We are so privileged at Player DEVELOPMENT to publish this interview from Renee, who has an amazing story to share about her darkest times, and how finding balance and inner strength brought her back to a fulfilling life. Like our Facebook page, and subscribe to the blog, for more stories of inspiration and growth.
Player Intro
Renee grew up playing different sports, including soccer, tennis, and swim. She grew up in an active lifestyle, encouraged by her father, who served as a Marine. She served two stints in the Air Force as Military Police, and became used to pushing the limits of her physical abilities. At Prescott College, she studied outdoor education, which included experientially learning and teaching outdoor activities. She would spend twenty-one days at a time in the outdoors, leading groups and developing teams. Renee values being active and always learning new sports, saying that it broadens personalities and improves health and wellness.
She left the military after sustaining a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She began to use alcohol, pain medication, and even extreme exercise to try to cope with, and run away from, the pain of her brain injury. We are privileged to hear her story today of how exercise transformed from a tool to avoid to a source of growth and balance.
Renee's direct quotations and wordings have been kept as much as possible. Some reorganization and editing has occurred to support the clarity and flow of the narrative.
Gameplan
pD: What are some things you learned from your experience with sports and exercise?
Renee: With my brain injury, I would numb with alcohol and pain medication, and I would run, none of it was helping; all of it was triggering me even more. My parasympathetic nervous system (responsible for stress response) was on fire, and everything I was doing was revving it up. Exercise wasn't enjoyable for me anymore; it was a tool I used to avoid dealing with the pain I was going through. I ended up doing fifty-three marathons, two 50-milers, and I ended up getting really, really sick.
In the midst of all that, I would practice yoga on and off, and it was hard for me because I had to sit still. I would rev myself up and use yoga to bring myself back down, which was also very extreme. I wasn't helping my parasympathetic nervous system, I was still on fire, because I was using yoga basically as exercise. I wasn't mindfully doing yoga, more as a physical practice, and not the meditative part of it. I didn't understand that until many years later, after a few overdoses, and a few setbacks.
Eventually I was forced to slow down because I was so sick, and then I got cancer; my body was just damaged from overdosing, drinking, doing so many marathons. Everything I was doing that I thought was healthy wasn't healthy at one point. So I had to learn to find balance, and I had to learn to sit and meditate and use eye rest, as well as getting help and going to therapy, really using those tools provided by the therapist.
I had to learn to find balance
Before, I would go to therapy, but much like yoga, I would go and I wasn't connecting. I would also go to church, but I also wasn't connecting. So I was so disconnected from everything, and that's where exercise can help me find balance. It can be helpful and it can be harmful; once I was able to find that balance, exercise became enjoyable for me again, and I wasn't using it as a tool to avoid. And that's when I started to heal.
I didn't have to do six marathons a year, and two half [marathons]; I didn't have to run 50 miles. It's no one else's business how I practice, what my faith is, how I exercise, what I do to keep my balance. We have to focus on ourselves instead of what everyone else thinks and what they want us to do. When we do that, we gain the benefits from exercise. So then, exercise not only becomes enjoyable, it becomes part of our daily life and physical fitness.
My focus comes from within, not from others
When I look at exercise as a job, or something I have to do or compete, it doesn't do anything but feed my ego. So I find that balance. When you want to heal and recover, it's the balance, and finding that your focus comes from within, not from other people and from outside things. It took me a long time, falling down and getting back up.
Honestly, if I didn't do those marathons, and I didn't have the habit of exercise instilled in me, and the fortitude to push through pain from the military, I would honestly probably be dead. Exercise basically saved my life because it was keeping me afloat, because I couldn't find anything else to keep me afloat. But it wasn't healthy; what's healthy is me meditating, using yoga as a meditative and physical practice, exercising but not over-exercising, going to therapy and using the tools to find balance.
