Can You Find Light After Losing Your Sight? - Jennifer

Finding Strength in Loss. Healing Through Faith. Living with Purpose.

"I surrender to you, Jesus, take care of everything." — Jennifer

Jennifer Cleveland’s story is a testament to resilience and transformation. From growing up on a Georgia farm to navigating the chaos of an ER, and then facing the darkness of fading vision, her journey could have ended in despair, but instead, it became a path of purpose. Guided by faith, a white cane, and tools like yoga and healing touch, she turned loss into presence and meaning.

Today, Jennifer teaches trauma-informed movement and shares how surrender, service, and mindful choices can rebuild life after hardship. Her story is a powerful reminder that even in the darkest seasons, strength can become light—and hope can lead the way.

Connect with Jennifer, licensed massage therapist, and Thai Yoga Massage practitioner at Inner Sight Living.

Website: https://innersightliving.wordpress.com/

Email: innersightliving@gmail.com 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/innersightliving

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/innersightliving/

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Book: Why I Survived; Where Survival Becomes Strength

The background music is written, performed and produced exclusively by Melissa Turri.
https://melissaturrimusic.com/

Transcript

Mission And Trigger Warning

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Imagine when you share your darkest hours, they become someone else's light. I'm Jennifer Lee, a global community storyteller, host, author, and survivor, guiding you through genuine unfiltered conversations. Together, we break the silence, shatter stigma, and amplify voices that need to be heard. Each episode stands as a testament to survival, healing, and reclaiming your power. Listen to I NeedBlue, an Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite platform. Learn more at www.eneedblue.net. Trigger warning, I NeedBlue shares real life stories of trauma, violence, and abuse meant to empower and support. Please take care of yourself and ask for help if needed. Now let's begin today's story. Today, we're shining a light on a truly inspiring woman from Melbourne, Florida, Jennifer Cleveland. Jennifer grew up on a farm in Georgia where her love for animals, especially horses, first took root. At twenty one while studying nursing, a horseback riding accident left her with a shattered leg, forcing her to leave school and spend nine months unable to walk. Determined to recover, she turned to the gym for strength and rehabilitation. Through that journey, Jennifer discovered a deep passion for health, healing, and movement, which led her to become a personal trainer, helping others grow stronger. Ten years later, she followed a new path to Florida and became a paramedic. Working in a level two trauma center, Jennifer faced life and death situations daily. Those intense experiences shaped her, teaching her how to hold space for pain while still offering hope. But life wasn't done teaching her yet. While she was saving lives, something was quietly slipping away, her vision. Over the course of a decade the world grew darker until she was declared legally blind. Alone, overwhelmed and defeated, Jennifer reached a breaking point, but instead of giving up, it became her breakthrough. In the quiet of that darkness, she found her light in God and a powerful truth. Her life wasn't falling apart, it was unfolding exactly as it was meant to. Today, Jennifer shares that light through her work as a yoga teacher, licensed massage therapist, and Thai Yoga Massage Practitioner at InnerSight Living. Her journey is a testimony of resilience, surrender, and the strength found in trusting the unknown. Jennifer, thank you for being my guest today, and welcome to the I Need Blue Podcast. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Of course. I'm so glad you're here and we finally connected. You know, I truly believe that the right time will present itself, and here we are.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Absolutely. I believe it.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

So, like we talked about in the introduction, you grew up on a farm, and not everybody can say that. Would you like to share some fun and also hard lessons that you've learned from growing up on a farm? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

The really cool thing about growing up on a farm is we we learn a lot of survival skills, a lot of critical thinking. Uh, we get to do things that other people don't do. I learned how to drive when I was eight years old. You know, I could drive a boat, I could drive a go-kart. Um, as I got, I had to get a little bigger to be able to drive the tractor because it actually takes physical strength to drive a tractor, or it did back then. Some of the tractors you can are like fingertip now. You know, I could drive my my dad's truck, motorcycles, you know, everything. And and just doing that at such a young age uh gave me confidence, but also gave me critical thinking skills. I was a deadeye shot by the time I was 11 years old. We grew all of our own vegetables. Um, and I learned what hard work was, and I learned how to accomplish things because we would pick our vegetables. You know, my stepmom and my dad would send us out into the field at sunrise, and we couldn't come back until we had a full bucket. And then we had the full bucket, we had to shuck them or peel them or whatever it was that we were collecting. We had to then prepare it so that we could um store it or eat it. I, you know, there's so many people these days that don't even make their kids do basic chores and um they don't have problem solving skills, they don't have um conflict resolution, they don't have critical thinking, and they the slightest thing that goes wrong in their life, they lose it. And I think that um having a life like that helped me to develop those skills that gave me the ability to get through some of the challenges that I met later on in life. And of course, you know, between my dad, my parents were divorced, my dad had the farm, and my mom was a professor at the University of Georgia. So I grew up in the university town. So I had these two different lifestyles, and those were great. So I kind of had it all, you know, as a child. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Okay, horses, I'm gonna tell you first time and maybe only time actually that I was on a horse was in Colorado. I was 12 up in these cliffs, and my horse stopped, scared the crap out of me because I'm in the mountains looking down and I'm like, oh, like what is going on?

