When Pushing Harder Stops Working with Nancy Deyo

What happens when pushing harder, the strategy that helped you succeed your entire life, becomes the very thing standing in your way?

Former Silicon Valley CEO Nancy Deyo built her identity around achievement, performance, and the next goal. But after a spinal injury on Mount Kilimanjaro led to years of chronic pain, disability, opioid dependence, and medical uncertainty, Nancy faced something she couldn't outwork: the collapse of the identity she'd spent a lifetime building.

In this Week 2: CHOOSING conversation of The Delay the Binge™ Journey, Pam and Nancy explore the difference between pushing through and moving forward.

Nancy shares what it was like to grieve the person she used to be, why acceptance is not the same as giving up, and how learning to pause helped her listen to what her body had been trying to tell her.

You'll hear about:

• The hidden danger of tying identity to achievement
• What “identity collapse” feels like
• Why pushing harder doesn't always create resilience
• Learning to accept reality without surrendering hope
• The power of listening to your body
• Finding possibility inside a life you didn't choose
• How the pause creates room for a different choice

Today Nancy writes and speaks about chronic pain, resilience, and what she's learned from her own journey.

CONNECT WITH NANCY DEYO

Website:
https://nancydeyo.com/

Substack:
https://nancydeyo.substack.com/

Pause. Choose. Build momentum. Finish stronger.

Transcript

Welcome And Quiet Depletion

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Delay the Bench Podcast, where we explore the pause between impulse and action. Because lasting change rarely happens in the big moments. It happens in the small moments when we choose differently. Today's guest knows what it's like to have an identity built on achievement. Nancy Deo is a former Silicon Valley CEO, Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute Fellow, and author of the forthcoming memoir Perilous Ascent. After a spinal injury on Mount Kilimajoro, Nancy spent more than fifteen years navigating chronic pain, disability, opioid dependence, medical uncertainty, and what she describes as identity collapse. But what makes her story so compelling isn't simply what she endured. It's what she discovered when the strategies that had defined her success no longer worked. Nancy, welcome to Delay the Binge.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Thanks, Pam. It's so good to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

I know. I'm very excited. One of the things we explore often on this show is something I call quiet depletion, and is where everything that made you successful keeps working until it doesn't. So you were a Silicon Valley CEO, a high achiever, a leader, someone who knew how to solve problems and move forward. Before Mount Kilimanjoro, if I had met you at the height of your success, what would I have seen?

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Well, I'm not sure you would have liked me that much, to be honest with you. I was really a competitive hard driver. It was always about the next goal, the next milestone, the next fundraise. I was very work obsessed. My whole identity was based on that person that I was as a Silicon Valley leader. And my other roles like wife and friend and community member were all a very distant second.

unknown 2:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Okay, so you're very much a perfectionist. Yes? I hate to say it, but I am. I I'd like to say I'm reformed, but I think that some of those habits take a very long time to shake if we ever shake them.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

I am one as well, and I call it a tendency. It's so hard. It's just ingrained. And if you learn to use it well, then it can serve you well. But if you let it take over, man, it's an issue.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Agreed.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Were you have you always been driven?

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yeah, you know, I grew up in a family. There were two kids. I had a sister 15 months older than me who was a genius. And I was a smart kid, but I wasn't Kathy. And I think that instilled a crazy drive in me that forced me to study longer, work harder, run faster, do all those things to try in some way to keep up, which was an impossible goal.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Right. So achievement felt energizing or or was it exhausting?

SPEAKER_01 3:32

It was both. I was always energized by a big goal, but because I put a thousand percent into it, it usually exhausted me to get to the end point.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

So that's what you meant by identity. I mean, it was tied to your performance, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yes. And I think that is one of the scariest ways to identify yourself because when you can't be perfect, when that performance slips, everything falls apart.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

It does. And and when did you first realize that those strengths had

The Mountain As Redemption

SPEAKER_00 4:05

become like a liability?

