Mimi (00:03):
People say life is a journey, not a destination, but how do you know you are on the right path?
Jo (00:09):
If only we could see the signs when they appear.
Mimi (00:13):
Well, I’m Mimi Kwa.
Jo (00:14):
And I’m Jo Stanley.
Mimi (00:15):
And on A to Be, we speak to fascinating people about how they navigated their way to be here now, having profound impact on the world.
Jo (00:25):
We hope our conversations will help you reflect on everything you’ve been through to get here: the triumphs, challenges and bumps along the road.
Mimi (00:35):
And if you haven’t already, find your own map to what matters.
Rhiannon Tracey (00:40):
Mum just was huddled over the top of me, and I did say to her, and it’s a bit of a funny, not so funny joke now, but I said, we’re going to die tonight. And Mum’s always got this unique way of saying the worst thing at the right time, but she was like, “Well, at least if we go, we’re going to go together.” And I was like, “That is shitty words of wisdom, Shaz.”
Jo (00:59):
Our guest today is the amazing Rhiannon Tracy. Her incredible story about turning a tragic accident, that left her a quadriplegic, into a laser-focused purpose, helping others with spinal cord injury, just had us gasping and literally jaw on the table, Mimi.
Mimi (01:18):
Yeah, absolutely. She actually beat the odds to live. Jo, you met Rhiannon in another life. And while I had to be very patient, it almost killed me, I have to say, to hear how your roads intersected, it is worth waiting for.
Jo (01:34):
Oh, it is, Mimi. We discuss how to bring dreams to reality. And some of life’s very tough lessons of the heart.
Mimi (01:42):
Model, powerhouse disability advocate, neurodiverse. Basically a stunning human. We hope you enjoy our chat with Rhiannon.
Jo (01:51):
Oh, and you are going to love her mum, Shazza.
Mimi (01:53):
Oh my goodness, yes.
Jo (01:56):
Rhiannon, so lovely that you are joining us on A to Be.
Rhiannon Tracey (02:00):
Thank you so much for having me. It’s so good to see you both again.
Jo (02:03):
Yeah, here we are. It’s like our paths have crossed.
Mimi (02:06):
Whirling dervishes. We have this expression, or Jo has this expression, that we are all like whirling dervishes. We’re just all spinning in our different orbits, and sometimes we collide and we end up places like here where we actually get to connect.
Rhiannon Tracey (02:22):
Jo and I just keep spinning in each other’s direction for years and years.
Jo (02:26):
Has it been 15 years?
Rhiannon Tracey (02:28):
Well, it’ll be 14 in September, so yeah, 14 in October for us.
Jo (02:34):
Amazing. We’ll tell that story. There’s a hook.
Rhiannon Tracey (02:37):
Yeah, please.
Jo (02:37):
Tell that story.
Rhiannon Tracey (02:38):
Do you not know the hook?
Mimi (02:38):
No, tell me.
Jo (02:42):
My God, I’m so excited. You have to wait. You have to wait. We’ll get to that because there’s a chronology to it, I guess.
Rhiannon Tracey (02:46):
Yeah, there is.
Jo (02:48):
But firstly I wanted to ask you, Rhiannon, you’re a light-filled person, you just fill the room with sunshine. Does that come naturally to you, or did you have to learn that?
Rhiannon Tracey (02:57):
Oh no, I think I definitely had to learn that. I think that everything… Not “I think”, I know everything I do, I do because at some point in my life I’ve needed that light. So I like to be that light. I also know know now, what I didn’t know many years ago when I began this journey, is that I have ADHD and I’m neurodivergent, so I think we’re all very bright, all us neuro geniuses, and we shine. And for me, I just like to be the light when I’m dark or when people around me are a little bit dark.
Mimi (03:32):
Does knowing that you’re neurodivergent or ADHD make a difference to how you regard yourself? Because it’s just another label in a way, isn’t it? Or it’s another way of describing what you already were.
