So what about before stroke? Were you somebody that knew the scripture? Were you somebody that ⁓ had that type of connection to the word?

Jonathan Arevalo (52:47)

Bill Gasiamis (52:51)

Jonathan Arevalo (52:53)

Bill Gasiamis (53:05)

I agree with that.

Jonathan Arevalo (53:09)

through the creator, which is God. And that’s the only way that you can actually be molded to the righteous man of who God has created in us. But we just need to know how to find that. And that way is through His word. His word teaches us that. And the moment that we apply that to our lives, day by day, the same way like with our health, our sickness, our weakness, our insecurities,

How can we change that? We can only change it the moment that we apply it into our lives, little by little. And through that is the moment that we can see transformation and a step of moving forward and also breakthrough. Breakthrough is only done through changing our old selves. Because our old self is very hard to break, because we still carry that.

Bill Gasiamis (54:35)

left arm, right leg won’t work again, then there’s people who will pass away. And then some of those people find that they’ve been harshly treated by God, by their maker, their creator. How do you talk to people like that to make them feel like it’s not personal? God, your creator, your maker has not gone after you and ⁓ is not punishing you.

Like what do you say to people who lose connection with spirit, with God, with their creator?

Jonathan Arevalo (55:40)

is because everything comes from sin. And sometimes it’s hard to say, why is this happening to me? Or why am I not getting better? Well, everything goes back to sin. And because until we kind of, until we accept Jesus Christ, but not only accept Jesus Christ, but at the same time, God allows certain things

that we have to go through. We have to go through certain challenges or obstacles, right? But it’s really hard to say. I find it. Maybe to answer that question.

Bill Gasiamis (56:47)

I actually don’t mind the word sin when you use the word sin, because I’ve recently discovered ⁓ some people’s meaning of the word sin is to take that an incorrect aim to aim in the wrong direction. And I really relate to that. So when I sin, I don’t kind of see it as a, ⁓ you good, me bad. Like, do you know, don’t, I don’t sort of see that type of thing. It’s just aiming in the wrong direction. For example, previously my life was

led by my head. It was my head that was telling me this sounds like a good idea. Yeah, we should have three cars. We should have the biggest house possible. We should do all of that. My head was guiding my life, whereas now my head is supporting my heart to guide my life. That’s why the podcast exists, because the podcast is not about what my head thinks is a good idea. Because if my head thought it was a good idea, this podcast should be making

a shitload of money and it’s not making a ton of money. That’s why I request support from Patreon. That’s why I wrote a book to make a little bit of money so that I can ⁓ cover the costs of recording, editing, uploading, hosting a podcast. Like that’s the reason why it needs to make money, but it doesn’t need to make hundreds of thousands or millions and millions of dollars. My head in the old days would be going, dude.

Don’t ever do 400 episodes of stroke survivors podcast. I’m not interested in that. And I, and I would be going, okay, what do I need to do? And my head would be going, you need to 24 hours a day, seven days a week and make as much money as you can. So you can have all the things that we’re told by the marketing companies that you need to have. I see that as a sin. Do you understand? That is the wrong aim. I’ve taken aim.

dude and I’m putting all my energy into the wrong things. Whereas now I’ve taken aim and adjusted and now I think I’m aiming in the right direction. It’s about purpose, meaning, connecting with other people, helping other people, supporting other people. I’m no longer sinning in that particular way. That’s the literal description of the word sin. So it’s really important that

I learned that because if I didn’t learn that I would be taking when I hear the word sin as a me bad, everyone else good. And that’s definitely not what it is. And that’s what I think the, the bleeding in my brain helped me adjust the aim, redirect where I was heading in my life, who was important, why they were important to me. ⁓ and, and my community is not a church.

but I’m creating my own community on this podcast, know, 400 interviews, people who reach out from you all around the world. It’s the same kind of community, giving community as a church community is. We support each other, we help each other, we give people information, we connect other people with ⁓ doctors and conditions and solutions. So it’s like, yeah, that’s what I was lacking. I was lacking community.

