It has literally been years since I last updated my website and I believe everyone who has been on this journey with me deserves an explanation. The answer is simple. I didn’t want to, or couldn’t rather. I was stuck. Stuck in my own mind in a debate over wants vs. needs. It was like a broken record being played on loop for what I thought was going to last eternity. I used to tell everyone that the toughest part of dealing with being paralyzed is the rest of the world. When I’ve got perfect strangers jumpin outta my way like I’m a frickin leper, how am I supposed to pretend I’m anywhere near normal? See, looking at the world from a seated perspective offers fears that sound very similar to this when your having trouble sleeping at night because you can’t even roll over. The answer to my mental freedom ties right into a paradox I’ve been grappling with my whole life.
‘I’ll do it tomorrow’ and ‘what if I don’t got what it takes?’ Please come to the front of the classroom . . . Mr. Failure and Mr. Rejection will you two please also stand? What? Confident Damien? No way, he’s the strongest dude I know! What do you think drove me to be this person people? I’m flawed like everyone else. I have a good home and decent genes. But I’m not really tall, or really fast, or great with math. I’m average and I struggle. What if before I was injured I had a sickness of wanting the wrong things and not knowing why? What if I prayed to GOD for an answer because all that I was striving for was flawed and imperfect? What if I was forcing things instead of letting life unfold as it should? What if my FATE is the ANSWER, and my DESTINATION? Maybe then, I have finally arrived. Maybe now, I can fulfill my Purpose.
I’ve learned that it’s really not about the past or the future, it’s about right now. It’s about how many good right now’s you can stack together in a row. Life’s gonna throw you things and it’s the way we deal with these things that manifests who we are. There are no bad outcomes as long as we craft our experiences creatively enough so that they paint our lives with Picasso like perfection. I think that’s what GOD wants from us. That’s what we are all here to share, an attempt at divine quantum perfection.
Okay. Now for the tangible. Physically my body is STILL healing. The common notion currently expressed medically in the western world offers a 24-month window for return of function following a spinal cord injury. In my case we have found this NOT to be true. Fundraisers and epically generous donations have made it possible for me to try many different therapeutic modalities. Everything to this point has done a good job of keeping my body healthy and active. When I was first hurt it was like someone zapped the hard drive of my main computer. Once I got it started I had to begin reloading every program. In doing so I used anything and everything I could to create even the tiniest impulse. By over training my compromised system I programmed bad patterns. My current therapy consists of activities aimed at coordinating good signals from my brain to my body. It takes very little conscious effort to walk normally; my body now needs to relearn how to do that. So where am I now and how much longer is this going to take? That brings me to the next thing I’m excited to tell everyone about.
The Neuro Muscular Connection is a holistic healing center that is interested in helping me answer some of my nagging medical discrepancies. Neurology is a trip man. Let’s just say that I’m in the process of learning things about my body that literally blow my mind. The verdict is this; my body will heal as it may. I feel that my efforts to date have put me in the best possible situation to achieve my goals and this makes me deeply happy. WE ARE doing this and the momentum IS revealing some INCREDIBLE potential. I AM getting better. These combined efforts ARE working. My legs DO work. I do take steps, weekly. Not bad for a dude that was told he would never be able to move or feel anything ever again.
Being part of the quest to remedy my sluggish nervous system might offer a solution to my debt and career concerns, but it hasn’t yet. My time and effort has been dedicated to this project specifically since my high score diving escapade back at lake mead. Many people have made it clear that they feel it’s important I stay grounded and “get a job and get on with life.” I need these people to relax a bit, I’m dewin sumthin ova heyah. I ask of you to be patient with me please. I am humbly learning to flow with life in a wheelchair, which is fairly difficult even though I have total faith that it is temporary. Those that know me realize I never did sit still well, and this is a constant test on my patience. Yup, that’s right. I’ve got all kinda that now too. Patience.
I believe I was chosen for this and there is Serious Purpose in this so-called accident. I
don’t believe in accidents. Each person reading this website has given me strength to push through; to be something greater and to challenge myself to be better each day. I admit that I feel a sense of pressure to be this fancy happy person and sometimes it’s just real heavy. But my fear of failing in front of all of you gives me this radical energy that I’m learning to harness for Good. As I become more balanced through this disposition I’m learning to kick back and enjoy the ride. There is so much Good going on around us that it is baffling to me at times. Those of you who truly know me understand that in the past I had the tendency to get totally carried away with things. It was a double edged sword that often had me out of control due to lack of boundaries. Because of this my intentions were often misunderstood and I wasn’t as effective in being the good person that I was trying to be. So this healing process has been about much more then me learning how to walk, it’s about fulfilling my Purpose. I have all the ingredients now to utilize my opportunities to make a major difference with my life.