I know that after a double mastectomy 6 months ago, I would not be where I am now if I didn't have that balance. When I couldn't move and couldn't exercise, I had to meditate. I meditated like I was exercising; I would visualize that I was exercising. I would go for gentle walks and eventually move up to faster walks. I would do a half push-up on the wall, and then a full push-up on the floor.
Less is more
When I would go to OrangeTheory 3-4 weeks after surgery, I would end up in pain. So I had to draw back. I said "I'll go do Barre," but I thought "I'm not a ballerina, I'm not going to do Barre." But instead, I was open-minded, and because I did Barre, I was able to go back to OrangeTheory and complete their workouts. My motto is: less is more. I used to say I would run 50-milers because it made me feel stronger; well, I need to find that strength within, not from doing a 50-miler. Now I run because I enjoy it, and I run at whatever pace I run at. I'm not running because I have to prove something anymore. Mental wellness is finding balance, and functioning in totality and finding optimal wellness and optimal fitness is balance. Being mindful about how you exercise and what you eat is so important.
Awareness is also important; if you don't have any awareness, then when you're running marathons or exercising, if you don't have awareness of how it feels in your body and how it makes you feel mentally, and you're just doing it and going through the motions, are you really benefiting from it? If you're playing a team sport, and you need that camaraderie, if you want to be a leader. When you talk about other people or put down other people, are you creating that camaraderie? That's not really a team.
pD: You talk about how you found balance, awareness, openness to experience, through sport and through your experiences. How do those habits carry through to other parts of your life?
Renee: Surviving the traumas I've survived, fitness taught me to have fortitude to move forward. I've felt pain, but emotional pain is very different from physical pain. Sports gave me that sense of being able to move forward and find strength and hope within myself, but I had to be careful that I was keeping balance. It helped me to build my self esteem, to be stronger physically and mentally. When you are physically healthy, you can think clearer. When you exercise in the morning and go to work, you are clearer.
pD: You've talked about a lot of different challenges you've faced in your life. What are some of the biggest challenges, and how did you overcome them?
Renee: Losing my military career and then learning to deal with a disability, a TBI and PTSD. Learning to work with my disability and not being ashamed of it, but owning it. I had a lot of support, learned to work harder than others. From sports and military, being a mom, being a military spouse, gave me the fortitude to be able to work harder than everyone else, especially when I was in grad school at William & Mary. So I think by having faith, and people that supported me, and professors that understood me and really believed in me, helped me to believe in myself.
I was able to overcome and work with my disability instead of using it as a crutch, like: "I have this [disability], but I can still do this; it might take me longer to learn, but it doesn't mean I can't do it at all." You just work with what you have, and I am a different person than before my injury, but it doesn't mean I'm half a person. I had to learn to realize that I am a whole person, and my husband helped me with it. He is active duty Army and he had a brain injury; he had to learn to walk again, and he taught me about faith and learning to work with your disability, and not making it a disability.
I am a whole person
There are people that want to use your disability against you, and those people are ignorant and are not educated; they assume and judge others. I can't own what everyone else thinks, I just need to own my own stuff. Every time I focus on what others think, it makes me go in a dark place. If you look at me, it doesn't look like I have a disability, but those people close to me can see it. It's an invisible wound, that can be harder to work with than a physical injury.
pD: You talked about finding balance and how you were able to find that yourself. What would you tell someone who wants to find that balance as well?
Renee: I would tell them to:
1) Journal
2) Really sit down and set short-term, one day at a time goals. These goals need to be attainable. Once you meet those goals, then you can set bigger goals. Less is more, and get really good at those initial goals before you move to the next set of goals.
3) Be humble. By being humble, you'll grow. Everything doesn't come tomorrow, but when you're humble and able to really look at yourself and not compare to others, and really focus on yourself, you're going to fly. You will fly.
Execution
Renee is a yoga instructor, and has recorded this challenge yoga routine to help manage stress, strengthen the core, and increase flexibility. Follow along, and find your own balance through your practice.