Rhiannon Tracey (03:46):
Not so much for me. I think it actually makes me utilize self-care, and that makes me more aware of my boundaries and my limits. I like to say I’m pretty limitless when it comes to life, but just knowing that I am neurodivergent, I feel less guilty about setting boundaries for myself and others.
Mimi (04:07):
I love that, because boundaries should never be something you feel guilty about.
Rhiannon Tracey (04:10):
But we do.
Jo (04:11):
We do, we do. But to be our best selves, we need boundaries. In everything that we do and as all types of people, we need to do that. For a lot of people being diagnosed ADHD, that’s a life-changing event, but you yourself have experienced a life-changing event that, I would imagine, although perhaps not, I don’t want to put words into your mouth, but far more extreme than being diagnosed with ADHD. Can you share with us what the experience was for you? You became a quadriplegic just before you turned 21.
Rhiannon Tracey (04:45):
It feels honestly like a lifetime ago, because it really was an entirely different life. So 14 years ago, I was on holidays with my mom and my best friend in Bali, and I dove into the resort swimming pool that was actually a deep swimming pool, but the sides were shallow, and I didn’t dive in far enough into the center. So I hit my head and I broke my neck and my back and I instantly became a quadriplegic. And I guess why it’s so easy for me to talk about is because I was fully conscious throughout the whole thing.
(05:16):
So when I started talking about it openly, it was therapeutic for me in a sense. But it was also interesting to a lot of people that I remained conscious. And I was often asked, were you drunk when it happened? Because I was in Bali with my mom and my best friend and I was 20. And I say, well, you know what? I wasn’t, for a start. And secondly, I probably wouldn’t have remained conscious if I was, if I had been drinking. So it was traumatic at the time, but that’s what it was. It was traumatic at the time. And moving forward, I’ve experienced so much more emotional trauma in my life, just going through things that we all go through, than that moment.
Mimi (06:04):
Than that moment. But in that moment, the fact that you were conscious, what was going through your mind? What did you think had happened to you?
Rhiannon Tracey (06:11):
Honestly, I just thought I hit my head really hard. I felt my whole body seize up, and being face down in the water, I worried about being able to get out of the water. That was probably my main concern. But I also was thinking a lot about my mum, because my mum and I are each other’s everything. I’m an only child and she wasn’t there in that moment. And I still think about my mum every time I tell this story because I feel like this has absolutely had more of an effect on her emotionally than it has on me. And going through my own emotions and my own healing process has been one thing. And I feel like as far as the injury itself is concerned, that part of me is healed, it’s done. Whereas for her, it’s still a process.
Mimi (06:58):
Wow. Well, I just want to know at what point did it dawn on you, because you thought that you’d hit your head, and being conscious through that whole experience and being able to reflect on how your emotions, obviously and your understanding of what was going on, were unfolding. At what point did you actually realize, oh no, I’m now a quadriplegic? Was it when the doctors went over and told you?
Rhiannon Tracey (07:24):
It was. So I feel like the reality didn’t entirely set in until I was back in Australia. So I was taken to the Bali International Medical Center and they did a CT scan that confirmed that the fragments of the broken vertebrae were piercing into both sides of my spinal cord. So that was a huge concern, because if it sliced my spinal cord, then it could kill me. And we were told that I’d need emergency surgery in Bali. So from there I was taken to the Denpasar Hospital. And then while we were waiting for that surgery, Bali had a 7.6 magnitude earthquake. So that was the next part of the journey. The hospital was falling down around us while we were waiting for surgery.
Mimi (08:08):
God.
Rhiannon Tracey (08:10):
I thought we were going to die.
Mimi (08:12):
Jo’s and my jaws are just on the desk at the moment, because as if it’s not enough that you’ve experienced this full body injury, you’ve got an earthquake going on around you and hospital actually disintegrating.
Jo (08:28):
And I would imagine if you’re dealing with a trauma that’s physical and emotional and psychological, the least you want to know is that your environment is safe.