The Horse Accident And Its Fallout

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah, it's great. Um, yeah, I I always wanted a horse, and my dad told me if we moved out into the country because we had a house in town, but if we moved out onto a farm, then I got to have a horse. And so we did. So I got my first horse at 11. And it was wonderful. I mean, you know, riding around the farm and just going into the woods and and being able to do what we wanted, and it was another form of transportation, but also the neighbors had horses, so it was just a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun, and then of course, the skill of learning how to care for a horse. And also, again, the critical thinking skills, the the motor skills that are involved that I developed because of riding horses and you know, that survival that comes along with it in the woods. Yeah, and that relationship with the horse is very different than any other animal, you know, because if you have a horse that you ride, it's you sort of you become one. And it it there's only the only other relationship I can kind of um measure with that is the guide dog. Um, but it's still different. It's a different relationship, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Talking about the horses, our relationship with our animals, after a matter of years, you were out riding your horse and found yourself in an accident. Can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yeah, so this is my second horse, and she's never bucked before, but started bucking one day, and I got bucked off. And my hair was always long, and I I had it pulled back in a ponytail, but I didn't have it tied up. So when I turned around to look to find out where the ground was, because you want to know where the ground is so that you can tuck at just the right time and roll. And I couldn't see the ground unless I was my hair, and my leg got under me and it shattered my leg. I had to have surgery, I couldn't walk for nine months. And um, yeah, that it that was hard. I think I was like 21 or 22, something like that. You know, I didn't have any of the skills, I didn't have any of the vision that I have now, you know, of understanding life and things like that. I was so young, and it was the first taste of what was going to happen to me when I became visually impaired. I remember how I had, you know, friends and I called them and told them that I broke my leg and I was in the hospital and I wouldn't be able to walk for months and all that. I remember a couple of them said, Oh, that's too bad, you know. Well, hey, when you're all better, call me and we'll go out, you know, kind of thing. And I never heard from them again. And, you know, I had a couple, of course, my my best friend Christy, who I'm still friends with now. She stood by me and others, you know, a couple, but most people just disappeared. They disappeared. And that's the same thing that happened when I became visually impaired.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Emotionally, what were you experiencing?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

In that, when I shattered my leg, it didn't really bring out any of the good qualities in me. It made me um sad and kind of bitter and like, why did they do this? Like, what, you know, why kind of thing. I didn't have any insight into what was going on at that young age. I mean, I know a lot of people do, they're a lot more advanced than I am, but at that point I didn't. It was more like, let me survive this and come out the other side rather than um I'm gonna, you know, thrive through it and come out a different person and be a better person and learn lessons, which is what I try to do now. But back then it was more like this is a huge inconvenience and and everything's everything's terrible, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yeah, like why me? Oh my goodness, you know, but this also then influenced your trajectory in life, and you started to go to the gym. You're like, I gotta heal, I gotta get better, right?

From Gym Floors To Paramedic Halls

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Right. So I was doing I was going for nursing school, and I was uh in the program, and that's when I shattered my leg. I had to drop out of school. You know, we didn't have online or anything like that. There that didn't exist. So that was it. I had to drop out, and you know, after not being able to walk for nine months, your whole body changes. So once I could walk again, I had to get my strength back. I had to get my health and wellness back. So I joined the gym. That's the first time I ever done that. I joined a women's gym and started working out, and then I started getting results and I was really into it, and I kept going to the manager uh because she had trained bodybuilders and I said, okay, tell me what to do next. So she'd write me up something next and she'd show me, and I'd go do it, and then I'd come back, okay. Now what do I do? You know, and I was really advancing with my body and my curiosity, and she liked that, so she offered me a job as a um beginner trainer. So I just trained the beginners as they came in, and then I was the next level up trainer, and then she offered me the job as the athletic director. So I was over all of the trainers, and I actually became the athletic director before I even went and did a personal training certification because she trained me on everything and I got educated by her and the other trainers and by other forms of, you know, just research and things like that. And then I finally went and did an actual certification, but it didn't really matter for that gym. It didn't really matter. So it led me down like a different path, and I didn't go back to nursing. And then when I decided I was ready to move out of the area that I was in, I didn't want to go somewhere that I didn't know anyone. And my brother lived down in Melbourne, Florida, and he really liked it. So I moved down to Melbourne and I became a trainer. I became the morning manager of a gym, an athletic director of a gym down here. And I did that for a while until until I didn't want to do it anymore. And I decided I was gonna become a paramedic. So I became a paramedic. Next lifetime became a paramedic. So all like health and wellness, health and wellness, you know.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

