Ed Jackson on Overcoming Paralysis to Climb Mountains & the importance of Support Networks

in 2017 I was recovering from a shoulder injury so had the weekend off went round to family friend's house um first hot day of the year and and effectively dived into what I thought was deep water um but turned out to be only about 3 ft deep and I I suffered a really serious spinal cord injury which rendered me paralyzed from the shoulders down are you ready to make a change but you just feel stuck or are you struggling to overcome a traumatic experience but you just don't know where to start in this episode I speak to Ed jackon a former professional Rugby Union player who faced the life-altering challenge of becoming paralyzed after hitting his head diving into a swing pool Ed shares his story of not only overcoming paralysis after being told he would never walk again but also climbing mountains and using his experience to help others highlighting the critical role that support networks played in recovery welcome to move your mind where we uncover why you are holding yourself back from getting the life you want and what to do about it with the help from high achieving guests and experts in Behavioral Science personal development and the health and wellness space join us if you're ready to move out of your own way toward your ideal self I'm your host Nick bra and I've been working in the health and wellness space for the last 15 years helping people find direction and Gain gain the courage to take control of their life my mission is simple to help you learn everything that I wish I knew so you can become your ideal self lacking guidance I spent the majority of my youth feeling lost and disempowered which led to depression anxiety low self-esteem and substance abuse looking back I didn't have the vocabulary to communicate what I was experiencing and as a man I didn't resonate with the emotional language used in traditional therapy I didn't need to talk about my feelings I needed tangible Solutions to guide me toward building a life I was proud of if you can relate then this podcast is for you in this episode we discuss the importance of support networks in overcoming life challenges if you're ready to take action and build a stronger mindset then keep listening Ed thank you so much for making the time to come on my podcast mate pleasure thanks for having me on looking forward to chatting same here same here and I was just saying to you i' I've been you know researching you and uh it's yeah so inspiring the story and it's probably I I think I'll just jump into that uh just so our guests can learn a little bit about you do you mind just uh giving a background on yourself and just a you know a brief overview of your story of how you came to you know be where you are now and you know what you're what you're here to talk about yeah sure so um in brief because it's quite A lot's happened but uh so I was I was a professional rugby player in the UK for 10 years uh playing in the English premiership and pro4 like the Celtic leagues over there um and then in 2017 I was recovering from a shoulder injury so had the weekend off went round to family friend's house um first hot day of the year and and effectively dived into what I thought was was deep water um but turned out to be only about 3T deep and I I suffered a really serious spinal cord injury which rendered me paralyzed from the shoulders down um I had a 7-hour operation um hoping it would help but I woke up in intensive care and um I was yeah quadriplegic effectively so quite a drastic change from being being a professional rugby player and the the the move movie then follows sort of my life since then and the recovery process um going from learning to walk again to um now climbing mountains uh which is obviously something I never expected I would be doing because I was told that I actually wouldn't be walking again um but it's also about the emotional journey of running through trauma and the people that affected around me um and what we're doing with charity as well so there's lots of different there's lots of different things going on in the film um the reason we made the film was to hopefully have tangible takeaways for people not just necessarily who are going through trauma but kind of the lessons I've learned as well along the way um but also there's some pretty epic mountaineering stuff in there too um a big situation that we got into on a mountain in the pool for forms a big part of the film but it's crazy to be sat here you know talking to you and and speaking to people with the film actually now becoming a reality because it was three years ago when I got the phone call about it um and I actually thought it was a wind up if I'm if I'm honest especially when they said it was Universal who were making it but it's here is real um and it's being released soon so just looking forward for it to be out there now yeah yeah well I mean I think to anyone else it probably doesn't seem crazy that Universal are making it because it is a you know crazy story and you know it's going to inspire so many people I'm sure you already are uh how how was the initial mindset shift going from I mean it's such an extreme adaption at the beginning going from this professional athlete to then having to come to terms with what had happened in the accident and your new reality was that did that take you time to adjust and how did you what were the what was the process you went through there yeah absolutely and you're right it was a process because it's such a shock I think it's all I'd ever done really you know I found I was get I found out at 16 I having a Prof had a professional contract lined up for when I left school um and my whole identity was wrapped up in being being a rugby player really being a professional Sportsman and um obviously to have that all taken away in an instant was was tough