Rhiannon Tracey (08:35):
Yeah, it definitely wasn’t. It was interesting because I had been given the green stick by this stage. I was in a lot of pain. I couldn’t move, but I could feel my body. So Mum and my friends were touching my body, and I guess that was what was reassuring me that the outcome wasn’t going to be quite as extreme, was that I could feel. Whereas with this injury, generally you just can’t feel anything. But I can talk more about the ins and outs of spinal cord injury as we move forward, I guess. But Mum just was huddled over the top of me, and I did say to her, and it’s a bit of a funny, not so funny joke now, but I said, we’re going to die tonight. And Mum’s always got this unique way of saying the worst thing at the right time, but she was like, “Well, at least if we go, we’re going to go together.” And I was like, “That is shitty words of wisdom, Shaz.”
(09:25):
And I tell her every time I do a presentation, I’m like, Shaz… Spoiler alert, my mum’s name is Sharon. So she is Shaz, and she said to me the other day, she’s like, “I hate that you refer to me as Shaz.” I’m like, “Anybody who knows you, knows that you’re a Shazza.” So that’s what makes the story funny to tell, because when you meet Mum, you’re like, oh yeah, I get it. But I spent the following two and a half weeks in the hospital in Bali, and I had travel insurance, which is why I’m still alive. And I did have the emergency surgery 24 hours later. But what was happening was that in Indonesia, they were telling the medical team that I was getting better, I was getting better, but I was actually getting worse and worse. There were many things that went wrong with the surgery that we didn’t know about until we got back to Australia.
(10:12):
So basically the entire surgery they did in Bali is not what we would do here in Australia. And by the time the doctor and the nurse came over to Bali to bring me home, I was literally taking my last breath. So they went into panic mode. Long and short, I was air evacuated out of there 48 hours later and came back to Australia. And that’s when the doctors were just like, how are you alive? How are you alive? And said to my mom and my stepdad, if we make it through the next 24 hours, that’s a plus because we actually don’t know how Rhiannon’s alive.
Mimi (10:45):
How were you alive?
Rhiannon Tracey (10:47):
I don’t know. I don’t know. I hate to say it, and everyone said it to me throughout the early days of my injury, is that everything happens for a reason. It’s the worst thing to say to a vulnerable person. But doing what I’ve done now within my life, I’m big on purpose now. I truly believe that shit happens in our life that we can’t control, but we can control the outcome and we can control what we get to do with our life moving forward.
(11:13):
And I think I had age on my side. I was 20, I was very strong-minded. I’d never responded to “no” well, and for me, “no” has always just been, well, okay, there’s a reason behind the “no”, let’s dig a little deeper. And that really annoys a lot of people, but I love it. And for me it was just, I still wanted to have a life. I had goals and every time I was told I couldn’t do something, Shaz and I, we made that our life’s purpose. It was our mission and she gave up everything, and we gave up everything to be where we both are today, and we don’t regret a single moment of it.
Jo (11:50):
So you say that everything happens for a reason, which I find that a hard…
Rhiannon Tracey (11:56):
It’s hard, yeah.
Jo (11:56):
…statement as well, because my father died when I was four, and my mum has said to me that lots of people would say that to her. And she’s like, I just literally cannot believe that.
Rhiannon Tracey (12:06):
Hate that. Hate it.
Jo (12:07):
I can’t believe it, because it’s so devastating. And I go, yeah, it’s a bullshit thing to believe.
Rhiannon Tracey (12:13):
I used to say to people whenever they used to say it to me, I was like, you’re so lucky I’m paralyzed, because I would be swinging hearing that. But I guess it’s not an overall thing for everyone. Like I said, life is what you make it no matter what happens. And no matter what we go through, we have that option to grow through it. We can take everything. I was actually talking to my partner the other day because my dog, we just had to put my dog to sleep. And the dog was a dog that I had with an ex, and my ex and I had a conversation the other day about the dog, and I was just thinking, how great are breakups? How good are breakups? Because we can take so much from breakups and then use that as an educational tool to move into the next relationship and make that a better one.