I was gonna say there is a trend with you, the health and wellness, but also it's making people feel better. So not only did you find a way to help yourself, but then you found a way to also help others, and that's beautiful.

Surrender, Faith, And Grief Tools

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yes. And so what I what I figured out now at 52, sitting here going through all of those things, even more after you know, becoming a paramedic, is everything was preparing me for the next step. Everything was. So the shattering of the leg was preparing me for when I became visually impaired. Being a personal trainer was preparing me for the next step of becoming a paramedic. Becoming a paramedic was preparing me for the next step. You know, it everything was, you know, laying down the foundation and the groundwork for what I'm doing today. And I'm sure what I'm doing today is preparing me for what I'll do in five years, ten years, twenty years.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Absolutely. And you already used the word curious once.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Curiosity is a great thing, and I'm excited to see where even my platform and everything goes in five years. And I'm excited for you to see where everything goes is well. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Yeah, who knows? Don't make a plan because just as soon as you say, Oh, this is this is what's gonna happen, then God says, Aren't you cute? You know, because it's like, no, there's the plan. The best thing to do is the doors that open for you. This is my this is my recommendation. The doors that open for you and feel good and resonate with you, walk through them and take advantage of whatever they have to offer. Do those things, even if they don't make sense, do those things and then wait for the next door to open and walk through those. Like, get don't fight the river. Don't try to swim upstream with the stuff that you're doing. Get in the boat and ride that river. Wherever it takes you, ride it. And then take advantage of whatever it is you're learning, whatever you feel like pulled to, look for the opportunities. And if it's right, it'll open up. Something will open up. You shouldn't have to like claw, I don't think, claw your way too much, you know. Maybe some, you know, but it'll like it'll work, if that makes sense. Like whatever you do is going to work. And then you're just gonna keep learning those skills and gathering those tools for your toolbox, which will take you to the next level and the next level and the next.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Everything you just said is what I have been experiencing on a different level for like the past week, which just justifies the fact that you and I are having this conversation because you're just reinforcing, like, yes, Jen, follow the path, surrender. Surrendering is hard, isn't it? And it is. Yes, it's uh like you said, trusting the unknown. But like you said, go with it, don't try to swim upstream. Gosh, I just I love that you have shared all of that.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah, I had um 2016 was a bit really bad year for my family. My brother lost two children, my stepfather died, and my uncle died all within six months. It was tough, right? So I I ran into a nun and I was trying to figure out what I needed something. I felt like I could, I was doing everything I could. Like I was getting body work every week. I was doing acupuncture, I was taking herbs, I was meditating, I was, you know, doing yoga, I was talking about it if I felt like I needed to talk about it and being quiet. If I felt like I needed to be quiet, the body work is huge, like when you go through trauma and grief and stuff. You gotta move your body and you gotta get body work. It's gonna get stuck in there. It gets stuck in there and you get pain, you get disease. It holds on. We got to flow it through. So I was doing all of that, but then I felt like this knot building up as we were approaching the holidays. I felt this knot building up, like it was just gonna explode out of me. And I was like, what can I do? And nothing out, nothing was working, right? And then I ran into this nun. I'm not Catholic, but I ran in this nun. And I was like, and I immediately was like, she got the answer, you know? And so I went over to her and I said, I need to see you. Will you come see me? And I gave her my number and she called me and she came to see me and I told her what was going on, and she told me um to to repeat to myself 10 times a day, I surrender to you, Jesus, take care of everything. And she said, do that 10 times a day. Okay, well, I started doing it all the time because my mind wouldn't stop, right? It just wouldn't stop. And so every time I'm vacuum, I surrender to you, Jesus, take care of everything. I'm doing my dishes, you know. I surrender to you, Jesus. Anytime I wasn't speaking or doing something specific where I had to have focus, I was saying that out loud or in my head. And that changed everything that released that block, that released that energy, and it just it just gave my body whatever she needed so that she could get over that next hump of grief.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Wow, yeah, that is a lot of grief for sure. Were you able then to share that message with your family, like with your brother? Yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

I share, I shared it with them. Um, I share it with anybody, anybody who needs to hear it, my clients, of course, my friends. And it's not always I surrender to you, Jesus. It can be something else, but find something to replace the ruminating, you know, the cycle in your mind that is driving you down or keeping you down, find something to replace it. And I'm I'm big on in faith, you know, and whatever faith it is that you're drawn to. But Jesus is my teacher, so uh it it resonated with me.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Absolutely. And by sharing that message, there are many people out there um that you will say that to that need to hear it, they just don't know they need to hear it.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Oh, yeah. Well, it's like me, I didn't know I needed to hear it. So yeah, yeah.