So career and debt huh? What about this business that I’ve been talking about for years? For those of you that are not already familiar with the difficulty of a start up business, let me tell you something. It’s super gnarly! Let’s just say without a practitioners license and no business experience, its been real tough trying to convince someone in this economy to take a chance on an idea that has never been done before. I wrote a business plan for a hundred million dollar facility with all the bells and whistles and it damn near gave the current philanthropist I’m working with a coronary.
We were at breakfast and he pointed over my shoulder at a bridge. He said, “Do you see that bridge over there? I know the guy that built that bridge. He built 20 bridges before he got that contract.” I’m like yeah, so. I don’t want to build a bridge, why we talking about bridges? Pull it together man, were talking about a therapy center here. He said, ” You just came to me and asked me to fund the Golden Gate Bridge and you have no experience and no credentials.” I was like yeah, so, I don’t see the problem. There was no problem he explained, I just needed to refine my plan a bit. I thanked him for his time and went back to the drawing board. Something about the way he put everything in perspective sparked a fire that fueled a much more reasonable plan. The next time we met for breakfast I had broken the plan down into three workable phases.
With a much better gameplan in place this angel of businessman confirmed his interest in my idea and took me under his wing. The first two phases consisted of finding a location, staffing a facility, and creating very detailed therapy protocols for each client in the program. Since I’m not a medical practitioner or doctor, my role in this plan turned into that of a hybrid lab rat. Though I worked very hard to help get everything in place and assisted in the start up of this business, my current instructions from the Doc and all others involved are to focus on getting better. Besides, what better marketing tool could I possible find outside of me walking trough the front door to talk about the therapy center I helped create.
So onto my crazy family. My Mom has been my rock since the day I was hurt. She has
always believed that I would get better and she has always had ultimate Faith in GOD and my healing potential. When I share what’s going on in therapy she rarely flinches and just encourages me to keep going. My Dad on the other hand took it a whole lot harder. For years I didn’t understand how hurt my Dad really was. I called him “The Big Emotion.” I’ve always known the stern father that I grew to love was harsh in our upbringing because he was preparing my brothers and I to be men. There was never a question how much he loved us because his true intentions spoke for themselves. I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation until my Mom and Dad accompanied me to look for rental properties after I got kicked outta the retirement community I was living in.
We were looking at a place in San Clemente and we were in the kitchen admiring the incredible ocean view. I was like, this is it Dad. I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I get to use my life and body to influence other people in a major way. Then my Dad said something to me damn near knocked me outta my chair. The most compassionate man I’ve ever met, my hero, looked at me and said, “Damien, I don’t care about the rest of the world. I care about your happiness.” I cried. Then he cried and my Mom cried and so did Rebecca. And we had just met. It was awesome! Everything changed after that. I was so caught in my own trip that I never TOTALLY stepped into my Dad’s shoes. Whoa, perspective shift. From this point on, my Dad and I began to heal together.
What about the other crazy Minna boys? In Never Never Land, The Lost Boyz always had Peter Pan to look after them. Without Peter, the Boyz were just lost. It took me a long time to figure this out. When I ran out of pixie dust, none of us could fly. Everyone was so used to Pan leading the way that when I could no longer fly, it affected everyone. Since the Lost Boyz were so used to getting their pixie dust from one place, when the well dried up, they had no idea were to turn. When I myself was completely lost I was unable to see this. I had no idea why my brothers that I loved so much were scattered in comfort zones that didn’t involve us healing together. The answer is that the pain was too great. Danny and Jason have rallied superior efforts as my right and left hand men, but together all of my family has made individual gains in the face of all this chaos. All and all I’m honored to be Peter Pan to this group of grizzly weirdo’s. We have made so many soulful gains on the front end of this life, that it’s safe to say we have been battle tested. Somehow we rallied guys and were way better because of it. The rest is gonna be icing on the cake of our hard work.
Now it’s time we speak of my better half. I’m a family man and my brothers have always called me the prince due to my elusive nature come chore time when we were kids. What’s a prince without a princess one might say? Either that or Damien is codependent and works best with a little yin to his yang. I never saw a problem with codependency as long as it was rooted in true unconditional love.