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Well, you would think I might have learned it in Silicon Valley, but I didn't. My business started to run short on cash. And I scrambled as so many startup CEOs do, and ended up selling the business to my arch rival, which was just so painful. Like a knife in the chest. But um, after what I considered to be a really palpable failure, you would think that I would have learned something, but I didn't. And instead, I decided I had to go and conquer the next challenge. But I didn't choose another startup. Instead, I decided I would revert to what I knew growing up, which was being an athlete. I was a runner, and I thought, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna start to climb mountains. And the way that I'm going to prove to myself that I can still succeed is by conquering that goal, that summit. And I decided that I was going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. My gosh, to redeem myself from what I consider to be such a failure in my business and prove that I was still worthy.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Oh my gosh, what a target. You could have chosen any mountain.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Well, you know, I was obsessed with reading Into Thin Air and all of those books about climbing back in those days. And I decided that the seven summits, which were the seven highest mountains in the world, were the thing to do. And Mount Kilimanjaro was the only one that didn't require technical skills like X climbing and um crampons and roping and all those great things. So it it was a very steep ascent up a very tall mountain, some 19,000 plus feet. And uh my husband and I decided to do this together. We trained really hard for it, like I did with anything else. Instead of studying, I was physically training, you know, going to the gym with a big heavy pack on my back and hiking the hills that I could around uh San Francisco and the Bay Area. And I really honestly, Pam, had no business climbing that mountain. Number one, it was a ridiculous goal. But number two, when I was training, I actually injured my back before I even started. I was working out one day on a stairmaster, if you remember those back in the day. Yes. That was broken and had no resistance. And I injured myself. And it might have made most people say, maybe I need to pause and reconsider that goal and think about whether this is something I really need to do. But I wasn't willing to do that. I really needed the win. And so I thought, I'm just gonna climb anyway. When I get to the other side, I'll be able to rest then and it will be okay. So I compartmentalized the pain as so many of us do with our pain, whether it's physical or emotional. Uh, we shoved that way down and I started climbing. And to cut to the chase, the first day I had to give my pack up. The second day, I was having a lot of difficulty, so I had to lie down right after dinner. The third day I couldn't sit for meals because of the pain in my spine. And the fourth and fifth day, the team created a back brace out of duct tape and an inflatable pillow and tried to prop me up so that I could really hike. And on a sixth day at 16,000 feet, which is half of the oxygen of sea level. So you're a little crazy to begin with and very oxygen deprived. I decided that I had to go down. And I said to my husband, you go up and sum it because it matters to you. And I'm gonna go down tomorrow with these two porters. And the next day he went up and I walked out of the campsite with two guys who were lovely but spoke no English and I spoke no Swahili. And two hours later, I've collapsed in the dirt on the side of a mountain, and I was having trouble with my legs. They felt really weak. And so the guys carried me to a tent and made camp for the night. And I just passed out. And I remember waking up at midnight and I literally couldn't move my legs. And I thought, I need to shift. And so I did, and it felt like somebody was driving a steel rod through my spine. I just had never experienced that kind of pain before. And I had two thoughts. One was, I actually could be bleeding out. I mean, I might be dying here, and I might end up with my name on a rock. Like so many climbers who don't survive these great feats of athleticism that they try. And the second thing I thought was this ingrained behavior of pushing and shoving and striving, it isn't working for me. And you would think that I learned my lesson then at that like moment of truth on the mountain, but I didn't. And it took me 15 years of chronic pain and real hell to figure out what resilience really looked like. And it wasn't bouncing back and pushing through. It was trying to find a different way to live.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

That must have been terrifying. And plus just to endure the pain and not going to the summit after all that work, and then you hurt yourself. So this is a real live, live description of what can happen in life that's so much worse than a lot of others have it. But I guess when the injury happened, did you understand immediately how much your life was about to change?

unknown 10:00

Of course not.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Not at all. You know, I thought when I told my husband I had to descend, I thought, I'll go down to sea level, I'll rest, I'll go get some care if that's what it I need, which I I definitely did, and everything will be fine, and I'll just go back to my life.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah. You just thought it was temporary.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

It didn't work out that way. I think we think most injuries are acute, you know, especially when you have never had any kind of chronic issue, you don't understand that it could become what I now think of as a forever disease.