Inside A Trauma Center’s Harsh Realities

SPEAKER_00 18:12

You hear it, and then you surrender to what the nun asked you to do. So good for you. If it's okay, because also part of the podcast is I love to honor our first responders. And you had worked in a level two trauma center. Um, and you talked about having to basically hold space for pain while also maintaining hope. Do you mind taking us into that world?

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Well, that was an interesting world. I mean, you know, they make television shows about it. It's nothing like you can imagine. It's always shocking when I kind of tell people exactly what it's like, even in the television shows, which I don't watch because I actually lived it. So, but it's still not the same. Uh, I was really surprised, and this may be different depending on the area you live in, but I only worked in one on one consumer and it was a one emergency department, and it was here, it was a trauma center. And I was really amazed at how hostile everyone was towards us, the staff, you know. Um, and it wasn't always the patient, it was usually the family members or the friends that were with them. And I have never been spoken to like people speak speak to you, and it's different, it's interesting the energy. Like, if it's the paramedics bringing them in, like on the road, like when I worked on the road, people were much nicer and much more appreciative, even though, and this is the reason I didn't want to work on the road, is because you really don't do that much. You have maybe 15 minutes with them. Uh, there's just a few things that you can do, and you're really never sure if you did the right thing. You know, if anything you did helped, or if you did the wrong thing, you don't know. You might come back to the ER and say, Hey, how was that patient that I dropped off? And sometimes they would call in and say, Hey, how is that patient? Did I do the right thing? But that didn't happen very often. Use they usually just dropped them off and went on, you know, because we had other things to do. But then they're with me for 12 hours and we're actually figuring them out. We're doing tests, we're figuring out what's going on with them, we're treating them, you know, things like that. And they would come in from the ambulance with a good attitude or partially good attitude sometimes, and then they would immediately flip and become mean to us. Because they say like the burnout is really like about a year and a half in an emergency department. And I and that's why it's just the abuse that we took from the general public when we're trying to help them. It was challenging, of course, to watch people die and to um watch people suffer and to not be able to stop it. That is difficult, but what made it so much more difficult was how cruel the people would be towards us, the staff. You know, I remember one time it was crazy. I was working in like the critical area. So the paramedics in this emergency department, we support the nursing staff, we support the doctors. So we kind of run from emergency to emergency. And when uh one would come in, you know, we would assess them quickly and see what needs to be done and and then kind of go to the next. So, and then if that we didn't have an emergency, you know, one after the other, then we could go around and help with other things, right? I'm going around and it's now one o'clock, and I was supposed to go to lunch. I think I was supposed to be in 11 o'clock lunch, and I know it didn't have lunch. I hadn't gone to the bathroom, I hadn't feed in like six hours, you know, my bladder's about to pop, and I'm starving. Um, I'm like, I'm going to lunch. I can't take it anymore. I'm going to lunch. And I'm telling everybody, well, then a chest pain comes in the door, and in a chest pain, you you have to do an EKG on them within five minutes because it could be a heart attack. And if it's a heart attack, you have to, you've got to treat that very quickly, you know. So a chest pain comes in, and I know where that nurse is that has that bed. She's not going to be able to get in there and take that chest pain. So I ran into the chest pain, went to, I was going to go do the EKG and draw the blood real fast so that I can then go to lunch and and not leave that nurse and lure to take care of that patient. And as I walk in the room, I'm Jennifer. I'm going to um do an EKG, check your heart, and I'm going to, you know, draw some blood. Um, can you just tell me your name and date of birth? So I make sure I have all the correct information. And she turns, she looks at me, and this is like a 60-something-year-old woman. She looks at me and then she turns and looks at her friends and goes, see, they're so fucking stupid in here that they don't even know who they're patients. Oh my goodness. That's how they talk to us all the time. And I just looked at her and I was just like, you know, and this is after like five years. And so I'm I'm like over it. And I just looked at her and I said, you know what? You came to us. You can leave. Would you like to check out? You know, I haven't had lunch. I haven't gone to the bathroom. This is my lunch break. And I've decided to come in and take care of you. But this is how you speak to me. Would you like to check out? You don't have to be here. And she, oh and you know, and I said, Tell me, because I can leave. What do you want? And she's no, uh well, I yeah, I do want to, I do need to be here. Okay, okay. Then you're gonna change your attitude and talk to us, which was and I and she didn't say anything else after that. But she was just had this look of disdain and everything on her face. But that's how they talk to us, and that's why we got burned out so quickly. I was a different person then than I am today. Like I was quickly, I would I could react quickly because I was used to being spoken to like that on a regular basis and treated that way on a regular basis. And I'm not used to that now, you know. Um, but yeah, it was like that. It was, you know, it was dealing with that on top of picking a mother up off the floor whose child just died. But yeah, just as soon as you think you've seen it all, you something else comes to the door. It's crazy. We kept we always kept talking about we need to get a notebook, and every day just write something, you know, that happened down in the notebook, the new, the new thing. Write it down in the notebook and then every year publish it. But we never did. We never did.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

