A Journey of Resilience and Reinvention with Athena Brownson

[00:00:03] Hi, I'm Dr. Russell Thackeray and welcome to Resilience Unravelled, a podcast with new ideas, new thoughts and new thinking about resilience. Guests with remarkable stories, products and services that can really power up your own mindset and resilience. You can also go to our site for more information, to ask questions or to access some of our resources at resilienceunravelled.com. Let's get started.

[00:00:33] Hi and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled and tonight a guest who's just been telling me all about snow. So I'm very excited we're going to find out more about the snow because I like, I always love snow. So sitting in front of me is Athena Branson. Hi, Athena, how are you? Great name by the way, Athena. That's one of those Greek god things, isn't it? I am a little bit Greek if you couldn't tell. Wow. It was my grandmother's name.

[00:01:00] Both my grandparents immigrated from Greece, Cyprus and Greece. And I just am the lucky offspring that got the name. So I'm very grateful. Thank you for having me. Goddess of wisdom, war and handicraft. Yes. And I would say the wisdom and war part I've got down pretty well. I'm a little bit of a fiery human being. And I like to think that I've got a little bit of wisdom, hence why I'm here today. Handiwork.

[00:01:28] I am probably the least handy person you'll ever meet. So I'm going to have to work on those skills. I'm guessing you're pretty handy with a pair of ski poles. How about that? Oh, you got me there. I could say that I was pretty professional at using anything ski related, including snow. Okay. All right. Excellent. So you're in Denver, Colorado, and you've had snow this morning. You were telling me four inches, did you say? Yes. So it was actually last night.

[00:01:57] Colorado's notorious for being 80 degrees one day and completely blizzard, snowing the next, or doing both in the same day. And last night it was dumping. This morning it is a beautiful day, so I couldn't be happier. It's that time of year when I'm ready to not be in the snow. And so you're going to tell us a bit about yourself. But my understanding is that you used to be a skier. Is that right? I suppose it's obvious from Denver that you're all brought up on skis, are you?

[00:02:25] And I actually grew up in a small mountain community about an hour and a half west of Denver called Breckenridge. It's a pretty well-known ski resort for those that are into snow sports. But I really like to say I didn't have a chance. My dad was a professional skier. He was one of those maniacs that went down the mountain as fast as he possibly could, wearing like a rubber suit.

[00:02:52] And he'd get clocked for how many miles an hour he was going. So my early days were basically following him through Europe, watching him compete in speed skiing. So I grew up in an environment of adrenaline, athletics, and a little bit of psychosis, I like to say. And I quickly fell in love with skiing. I learned how to ski when I learned how to walk. And I truly never stood a chance.

[00:03:21] I skied up until the age of 13. I was in ski racing. So I did a lot of downhill. Then I like to say I switched to the dark side, which was freestyle skiing, which was a bit of a new sport to females at the time. What's the difference? So I primarily, when I switched to freestyle, I was going off of those huge jumps, hitting the half pipe.

[00:03:50] Like Sean White's a snowboard version of what I did. Obviously, he's also the Sean White version. He's the best in the world. But I primarily focused on the terrain park and on big mountain skiing. And I was one of the youngest at the time females to go professional. So right around. Yeah, right around age 15, actually.

[00:04:16] And I should say you become professional when you start getting paid by different brands to wear their product and to use. So I was sponsored by companies from Under Armour to Skullcandy, Dina Star, the list goes on and they would pay for me to travel about 300 days a year chasing snow. Throughout high school, I was working with some of the most acclaimed coaches in the world

[00:04:44] that were extremely disciplined. So there was no such thing as showing up two minutes late for practice, because if you did, that meant you were likely going to be hiking the mountain for the day in your boots instead of taking the chairlift, or you would be doing burpees on the side of the hill. At the time, as a young 15-year-old who just wanted to be skiing and hanging out with my

[00:05:11] friends, and then to have this extreme side of elite coaching at its finest, I did not appreciate it, to say the least. I did not realize that what I was learning from these coaches was, in fact, resilience. I was being taught firsthand every day what it meant to show up, what it meant to show up as your best and give your best.

[00:05:38] And if you didn't, that there was accountability, there were going to be consequences. And of course, I didn't appreciate that at the time. But later in life, which we'll get to, I found that these are the most invaluable lessons that I ever could have learned. And ones that as an adult, I have really become dedicated to continuing forward with.

