45. Opportunities, Not Obstacles with Dana Lawson

positivity on fire. In today's episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Dana Lawson, a marine biologist, educator, Outdoors Woman and founder of unbounded horizons, an organization dedicated to using recreational therapy to guide adult survivors of domestic abuse toward the path to independence and ultimately survival. A survivor of domestic abuse herself. Dana is also a cancer survivor and an above the

knee amputee. She is continually pushing herself to rediscover the unbounded horizons of her own potential, and is one of the most powerful stories I've shared today. It is one of determination, inspiration and triumph. I hope you enjoy today's episode. Dana, welcome to the show. So good to see you.

story. And then especially over the month of October, and like, I don't have positivity down, like you have positivity down based upon your life story. I mean, you're the you're the trifecta of things that could go wrong in your life that you've kind of come out of, between having cancer and being an amputee, and being a victim of domestic violence, that where does that come culminate? Now in a life motto for you, Dana, like, what is your life motto?

back to work. And I remember, you know, looking back on it, of course, as an adult, I can see what that was like. But as a kid, she just made our life so fun that we never knew that we were living off of a limited income. So every Thursday night was McDonald's night. And I mean, who doesn't want to throw down for a McDonald's meal, you know, with a happy meal and all of the above. Kids go to McDonald's, we thought we were special because we got to go play and McDonald's every single

Thursday night. And then every Tuesday night, we had breakfast for dinner, which was amazing, because we got to have pancakes and waffles for dinner, which also who gets to do that. And now as an adult, of course, I can see that these were pretty economical choices that she was making. But it wasn't about the money for us. When we were there. It was about the good time and creating that opportunity out of a perceived

obstacle of a limited income. So that's where I think it really got instilled in me in the very beginning was through my mom and just her approach to life. And I'm so grateful for that because as you've mentioned, I think I've had plenty of opportunities to put that into practice.

just that it's a setback. But then I need to remind myself again, that this is an opportunity, not an obstacle for me to just dig deeper and discover really what that's all about. And so a good example is recently, I've been struggling with some pretty significant tendinitis in my elbow in both of my hands. And upon first reflection, of course, I can blame all of that on all of my physical activity that I was doing this summer, all the backpacking and hiking and the

marathoning. But regardless, I have been doing physical therapy and things have been still not improving at the rate that I would like to see them. And so I started to dig a little bit deeper, and think a little bit about more of the spiritual and the mindful things of the connectivity between my body and maybe you know, the body keeps score. And so potentially, what could this be manifesting in my journey of recovering and I realized, just through my reflection and meditation, I

kind of had this aha moment. And I thought to myself, Well, gosh, I have been stuck in this state of, of terror, almost, if you will, in surviving 16 years of domestic violence. And so I have been doing what everyone does, when we first you're instinctively respond to fear as you clench your fists, and you hold on tight, and your muscles become extraordinarily contracted, and you hold your breath, and you become very

frozen. And essentially, that's what it feels like has happened to me is that my hands are sort of exhausted from trying to hold on, and my body is exhausted

from trying to hold on. And so while I do believe that the physical manifestation is in part from all of my activity, I do think that this is also another pathway to discovery for me if we're if some of my trauma exists, and an opportunity for me to use this perceived obstacle of a physical setback in my journey and my recovery as an opportunity to really discover the source perhaps of the trauma.

background noise. And I get out of the Wizard of Oz spot of trying to control everything from behind the curtain. And I just rest and let that happened naturally. And that's when the connections between what I just described as me thinking, gosh, maybe this isn't all just as a result of physical activity, but it's also a spiritual representation of what has been going on for me.

feel great. This is great. And like six minutes into the session the next day, and he's pressing things that I'm like, Oh my gosh, like I had no idea that this stuff was like inside of me. And there were you know, pain points and certain parts of the body that I thought were okay. Not Not even close. Because, you know, my mind was masking it. But the body was then saying, hey, here you go. I'm over here. Don't forget that I'm over here.