And you know, I'm so glad you shared that because when I think of mental health for first responders, it's because of things that you've seen or had to deal with. Like you said, the the mother who just lost her child, you have to pick her up off the ground. But I never thought about the uh the mental and emotional abuse that would come from a patient.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Yes, I managed that kind of stuff better, like when the mother lost the child, because I have a deep spiritual belief. And I um even then when I wasn't as um in touch as I am now, I still had a deep connection. So I knew that everything was okay. I knew the child was in heaven, everything was fine, um, everything's in divine order. My job then was just to show up and hold space for her and help herself feel seen and heard. And same thing with others, you know, when you get a life-changing experience, um just to show up, hold space, make them feel seen and heard. Like my big thing was uh when they would come in on a backboard, they can't see you. So I would always lean over them and smile real big. Smile real big and be like, hi, you know, and look at them like that and smile. And they would always smile back. No matter what was happening to them, they'd always smile back because they could never see you and it's scary. And um, that's what I would do. You know, I would try to always do that when I had a somebody like that, you know. But for me personally, and from what I could tell, it was it was just being overworked, not enough staff, being overworked, um, being mistreated by either the patients or their family members, you know, the people that were with them. And then when I left, by the time I left, it was like the nurses were just taking a beating. I mean, they were really being overworked and being blamed for a lot of things that were not their fault. It's complicated.

The Slow Descent Into Blindness

SPEAKER_00 25:48

So now looking back, you know, this five, six years is preparing you for what is to come next.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Uh, so in 2009, I became legally blind. It was a process over about 10 years of my vision diminishing, and they weren't really sure why. I went to Baskin Palmer in Miami, the number one I institute in the United States. I saw the number one I uh retina specialist in the United States. She couldn't figure it out. She tested me for everything, she couldn't figure it out. But my vision just kept getting worse and worse. And then one day it got so bad that I couldn't do my job anymore. And so I had to go on medical leave. Then it kept getting worse and I couldn't come back off medical leave, so I had to resign. And that was extremely difficult. I did not know that there were other, you know, I didn't know any other visually impaired people. And I also didn't realize there were any services in the area, which is strange because I did work in the hospital. So I should have thought, hey, let's call and try to figure out if there's more services. There's got to be services, right? And then also I worked with social workers, and not a single one of the social workers, you know, they knew what was going on, but none of them said, hey, there's there's organizations in town you should sign up for. So it was a year before I found out about any of the services in the area. And that year was hell. It was really bad. Um, because I went from being this fast-moving paramedic in a level two trauma center and constantly being challenged, thinking fast, moving fast, everything, to sitting at home on the couch doing nothing. And I had just gotten married. My husband wasn't that that great when that supportive. Um, and and then the same thing happened when I shattered my leg. My friends started disappearing. And some I never heard from again. Uh when I like when I went out and became visually impaired. A few people would, you know, message, hey, I haven't seen you, let's get together for lunch. And I say, okay, I would love to, but you know, I I'm blind now, so I can't drive, so I'll need you to pick me up. And I never hear from them again. Or I would go out with people and they would have to read the menu, or they would have to guide me, and it it was too much work for them or too much trouble for them. And the public would respond in a negative way. One day we were at a um, we were having dinner, and I set my glass down, and I was apparently like at the crack, like they apparently put tables together, and I set my glass on it and it spilled, and the waiter was like, Oh, you're cut off. You know, you're you're drunk, you're cut off. And I'm like, No, I'm blind. And people at the table got kind of uncomfortable, were uncomfortable about all of that because there's now conflict and attention being drawn and things like that. And then after about a year of suffering, that's when I became suicidal. And I called my mom and I was like, something's gotta change. So she was worried, and she called my dad, who was a member of the Lions Club. And to this day, I don't understand why he didn't think of this. But he said, call the Lions Club in the area. And mom called the Lions Club in the area, and we found out about the two organizations Brevard Association for the Advancement of the Blind and the Center for the Visually Impaired. They offer free training and support for the visually impaired in Bouvard County. So I signed up for both of those programs, and that's what changed my life and pivoted me on the path that I'm on now. So, first thing I went to independent living class at Bouvard Association for the Advancement of the Blind. And I met other people who were just like me. There was actually another woman in her 30s, just like I was in my 30s. She had become legally blind, and everything that was happening to me was happening to her. Every single thing that people were telling me, they were telling her. So it gave me some comfort and some camaraderie. And I felt like, okay, it's not me. It's not. Me that's the problem. I'm the blind lady. You know, it's not me that's the problem. I signed up for classes with the Center for the Visually Impaired, and they come out to your house and teach technology training, independent living, and orientation and mobility. I got my first white cane. That was a dramatic day because once I got my white cane, I was now the blind lady. And that was something that was never supposed to happen. Uh, you know, I was never supposed to be, that was not my plan to be the blind lady. And once I got my white cane, now everybody knew I was the blind lady. And I didn't understand like the full benefit of it, which now I was like, I won't go out without it. Because it tells you that I'm the blind lady, and therefore, if you do something around me, you know I can't see you. It gives me that extra layer of protection that I didn't really think about when I was fully sighted. We think it makes us vulnerable. We think it makes us all whatever. But what it does is it just gives me a little more protection. It helps me to see because it, you know, you use it tactily, you use it to um give you information about your environment, but it also tells your environment who you are and what you need.