to get my head around cuz it wasn't like I'd just lost rugby I'd lost me I'd lost who who I was you know my my identity was wrapped up in being a man being physical like all of the things that come along with that and now I couldn't even feed myself breathe for myself you know go to the toilet for myself and it was really tough to deal with there were some dark moments and obviously there's then the whole anxiety about what this means for the rest of my life not just in the practical sense but you know for everyone around me I was engaged at the time you know was I I knew I wasn't ever going to play rugby again from a very from almost from when my head hit the bottom of the pool I don't know I just knew it was serious and um but I didn't anticipate having to work out a new life was it going to have to sell my house to pay for Rehab what you know I was telling my them fiance that she should leave me and you know what this mean for my family who are going to have to care for me and all of these sorts of things and that uncertainty brings with it a lot of anxiety and it was a process to get to that point of acceptance and a process that happened over time um and actually a lot of it was wrapped up in starting to see some positives come from this sort of negative situation and that was all around A Blog I started in hospital and then people were getting in contact with me and saying that my story was helping inspire them through their own situations and and then I set myself the challenge after so sort of three months I left hospital or four months I left Hospital six months I started sort of walking again more got rid of the wheelchair nine months I set myself the challenge of taking on Snowden which the highest mountain in Wales you know it's it's a hill really with with a path up to the top but it was still a massive undertaking for me at that time so I wanted to inspire other people and then I got to the point where I was like okay well if enough good can come from this situation for other people then by definition I can change it from a bad day to a good day um when this happen so i s on that mission that's led me to sort of all corners of the world starting charity opened up so many doors I just never imagined like what I'm doing now I just never imagined I'd be doing any of those things especially talking about a film about my life you know all of those things it's um it's pretty mind-blowing and especially considering it's come from what in the moment was the worst day of my life yeah I mean I I love that and I think it's that message is so important because you know it's like the saying that life only makes sense backwards it has to be lived forwards and we you know often times I mean that's an extreme circumstance you're under and we all have different versions of adversity that we go through and when we're going through it we often can't see that light at the end of the tunnel it's only when we look back and I mean if I look back on my life when I was 20 I had a car crash my dad was you know a famous politician almost killed myself and my best friend and it was you know the worst moment of my life but that led to this whole path that you know in the mental health area you know speaking about it um that I would have never gone into and uh now I'm grateful not you know wouldn't have done it um if I could go back in time but grateful for the path that it led to but it's just yeah I think it's such an important thing for people to hear and to see you know someone like yourself go and do that and you know I guess so Looking Back Now is it the kind of feeling where you almost can't imagine not being on the path that you're on yeah like um I think it was about three years in when I got to the point where I was like I wouldn't take it back because enough positives had come from that situation I know what you're saying like I wouldn't want to relive it I wouldn't advise anyone d goes and dives into the wrong end of a swimming pool yeah don't do that no don't do that but um Life deals you hands right and you can't control that and there's no point trying to control that all you've got the option to is play that hand the best you can or fold it and give up and it got to that point I was like look you either you know so there was a lot of remorse at the start and there was a lot of anger and frustration you know I don't deserve this why is this happening to me you know all of those things and then I got to point I was like well this isn't helping anything I was like you just got to get make the most of the situation you're in because that's all you can do stop getting angry at life for doing things to you it's like just control what you can and try and make the most of the situation and that's what I what I set out to do and actually that realization has made me realize that I was way more capable than I thought I was even before my accident you know it's like you realize that most of the limitations that you live with and the things that you stop yourself from doing they're imagined you know they they're just a they're a product of your upbringing your society around you the general Narrative of the public but a lot of the time it's just like your own confidence or lack of confidence in telling yourself what you can and can't do and then I just got to the point where I was like well I'm going to go and find out what I can and can't do and I'm going to test those narratives and if I can't can't achieve something then fine but at least I'll know it but I'm not going to die wondering and and what I realized was actually a lot of the things I tried which I thought were farfetched I could actually do in the long run so it gave me that gift I suppose um but it had to come from contemplating losing everything in the first place which is a powerful powerful feeling and one I'm sure you know you can resonate with you know it