Sandra Lee - Your Healing Story Isn’t Over Yet: The Remarkable Power of the Brain
Your Brain Can Always Improve: Sandra Lee on Brain Injury Recovery, Neuroplasticity and Hope
Your brain keeps healing until the day you die. That’s the message of hope from Sandra Lee, a brain restoration specialist and intuitive sound healer who supports people recovering from head injuries and strokes.
On this episode of Conversations with Carroll, Carroll Patrizi welcomes Sandra to talk about what happens to the brain after an injury, how neuroplasticity builds new pathways, and why belief and support play such a big role in recovery.
What Happens to the Brain in an Injury
Sandra explains it with a ripe peach. When a moving object slams into something still, it deforms. In a fall or car accident, the brain, which is about as soft as tofu, bounces inside the skull and gets bruised. That bruising is a concussion.
Think of stubbing your toe on a box. Your foot is still there, but it hurts and you limp. An injured brain works the same way: it’s still there, but it can’t function as it did.
Depending on where the injury lands, people may lose abilities they once took for granted:
Reading. One person told Sandra she used to love reading and now can’t, and she grieves that loss.
Speaking. Another described “tripping over logs” in her mind while trying to put thoughts into words.
Movement and vision. A stroke at the back of the brain can affect sight and walking.
Self-regulation. The frontal brain governs higher thinking and emotional control. It’s affected in many head injuries, including whiplash, which is why angry outbursts are so common afterward.
Sandra marvels at how much the healthy brain does in a single moment. Answering a simple question takes what she calls a zillion of God’s miracles working together.
Sandra’s Path: Science Meets Healing
Sandra holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. She later studied acupressure and Reiki and has been a massage therapist for about 37 years.
Early on, she decided to reconcile her left-brain, logical science background with her right-brain, energy-healing work. Today she bridges both worlds.
She believes that when people understand how their bodies work, they’re better able to help themselves. So she teaches clients anatomy, explaining the structures and membranes involved, so they can direct their own bodies toward healing.
Why Belief Matters in Recovery
After a serious injury, many people reach a point where they stop believing they’ll get better. Recovery can be long. Tests may come back normal, or a medical team may say treatment has gone as far as it can.
Sandra has spoken with people who were told they would never walk or talk again and refused to accept it. One man answered his doctors with a simple “watch me,” and today he walks and talks. In her experience, the people who believe they will improve, and do whatever it takes, are the ones who see the most progress.
Carroll suspects most listeners know someone who was told things wouldn’t get better and kept going anyway, usually with an advocate fighting alongside them.
How Neuroplasticity Works
Conditions like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and ALS involve the loss of brain tissue, and outcomes depend on how much tissue is affected. Sandra used a stroke to illustrate how the brain can adapt.
One of her current clients had a stroke on the left side of his brain. It affected movement on his right side and his speech. Here’s how rebuilding works:
Place a demand. When you repeatedly ask your body to do something, as in physical therapy, your brain registers that the function matters.
Build a new connection. The brain links neurons to form new synapses, creating a pathway around the damaged area.
Strengthen it through repetition. Sandra compares it to a deer path in the forest. The more often it’s walked, the wider and clearer it becomes, until it’s a road.
Regain function. Over time, the new pathway can take over some or much of what was lost.
The brain, Sandra says, is miraculous.
Intuitive Sound Healing and Brain Training
Shortly after becoming a licensed massage therapist, Sandra trained in craniosacral bodywork, which works with the very subtle movement of the skull, spine, membranes and fluids. She says she began intuitively sensing that movement, and the stress stored in the body, even before her class began. She has done this work for more than 30 years.
Since the start of COVID, she has added sound healing with a tuning fork. She says it helps her sense where energy flows freely and where it feels stuck. She has focused on brain work for the past couple of years.
Recently she added a brain-training chart from neuroplasticity specialist John Kennedy, known as Combat Brain Training. Clients read aloud the direction of a series of arrows, which engages sight, speech and decision-making all at once. Kennedy developed it to support military veterans recovering from head injuries. Sandra says pairing the chart with her sound work has brought her best results yet.
One client’s experience
One of Sandra’s clients was in a serious car accident almost two years earlier. She had been receiving ongoing treatment and had only recently regained sensation in her palms and fingertips. In an earlier session, she said she heard sounds like crunching metal as her brain released trauma from the crash.
During her first session combining the arrows chart and sound healing, she reported:
Her left eye felt more connected to her brain.
Her hands felt like there was sunshine in them, and she could move her wrist better.
She could sense the position of her ankle and walk more easily.
A few days later, she messaged Sandra to say she was no longer “tripping over logs” in her mind and could speak faster.
Every recovery is different, and Sandra’s work is complementary. Anyone recovering from a brain injury should continue working closely with their medical care team.
Working Alongside Medical Care
Carroll asked whether Sandra coordinates with doctors. She doesn’t yet, though she would love to become an official part of clients’ care teams alongside medical practitioners.
Carroll shares that hope. She believes teamwork makes the dream work, and she’d love to see care teams that integrate every approach people find helpful.
The Power of an Advocate
Nearly every person Sandra knows who regained function after a serious injury had a family member by their side. One husband’s wife drove him to appointments for a year. One man’s mother drove him for as long as it took.
When discouragement set in, those advocates kept their loved ones going: time for your exercises, time for your appointment. Recovery can take a long time, and the people who keep you on the path make a real difference. Many also started treatment right away.
Carroll lifted up everyone living with brain injury, along with the caregivers and encouragers walking beside them.
Faith, Belief and Trust
Carroll asked how faith and prayer factor into healing. For Sandra, faith, belief and trust are one and the same. Sometimes she chooses to believe something is possible even when logic says it isn’t, and that takes faith.
In her view, healing comes from the body and God working together, with our own thoughts and feelings giving the direction.
You Can Always Improve
As a child, Sandra was taught that a lost brain cell is gone forever. Science now shows we can form new nerve connections, and even new nerves, throughout our lives.
You may not regain every function, depending on the extent of the injury. You can always improve. And as Carroll pointed out, that’s good news for every brain, injured or not.
Key takeaways
A brain injury bruises soft brain tissue and can affect reading, speech, movement and emotional regulation.
Neuroplasticity lets the brain build new pathways through repeated demand.
Belief and determination play a powerful role in recovery.
Caregivers and advocates help people stay on a long healing road.
The brain can keep forming new connections throughout life.
Frequently asked questions
What is neuroplasticity?
It’s the brain’s ability to form new connections. When you repeatedly ask your brain to perform a lost function, it builds new pathways around the damaged area, and they grow stronger with practice.
Can the brain heal after a stroke or head injury?
Science shows the brain can form new connections throughout life. Results depend on the extent of the injury, and Sandra believes improvement is always possible.
What is a brain restoration specialist?
Sandra describes her role as supporting brain injury recovery through education, craniosacral bodywork, intuitive sound healing and brain-training exercises. It complements medical care.
What is Combat Brain Training?
A brain-training method developed by John Kennedy to help military veterans recover from head injuries. It involves reading the directions of arrows on a chart aloud.