Finding Services And The White Cane

SPEAKER_00 31:12

It gives you some empowerment within your environment. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Because walking with a sighted person, forget it. I mean, I can I've been ran into so much stuff, you know, poles, chairs, other people, tripped off of stair, you know, steps, things like that. And with the cane, yeah, you can still be guided by the sighted person, but the cane gives you that buffer and gives you more information about your environment. So it's less likely for something like that to happen.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Can I uh ask you? Because as I sit here and think about the slow progress of me eventually losing my sight, like the anxiety that that must cause and the depression, the basically like when you are 21, why me? Like, why is this happening? How did you cope with that and get to where you are today?

SPEAKER_01 32:06

So it was a lot of help and a lot of tools and a lot of steps. You know, as I was working as a paramedic and losing my vision, there was a lot of fear and and depression along with it. And then when I did become legally blind and lost my job, you know, my dream job, lost it, and uh was now just sitting at home doing nothing, uh, there was a lot of depression, a lot of anger. I went through the five stages of grief, right? And you know, in the five stages of grief, you're up and down and you're fluctuate from one to the other. You, you know, you go from sadness to anger to, you know, back and forth. So I did all of that. The next step was I think I I had to, I needed to experience it. I needed to go through that because I could have, you know, the universe could have provided those organizations for me the day that I became legally blind, but it didn't, right? I didn't provide it then. I had to go through it for a year first. And I think part of that was the purge to get rid of the people and to lift a veil on a lot of things. And also, you know, we need to dig deep. We need to dig deep. And the best thing to do, I think, is is to dive down into those feelings. You know, if they if it's grief, go for it. Go for it, you know, get in there, be sad, scream, cry, do all the things. And then because you can't that that's why we're here, you know, that's why we came to be human, is because we want to feel the contrast. We want to feel that you we can't do that on the other side. We want to feel the contrast that we have here as a human being. We have the joy, we have the grief, you know, we have the happiness, we have the sadness, we have the pain, we have the the the pleasure, we have all of that in this human body. And I think that that's why we come here is to feel it. So feel it. And so I did that, and the next step is find the organizations that help. Find the people who have been there and have done that, not people who don't know they never done it, okay? I had so many people try to tell me how I should feel and what I should be doing and what I shouldn't be doing, and they've never been visually impaired. Well, they don't even know anybody's visually impaired, or maybe they do, and that person sits in the corner all day, which is unfortunately what happens to most. Don't talk to those people. Find those people who have been there and they have done that and they have come out the other side successfully, or they're already working on coming out the other side. Find those people. Those are who you need to talk to, those are who you need to hang out with, those are who you need to call when you're up or when you're down, and then start taking steps. So focus on uh finding the people that can help you, focus on getting your body stronger uh physically, your mind stronger. So, what did what did that mean for my mind? I did I started doing meditation, I started studying uh spiritual teachings. I was Buddhist for like two years and it was fantastic. And it gave me the tools that I needed because Buddhism is all about working on yourself and challenging your thoughts and your words and your actions, recreating a new reality. Stop the bad stuff so that you can uh advance and level up and move forward. So I had to stop the negative thinking, I had to stop all the anger, I had to stop those things, and that didn't that took time.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

So, a matter of years ago, you had met the nun who gave you the message about surrender, and you said it every day. Now that you're in a new situation where you are legally blind, did you find yourself still relying on that same belief of surrender? Or were you standing there like, well, okay, God, I surrender. What is this all about?