is powerful but it's formative you know if you choose to react in the right way after it if you're looking to make a change to lose weight to get toned to gain self-confidence all in just 24 minutes a day then go no further you can check out the move your mind community by going to Nick bra. start. page exactly exactly and you know it's such a good point there because we we're conditioned you know whether it's from our our parents Society school what whatever it is we we're programmed to have certain beliefs and uh there are certain things that we just tell ourselves no we can't do that that's not possible I'm not capable of this or what whatever it is there's so many different narratives and it really does take something extreme to change that but when you really do challenge that you realize that so many of these voices in our head aren't our own they're put there from other people uh and it can you know can stop people from doing so many different things and leads to so many different mental health issues so uh it's it's a challenging thing to confront but you know like you're saying there it's uh it leads to opens up a whole new world when you when you do do that yeah they say like um everything you want in life is just on the other side of those fears you know it's like you you've got to do the scary stuff to reap the rewards a lot of the time you know and actually it's the tough things in life that make you who you are going through the tough things in life they add the building blocks to your character that's what changes you as a person you know the wins and the successes that's the icing on the cake but they're enjoyable fleetingly you know they're not the things that are going to really change who you are as a person so but when you're going through it it's hard to see that like he said earlier you know it's tough when especially when you're going through trauma or something bad's happened you're not thinking oh this is going to make me a stronger person great you're just thinking oh why me why is this happening this is this hurts this sucks and it's not until you look back and realize actually that that gave me the tools to then deal with this or this opened that or up or whatever it might be exactly no 100% so you when when when this first happened when you were sort going through the initial Rehabilitation process were you you were told that you wouldn't walk again is that is that right yeah so um they do something called an Asia test after you have a spinal cord injury or any sort of nerve damage it's it stands for American spinal injury assessment and it's a bunch of like pinpricks temperature checks all over your body takes like two hours every morning they do it every 24 hours after an accident and after after 7 days they give you a prognosis because they can't just like MRI scan you or scan your nerves and say well that's still connected so this is going to work you know it's just a bunch of nerves and electrical signals they have to do it on the kind of recovery you make over that first week and after the first week I'd made no recovery from the below the level of my injury so I was told I was category a or A1 which is the highest level of spinal injury effectively means you've got a complete injury um and you're not going to make any recovery below the level of your injury so I told her I was told I wasn't going to walk again what we were hoping for was more use of my arms and hands so that I could use a wheelchair and be independent because where my level of injury was C6 C7 at the bottom of the neck that meant that I still should be able to use some of my fingers and you my triceps be affected but biceps not whatever it might be so yeah hearing that was was tough um for sure yeah so how how did you go from hearing that to then climbing a mountain and yeah good questions and what were what sort of how what what are the I guess what I'm the other part I was going to ask is how big of a part uh did your mindset and having that positive outlook have in eventually getting to that point where you are climbing this mountain well to be honest when I heard that um had a bit of a strange reaction obviously it was the hardest thing I'd ever heard but they basically verbalized what we already knew um because I hadn't seen any recovery below the level of injury so I wasn't really expecting them to say anything else but it was when he said like we're hoping for more use of your arms back hands back so you can be independent I realized that actually wasn't just about me anymore so I looked at like my mom and wife were in the room and just thought you know this is going to affect everyone that has to care for me for the rest of my life and I said but that that's okay as long as I know that I've played my part in this so what I didn't want to do is turn around in six months or a year's time and my family caring for me and think I could have tried harder what if or what if IID tried harder I didn't actually think anything would change really I just wanted to put the effort in so that I knew that it wasn't all my you know it was out of my hands effectively so I spent every waking moment just trying to move something and I you close my eyes and imagine it moving and you don't expect it to be moving and it was very much like a sort of Kill Bill moment trying to St at your toes and get them to wiggle and um and one day 36 hours later s you know I I was moving my toe with my eyes closed and then I opened my eyes and it was actually wiggling and I just remember being like what is going on I remember shouting for my mom to come in from the corridor and I didn't want to stop wiggling it then and um what it did show me was there was a connection past the level of my injury there was something to work with and you know from that moment on I just sort of set out on trying to regain as much as I could never knowing where