As I mentioned above, my past reflects a tendency to force things. My life before I was injured had a lot of illusions that I perceived to be reality. I created these illusions because I used them to hide from my fears and the dirty scary world. Back home there was always a safe haven where I could get a hot plate, a warm bed and just enough love and family dysfunction so that the problems of the world didn’t affect me too much. Mom, Dad, crazy brothers with dogs in Orange County. What more could anyone want, right? So I went out to find it. I found a girl, got a degree, got a great job. That’s it right? Fall into my lap I figured. Not only did I break my neck, but I figured all this stuff out with a Pilipino caregiver watching court TV in a retirement community on a random Tuesday afternoon. I figured this can’t be it, there’s gotta be more to life then this.
After my super swan dive not much carried over from the life I lived before. One thing that did carry over was a struggling relationship. I feel a lot of guilt for the way it ended because Jessica gave in a way I’ve never seen. The short and skinny though is we just weren’t meant for each other. When we separated it became the ultimate compliment to the surrender crazy train. Letting go, meant everything. When Jess stuck around for 2 years after I got hurt, I understood her effort much like I understood my life before. When it didn’t work my inability to let it go almost killed me. Not a literal death, but maybe even worse. I started to rot on the inside and I had no remedy for the pain I felt. I couldn’t make it go away. Months and months went by and nothing I did could fill the ‘I don’t have enough energy to even try’ pit I had in my stomach. I began to catch a groove with my rehab but I still had this gapping wound that had become infected. Then one day I got a curious email response to an add I posted on craigslist when I was looking for weekend help.
I opened an e-mail to a soulfully honest reply to my witty craigslist exposé. She spoke of
warm beer, banana cream pie, spaghetti, and her crazy family. I immediately did what any curious stalker would do and I used her email address to look up her myspace profile. Honestly, she was hot and I just wanted to meet her. By no means was she qualified to assist me in the ways I needed help. So I called her up and set an interview. When she walked in a few things were definitely confirmed. She was as hot as I expected, but, all 5 foot 100 pounds of this mini woman was not gonna be able to handle 6 feet 200 pounds of noodle-esque Italian. Straight up. On top of my general attitude problem she had no idea how emotionally damaged I was. There was a serious dilemma brewing here though that most people would look right past. She came barring chocolate chip cookies and when I told her that there was no way that her little chicken frame could handle this job she said, “Don’t worry about me buddy, I got this. I’m mighty. ” That’s seriously what she said. I was like whatever lady your hired, you brought me cookies!
From that point on we short of just figured everything out like teenagers, together. How to trust again, how to live, how to let go, how to have fun, how to laugh, how to really listen and know what to look for, how to be a better brother, friend and person. We’ve figured out how to parent together with her wonderful 2 children. We even figured out how to see the Dalai Lama at Stanford University on a Tuesday, road trip status. She has helped me learn critical information about myself that has truly saved me. She saved me from myself. Together we have found a place that is filled with joy, love and laughter and we have done it in a way I never thought I would be able to.
I would say she showed me how to love again but she has redefined my definition of what love means. Love is struggle and dedication. Love hurts and it takes work every day. Each person needs to bring to the table everything they have on each occasion and sometimes you might not come to an agreement. Life goes on and so should Love. It perseveres the petty stuff and even pets the sweaty stuff if that’s what the situation calls for. It’s not always pretty and can sometimes get down right ugly, but that’s what Living and Loving is about. Rebecca Frances Dunn, my little chicken little, has taught me that. She IS my better half and she HAS taught me what Love is all about. That is why I truly love her. Everything she brings to my life enriches it in a way I never thought possible. We have been on a wild ride since we met and we have just begun. Each day I am with her brings fun and excitement and she gives me reason to get up and keep pushin’ this limp noodle to be better.
So that pretty much brings us to date. Happiness is wanting what you have, and I AM Happy. I’m finding a way to get over myself. I am my greatest enemy if I let myself be. If I can learn to get out of my own way, there is an abundance of Good all over the place to be shared. I am in with good people at the Neuro Muscular Connection and I am learning so much every day. Soon I believe it will turn into something beyond anything I could have dreamed up. We have already seen incredible results during the beta trial program and we are looking into expanding soon. What a ride friends, thanks for travelin with me. Movin forward, lookin up. Thank you everyone. Thank you GOD!