When Injury Turns Into Chronic Pain

SPEAKER_01 10:36

And these are the hardest things to navigate. But I got carried off that mountain on piggyback by those two really strong porters. And it took six months to diagnose me. I was told I would be fine in Nairobi at a hospital in the UK in London, and then again in San Francisco, which was my home at the time. And what I later learned was that I had fractured vertebrae, which had probably maybe gotten a stress fracture when I was on that broken stairmaster, but worsened because I persisted in climbing and a flattened disc that needed surgery. So the six-month period of not knowing, of misdiagnosis, of medical uncertainty was really horrific. But little did I know that even after my surgery, that uncertainty of not knowing what to do, how to get better, who I was would continue.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Okay. Was that the point you realized that it wasn't temporary? When did you realize it was actually a temporary, it wasn't a temporary setback?

SPEAKER_01 11:49

You know, I had three surgeries within the course of three years. And each time I thought that was the fix that was going to enable this to be a recovery that was short-term based or that was time-based. And each time I was disappointed and the pain continued, sometimes worsened. And my life became so odd because it was horizontal. I was having trouble sitting. That was always my issue. I couldn't stand the feeling of the base of my spine hitting any surface. And so I lived my life lying down, sadly, usually with a pile of opioids on a side table, because I could not bear the pain. And even with all the drugs, the only way to survive it was to lie down. At that point, I think the pain had become the disease, you know, several years in. And I thought that it might be what I had to live with. And as you can imagine, you think your life is over, you have no idea who you are, you can't even recognize yourself at that point.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

I really like that phrase you used, identity collapse. And I think many people experience that in different forms like illness, divorce, career loss, retirement, even empty nesting. Can you describe what your definition of identity collapse is and and how it felt for you?

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yes, I think it's like the story that you tell about yourself that you say inside your head that you present to other people, it just completely shatters. And I always have this image of who I was, just something in my brain, you know, I was a successful CEO. I would wear a suit and pumps, and I'd stride through an airport with like my briefcase slung on my shoulder, and I'd walk into meetings with purpose, and suddenly I was a chronic pain patient, period, full stop. I wore hospital pants and a hoodie. My hair was usually unwashed because it was too difficult to get into the shower. My pillowcases were soared with sweat. And it is the most confusing, rattling thing you can imagine because for me, my life was so based on these roles. And when you lose them, you lose this complete sense of who you are, and you're just on this turf that you don't understand. And you're grieving. You're grieving who you used to be, you're grieving everything that you lost, you're grieving who you now are, which is a human that you don't want to be and maybe don't don't like. Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

I had a friend that was in a car accident and they're paralyzed now for the rest of their life. And she explained it to me like the person she was before the accident is like she died, and she's grieving the death of that person because she no longer identified with that person anymore. That's how she she's told me that's how she actually let it go.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

So there was grief and amazing. There's definitely a before and an after, and my life is has become so divided by that fissure of Kilimanjaro and everything that came afterwards, and then the life that I love, the travel, the great guy as the husband, the wonderful career, the friends, the community, going out, being spontaneous, all those things that become impossible when you're sick. And everything's a mathematical measurement of what you'll be able to do and what you won't be able to do.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Well, you know, they always say there's those stages of grief. I mean, did you ever did you feel angry, lost, scared, or all of it?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

I actually don't remember registering the anger, but I think that my version of anger manifested as fear and anxiety. I think that's just I must have shoved the anger deep down into my body, which probably had physical ramifications later. But it was loss and anxiety, depression, fear.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Oh my God. I'm sure being the overachiever that you are, you tried everything. What all did you try to fix this your back? What did you do? Was there treatments, specialists? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

I I saw a parade of doctors first. My dad was a doctor, so I really trusted the medical system for one. And so I went through a circuit of specialists looking for an answer from neurology to physiology to pain management. I tried physical therapy, I tried acupuncture. I even tried energy healing, shaman, um, hypnotists. I just felt like nothing's off the table. I have to do all the things, everything that I possibly can, because you never know what is going to work or what combination is going to work. And there may not be a silver bullet in there for me. So I had to keep trying to do everything. And I think in that case, the persistence and striving was probably a blessing because it gave me a little bit of hope and kept me trying to find a solution.