that would stop I never imagined I would get to mountaineering or doing the things I'm doing now and I feel unbelievably grateful for that but it gave me that sort of hope that the effort I was putting in was paying off paying some reward and actually I learned to focus on those small micro tasks of try and move your next toe try and move your to to a bit further and every day I was just trying to get those small wins not knowing how far it would get but you know it transpired into into big results are you interested in joining a community of like-minded people who are on the same Journey as you are even though you're the one that needs to do the work you don't have to go it alone you can find all of the information at Nick bra. start. page yeah and so many lessons in what you're talking about there for anyone listening you know we can especially in the world we live in now with you know social media and everyone wanting to you know jump to just having success rather than having to go through these steps and we need to be reminded of that I know I've been overwhelmed more times than I can count by looking at that end goal before actually just taking the steps and allowing you know things to just take place daily and it's almost impossible to get there if you if you don't just take those little steps so I think you know that lesson is is so important for anyone listening yeah for sure I think like I don't know like you came come from came from sport to a certain degree like you understand that you get out what you put in you know you want to get stronger you've got to train harder like all of those you want to get better at things you've got to put the Reps in and I kind of that was where I was it helped having that background towards my recovery I knew I'd get out what I put in but again A lot of it was out of my hands you know because the injury was the injury and you can't outtrain you know um if I had if I did have a complete spinal injury doesn't matter how how hard I would have tried I wouldn't have been able to outtrain that um but I just wanted to be able to recover towards the top end of my personal spectrum and I Knew by to do that I had to put the effort in myself having said that like I had an unbelievable support network which I feel incredibly grateful for having like there was not just a really supportive friendship and family group um but also I met some great physios when I was in the hospital very lucky to come acoss Ross them I also had the rugby Community behind me you know it felt like I wasn't just doing this for myself lots of messages for of support and I now know or not now know I realized quite soon after that a lot of my recovery was down to my support network as well as the amount of effort I was putting in it's kind of this big cauldron of stuff that you've got to get right you got to be lucky with the nature of your injury you've got to put the effort in yourself you've got to meet the right people and have this support network and actually that is what spawned the idea for the charity I almost felt guilty for my support network but also realized the power of it and realize that other people don't necessarily have that you know spent three months on three months on a spinal unit some people had no visitors I just assumes that family and friends you know that's a given in your room every day um so we still we started the charity to offer that pay that forward to other people not just because it's a nice thing to have but it can really tangibly change your recovery um so yeah a lot of things sort of fell in my favor in that respect yeah no it's it's so important and I mean how important would you say it is for anyone suffering from you know mental health related issues to have that support network because like you're saying I know a lot of us don't have that you know I I feel very lucky that I've had a support network around me that's helped me immensely but I've You Know spoken in so many different environments where you meet so many people and you realize wow these people don't really have anyone that they can lean on and it that would be so tough you know and it's such a lonely feeling and we we all need that so I guess yeah how how important do you think that is for people going through mental health issues IM immensely immensely important I think the thing is the support networks are out there no matter who you are like if you've got a self-built one with a strong family and friendship group or whatever it might be then great but but also sometimes it's good to reach outside of them and if you haven't got them you know one thing that happened for me which was really useful was the fact that I started writing a Blog in hospital or keeping a diary anyway and then I was persuaded by my wife and a friend of mine to make it public which I was which I was very against because I was in that sort of young bloke mindset of show no weakness and you know I don't want to open up about my vulnerabilities which of course is the wrong way to be but that was me that was Ed the rugby player eventually they persuaded me to do it because they said this could help some this might be able to help some people and we were thinking if any good can come from this situation we might as well do it um but that meant other people got in contact with me that I didn't know but had been through a similar thing before which meant I had this impartial support network that I could tell them about my deepest darkest thoughts and the things I was really worried about and the things I didn't want to tell my family because I didn't want to worry them about how much I was struggling and then they would come back and say no no it's completely normal to feel like that you know just St in the fight so actually the support network of strangers is important too and that is one of the positive things about you know social media