Jonathan Arevalo (1:00:01)

Bill Gasiamis (1:00:02)

Jonathan Arevalo (1:00:23)

Bill Gasiamis (1:00:25)

Jonathan Arevalo (1:00:39)

which is what shows purpose and also can leave an impact to others, survivors. Because if we don’t show a difference and if we don’t help support other people, then what purpose do we have on this earth? Right? We’re here to help one another and to be different in a good way.

Because every single time we’re always going to be going through different challenges. Whether it’s negative thoughts or everything that we see on TV. Because every single time that we’re looking at the news is always bad news, So all those negative thoughts are something that we are affected day by day. And the only way that we’re able to overcome those negative thoughts is by

putting ourselves surrounded in other things. Other things that can help us strengthen our mind, our body, and emotions. But that’s something that takes day by day.

Bill Gasiamis (1:02:14)

and despite it all are seeking transformation and growth. And that’s the first part of the dedication. And the second part of the dedication says to my family, I hope that that I have set a good example. I mean, my only goal, my only goal is to set a good example, to show them when adversity comes, how you can respond. There’s a

Jonathan Arevalo (1:02:59)

Bill Gasiamis (1:03:10)

like is the example that we need to set for other people just so that my kids can see in the future when they go through a tough time, they go, I think I remember one way that my dad did it that might be supportive of my recovery down the path and see, okay, this is what dad did. I don’t need to do what dad did, but this is kind of how he thought about that and how he approached that. That’s really.

what I was sitting out to achieve. And I think I’ve achieved that and I feel really good about that, you know.

Jonathan Arevalo (1:04:17)

They’re going through difficult times and I think that’s amazing.

Bill Gasiamis (1:04:52)

So as we kind of get to the end of this interview, tell me what’s next for you. What’s on the to-do list? What goals do you have that you want to achieve?

Jonathan Arevalo (1:05:31)

Everything changed. And so I got married on April 11th of this year. So I’m now married. And the other thing that I started this year was besides the volunteering, I also created ⁓ my own like small business when it comes to mentorship to help other people, which are people that are either stroke survivors.

People with disability and also mental health. And I created my website on that to help a lot of people. And it’s ⁓ non-profit at the moment, which is donation-based. And I’m still helping in the community. I still volunteer. And I still ⁓ help out in the church and many other places.

So those are the things that I’m still currently doing.

Bill Gasiamis (1:07:02)

Jonathan Arevalo (1:07:28)

Bill Gasiamis (1:07:51)

Jonathan Arevalo (1:08:14)

Bill Gasiamis (1:08:17)

meaningful ones. If this episode helped you feel understood or gave you something to think about on your recovery path, remember to visit patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke. Some people believe their support won’t make a difference, but that’s an assumption that simply isn’t true. Every contribution helps me continue producing these episodes, keep them online and moving toward my goal of recording a thousand conversations. So no stroke survivor ever has to feel like they’re going through this alone.

And if you haven’t already, you can also order my book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened at recoveryafterstroke.com/book. Many listeners expect it to be just my personal story, but it’s actually something much more useful. It’s the guide I wish existed when I was confused, overwhelmed, and trying to figure out how to rebuild my life after stroke. Thank you again for being here, for listening, and for supporting the work in whatever way you can. You’re not alone in this.

and I’ll see you on the next episode. Importantly, we present many podcasts designed to give you an insight and understanding into the experiences of other individuals.

Opinions and treatment protocols discussed during any podcast are the individual’s own experience and we do not necessarily share the same opinion nor do we recommend any treatment protocol discussed. All content on this website and any linked blog, podcast or video material controlled this website or content is created and produced for informational purposes only and is largely based on the personal experience of Bill Gassiamus. The content is intended to complement your medical treatment and support healing. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical

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