Opioids And The Mayo Clinic Reset

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Um, I would say that the most aggressive thing that I tried was going to the Mayo Clinic. They had a pain rehabilitation program and a drug detox program that was a three-week program. I and I'm pretty sure they still run this. It was very new at the time for people like me who just had what they considered to be a forever disease and they had chronic pain they couldn't control and they were deeply dependent on opioids. And at the time for me, it had moved from oxycontin to fentanyl. Oh boy. Which is and so I remember I couldn't fly because I couldn't sit. And so I had to travel to Minnesota on an air ambulance, which is an experience in and of itself. Oh gosh. And the program was interesting because they pushed me as hard as I pushed myself. The first week was about detox, and it happened like this, and you're off of the opioids, the benzodiazepines, you name it. And withdrawal is real. It's physical, it's neurological, it's psychological, it's vicious. And you experience that while they're trying to force back physical function. So I came in lying on the ground of the conference room, staring at the ceilings, you know, memorizing the ceiling tiles. And suddenly I was forced to sit and walk and try to, you know, do the daily activities of life, like vacuuming and gardening and things that were just the out of the question for me to do. And I pushed really hard through that. And I remember feeling like maybe, maybe, maybe I might get my life back because at the end of three weeks, I was off the drugs and I was really, I was hurting, but I was functioning. And I remember calling my pain management doc and saying, This was a great program. I'm doing all these things, just giving him my laundry list of everything I had accomplished. And he was really metered and reserved. And he said, good to hear from you. I'll see you when you get home. And I thought, what the hell? Like, why is he happy for me? You know, I'm victorious. I'm getting my life back. And no sooner did I get home than I crashed horribly, landed in the hospital on higher dose of opioids than ever before, because I just simply could not handle the pace. I couldn't, my body couldn't do it. It just reacted.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yeah, it sounds like before the accident, in your world, the job that you had, if something wasn't working, you would push harder until it was working. I'm sure in that world, in the corporate world. But I'm sure that when you realized the answer wasn't going to be found by pushing harder, it was a deeper struggle. It was more, like you said, behavioral and emotional.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

There was actually a big moment that came in the hospital after that crash. And I had all these tests as usual, just searching, searching, searching, trying to find an answer. And one of my doctors walked into the room and said, Nancy, this is so hard to tell you, but you know, your tests are okay. We've structurally fixed what was broken, and we've just done our best. But we're gonna need to release you. And I just thought, oh my goodness, you know, the medical system, they don't have anything for me. They've done everything they can. This is my life. And little did I know, but my husband left to go to work and was actually going on a tour of nursing homes because he felt like he couldn't care for me anymore.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

I was just too debilitated.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

And I was 45 at the time. I mean, it that wasn't my place, that wasn't my community. They're so important for so many people, but that wasn't where I should have been. And I realized that it was really up to me. It was up to my husband and I to figure out how to survive, how to find a different way forward. It was almost like time stood still. I was terrified, but my usual mode was to have a knee-jerk reaction. Mm-hmm. Do something. And I realized that I I couldn't, but I had to listen to my body. I knew that I was still in pain. I knew that pushing through was actually causing me harm. And I could look back and see all the times when after it set back, the minute I started to feel better, I would get up and try to go again, only to crash.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Because the instincts weren't working. They were hurting me.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Yes. And that could have been the message all along. When life gets difficult, I'm always, okay, what is the message here? What am I not learning?