in danger. And we the amount of hormones that are released the fight or flight hormones, the cortisol and epinephrine to get us you know, jazzed up enough so that we can have the response that we'll need in order to fight for our lives and in nature. If you've ever watched National Geographic or any any of those shows out there. You'll see when they do the big old you know, the chase of the lion and the Serengeti going after the

pack of cars. And, you know, hopefully fingers crossed, because L gets away in my world, and you get to see them do this sort of wild dance afterwards. And it almost looks like they're celebrating that they didn't get

eaten. But in the animal world, that's actually referred to as punking, and PR, O and K prompting, and really, what that means is that is the animal's instinct to then literally shake out and get rid of all of that toxic, you know, nervous energy that we have inside of us when we're in that fight or flight

response. And as humans, we have evolved, unfortunately, out of prompting, so when something like that happens when we have a traumatic incident, we don't necessarily then get up and run around the room like a, you know, wild Gazelle celebrating that the incident is over, and that we have survived it. And so that then sets us up for a repetitive deposit over time and time again, of this toxic negative, chaotic energy that gets trapped inside of our body.

And that's where when we get into working with complex PTSD, and trying to work through it, we have to recognize that we've got all of this energy trapped inside of us. And it's kind of going around in a, you know, turbulent tornado. And at times, when we get triggered or something happens, that's when we may respond to something inappropriately with anger, or

we're triggered. And it's not necessarily having anything to do with the present circumstance, it has everything to do with that residual stored energy in our body, that we need to work our way back out again. So that's where I'm at in my world.

amazing one. And we did this activity called an embodiment activity, where we were literally kind of doing it not really dancing, what you think of like, you know, high school dance, but more of just body movement and allowing the energy that's within us to guide how the body wants to move. And I had never done anything like that, I think I'd probably as a younger person would be like, Oh, my gosh, look at all those hippies spinning around in circles, what are they doing?

And so I'm at the point now where with the level of trauma that I've been through, right, I'm willing to try just about anything. And so I did this embodiment work with them. And it was this amazing that that's when I actually also had that connection between my mind and my body of perhaps some of this tension that I'm feeling is all of this tension that I didn't even know was in there until I did this embodiment activity and connected with it all. So that's one that I love to do.

Meditation is another one, which, again, is kind of the opposite of the embodiment where you're actively engaging with energy and meditation is perhaps you're more of just quieting the mind and just focusing on the breath and kind of letting the connections happen while you're still. And I also am beginning to look into other things like Reiki and other types of energy work where there's touch

involved. I also believe it just had this sort of Epiphany today that because of our experience with COVID, mine in particular, because I became single just before COVID began and really had little to no human interaction for the first year of COVID. I feel like I am sort of like that adult baby that got no touch as it was being raised. And so I am beginning to realize that I really need that some human touch and some energetic work to help me start to move some of this energy through my body.

first opportunity. And then I have had you know many brushes with significant challenges with my cancer. I'd have my leg amputated. My ex husband nearly killed me and that domestic violence attack. And so the fact that I am still here, I am so grateful for that, I got to witness my mother's journey with cancer, which was pancreatic cancer, and it was extraordinarily Swift, and very painful. And seeing what she went through, I am so grateful that I'm still here to be able

to live and experience life. And so I remember my parents, and I just think about how many people I have met throughout my cancer journey and throughout my domestic violence journey, who have not made it. And I feel so blessed and grateful to be here that that's literally, that's what keeps me going, when I when I want to raise the, you know, white flag and give up, I just remind myself, this is a gift

that you're here. And it is not for you to you know, with more or for you to take as a to be entitled for the gift of life, every breath, we are never entitled to the next one. And so to be provided with the opportunity to simply just be here and experience it, whether it may be good or bad, is a gift. And so I'm grateful for that. And that keeps me going.

into purpose. And so in particular, currently, I am very passionate about domestic violence, because that has been my most recent trauma that I have experienced. And so that's kind of the flavor of the year for now, if you will. And I have founded a nonprofit back in 2007, called nature's Academy.

And we used to do STEM science, technology, engineering and math programs with K through 12 students in Florida, with the onset of COVID, that changed the landscape of that, of course, and gave me an opportunity, not an obstacle to take a moment to step back and kind of, you know, reassess. And interestingly enough, I was ready to kind of after doing this for 12 or 13 years, I was kind of ready for a

new challenge myself anyway. And so we had a year during COVID, and a pandemic to just kind of hit the pause button and really reflect upon what the next steps were going to be for me personally and also for nature's Academy. And I decided to phase out programs in Florida and focus out here in the state of Washington, which is where I live full time and develop a new program called unbounded

horizons. And this program is all about connections with nature, and trauma healing, and using the outdoors as the vehicle to help our healing journey and so unbounded horizons specifically to start off with will be a multi day retreat for female survivors of

