How a Near Death Experience Helped Me Find My Purpose
I believe all things are possible. In the end it truly comes down to what we tell ourselves.
As a child I grew up in a fairly terrifying home. I learned to be alert to my surroundings and respond immediately to others. I developed migraines, a stomach problem, and a fear-based anxiety that didn’t leave my body until I was well into my mid-forties.
As a child, I coped with this anxiety by becoming a compulsive overachiever. My home life made me feel like I didn’t have control, and one way of regaining that feeling of control was through achievement. As such, I learned to always be one step ahead and never let anyone see me sweat. I became the overachiever’s overachiever in order to gain acceptance and control, and to ultimately win.
Gaining acceptance through achievement is something that "works” for a lot of people in our country. We aim to be productive and achieve great heights, but we lose ourselves in the process. I was without a doubt in that same state of mind until seven years ago when I nearly died in a competitive biking accident.
As an overachiever I was of course performing incredibly well in the race. That is, however, until I was bumped by another cyclist and went plummeting to the ground. Nearly instantly I shattered nine ribs, punctured a lung, separated my shoulder, and cracked my skull which resulted in a severe brain injury. Convulsing and not aware of where I was, I was taken away to a trauma hospital and put in a coma. Shortly afterwards it was pronounced that I would most likely not survive and family and friends were alerted. For three days the doctors didn't believe I would live. Yet I kept fighting. In a sense, it was my childhood that saved my life. My response and defense to the terror I encountered at a young age had taught my body to keep fighting and never give up. Somehow this mentality ingrained itself in my unconscious mind and empowered me to overcome the physical and psychological trauma of my accident.
After a month of being in a coma I was finally released from the hospital. I had to relearn how to walk, talk, cut my food, and do so many of the other everyday activities we take for granted. My doctors told me it would take my brain three years to heal - an idea to which I immediately replied: “hell no it won’t!”
My recovery flabbergasted the medical world. I started riding my bike just eight months after my accident. I also learned to drive, walk and talk at a pace nobody could have foreseen.
Before recovering, however, I had a lot of time to lie in bed and think. One of the main questions I asked myself was “What is my purpose?”
The answer came one day while dropping my son off for school. As my daughter and I accompanied him to the train station, my daughter looked around and noticed that everybody getting onto the city-bound train looked depressed. She asked me the following question:
“Mama, why does everyone look so unhappy getting on the train going to work?”
Immediately my heart felt like it was jammed with a knife. Pain and sadness consumed me because all I could do was acknowledge the truth in her observation. Here was a train leaving from one of the most affluent areas in Chicago, yet everyone boarding it looked miserable. As a compulsive overachiever myself, I knew what it felt like: getting on the train day after day, continuing to achieve and achieve, and at the end of the day what was it all for?
After I dropped my daughter off at school I went back home to get on my bike. During my ride I cycled over to the same tracks where my daughter made her observation earlier that morning, and that’s when I had my wake-up call. I suddenly thought to myself: “Thank God I almost died doing something I love, something I was awesome at. These dear precious people are getting on the train and dying a slow death every day, and they don't even realize it.” That’s when I realized my purpose and passion was to work with those overachievers, the people who have accomplished so much in life but have lost themselves in the process.
You see, I know what it’s like to be in a real coma. However, I also know what it’s like to be in a metaphorical coma, going through the motions of life and living life unaware. Living in the past or the future, not in the present. Being ignorant of the unconscious beliefs and behaviors that drive us. Achieving just to gain acceptance. Going through life in a comatose fashion.
My mission is to wake CEOs and executives up from the coma they’re in. Bring them back to the present and empower them to make “whole yes” decisions in alignment with their head, heart, and body. Teach them to be still and contemplative rather than reactive. Most companies today are built on cultures of reactivity where leaders are closed, defensive, and committed to being right. They can and should instead be built in a way that encourages openness, curiosity, and a commitment to learning.
Our work is to be awake and aware in every moment of our life. That’s what it means to be fully alive and not in a coma. It takes practice, by the way. For nearly a decade now I’ve been practicing conscious leadership and being fully in alignment with emotional intelligence, body intelligence, and IQ. This work has changed my life and is what I bring to the world now.
For me it took a near death experience and an induced coma to reveal my passion and purpose to me. It was a grueling experience but it birthed a beautiful outcome. If anything, I hope my story inspires you to awaken from the comatose state you might be going through life in. I hope it inspires you to start living consciously, passionately, and presently. If I can in any way support you on that journey, I’d love to connect with you.
xxoo
-Debra
Exquisite Leader. Exquisite Life.