The Chapter
The Spark Within
Ignite Resilience
I had been carrying this story for twenty-seven years before I wrote it down. When the invitation came to contribute to Ignite Resilience, I realized the version I'd been telling — short, controlled, the parts that fit polite conversation — wasn't the version that could help anyone. So I wrote the longer one.
Inside the chapter
A Mother's Day morning, a guidance counselor, and the years between.
The chapter opens on a single Mother's Day morning, when I was seven, and follows what came after — the years of being told what I couldn't do, the diploma a counselor said wouldn't happen, and the long rebuild in my twenties that started on a stationary bike with one sentence I kept repeating: you can do this. Keep pushing.
It isn't a how-to. It's the long account of one person figuring it out, day by day, when no one had a method for her. The Movement, Stretch, Go Fast practice came out of that figuring.
The Opening
From The Spark Within, in Ignite Resilience
My life flipped at a very young age, and resilience became my friend early on. When I was just seven years old, on Mother's Day, my brothers and I bought our mom a music CD of one of Canada's most famous country singers, Shania Twain. One week later, a car crash changed my family and life forever…
Behind the writing
Why I wrote it
Because the version I'd been telling in polite conversation — the short, controlled one — was useful for getting through dinner parties. It wasn't useful for anyone in the middle of something hard. The chapter is the longer version. The one with the guidance counselor in it. The one with the bike.
What it took
Two years of drafts. Most of them I threw out. The chapter only started working when I stopped trying to make resilience sound nice — and started writing what it actually felt like in the years where nothing was working yet.
Who it's for
Anyone who has been told what they can't do, or has told themselves. Anyone in the middle of a long recovery that doesn't follow the shape someone else thinks it should. The chapter doesn't promise a way out. It shows what one person did, day by day, when no one had a method for her.
Ignite Resilience
Available on Amazon
Life will challenge us all. There will be moments of uncertainty, setbacks, loss, and change. Yet it is often through these experiences that we discover our greatest strength.
Ignite Resilience is a collection of inspiring real-life stories from individuals who faced adversity and found the courage to keep moving forward. Through their journeys of perseverance, growth, and transformation, these authors reveal what it truly means to rise above life's challenges.
Within these pages, you will find hope in difficult times, wisdom gained through experience, and practical insights to help you navigate your own journey. Each story is a reminder that resilience is not about avoiding hardship. It is about learning, growing, and emerging stronger because of it.
No matter where you are in your life today, these stories will encourage you to trust your strength, embrace your potential, and believe in what is possible.
Because resilience is not something you are born with.
It is something you discover within yourself.
Inspired By My Story
Get the Movement Guide
What Movement, Stretch, and Go Fast actually mean — including specific options for each, whether you're returning to your body after injury or starting from a desk-bound year. Why each one works in the body, and why the sequence matters when you're rebuilding. What to do the first week: where to begin, how long, what to notice when it's working.