domestic violence. And we hope to build the program out from being specific to domestic violence survivors of trauma to all survivors of trauma, because at the end of the day, I think we can all say all of us that have gone through COVID in the pandemic have had some level of PTSD and trauma as we've navigated these significant changes that we've all gone through. And we could all use a way to regulate our stress on a

regular basis. And literally just by stepping outside and spending 20 minutes in nature without using your phone or reading a book, you just have to be there in nature for 20 minutes. And there have been scientific studies that show that there's a reduction in your cortisol, one of those stress hormones and just 20 minutes of being outdoors. So you don't have to do anything. You don't have to walk. You just got to go there and brief. And listen, that's all and so to me. Yeah,

that's it. So to me, that is in and of itself, such a beautiful way to recover from trauma. And it's been so successful for me that I want to share that with others. And so that's unbounded horizons, and that's one area of work that I'm doing. I also am very passionate about legislative change in the field of domestic violence is grossly in the Dark Ages. Still, it needs to be revamped the entire legislative process the penal codes that are associated with it, we really need to dig in

deep and reevaluate. And also, at the same time, in order to effect those types of changes, we also need to address this systemically in society, there needs to be a perception of change of really what domestic violence looks like, we are so focused on victim shaming and blaming, and we never find any accountability for the abuser. A perfect example is whenever you hear about someone that escaped from domestic violence, the question is always why didn't they leave sooner? Or, you know,

why? Why did they stay for so long? And that question in and of itself is so indicative of what the societal view is of domestic violence? Because that's placing all of the blame upon the victim? And where's the abuser? In that question, which the question should be why did the person abused that person for so long? Not, why did that person stay there for so long.

So that's my three arenas that I'm digging in deep into right now bring legislative change domestic violence, parlayed with with doing public speaking and raising awareness about the societal views of what we've got going on. And also the work that I'm doing with unbounded horizons and developing that program to try to help others that have experienced similar things to me,

change in the world. And I think that's what I appreciate most about your story is that you've, you're moving through it, but you're not stopping, right, you're not stopping, you're you're continuing to progress it in an effort to help other people,

supposed to be. And I don't know if 100% of that encompassed who I wanted to be. And so I chose the who I was supposed to be, I think out of the landscape of the choices, and it resonated with me. But once we got to, you know, your late 40s, I think this happens to all of us at some point in time we we kind of recognize our mortality, and we begin to think to ourselves, like, okay, is this going to be enough? Is this is this enough?

For me? Is this really making me feel like if my last day work today is this work that I'm doing the work that I would

choose to do. And while I found myself very passionate about what I was doing, the introduction of cancer and becoming an amputee into my life, and my ability to participate in clinical trials, and use my body, as a vessel of discovery of new medicine to help others was really my first step into this journey of being able to help people on a much larger scale than just teaching kids not that teaching kids is by any stretch of the

imagination. Not a noble profession, because it is, but I felt like if I do this next level of life of doing public speaking, advocating for these causes, raising awareness for these causes using my body as a vessel for clinical trials, I could like be saving people's lives. I mean, that's super cool. And so I felt at that moment that that's really the work that I see I'm super passionate about, and I just the the, the path was set, and I just started following it. And

here I am now and 2021. And it's, it's exactly where I wanted to be instead of where I am supposed to be. And I don't mean I wanted to become a domestic abuse victim. But I do mean that I am so grateful for the opportunity to be doing meaningful work that provides real changes in the quality of

life, for others out there. And I don't know of anything better for me to be able to be doing with my perceived last day than to race, you know, the joy level and the level of grace that other others can feel for themselves.

voice at the moment. I don't know how to have a voice at the moment. So that's important work.

And that's who I am. And that's who I will continue to be. And now that I am free, and no longer in restrictive, abusive, toxic relationship, I can truly be who I want to be now, not who I was supposed to be. And so it's really joyful. And it's exciting and scary, and confusing, all at the same time. By no stretch of the imagination, is it easy, I certainly have down days, I have had some, you know, pretty dark dates. And I have to remind myself, I'm not sure if you've heard of that poem by Rumi

called the guesthouse. I love that poem. It's all about how are our bodies sort of a guest house for emotions, and we have to welcome them all. And we as if they are all equal, equally welcomed guests, because they all bring a message from beyond. And it's not up to us to choose which guests come to visit us. And so the sooner we can embrace the guests and let them visit and know that it truly is a guest house, that's the other portion of it is that no emotions are permanent,

everything is transient. And so just like a guest visiting, your house will come and it will go and you need to remember that there's some transient nature to it. So the bad times won't last. And you can sort of rest into that as best as you can. And that's what I have been trying to do in my journey.