SPEAKER_01 23:06

I think the message was being repeated at great frequency, but maybe not enough volume for me. I maybe I had to get to the lowest of low in order to have that aha moment where I realized that I had to change so much about the way I operated if I had any chance of surviving it, of getting through it, because I really, I really thought my life was over.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Oh my gosh. I'm sure I think anyone would feel that. I write short stories. I wrote one, it was called The Mountain, and it's about climbing the mountain of life. It can be difficult, there can be storms, but sometimes you fall all the way to the bottom, and it's very painful. But the only thing you can do is what? Look up. You can no longer look down or sideways or anything. The only way you can view anything is by looking up. And I hope it inspired some people, but I'm sure you felt that way too. You were like at the bottom, is what you

Identity Collapse And Real Grief

SPEAKER_00 24:05

were saying.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Absolutely. I realized that, and I see this now more than I probably did in that moment, but that I needed a real shift in mindset. There had been such a black cloud over my head all those years. I was just, the glass was really empty. And I was so obsessed with all the things I could not do and everything that I had lost that I didn't know how to think about the things that I still could do. And I think that, you know, that flip, the glass is half full, what can I do was really, really critical for me in finding a way out of the mess.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Yes, and I don't know why, but the human brain does go to the negative first, always. It never looks at the the hope, the inspiration, the motivation. It's always going to the negative energy. And that is with a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Yeah, I was the queen of catastrophizing. I was so good at it. Oh, my life is over. My life is I know it. Everything's gone. Um, but I, you know, I guess I have to give myself a little bit of rope. It was pretty, pretty bleak.

unknown 25:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

But I think that it really took, I I had a really great therapist in my efforts to try everything. And, you know, I used to think that I had two choices. I thought that I could fight, which is what I always did, or I thought I could give up, which I didn't want to do. And I think we have this third choice. I think, you know, we can accept what is. And my therapist kept talking to me about this term she called the new normal. And I remember saying to her, I hate that, I hate that term. This is a horrible term. I mean, that's my horizontal, monochromatic, isolated, awful life. I can't, I don't know how to do that. And she said, you know, you don't have to give up. You just have to give in a little bit and stop fighting yourself. And she was so wise. I mean, I'm sure I was frustrated as hell at the time, but she was really, really wise. And I had to come to understand what new normal meant for me with a focus on the things that I could do. It was something entirely different from lying in my bedroom, hopeless, uh, you know, staring at the ceiling.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Right. I mean, that's like again the mountain story, just the only way is up. Only way you can go. My questionnaire that I send to all my guests, you answered one of the questions, and it was my

The Pause That Creates Choice

SPEAKER_00 26:50

favorite. I felt like printing it out and putting in a frame because you said you discovered the power of the pause, the space between fear and reaction where real choice becomes possible. Can you tell me about that?

SPEAKER_01 27:04

I think a lot of the pause for me was about being present for the first time. I was always running, so I was always looking ahead. What's next? What can I conquer next? What can I do next? And that left no time for the present. It left no time for breath. It left no time to just sit with something and exist. And I think that for me, the pause is now something that I have to do daily in order to make those choices. What am I going to do today? How much can I accomplish? What can I do physically? How's my brain feeling?

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Yeah. Yeah. The pause is so powerful. It really does allow you to choose the next right thing instead of just reacting. The pause helped you stop reacting automatically. What did you find in that space? Do you think the pause is where some healing started?

SPEAKER_01 28:09

I know the pause was where I learned what it meant to listen to my body.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

In a big way. Because it you know, our bodies and our minds tell the truth.

unknown 28:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

They know us better than anybody knows us, than any loved one, any practitioner, anybody. And we have to pay attention. So the pause let me pay attention.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Right. I say that all the time. And and I tell you that the pause is where truth becomes visible.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

I love

Rebuilding Life With New Rules

SPEAKER_01 28:40

that.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Yeah. Well, I think one of the most powerful images in your story, I think, is attending graduate school while lying on an army cot. I was so blown away by that. Yes. You know, most people would have assumed that chapter of life was over, but what kept you moving forward?

