S4E6: Embracing Your Inner Strength With Shana Pereira
Listen here:
Today I’m speaking with Shana Pareira, and it’s conversation that has the most wonderful underlying message.
Born in Australia and an immigrant to the US, Shana is what you call a thieving double organ recipient, having had a Heart and Kidney transplant during Christmas of 2020. She is described as a walking miracle, an answered prayer and has spread inspiration and hope, particularly with the way in which she handled her illness and physical struggles.
“What I learned in those moments is when we go through something difficult - when we go through a crisis - the strength is actually already in us, and we already know what there is to do.”
The underlying message came from Shana’s story, is something that’s present in us all, even if you don’t yet realise it. We don’t often connect living with chronic illness with having big dreams, and yet it’s something most of us do daily. All the time we’re on that path, working towards a life that feels better, more easeful, more joyful - we’re building a skill that we can then go on to use throughout the rest of life.
Shana mentions a few times that she is ‘nothing special’. That she wasn’t born stronger or more determined or more resilient, and that what she has been able to do, anyone can. And it’s true, none of us is more special than the next person, and yet we are all completely special. We all have that inner strength, resilience, determination and desire and we are already using it every day.
What I’d love you to think about sometime is, how else could you use all of that?
I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I did. Shana’s links are below;
“The times in which I didn’t have a choice, the times in which I knew like ‘I have to walk today’ and everything in my body is burning and hurts and I can’t put any kind of spin on it to make myself feel better about it, I would choose how fun I was going to make it.”
Links:
Shana’s website - https://shanapereira.com
Shana’s Instagram - @shana_pereira
Episode notes:
3:00 - Shana’s story. Curating a medical team & getting curious, tuning into yourself, your senses, your body, to help you do that.
9:00 - On finding the strength to advocate for yourself, to ask for what you need and want, when you’re in crisis mode, at a really low ebb.
10:45 - On breaking things into small, actionable steps. Taking action no matter how you feel, by finding out how you CAN, and what you need to do, to tweak, to design, to make that possible.
13:45 - On not attaching yourself to labels and descriptions - removing descriptors whilst also validating and embracing your experience.
16:00 - The mastery of being present, making the things you *have* to do, easier to do with fun and joy, and rituals that make you feel good.
28:00 - Working in partnership with your medical team, dismantling the hierarchy that exists and bringing only the people who align with you into your healing team.
35:00 - Being tuned in; is it something you innately have or is it something you develop?
38:45 - Faith, what that looks like, how it looks different for all of us, and why it’s important when living with chronic illness. Shana’s near death experience.
58:00 - How do we deal with situations outside of our control?
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