Right. And I think people forget that they start to label themselves as, or they label other people even worse, oh, that person is, you know, grumpy, or that person is unhappy, or that person is always positive. Now there is no always in front of the motion. It just doesn't happen that way. So I, I appreciate you bringing up that point about that.

I'm feeling sad today. And I'm feeling glad today. That's the true you who you are not the emotion. It's the awareness of what's going on around.

over the Caribbean. So I can't wait to get back to being able to get out there and start exploring the world again, and traveling. And, you know, there's an added level of challenge for that for me now, because of my, because of the fact that I'm an amputee, and mobility and, you know, accessibility is by far not even remotely close to being universal. But like everything else, I see that as an opportunity for me not an obstacle to just figure out you know, how to navigate getting

there. And then it just makes the reward that much sweeter, because you have to work a little bit harder. But

see that. But in reality, I would love to go to the South will set the South Pacific, you know, to go diving and just check it all out.

never. But in my world of possibilities, I don't see my effort of trying to thru hike the PCT as a solo effort. This is going to be a team effort, kind of when you see people who are disabled hike Kilimanjaro or you know summit Mount Everest, or do you think there's a whole team that's with them. And it's been months worth of work

building that up together. And so that is my ultimate, ultimate dream of what I would love to be able to achieve and to do and to develop a community like that, where we are working together for a larger goal. And of course, that would be parlayed with all kinds of awareness, raising for different things, being an amputee, domestic violence, all those things, cancer, rare diseases. So I have this little dream, big dream. I really, really, really really can't wait to kind of see start

to manifest. And in part, that's what I'm doing. So people might not realize that there's a very organized and strategic plan that's going on in the background. So yes, doing a marathon 26.2 Miles has been a dream of mine since before I was diagnosed with cancer and before I lost my leg, but I achieved it finally, this past June 6, and

2021. And in Part, Part of the reason why I did that is because if you're going to not only to fulfill the dream, of course, but if you're going to thru hike the PCT, you have to, on average, do 20 miles a day. So I thought to myself, well, if you're going to commit to doing something like that, you better see if you can even do 20 miles in one day, which worked well

with American dream. And so that's in part kind of how NASA or the space companies since they've been privatized will step by step by step by step test things one at a time and build up until they're ready to do the big expedition. I am doing the exact same thing in the background. So first, I did the marathon to prove to myself that I could do 20 miles a day.

And then next I thought well, I better make sure I can actually backpack like put a backpack not just a little daypack like a real backpack on my back that's 2025 pounds and go for a real backpacking adventure and setting up tents and doing all

these things. So I did two of those this summer as well which again is part of my you know, love and dream, but it's part of my step by step by step process of proving to myself that this is an attainable goal for me to set and I'm meeting hopefully people along the way that will help me to build the community that will be that team that will eventually thru hike the PCT with me.

Trail. And so there are people out there of course, who may think that I'm, you know, slightly crazy because I want to do 2650 miles on foot, one foot with crutches. But there are others out there who are known as triple crown owners that have done all three of them Triple Crown ORS that have done all three of them in one season, which is insane. Grand Slam there are others out there.

Yeah, yes, in one season. And then there's others that have yo yoed betrayals, meaning they go, they start at one end, they reach the other side, and then they turn around and they come back all in one season. So that's the yo yo. So there are some pretty intense people out there that I commend even though it sounds like it's a crazy challenge for me. What other people have already put themselves through the test to do is such inspiration for me.

And with the advent of social media, of course, now I can find them on Instagram, and I can start talking with them about, you know, tips and tricks of the trade. So it's pretty exciting. It's way off in the future, still, but you can see them step by step actually say hi, I'm trying out my different trying out my different challenges to ensure that I'm going to be ready when the day comes to start.

chunking anything. Well, when you want to do 2000 Miles is chunking. Just keep it in mind that context.

shows message grows. And finally, as I close every show, thank you for being here today, my friends. Your gift of time listening to this show does mean the world to me. And as always be well be happy be you and until the next time may your quest for positivity begin Today