[00:06:05] And I really believe that the principles you learn in athletics are really anything that you're extremely passionate about because you have that why. You have a reason, a passion, a willingness to do whatever it takes to be the best, or at least within your capabilities.

[00:06:28] And oftentimes when we go into our later lives and into the real world, so to speak, that tends to get left behind until we're faced with difficulty. So I've become very interested and really consumed by the idea of resilience. And if it is something that can be built, if it's something that is innate, and if it's

[00:06:55] something that you can continue to foster throughout your life. So why don't we uncover that together? Indeed. Indeed. First things, let me just go back to a few things. Most skiers end up being injured, don't they? So is that something you had to experience? That little thing. You could say that to say the least. I blew nine ACLs, broke two necks, broke two legs pretty severely, multiple concussions.

[00:07:24] So I was either on the mountain or rehabbing an injury 365 days a year. I finally retired or hung up the skis, I should say, at the ripe age of 23 when I was told, look, Athena, I had just blown my last knee up in Whistler, British Columbia. And my doctor said, you're going to need a knee replacement by the time you're 25 if you keep this up.

[00:07:52] This is, you're doing some serious damage to your body. And I think it's time that you focus on your health and on really taking care of yourself. So it was at that point. And skiing is one of those sports that is pretty expected to have a young retirement. So it didn't come as a surprise, but it doesn't make it any easier.

[00:08:15] But what I learned through these injuries was if you do A, B, C, and D, you're going to get better. And unfortunately, later in life, some of the adversity that I have become all too familiar with over the last eight years is the idea that some illnesses do not have a path that if you do A, B, C, and D, you're going to get better.

[00:08:41] So what happens to the mentality when there's no clear plan in place, when it's all trial and error, when it's falling on your face and getting back up? And when you have unique illnesses that have not necessarily all accumulated in another person that any of your doctors know of.

[00:09:03] So I feel a little bit like a test subject many times, but how do you look within yourself and find resilience in the face of adversity? Because I do believe through personal experience that we all do have the ability to create resilience within ourselves. And that resilience is something that is not a, it's not the same every day.

[00:09:33] Our ability to show resilience in the face of adversity changes on a daily basis based on how our nervous system is doing. If we're already in a state of flight or fight because of something we're going through in work and we start to flare up because of it. And your resilience is most likely going to be a little bit challenged because you're over exerting your nervous system.

[00:10:02] You've, you really have to make conscious decisions and conscious effort to, to find resilience in the face of adversity when you feel like you're overcome by challenges, because that's where the new neural pathways are created that enable you to next time, not automatically go to the world is on fire. Everything is ending. I quit.

[00:10:29] It'll, it helps your brain understand that, Hey, I've been in this position before. I, it's not comfortable, but I know that if I build my toolkit, I like to say of what are, what are the things in your life that are going to help you get through the most difficult days, which every day for the last eight and a half years has been the case.

[00:10:55] So what can we do in our own lives to help build our own personal resilience so that when we don't, when we're fired with 10 different things at once, we can take a step back and say, okay, let me simplify this. Let me get my feet back on the ground. Okay. So just to go back a little bit then. So a lot of people who've had a career that's been mapped out for them, they reach some sort

[00:11:24] of standard, which is good. And then for whatever reason you've, you lose it. So you either achieve all your goals or you have a big injury or something like that. You've sometimes, you sometimes have to reinvent yourself, don't you? So I wonder if that happened to you and what did you do? I absolutely love that because the idea of reinvention is something that I did not even really begin to think about until recently.

[00:11:49] And I realized, so I was diagnosed with Lyme disease about eight years ago. And Lyme is very unique in the fact that it attacks everyone differently. So whatever you're genetically predisposed to, whatever your weaknesses are, it attacks. And it has the ability to, the cellular shape of it is such that it screws into your own cell,

[00:12:16] creates a biofilm that's pretty much impenetrable around it. So fighting it is extremely challenging. And it's not the same for everyone. And it is trial and error. So when you're facing something that you don't necessarily understand what the outcome is going to be or what that even looks like, can you repeat the beginning of your question?

[00:12:46] I just got lost in my tangent. Yeah, I wasn't thinking so much about the Lyme disease at this time. I was thinking more about the point when you're talking about reinvention. Oh, reinvention. Sorry. After skiing. But I've had to reinvent myself two times. And the first time was going from being a professional skier, being at the top of my game. Even though I had injury, I was a elite athlete, to say the least.