Reframing Suffering Into Growth

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Yeah, so in the beginning it was why me? Why me? Why is this happening to me? And then it became, hmm, why me? Hmm. Why am I why is this happening to me? What am I supposed to learn? And then what after I learn it, what am I supposed to offer? Because I eventually I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I think if we look at our lives, is there any time in our lives that we changed our whole being without having to be forced into it? Probably not. You know, we probably had to be forced into everything. There are very few of us who are wise enough and advanced enough to say, okay, this is not a good idea, so I'm just gonna cut that off at the at the bud, you know. No, we let it bloom. And then, and then, you know, and then we just go down that path and and then we're forced into another direction. So that's what most of us do. That's what everybody in my life does, and that's what I've done. I just had to be forced into it. I had to get sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I had to learn those lessons. And and I use that now, you know, when I work with visually impaired people and I kind of kind of try to befriend them, I coach them, like, okay, this is what's happening, this is what you can expect, and this is what you need to do. I give them that information that nobody gave me. I give it to them and tell them, you know, this it's okay, you know, it's to be expected, and this is what's gonna happen, this is what you'll probably feel. So it's okay, and then you're gonna come out the other side and you're gonna be fine. You know, it's gonna be a different life. It's gonna be different as long as you put in the effort and the work and do your part, you can create a good life.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Absolutely. And you know, this journey then took you into another new journey where you found um another way to help people. And that brings us to where you are today.