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Well, when I made that choice to focus on what I could do, one of the big things I realized was that I could use my brain. My brain was still functioning. I had a passion for learning. I really, really wanted to get back into the world and to use the tools that I had been given by birth, you know, even if I uh was a little fogged by the drugs from time to time, but it was something that I could do. And so I applied to grad school to get an international development degree. And I got in, and my first instinct, my knee-jerk reaction was wait, don't go this year. Wait until you're well, because then you can go and participate as a quote normal person. And then I stopped and I realized, A, that may never happen. Because I probably won't ever achieve that normalcy, but that I have to do it in my way, in the way that I am capable. And I realized I could go to grad school. I just had to do it lying down. And my husband and I came up with the notion. We went to visit the ADA people in the university, and I think they didn't know what to do with me. What do you do with somebody who can't sit? I mean, they had they have so many wonderful, wonderful accommodations for people that are so critical who were, you know, differently abled in one way or another. Yeah. But not this. And but we came up with the idea of an army cot that was foldable. You could drag it into class in a little personal shopping basket and set it up in about a minute, along with an inflatable mattress that was rolled up. And there I'd be. And I have to say, I still remember the first day of class and going to orientation and setting up my cot really early so I could just be in the position I was going to be in when the other students came in and they all kind of filed in and sat at round tables. And there were a few glances back and some whispering, which I assumed was about me, which probably wasn't, but I was very self-conscious. And when it came time to introduce ourselves, I remember it was my turn and I kind of propped myself up on my elbow so I could lift my head up to try to be a little bit higher, more to the eye level of where all the other students were. And I said, I'm Nancy, and I injured my back on Kilimanjaro, and I'm going to be like you see me here in class, lying down. And I just want everybody to know that I'm good with it. So you can be too. Now I'm not sure I was probably terrified. I was terrified. And I'm not sure if I had any of the confidence that I voiced, but I just wanted to try to diffuse the situation and make everybody a little bit more comfortable that they had a classmate who was going to um appear differently.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Yeah. And you just made them aware. And if anything, if I would have been a student in there, I would have only had admiration for you to do what you were doing. I mean, do you think that was resilience or was it something different like maybe acceptance?

SPEAKER_01 32:29

I think it was a little bit of both. I mean, I I still remember this day, about six months in, I was in a peace and conflict class, and my prof wanted to have a conversation about identity because we were studying stateless people who were refugees, and we were talking about what that must feel like. And he said, I want you to take 10 minutes and write down your identity. I want you to write down who you are and who you aren't, and then we'll talk about it. And I started writing right away. I thought, this is easy. I I know the answer to this. Well, and all the other students are kind of like whispering and muttering, like, ah, I don't know how to do this. You know, I I don't know the answers to these questions. And when it came time to share back, I raised my hand and I said, you know, I used to be a CEO and a wife and a community member and a daughter and a sister. And now I'm a person who lives with chronic pain. I'm disabled, and society isn't ready for a person who has needs like mine. And I was barely getting these words out of my mouth, and my classmates started interrupting me. And they said, We don't see you that way. We don't see you that way at all. No. You are a contributor, you have so much to offer. You just happen to do a lying down. What a moment. It was so big for me. I just thought I I had goosebumps. I thought I'm not going to be defined by this. Nope. That was resilience for me, that moment, and acceptance.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

You know, that's the mantra of my entire memoir is your past doesn't define you, it prepares you.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Oh, I love that. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

I believe in that so much. To use the pain for purpose, you know? Yes. There are people listening right now, speaking of, whose lives no longer look the way they thought it would. Maybe it's because of illness or loss, or maybe because life simply didn't go according to their plans. How do you begin building a meaningful life when you can't go back to the one you had?

