How I Adapted To My Life Changing? Just like nature does

Who didn’t feel invincible to start a life of discovery and adventure at the age of seventeen? A simple football game with my friends the day after Christmas would leave me a C5/6 quadriplegic. The loss was immediate and devastating: paralysis from my neck down to my toes and all the physical, social and emotional upheaval that came with it. For a long while, the struggle was real.
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Like the amazing adaptations we see in nature, a tree growing out of a bolder or a flower growing out of the cement parking lot, nature finds a way to survive and thrive. Like nature we must find a way to not just survive but to also thrive. Being able to adapt is one of the qualities that is needed to survive and thrive.

I know what most readers will want to hear: the grisly details, the trauma, the triumph, and the answer to how I can possibly deal with this terrible outcome on a daily basis. But here’s the thing: the outcome of my spinal cord injury is no longer terrible. I didn’t overcome, I adapted. 

The story of that football game is something I choose not to focus on or re-live and after 40 years of living with paralysis, I feel privileged. My journey has been stunningly transformative. The world is still my oyster and I have already lived as an able-bodied person, and now as a disabled person, increasing my personal repertoire of what it means to be human. 

You know what is worse than not walking? Not living, not thriving. I live in a world where there is a deeply entrenched social stigma where bodies that don’t fit a cultural “norm” are marginalized. They need to be fixed, cured, or eradicated. It is often a society where disability is a dirty word and a wheelchair is a symbol of confinement, not freedom. 

As I considered being a successful businessman, coach, father and husband, believe it or not, it’s a world where being a quadriplegic will cause others to question your worth. I have seen disabled individuals shunned as selfish and doubted for having children, or rejected when applying for adoption.

In the face of these challenges that have nothing to do with being disabled, and everything to do with social and environmental barriers, what has strengthened my perspective has been the consideration of other people’s lives, particularly those who were born with a disability and who are also at ease and in harmony with their body and identity. 
Like in nature the weather and changing of the seasons creates barriers for all things to thrive. Sometimes there is to much sun and it dries things out. Sometimes there is to much rain or snow. No matter what conditions are thrown at us we need to continue to adapt even though you don’t have all the resources you need.  Life does not promise us or give us all the resources we need. 
It is easier to survive and thrive when you have all the resources you need. The grass is always green when it gets a little rain. Adapting to the ever changing situations that life throws at us requires Resourcefulness. Being resourceful is one of the nest qualities you can learn and have. It is a quality you will rely on more than you can imagine and it will serve you well as you learn to navigate the peaks and valleys that life brings to us.   

Those who wear their wheelchairs, white canes, prosthetic limbs, and any kind of visible or invisible scars, with acceptance and pride despite all the outside factors that tell them to be ashamed. Those who know that their personhood and value is never in question, despite having to fight for their health, equality, inclusion, and access.

I wrote a book called The Quadfather. It is a tough love, unapologetic answer to all the excuses that keep people from thriving. The Quadfather is dedicated to strengthening ones mind, creating grit and eradicating toxicity. My personal health challenges are a catalyst to seek mental, emotional and spiritual wellness for everybody. 

Brian P Swift  J.D. Coach – Business & Personal Strategist – Speaker [email protected] brianpswift.com
 
 
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