Rewiring Your Brain to Be Happier | with Shane Burcaw
Shane Burcaw, who has lived with spinal muscular atrophy as a quadriplegic his whole life, explains how happiness is not a destination, it's a state of mind anyone can achieve.
Finding Strength On the Road to Disability | with Chris Anselmo
Episode Highlights
- Recognizing when life is showing you an open door or a closed one
- Learning and accepting that the dark years needed to happen
- The paradigm shift of realizing you can no longer support your own body weight
- Thinking forwards, not backwards (even if people think you’re crazy)
- The unexpected power of asking for help
- Learning to love when life throws you curveballs
- How to seek out helpful role models in times of need
- Determining what goals you can accomplish and moving forward one step at a time
- Chris’s framework for dealing with adversity and how to keep your struggles in perspective
About Guest
Chris Anselmo is a 31-year-old Connecticut resident and writer living with an adult-onset form of Muscular Dystrophy called Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy Type 2B.
For the first 21 years of his life, Chris was an able-bodied, active young adult. Then one day, while going for a run, he noticed his muscles tiring out faster than normal. Over the next ten years, Chris experienced progressive, unrelenting muscle weakness, and today uses a wheelchair to get around.
In the beginning, Chris struggled to accept what was happening to him. In addition to getting weaker, he found himself depressed and questioning what he could still do in life. Over time, however, through trial and error, he was able to piece his life back together and learn how to dream again.
Chris holds a BS in Marketing from Northeastern University and an MBA from Boston College.
Episode Credits
This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, and the show notes were prepared and published by Jakin Rintelman. Special thanks to Krystle Penhall and Sarah Furie for helping to spread the love!
The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).
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