SPEAKER_01 34:40

I think the first thing you have to do is let it go. Let that person you used to be that you're grieving let it go. It doesn't matter. It can't matter. Focus on your passion. Focus on what you can do. I think that with things turn to the positive, our mindsets can help us navigate a lot of really difficult times when we feel stuffed, when we're humiliated, when we're humbled, when we're in the mess. There's always a way to survive differently than what we're doing in the moment. We just need to go through that shift. Sometimes it takes really listening to your body. Sometimes it takes welcoming in a really new, different way of doing things that you might have rejected in the past.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Okay, so that falls down to trust. So you have to learn to trust yourself again. Or maybe you never did in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Yeah, that one's a really good question. That's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

So how do we learn to trust ourselves again? How, you know?

SPEAKER_01 35:55

I think self-trust can take as long to build as it takes for the pain to am. I mean, I think if you've lost that trust, you don't know where to start. And I think that sometimes you need to just take that first step forward, maybe even before you're ready. Yeah. I mean, I definitely took that step forward to go back to school and I wasn't ready.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Right. And and where does that come from? I always say if you wait to be motivated to do something, it's never going to happen. You have to just make yourself do the thing, and then the motivation happens. Did do you find that to be true?

SPEAKER_01 36:35

I find it absolutely to be true. And I am grateful for those, for that drive and those instincts that I've had since I was a kid. Because I think in that in that particular way, Pam, I think they do serve you. You know, they serve me well.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

Right. And that's all about my whole philosophy on becoming. So many people give a different uh definition of what they think becoming means. But I think becoming really isn't about becoming someone different. I think it's just b becoming the person you were always meant to be. And using your strengths, your gifts, and you have those with or without your pain. Now you've learned to tap into it, which is serving.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

No, it's so interesting because people have often asked me, you know, if you had a do-over, would you go back and climb that mountain again? Would you do all the would you live through this again? And my first reaction is, no, I wouldn't, I would definitely not live through that again. That was horrible. But I'm grateful for who I've become because you can't go through a trauma like that and come out of the and the other end of it the same way. You're forever shifted, changed by that experience. You know, you're you are stronger, you're more adaptable, you're more flexible. That was a word I used to hate. You know, people would say, Thank you for being flexible. And I would say, I hate being flexible.

Becoming Compassionate Through Pain

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

But now I realize the beauty in it.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

Hmm. There is beauty in being flexible and or what I call kindness. Being kind, it heals people. It heals the giver and the receiver. And people belittle, like they don't think much of kindness, but it's a it's like a superpower, I think.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Because you have to be flexible, you have to be compassionate, you have to be willing to consider what the other person needs, even if you don't. And that's a challenge for most human beings. Absolutely. But I see now what you think of becoming, and I think it's an ever growing thing. I don't think we just stay where we're at. I think we're in a constant state of learning uh and from our failures at that. But who do you think Nancy Deo is becoming now?

SPEAKER_01 39:04

I am a quieter, more contemplative, more compassionate person than I used to be. I compete with myself, not with others. I hope that I'm a better friend. I show up, I listen longer, I advocate for them. And I think that only comes from having been on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

I look, my past is full of neglect, dysfunction, and people always ask me, How did you turn out the way you turned out, Pam? It's because I went through that. And I used to really have a lot of shame and resentment about like, why me? This is so unfair. That girl down the road, it didn't happen to her. Why me? But now I don't want to be thankful for it, but I appreciate what it brought me to be now. I like the person I am. I want to help. I want to make an impact. And I contribute it all to the horrible things that have happened in my life.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

Absolutely. And I think that as we move past those experiences, we can look back and reflect and try to understand them. It doesn't mean that we have any gratefulness or that we don't wish that we didn't have to go through them, but I think we're different people because of it.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Yeah. And this whole becoming discussion right now, I intentionally did not ask you at the beginning of our conversation uh what you're passionate about now. Like what what are you doing now with your life? What's what's happening in Nancy's world?

