Return to Myself

For four years after my stroke, I didn’t paint.

Before then, painting had been an important part of my life. I worked primarily in oils, creating portraits and other paintings with my right hand. When I could no longer use that hand the way I once had, I couldn’t imagine how I would return to something I loved.

I told myself I’d already been a successful artist. I didn’t need to paint again. But imagining a life without painting was one thing. Picking up a brush again was another.

The possibility of painting again began to feel real when the nonprofit I attended started planning its fall gala. Conversations with my therapist about creating a painting for the event stirred an interest I hadn’t felt in years.

And so, during a therapy session, with my arm supported and a brush secured between my fingers, I began painting my therapist’s portrait.

What happened during that hour surprised both of us — for very different reasons.

In this episode of Return to Myself, I share the challenges, adaptations, and unexpected discoveries that helped me find my way back to painting—and what that experience taught me about creativity and physical recovery.

There was so much I had to learn to do differently. But as the portrait took shape, I began to recognize something familiar: the artist in me was still there.

Closing music: “Classical 2” by Jonny S., courtesy of Mixkit.

Before my stroke, words were a big part of my life. I spoke six languages. Workdays were spent in meetings, presentations, writing, and mentoring. Language came naturally to me.

Then, after my stroke, almost every object became a “remote.”

I knew what the objects were. I knew what I wanted to say. But somewhere between knowing and speaking, the words disappeared. Nishant, my husband, began finishing the sentences I couldn't complete.

In this episode of Return to Myself, I share what that strange new world felt like—and five very different ways I began finding my words again. I learned to talk around the words I couldn't retrieve. I prepared for conversations that once would have come naturally. I read Pulitzer Prize winners, played with words—and, perhaps most surprisingly, started learning another language.

These aren't medical recommendations. They're the experiments, discoveries, and everyday practices that helped language slowly become mine again.

Closing music: “Classical 2” by Jonny S., courtesy of Mixkit.

Before my stroke, my life was full — work, art, music, languages, exercise, friendships, and the ordinary routines that made me feel like myself.

Then, suddenly, many of the things I had taken for granted became difficult or impossible.

In this opening episode of Return to Myself, I look back at the life I was living before my stroke—not simply to describe what I lost, but to introduce the person who began this journey of recovery.

This is where the story starts: with the life I was living, the moment everything changed, and all that I still didn't know about what would return, what would change, and what recovery would eventually mean.

Welcome to Return to Myself.

I’m Savvy Dani, and this is a podcast about what happens when life changes, and you have to find your way forward.

Through stories of recovery, creativity, and the new connections we make along the way, I explore what it means to rebuild a life after everything you thought you knew about yourself has changed.