From Survivor to Thriver

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As a business executive, Steve ran a successful consultancy practice for more than 11 years, providing coaching and training and as a keynote speaker in the world of social media, sales and marketing. However, on December 4, 2019, he received a call that changed his world forever – his son Jordan had taken his own life. He quickly decided he had to do something to prevent other families from experiencing the trauma of losing a loved one to suicide. He established The Jordan Legacy CIC (thejordanlegacy.com) to support those struggling with their mental health or considering suicide and simultaneously accepted the position as Head of Mission at Champion Health UK Ltd, a tech company focused on workplace employee wellbeing strategies. Today, Steve speaks about the importance of listening and having hope and encourages conversations around mental health. He is also involved with government response and support of this critical health issue. His lived experience of suicide, combined with a following of 35,000+ on LinkedIn, means his message of hope can be shared with a global audience of millions.Contact Us: Email: [email protected]: @brushcreekthriversFacebook: From Survivor to Thriver

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Tess, the youngest skier at the time to ever to make the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team at 14 years old, one of the six 17-year-olds on Team USA at the 2018 Winter Olympics and a bronze medalist in the 2019 World Championships, gets real about her own personal storm in the winter of 2020 right before the pandemic. After a candid conversation in Kazakhstan with her coaches, she realized that she was living with anxiety in all aspects of her life. Her deep work with her sports psychologist, her love of journaling and her strong connection to skiing have combined to teach her that the process is much more rewarding than the outcome. Outside of competition, she is also passionate about inspiring those younger than her, especially girls in her native Vail, Colorado, to reach their full potential physically, mentally and emotionally through her work as an ambassador for GirlPowHER.Contact Us: Email: [email protected]: @brushcreekthriversFacebook: From Survivor to Thriver

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Mason, a public health specialist and Chair of the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Garfield County, Colorado, discusses his personal story of overcoming social anxiety disorder while studying at the University of Colorado and how his arrest for possession in 2005 capped off a decade of being “wild and crazy.” A combination of therapy, medication, CBT, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), along with a newfound love of running, has aided in his recovery. Today, integrating his individual experiences around mental health and public health frameworks, he hopes to meet people where they are in their journeys and his passion for the social determinants of mental health is allowing him to move the needle at a population level. He gets quite candid about the importance of using evidence-based questions if you suspect someone is in crisis and offers several valuable resources for those in need.Contact Us: Email: [email protected]: @brushcreekthriversFacebook: From Survivor to Thriver

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Dana, a board-certified holistic nurse, Reiki master, registered yoga teacher, Akashic Records practitioner, and Chakra mentor, joins us for an insightful two-part conversation. In part one, she shares her personal journey of trauma and healing, beginning at 4 years old when her mom was hospitalized after a psychotic break and subsequently diagnosed with schizophrenia. From that day on, Dana “learned” that mental illness was scary, embarrassing, and not a topic of conversation. In her early 20’s, she moved from Illinois to California after finishing nursing school and soon developed anxiety, which resulted in full-blown panic attacks and the gripping fear she might become severely ill as her mom once was. Only then did she start going to counseling and National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) meetings, which led to becoming part of a community, discovering that she was not alone and beginning to heal herself. Contact Us: Email: [email protected] Instagram: @brushcreekthrivers Facebook: From Survivor to Thriver

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Dana, a board-certified holistic nurse, Reiki master, registered yoga teacher, Akashic records practitioner, and Chakra mentor, joins us for an insightful two-part conversation. In part two, she shares her journey of healing others, delves deeper into what it means to be an empath, connects the dots between empaths, anxiety and the importance of nature (grounding and absorbing the energy from the Earth) in healing. It was after moving to Colorado in 2007 that she started to learn more about holistic health and completed her Reiki 1 and 2 training, which finally gave her insight into who she was. After learning to trust her intuition, she began using her gifts and talents to help others heal in a way that was holistic, supportive, and individualized. Today, as a Holistic Healing Guide, Dana’s mission is to guide people to inner-connection, healing through the chakras, and living life in energetic awareness through her Illumination program.Contact Us: Email: [email protected]: @brushcreekthriversFacebook: From Survivor to Thriver

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Wizzi, the Founder and Owner at Minds Anonymous, which provides a safe space to share mental health stories anonymously, and Wizmedia, a website design and copywriting company, struggled as a child and began to self-harm around the age of nine. Self-medicating and addictive tendencies followed until, at the age of twenty-seven, after years of treatment for multiple diagnoses and incorrect medication regimens, she was accurately diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a combination of bipolar and schizophrenia, in 2017. Today, happy and well and armed with deep insight into her own condition, Wizzi wants to change the way people both view and understand mental health, through the lens of lived experiences, in a bid to abolish the stigma.Contact Us: Email: [email protected]: @brushcreekthriversFacebook: From Survivor to Thriver

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Erin, a junior at Windham High School in New Hampshire, began her mental health journey at age thirteen when she struggled with self-harm, suicidal thoughts and was exhausted by the feeling of watching herself live her life. Luckily, her homeroom teacher recognized that something wasn’t right and, by intervening, got her to speak openly for the first time about her struggles, enter an inpatient care program and begin the journey to healing and better balancing her brain. Today, her goal in advocacy is to show people that you can be strong and still feel really big feelings. She and her cousin Amy Murphy won the people’s choice award in the Magnify Voices Expressive Arts Contest for their video “Dear Younger Me,” which aims to show everyone that life is worth living and it does, in fact, get better.Contact Us: Email: [email protected]: @brushcreekthriversFacebook: From Survivor to Thriver

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Jeff, a 30-year veteran of the aerospace and model airplane industries and, today, a colleague to FSTT’s co-hosts at the Aspen Skiing Company, started swimming around in the pool of painkillers from the time of his first surgery for scoliosis at the age of eight. Several decades later, a minor back injury, along with a misdiagnosis for Type 2 diabetes, led to his 12-year dependence on Vicodin, other more powerful pain meds, and a serious deterioration in his physical and mental health. That all changed in 2015 when he decided to take back his life and, through his mechanical mindset, figured out that the key is finding the right gear for where you are along your life journey. Contact Us: Email: [email protected] Instagram: @brushcreekthrivers Facebook: From Survivor to Thriver

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Markella, a writer, producer, director and mom of two active boys, went in for a routine surgery in 2011 at the age of 28 and woke up with a permanent injury that would force her to re-learn how to “do life” and change her approach to the everyday. She opens up about using her anger and tough love to shift her mindset, the importance of playing her own cards and how living in survivor mode your entire life makes it hard to know what it’s like to live. Four years ago, she finally found her voice when she met her incredibly supportive partner Eddie, and, in 2019, wrote, directed, produced and starred in It’s Just Like Riding a Bike, the story of her adventure racing in the grueling BC Bike Race, a seven-day mountain bike stage race, on only two weeks of training.Contact Us: Email: [email protected]: @brushcreekthriversFacebook: From Survivor to Thriver

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Steph, the Founder and Co-owner of White Farm Creations, a Colorado-based custom quilting business, is an auto-islet transplant (total pancreatectomy) survivor who is now two years into her sober recovery. She spent her first 26 years in survivor mode, first as a child and young adult battling severe health issues and then, beginning in 2016, battling anxiety and depression, which resulted in her turning to alcohol as a coping mechanism. Today, she has gone from “not wanting to be alone with myself, my thoughts and my feelings,” to radical acceptance and learning to live every day to the fullest.Contact Us: Email: [email protected]: @brushcreekthriversFacebook: From Survivor to Thriver