or connectivity or groups um my advice would be is to go and find them and reach out to them there's a support network for basically any ailment or injury or um medical situation out there and going and having conversations with strangers actually is often a lot easier than speaking to people that you know because there's this subconscious feeling that it will come back to you if you're going to open up to people that are in your network and all of a sudden you've got this impartial support network that can speak from experience but also you don't mind if they know things about you because it's not going to come back to you so um that would be my advice is to hunt out but the main thing is just communicate like do not suffer inside like that is the biggest that is the biggest cause of issues um so yeah just reaching out is is really important and and that's such a good point you know we can often find it most difficult to open up to the people that are closest to us because we're worried that you know they know us in a certain way or they might you know it it feels uncomfortable to show a different side but there's some Liberation in talking to a stranger they have no expectation they don't know you so you can sort of reveal anything so I think it's a really good point there um oh sorry I was going to say they they have no opinion of you in the first place so you you're not changing that you're worried about with people you know you're going to change their opinion of you of course it more than likely won't in fact it' probably only it would have probably only strengthen their opinion of you but there's still that feeling whereas it's a stranger they don't have an opinion so there's nothing to change hey guys if you're enjoying this podcast please click the Subscribe button leave a like or comment share with your friends and follow me on Instagram at Nick bra I really appreciate your ongoing support exactly exactly it's a good it's a good uh way to it's almost immersion therapy of being able to have that experience of talking about these things and you know for me it was again if I go back to that car crash and I was afraid of my own shadow I wouldn't talk to anyone about anything and then I started sharing like similar to what you were talking about with other people that have went through similar things and then eventually that led to speaking in front of people and it just broke down those barriers of uh you know by just doing it you realize well hang on nothing bad happens if I am a guy and I show vulnerability and talk about emotions and talk about things that I thought people would um judge me as being weak for it's actually the opposite you end up you know really helping yourself and other people and such an important thing um another thing that came up you were talking about when you went through um the recovery process I guess you know having your your family and having that feeling of you know you need to do this you need to try not just for yourself but for them how how big of of a um how important do you think it is that we have a deeper purpose for what we're doing um especially in the world we we live in now where a lot of you know a lot of us are wanting to just you know get famous get rich whatever it is actually having that deeper reason for whatever the hell it is we're doing how how important is that yeah I think it's an incredible motivator but I think if you can align what you do on a day-to-day basis or what you do for a living with a sense of purpose then that's the secret really because it stops feeling like work and um often you won't get that purpose from Material rewards so I think that's what Society tells you you should be chasing but actually it's a feeling you get from what you're doing and for me that is if you've if you're doing something that tangibly positively impacts other people's lives or you're really of use for what you're doing you know to other people I think that's human nature like we're tribal creatures like we have to be of use to each other is not just being of use to ourselves because you take it back to cademan times if you were being selfish and you weren't you know you didn't play a part in the community and you weren't helpful to the rest of the tribe you were just another Master feed so um that wouldn't work well it's not surprising that if we can benefit other people from the way we act or what we're doing we get we get rewarded with endorphins and all of the right chemicals for doing that because that's what keeps the whole alive so I think the other the other I mean the the first time it read his head was when I realized that I wasn't trying to get better just for me it was for other people so it was the Independence thing and once I moved my focus off myself and put it onto my mom and my wife then all of a sudden I found the motiv ation to put the level of effort in I needed to sort of bust through that barrier and wiggle my toe so that was a purpose that was sort of refocusing the why of why I was trying to get better away from myself to other people but also I I think like what I've learned over sort of the last sort of five seven 10 years has been that purpose is built it's not found it's not like okay that person's found their purpose and you know I'm just never going to find it it's not something dig out the ground and go oh there it is it's a way you act you know it's aligning with your values it's understanding what sort of Lights you up and you know makes your heart sing for for one of a better term you know it's and then it's pursuing those things and acting in line with you know your own core values and over time you build a sense of purpose and if you keep acting in line with those core values and pursuing things that are important to you life will work the rest out like I never anticipated doing the things I'm doing I just decided that I was going