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Well, I feel this responsibility to pay to pay it back. And I feel like it is on me to share what I've experienced and some of the insights along the way, just in the hope that they're there, we're all struggling in one way or another. And I just know there are people out there who need to be heard and seen, who are probably stuck in the places that we have walked through and have navigated our way out of. And if anything I say or share in any way can give them a leg up, then that's what I want to do. So I write and speak about chronic pain and resilience and what that means to me now.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

Yes, I love that so much. I think we're all called in one way or another to try and save somebody the trouble. Like don't take the long, hard road. But if we inspire someone, I know you are inspiring a lot of people, and they can see themselves in your story. And that's what I find is that if people see themselves in your story, then they can relate and then they can be inspired.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Each of our stories are so unique to us that there are so many things about what we live through that's so universal because we're all human.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Yeah. We are. And the key is to not hate and to not be bitter. You just got to use what's happened in your life. You use it for fuel, for energy. Literally. That's how I visualize it. And then I feel like it wasn't all that bad that it happened. I'm using it for good. For our listeners who want to learn more about your work and follow your writing and

Where To Find Nancy And Closing

SPEAKER_00 42:50

learn about your upcoming memoir, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 42:54

Um two places I that come to mind right away. The first is my website, which is nancydeo de yo.com. And they can write to me there. They can see different appearances and talks that I've given, podcasts I've been on, including this one, which will be wonderful to share. And uh they can follow my writing. I write about life inside pain for just anybody, whether they're have pain or they're ill or they've gone through loss and they've realized that pushing harder isn't necessarily the answer. Hopefully, I can share some of my story, and that's on Substack at NancyDo again.substack.com. So whether they're writers or readers or talkers, I I welcome them and I feel like we have to all do this together.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

Oh, definitely. And a lot of our listeners, they're the perfect audience for that. Can you tell us a little bit about the perilous ascent and who you wrote it for?

SPEAKER_01 44:00

I wrote it first. I I wrote it for myself. I mean, it's so interesting because I journaled through the entire recovery for 15 years and I thought about it but wasn't ready to even go there for another 10. And then finally, in a flurry of just passion and need, I wrote the memoir to make sense of the journey for myself. So that was the first person I wrote it for. Then I wrote it for the people out there who need that leg up, who need to see themselves in my pages, in my story, whether they love an uh um illness memoir or an adventure memoir, or whether they're just stuck in that crazy productivity culture that makes us all work like crazy. It's all there for people like that. So that's really why I wrote the book. I I hope that like you that I have been really honest in sharing because I think it's only through the vulnerability and sharing the the dark experiences that people can really see where the hope lies.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Right. I agree wholeheartedly. And you will, you're gonna inspire so many people. I never saw myself as a writer, but I can so relate to how it took you so long to publish it because I sat on mine for 10 years. Right. And you have to be very courageous to put your raw emotions that a lot of times it's hard for us to be vulnerable like that. But it's rewarding because you help so many people with your story. I'm excited. I'm definitely gonna read it. If there's one thing you hope readers and listeners carry with them from your story, what would that be?

SPEAKER_01 45:53

I would say that pain is not your enemy, whether it's physical or emotional. It's information, it's a signal that something's wrong and something that needs to be paid attention to. And it was only when I learned to really listen that I found that different way forward that enabled me to really redefine what resilience meant.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

I love that so much. I always like to talk a little bit about what I've learned today and what I gleaned from our connection. I learned that sometimes the very strengths that help us succeed can quietly become the things that keep us stuck. Achievement has its place, discipline has its place, perseverance has its place. But there are moments in life when the bravest thing we can do is stop fighting reality long enough to listen to what it's trying to teach us. You don't have to have it all. Remember, pause, choose, build momentum, and finish stronger. We'll see you next time on Delay the Binge. And Nancy, thank you for your time. We're honored to have you on here.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

What a pleasure. Thank you, Pam.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Hey, it's me, Pam. And before we go, just a quick reminder. Everything we share here is meant to encourage, educate, and get you thinking. But it's not a substitute for professional mental health, medical, legal, financial, or any other licensed advice. I'm simply someone who's walking through life, learning right alongside you. And I'm grateful we get to learn together. Always seek the guidance of a qualified professional for your unique situation. Thanks for spending this time with us. Until next time, remember sometimes the biggest change begins with one small pause. I'll see you on the next episode of Delay the Binge.