[00:13:15] I was in spectacular shape. But at the same time, my identity was completely wrapped up in being a professional skier. So to have my identity shift from being a professional athlete, top of the world, to finishing off university or college, as we say here, and entering the real world, there was a complete identity crisis. And I was young at the time.

[00:13:43] Being 23, I didn't really have the tools. At least I didn't realize that I had the tools to be in charge of how I wanted to reinvent myself. I had this grand plan for what life was going to look like. And of course, this was not... I think anytime we think we have a plan, it's just a great way to be laughed at by the universe because life doesn't go to plan.

[00:14:11] And it is our ability to reinvent ourselves that is so critical. But reinventing myself took years. And it took trying different professions. It took taking a ton of different types of classes at university. It took trying different sports that weren't so difficult on my body. But I was so desperately seeking something else, something outside of myself to give me identity

[00:14:40] like skiing had. But what I didn't realize and what I didn't learn until my second reinvention, I would say, is that something outside of ourselves should not be what is creating our identity. Our identity is something that we should be consciously creating by having mentors

[00:15:04] and spending time with the people that you look up to and following everything they do. And never... I think the access to information we have, it's like we have the ability to continue learning and growing and really enabling ourselves and empowering ourselves to create the identity in which we want. I personally did not find that as a 23-year-old.

[00:15:33] But when I was, let's say, 25, a dear friend of mine saw that I was working as an interior designer at the time. I was very unenthusiastic. I lost that passion. And a dear friend of mine realized, she said, Athena, you're coming from the world of athletics where you were in charge of your success. However much you put in, you got out of it. You need to be in the world of being an entrepreneur.

[00:16:03] And I would like you to talk to the owner of my real estate firm because I think that he will transform your view of real estate. And I had this idea that it was a corny car salesman. And I had this opportunity to sit down with the owner of her company. And he was human sunshine.

[00:16:26] And he explained to me that real estate was the opportunity to take someone through the biggest purchase or sale of their life and really create a relationship that couldn't be, that should be for the rest of their lives as well. It's a lifelong relationship. Right when I got to the top of my game in real estate, which took about three years of

[00:16:52] following my mentors meticulously and hiring coaches and following the best agents in the game and doing everything they did. And then I was diagnosed with Lyme disease. And again, I was faced with being a successful realtor at a pretty short amount of time to barely getting out of bed every day.

[00:17:16] And that's what really started my journey into, well, unknowingly at the time, into understanding the importance of resilience and wanting to spread the information that I've learned about overcoming adversity and how we can build resilience during a time when most likely all you want to do is hide in bed. When things are going wrong. When things are going wrong.

[00:17:45] It's the last time you want to work on personal growth. But when you look back at your life, you never look back and say, wow, I learned so much when everything was easy and perfect.

[00:17:58] It's when things go astray that we're faced with the opportunity to either get stuck in the mud or to evolve and to reinvent ourselves and to understand that adversity is going to come in many forms to no matter who you are.

[00:18:20] And it's important to mourn and to feel your feelings, but not to get stuck there and to understand that it's an opportunity to become the best version of yourself if you take the initiative to do. So how would you do that? For me, it started off as a lot of falling on my face. I was absolutely devastated when I lost my health. It was something I always took for granted.

[00:18:49] I was in peak physical condition. I had always been extremely conscious about what I put in my body. I didn't drink. I was the epitome of an athlete.

[00:19:02] And for someone that had spent their whole life focusing on health to literally not being able to get out of bed because I was in too much pain and because I was so chronically fatigued and there was so much brain fog that even getting a complete thought out cognitively was not an option for quite a long time.

[00:19:30] And I had a really difficult time. And I went through periods of anger and through lots of depression and sadness. And it wasn't until a couple of years in that I started to realize that the gifts that chronic illness were giving me in terms of teaching me who the people are in my tribe that I want to surround myself with and that support me unconditionally.

[00:19:58] How I can be creating a toolkit for when life isn't going right, what I'm going to do to pump myself up to get out the door. For example, yesterday I was having a horrific flare, but I needed to work all day.

[00:20:15] And for me, having rituals or habits in your life that you can rely on to help get your game face on has become absolutely the most important thing for me. So I know that if I play one of my favorite podcasts, yours being one of them, or if I listen to some of my favorite music and I put my makeup on, which I like to call my war paint.