Becoming A Yoga Teacher Against Odds

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Yes. So as I was doing the classes with the Center for the Visually Impaired, I had completed the classes with the Bravard Association with Advanced of the Blind, but I was still going back and volunteering because I needed that connection, you know, I needed it. And that's when I started like, yeah, I can do this, I can do this. Yeah. And so they're they're very um strategic with how they teach you. They start you out basic, and they know that it's it's gonna be overwhelming and you're gonna be scared and you're gonna cry and you're gonna be all the things, right? So they start you out really small, really basic, and then they're like, Okay, you mastered that. Now what do you want to do? One thing after, okay, now what do you want to do? And what's next after this, you know? And so with my teacher, Karen, we finished, I don't remember what it was. And she said, now what do you want to do? And I said, you know what? I've always wanted to learn how to sew. And I never sewed sewed before on a sewing machine. And she's like, Okay, well, we need a sewing machine, we need this, we need that. So I found a sewing machine at a garage sale and I bought it, and then I set scheduled classes with her and I started sewing. And I made my stepdaughter at the time a cute little outfit. When I got done with the outfit, I never I didn't really want to sew anymore, but that gave me the confidence uh and the desire to do the next thing. And that was when I started to say, you know what? I think I want to go back to work. But I didn't know what that looked like. I couldn't be a paramedic. There's no way I could be a paramedic. So now I'm doing spiritual development training at um Aquarian Dreams beach side here with Sherry. And so I went to Sherry and I said, What do you think I should do? You know, I want to work. She said, Oh, you're supposed to be a yoga teacher. I mean, like nothing, you know? And I'm just, I'm like, huh? I've never even I've taken seven yoga classes in my whole life. And she was like, No, you're supposed to be a yoga teacher. Yeah. And I'm like, okay. And so I go back and I go to my teacher, Karen, and I said, uh, so I think I'm supposed to be a yoga teacher. She's like, that's a great idea. And she said, let's find the best training that we can find for you. So we found the only training in the area. But it was a yoga alliance, which is the national certification in the United States. And I signed up for that, did the yoga teacher training. It was quite the experience as a visually impaired person because a lot of people are really wrapped up in the aesthetics of yoga, and I didn't have any of that. So I got to have a much different experience. But I completed my yoga teacher training and I started teaching at Aquarian Dreams. You know, the challenge there was nobody else would hire me. Everybody thought I was a liability. And then another studio hired me, and then another one, and then another one, and eventually they they all hired me. And then it was, then I started teaching specialty classes all around the county and doing some private yoga, and that was great. And I felt good doing that, but then I wanted even more. I was like, now, okay, what's next? Something next. So, you know, right? Everything's preparing me. Everything's preparing me, right? I've always been drawn to Thai massage. No idea why. Never experienced it in my life. There's nobody in the area that does it. And then a Thai massage training came to town. I signed up immediately. And I did the Thai massage training. It was a five-month training. And then I started offering Thai massage to my female clients, my friends. That really gave me more of what I needed because what we're craving, what I noticed that a lot of us were craving, is safe healing touch. And the Thai massage gave me the ability to do that. Then I had all these massage therapists and yoga teachers wanting me to teach them how to do Thai massage. And I could teach them, but I couldn't give them credits because I wasn't a licensed massage therapist. So I went back to licensed massage therapy school, graduated, and uh became a licensed massage therapist, and now I'm a continuing education provider for the state of Florida for time massage, licensed massage therapist, and also a continuing education provider for yoga teachers. But what makes me good, I think, at uh teaching yoga and also time massage and massage and everything is everything that happened to me before. The shattering of my leg and realizing how that at that age and at that mindset, what my mentality was and what it feels like to come back from that. And then being a personal trainer and an athletic director, and then being a paramedic gave me the medical knowledge and also gives me some credit, like some street cred, right? Because a lot of people look at yoga teachers and and they're like, oh, you know, but the fact that I was a paramedic in a level two trauma center gives me some cred. So that's good. And so that prepared me to understand complications with health that people have. And then the next crazy thing that was never supposed to happen was uh because I started I started doing public speaking because of all of this, and because I didn't want anybody to suffer the way I suffered uh with not having the care and the services and not knowing what they're entitled to and also not knowing what they can do, I reached out to the Center for the Visually Impaired and asked, you know, how can I help? Well, they wanted me to do fundraising and raising of awareness. So I started putting on fundraising events for them and I started doing public speaking. My biggest public speaking was to NASA. I was a keynote speaker at NASA. But I spoke into little organizations like the Rotary Club, you know, everything, telling them about what it's like to be visually impaired and telling them about the services in the area and what people with disabilities need in general. I believe teaching yoga, getting me up in front of a group and teaching, that took away my nerves in front of people. That taught me how to speak in front of people, and that prepared me for my public speaking gigs. Everything is like just go for it. Just what is the universe, you know, what is what opens up? Okay, this feels good. You've got doors opening up, go ahead and walk through them and see what they have to offer. Because, you know, I was that 21-year-old girl laying there angry because my leg was broken and all my friends left me. And then next thing you know, I'm the keynote speaker at NASA. So, you know, you don't know, you don't know, but find find find your tribe, find your your connection to God, whatever that may be. Um, you know, there I believe we're all walking, we're all climbing the same mountain. You know, it doesn't matter if it's what belief it is, just find your connection and take care of your body, be really healthy and take care of your body. If we learn anything over the past, you know, since 2020, take care of your body, be healthy.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Absolutely. I was gonna ask you a closing question, but you may have actually just answered it. You were talking about the lessons you learned while living on a farm. Remember, that's how we started our conversation. And I was thinking to myself, now, a few decades later, what lessons have you learned from life? Oh God, so many.

Thai Massage, Licensure, And Teaching

SPEAKER_01 45:08

Be careful who you talk to. Uh, be careful who you share your energy with. I remember spending time when I lost my vision trying to get people to understand how I felt, and they'll never understand. Only sharing that energy with people who have a desire to understand. I know people who they share their dreams, like I'm gonna open a business, and then the next thing you know, you've got all these poo-pooers, and they're they're poo-pooing their energy all over you. Don't they don't need to know. Be careful, be careful who you give yourself to. You're sacred, your energy is sacred. Be careful who you talk to, be careful who you share your energy with. And don't take advice from anybody, you know, who hasn't been there and done that, or hasn't shown you something like that. I love that saying, a bodybuilder will never put you down for going to the gym. But the unhealthy person sitting on the couch playing video games will shame you for it. Just talk to the people who have been there, done that. As soon as it they start to show you that they're not gonna be that person, just zip it.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

That is such great information. Love your thoughts, love your heart, love your journey, love your resilience, love your spirit. I feel like I can just keep going into the audience. Um, I want you to know that all of Jennifer's information will be in the show notes as well if you want to reach out to her. Um, on that note, Jennifer, thank you for being my guest today on the I Need Blue podcast. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

Thank you for having me. And I appreciate you doing this. Thank you so much. And I'm excited about what all the things that you've got coming up that you mentioned earlier. So good luck with all that.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Thank you.