to say yes to things I was passionate about I was going to take more chances and I was going to appreciate every day that I was alive and now all of a sudden there's a film coming out I've written a book I'm working at the Paralympics for Channel 4 like that was never part of the plan it was just a change of purpose and a change of Direction and aligning myself with my values and then things started to open which was quite it's quite sort of quite strange really it was almost like the less the the less hard I tried chasing after stuff the more things started to happen um which is kind of contrary to what we get told in sort of um Western Society you know or capitalist Society it's like no push for the pay grade push for the job title push for that house you know try and be famous actually the less you try and do those things and the more you try and be yourself the more likely those things will happen exactly exactly I no I love the way you've worded that there and it's so true and it's such a such a um fine balance because it's you know not having any expectation not trying to force anything but also just moving towards you know um it's also not just sitting there and hoping you know things will just be okay but you've got to take that action without expecting anything so it's really removing ego removing um expectation removing all of these different things that again we're conditioned with so I I know I think we're running out of time here so I'm just going to I think that was a great way to finish up um we we just have five closing questions these can be really quick answers um that I finish every episode with so the first one is what's your best childhood memory that comes to mind for you oh um planned on the farm um with my my granddad was a farmer and used to drive the combines with him and just just being being a child on a farm you know and having fun and I try and return to that as much as possible now we often forget that those things you know so yeah I think that would be my my favorite 100% I love that what do you think's currently the biggest burden on Mental Health in society um the distance of communication I think like the less less and less FaceTime with people whether that be because of social media tablets whatever it is I think spending time with people um face to face like without an agenda is is so important for our mental health so yeah probably that you can't replace it what what would be your personal definition of Happiness gosh um go that's a tough one personal definition of happiness I think contentment is aligned so so much with happiness for me I mean there's there's moments of joy and happiness to go along from day to day but actually it's more about being content with who I am and what I'm doing with my life allows that sort of layer of Foundations to become happy on top of it so instead of just chasing the sort of big rushes it's more about getting your life to a point where you are content with who you are and what you're doing and then more happiness grows from it absolutely uh if you could give one piece of advice to your 18yearold self what would that be it's all going to be okay I used to stress about so much stuff and it was trivial you know and it's like you look back and it's trivial but in the moment it's it's it's it is it is Trivial like in the moment it's massive but you look back and it is Trivial whether that's being selected for the next team or you think your life's get your life's going to end because you didn't get another contract or because um your friend's not speaking to you but I think the pendulum always swings like when it's bad things are going to come good again when it's good they're going to go bad again that's life but it does keep swinging yeah I think that's that's so true really really well put uh final one you've got so many that you could answer here but what would you say you're most proud of um I think um sort of professionally if you like but it personally as well is our charity millimeters to mountains and like the fact that we can tangibly we are tangibly having an impact a positive impact on other people's lives I think um I was helped so much and I had people that inspired me and supported me so to be able to pay that forward now but then just and and see the results um is a incredibly humbling place to be so I'm really proud of that amazing well yeah thank you again mate for making the time congratulations on everything congratulations on the documentary um final thing where we'll have all of this in the show notes but where can we send our listeners if they want to find out more about the documentary uh check out your charity anything else you know where's the best place to send them yes so you can go to the mountain within me. film um or millimeters to ms.org for the charity the film's going to be uh available on digital to sort of download buy or download from the 28th of August um over in Australia or like my social media on Instagram is Ed jackson8 so all the links off that go to all of the you know the charity the film and everything else amazing well that'll all be in the show note so everyone listening make sure to check all of that out and Ed so great to meet you mate I really appreciate having the time to chat to you I'm super inspired by what you're doing I'm sure all our listeners will be as well and uh yeah thank you again for making the time yes ni lovely to meet you too thank you Ed Jackson for joining me today and offering your insights and thank you for listening I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode and any suggestions for topics you'd like to hear about feel free to leave a comment or send a DM your feedback is always appreciated please don't forget to click the Subscribe button leave a like or comment share with your friends and follow me on Instagram it really makes a difference thank you so much