[00:20:44] And I'm doing my morning affirmations and I'm like reading out my goals after writing them in the present tense. I know that I am doing the things that are going to help me get into a better headspace. I still have to show up because the alternative is going on disability, becoming far too depressed and never regaining my health.

[00:21:10] I have a mindset that no matter what it takes, I will get back to being healthy. But I realize that this is a conscious effort. And I look back at my ski career and I think about the importance of reps and creating habits and showing up when you say you're going to.

[00:21:33] And doing all of these things repeatedly, you're teaching your brain that you're creating neuropathways that are showing you that you can overcome, whether it's just getting out of bed and getting to work that day or overcoming the most painful day you've experienced. And again, this is not just for chronic illness. We all face adversity.

[00:22:00] And I do believe that you can teach yourself resilience through trial and error and then creating habits out of what works for you. And the best time in life to grow is through adversity. And you have to find what works for you.

[00:22:21] But for me, it's like having a morning and evening routine, having my go-tos for when I really don't feel well, making sure that no matter what, I'm moving my body, going to therapy, doing a lot of EMDR and trauma work, because all of this has been very traumatic. And the more I've learned, the more I've learned that we keep these traumas in our body.

[00:22:47] And if you're not actively participating in healing and in growing, then unfortunately, you're going to stay stagnant. Or if you're battling health like myself, you'll go downhill. So it really becomes a life or death thing. Did you find out how you caught Lyme disease? It wasn't this terrible, this military virus R.F. Kennedy talks about, or was it just ticks?

[00:23:15] So interestingly enough, he does have Lyme disease. But almost every professional in the world of Lyme does believe that Lyme disease was a bio-warfare gone wrong. It appeared very quickly out of the middle of nowhere in Connecticut in the 40s. And it is unlike any other natural virus that we've found.

[00:23:43] So the only way, the only way, as we know, that you can contract Lyme disease is by being bit by a tick. Do I have any memory of being bit by a tick? No. Do I have no idea where it would have happened? No. But again, I was traveling as an athlete around the world 300 days a year in heavily wooded areas with absolutely no knowledge of how to protect myself from ticks. I have no idea.

[00:24:12] I do know that chronic Lyme disease really lays dormant in your system until something weakens your immune system enough that it can then come out. So for me, I was going in for my final neck surgery. I just needed to clean a couple of things up.

[00:24:32] I woke up and was doing pretty well and then started having these very strange viral infections and like GI problems and chronic fatigue and brain fog that I'd never experienced before. And I was extremely fortunate. Most people that contract Lyme disease can go decades without understanding how they got it.

[00:24:58] I had a doctor that quickly identified it and I was in complete disbelief. I was like, I've never even seen a tick. You're crazy. But blood studies don't lie. So I, it was a very large pill to swallow. That's interesting. So it's interesting how your toolkit really goes, falls back on what you did as a skier.

[00:25:23] So it uses that idea of reps and habits and getting yourself into a pattern that you remember from childhood in a sense, which is really good. So it's been fascinating talking to you and we ought to be sensitive of your time here because I know there's snow to get out in. So if people want to get out and talk to you a little bit more about some of these issues, where can they get hold of you? Yes. And I'd love to talk to you for days. My website is definitely the best place to reach me. It has my social media, my phone number, my email.

[00:25:51] And please reach out if you're going through something challenging. If you're looking for real estate in Denver, I'd love to assist. I'm here to be an ear and to help any way I can. And that my website is my first and last name. So Athena Brownson Realtor. Should I spell that? A-T-H. No, I think there's a link in the show notes. Perfect. You can find me there and I would love to connect. Brilliant. So it's been a joy to talk to you today. It's been fascinating.

[00:26:22] It is interesting to see how you have done that reinvention more than once. That's brilliant. So thank you so much. We'll see what the future holds. Yes. And good luck for the rest of your day. So have a good afternoon. You too. Take care. Hi, I hope you found that episode useful and entertaining. If you want to support our work, please go to resilienceunravel.com and you can become a member there as well.

[00:26:51] You can also send us a question there and even apply to do a podcast. You can also leave a review on Apple Podcasts or any of the other podcast hosts of your choice, as well as getting hold of some useful resources about resilience and a whole lot more. Join us next time on the next edition of Resilience Unraveled.