How to Rewrite Your Story from Victim to Empowerment
I was only 23-years-old the first time I faced death. I’d taken an herbal supplement for vibrant health. When I developed nausea, I called the company, and they told me I was having a “cleansing effect”.
Later that night I was admitted to the Cardiac ICU with third degree heart block from lethal digitalis poisoning. The herbal product had been contaminated.
For six days I listened to the monitors going off at the nurses’ station because my heart would once again fall into 3rd degree heart block. When I begged to go home, the doctors told me the story that I was lucky to be alive, and it wasn’t safe for me to leave.
A month later, my body was healed, but something felt different in my mind. It was subtle at first. Since childhood I’d gone hiking in the woods alone, by my teen years I’d hike in the dark to see sunrise from a mountain top. The first time I went for a walk after my medical incident my mind told a story of being attacked, dragged off, raped and killed. There was nothing to cause these thoughts, but the panic and anxiety became so great I stopped hiking.
Over the next few months the changes became tougher. I’d always been an adrenaline junkie without fear, yet roller coasters became death traps where I couldn’t stop checking my seatbelt, my heart racing as I thought of all the ways I could die on the ride.
Nightmares plagued my sleep, and I began fearing the darkness of night when my mind would show me 100 different ways to die.
After a year of suffering, I sought professional advice and was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They offered me antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications. I refused, and instead, asked them to educate me on the disorder. I wanted to know the story my brain was creating. The doctor felt I was going down the wrong path, that my brain chemistry had changed when I faced death straight on, and I was told that medication was my only way to freedom. I held my ground and switched therapists. This one agreed to educate me on what was happening in my brain.
Understanding my own brain’s behavior empowered me to change the story. The truth, my brain was lying to me. The stories it was creating, to work out what had happened, or to keep me safe (because survival is the brain’s first job) weren’t facts. My own mind was a big liar.
Each day in order to heal, I learned to rewrite the story. When I went for walks in the woods, I started by picking up a rock as a weapon against unseen dangers, but then dropped it, as I reminded my conscious brain I was listening to made up stories. I forced myself to go on amusement park rides not allowing myself to check the seatbelt, and came to acceptance that, yes, though death is everywhere, I have no control on when it comes my way. It’s in a supplement that I thought was safe. It’s in crossing a street. It can be hiding behind a building.
The stories (lies) my brain told would never keep me safe, they would only hold me back. The only way to be free of the story, was to continue to create new ones that overrode the lies.
The PTSD slowly dissipated and I returned to my former adrenaline seeking, fearless self. In this knowledge I began to help other’s to rewrite their own stories.
But the mind is tricky, and I never considered that the stories I told in community or in allowing someone to see me, could be holding me back until I took Anna Lavesque’s, White Water Mind Body Paddling Class.
I wanted to train with Anna to become a better paddler and to reach for new levels. I knew she was one of the best instructors in the world, but I never thought it would make me see myself in such a deep way.
White water kayaking is a sport with horror stories. Everyone tells their tales of bad swims, injuries, getting ‘rocked’, or their worst time in a rapid. Talk to someone about a river you want to run, and they’ll tell you how scary it is, or their “war” story. Stories bond the community.
My story of whitewater kayaking, was one that kept me out of the sport for over fifteen years. I never sold my boats, but I couldn’t bring myself to get back on the water, my fear holding me hostage.
When I finally returned, I continued with the past stories of why I left the sport: I learned in boats too small; I paddled in things too big too fast; the sparkly helmet I now wear was a replacement from the manufacturer because my first helmet was split open when my head hit a rock and I walked away with a concussion; there was that time I was pinned on the rocks and couldn’t get out.
In Anna’s clinic, she talked about fact and story. Fact, even if you did a rapid perfectly once, the next time you might swim. If you had a bad run, it doesn’t affect what will happen the next time. You get to write each story with every move you make, and the last move no longer matters. You’re never trapped in what happened, you have the power to change it the next time.
She asks the questions, “What do you need to learn in mindset, or foundation of your skills to change the story? Are you taking those steps, or are you sitting in the old program?”
In everything in life, the problem isn’t the actual stories that happen, but the tales our brains like to tell, the ones that keep getting bigger over time and lead us to so much fear we stop doing an activity we love, or we don’t go after our biggest dreams.
Oftentimes, it’s the story we tell of what might happen that keeps us from going forward. I always say, “It’s so much easier to do something than to sit and think about doing it.”
Anna explained why, “The doing is fact. Everything else is just the story you’re making up.”
As I kayaked with Anna, it was as if she could see right into my brain, that primal part that wanted to hold onto the story of the past. When I swam a rapid, Anna didn’t let me sit with my ego and what I was stating. Instead she asked, “What’s the story you decided to tell yourself in that rapid and when you swam to safety? Was it one from the past and your fear, or was it one of this is the fact, I’m upside down, I know to keep my head down, I have my roll, I’m okay and can calm down?”
My ego wanted to give all the reasons I didn’t make the roll. I wanted to tell her a story of why I let go of my boat to make the eddy. But Anna doesn’t accept stories. She speaks in facts.
Fact, I freaked out because my brain decided to remember an old story. Fact, I didn’t pay attention to my technique and I pulled my skirt while secretly knowing it wasn’t time. Fact, I was terrified of swimming the next part of the rapid and let go of the boat to switch my hand grip so I could swim faster and then couldn’t regain control.
In all of our stories that happen in life, Anna’s truth rings out. We as humans are story tellers. We connect through them, we find our value, but they hold us back.
The only way to truly thrive in life is to consistently check in. What story am I telling? Does it serve me well? If I’m afraid, what actions, skills, coaching can I get to rewrite the story, not sit in it like I’m keeping on a dirty diaper.
This doesn’t just apply to sports but to relationships, entrepreneurship, health, finances, and fear of the world. What’s the story that’s told about conditions that we’ve been given as our labels that have been taken on as personas?
As a culture we’ve adopted the victim mentality, but if we choose to write our own personal stories of dreams accomplished, of always seeking more out of life, of expecting a story of magnificence and growth, that failure leads oftentimes to great success as we learn, then we become free.
Having the knowledge that my brain lies to me, has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. But sometimes even when you know this, you need to have a great coach like Anna to point out, “hey you’re being human again.”
We need to consistently ask the question, “Does this story serve me in my happiness?”
Want to learn more about Anna Lavesque and her white water paddling, yoga sup training, or empowerment coaching, you can find her here?
Ready to change your story? To reach for your dreams instead of the old programming? It’s your story to change.
