Lira chats to Carl about healing after a stroke, acceptance, slowing down & gratitude

Kfm 94.5's Carl Wastie speaks to Lira, a multi-platinum-selling singer, author, and entrepreneur. 

Listen below: 

South African icon Lira chatted to Carl on The Flash Drive for the first time.

In April 2022, she suffered a stroke while in Germany.

The stroke impacted her ability to speak, causing aphasia. She has since undergone medical treatment in South Africa and has been working on recovery, including relearning how to speak, read, and write.

Lira says she initially didn't realise the severity of the stroke, thinking it was a temporary issue.

The singer has been undergoing treatment and shares her recovery journey, including the challenges of relearning basic communication skills. But the hardest challenge was accepting what had happened, as she only found out that she had stroke 19 hours after it occurred.

"I had no idea what was happening to me until 19 hours later, when I got to the hospital. I was walking normally with my physical body able to do things, so I had no idea; I just couldn't speak... I fell asleep and woke up and recognised I was in trouble... I didn't recognise the signs, now I know the signs."

- Lira

"My mind went into shock because what kind of stroke did I have? I was fully functioning in my body... and thought, 'How will I tell my parents I was in the hospital?' I had a show the next day, and I thought, 'How will I tell the band?' Panic took over, and they sedated me, and I am grateful because I would've had another stroke, possibly."

- Lira

Upon Lira's journey to recovery, she says she focused on relearning how to speak first.

Relearning how to sing only came two years after recovery, and Tyla's Grammy-winning song Water was the first song Lira was able to sing.

"I tested it out two years after the fact. I focused on speaking because it was so difficult for me. I focused on one thing at a time. Singing came about when I sang popular songs when I was recovering for two years... So, I sang Tyla's song, Water... and recognised I could sing. So, I decided to practice one of my songs, and the singing came easily to me. Speech therapists told me I could sing, but I didn't want to because talking was hard enough for me, so I discovered it by accident."

- Lira

Lira explains that acceptance kept her going during her healing journey.

"I accepted my situation. The doctors spoke to me and I accepted that there was nothing I could do. After I accepted the situation, I could think, I could calm down... the stroke gave me the ability to be present in the moment. I could focus on speaking and nothing else... I worried about nothing else but speaking, and that's why I recovered so quickly."

- Lira

Lira says the stroke made her appreciate and celebrate the smallest things in life, like just being able to speak.

Recovery also made the singer realise the beauty in slowing down.

"I had to relearn speaking as a little child, I had to learn the alphabet, I had to learn how to put simple words together, like 'cat, hello, apple' and put those words together to form a sentence, and it was a very slow process, but every time I made progress, I celebrated. So, you take for granted speaking because you've been doing it for so long... slowing down made me appreciate the progress I was making, it filled me with gratitude, it filled me with joy... I was excited to see my progress."

- Lira

"I firmly believe that life happens for you, and it's the mindset I adopted before the stroke... I felt, 'Why is this happening to me?' But I didn't ask myself, 'Why did God send this to me?' But, 'Why is this happening to me? What is it teaching me?'"

- Lira

Lira leaves us with some wise words for anyone who needs to hear them.

"Life happens the way it does... we can't prevent stuff from happening to us, so if something happens, accept it, it's there to teach you a lesson... take it in your stride because whatever is happening in your life is there to serve you, so slow down, slow down, slow down."

- Lira

Lira continues to tell her story at the Mind Matters Summit on 4 September at the CTICC in Cape Town.

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