(12:58):
And that’s how I see all of life now. I just think that everything does have the potential to happen for a reason, because no matter what we go through, there’s something, there is just something. I’ve lost a lot of people throughout my life as well that I’ve been very close to, and it’ll be something that they’ve done or who they are that I’ll hold onto and go, you know what? I’m going to do something.
Mimi (13:21):
It’s another way of saying find the silver lining or there’s got to be an upside. And I’m a strong… I get that it’s a hard thing to actually…
Rhiannon Tracey (13:30):
It’s a hard pill to swallow if you’re vulnerable.
Mimi (13:32):
… accept when somebody… Exactly. And maybe the timing is wrong for somebody to say something like that, whether it’s to your mum, Jo, or whether it’s…
Jo (13:42):
I don’t think that…
Mimi (13:42):
Or is there never a right time?
Jo (13:44):
I just don’t know if I could ever accept that, as far as the loss of my dad is concerned. No, because from that moment, the amount of really, really awful things that happened, that there’s not really been a healing from that for so many elements of my family. So I don’t know, are we going to have to agree to disagree?
Mimi (14:09):
Yeah, I think it’s part of the journey and it depends on where we are in our journey as to what is true to us.
Rhiannon Tracey (14:15):
And it’s not to say that one day they won’t be. That’s the thing. I heard something the other day and it was like, there’s no such thing as time healing wounds. It’s us that has to…
Mimi (14:28):
Do the work.
Rhiannon Tracey (14:29):
… do the work to heal the wounds, and then whatever comes from that, that I guess is the positive.
Mimi (14:35):
You mentioned earlier, and you’ve just gone through the loss of your beautiful dog who was with you for, I think you said 18 years…
Rhiannon Tracey (14:42):
18 years.
Mimi (14:44):
… which is amazing. But you said earlier in the conversation that the trauma of your accident in Bali is nothing compared to other traumas that you’ve been through. What do you mean? That’s a pretty big trauma.
Rhiannon Tracey (14:58):
Well, I married my high school sweetheart, and we got married on television. My goal was to walk down the aisle, which I did. And for me, I thought that was my fairytale happy ending. I absolutely thought that having that fairytale happy ending was like the universe going, you’ve been through a lot. This is for you. That’s how I saw that.
Mimi (15:19):
This is your reward.
Rhiannon Tracey (15:20):
This is your reward. And a year and a half later, well, he had mental health illnesses that I wasn’t aware of the extremities of, and our relationship broke down a year and a half later. And I was completely blindsided by the whole thing. And even to this day, I’m like, oh yeah, there were things that I will take responsibility for as well, but that for me was so much harder to deal with. It was completely out of my control. And even though all these things were happening to me, I was still worried about him and I was still doing things to make sure that he was okay, but they were backfiring. And Mum actually, like Shazza will say, she’s like, “I never thought during your injury that there would”, and this is just a bit of a trigger warning, suicide. But she’s like, “I never thought that you would want to take your own life when you had your injury.” But going through that Mum’s like, “I honestly thought I was going to lose you.”
(16:15):
Because I’m a no Panadol, full holistic person. And I was like, where’s the Valium cupboard? I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink, just smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. I’m not even a smoker. So that was really hard. And that, same thing, everyone said everything happens for a reason. I was like, that’s a shit thing to say. And time heals. And there’s still days where I’m like, that was a really shit thing that happened. But I look at my life now and I look at my partner and I’m like, oh, that’s why that happened.
Mimi (16:46):
But do you feel like you have to go through what you’ve been through to be where you are now?
Rhiannon Tracey (16:52):
I don’t think we should have to go through trauma to say, hey, I’ve got a good life. Again, I feel like life is absolutely what you make it. There’s only one of us, and the brilliance that is us. So we get to create that life for us. And when I speak to audiences, that’s something that I really try and instill in them is like, hey, we don’t have to go through shit to go, oh, you know what? Tomorrow I’m going to make this vision board and this is going to be my life. It’s all about just, like we spoke about earlier, setting boundaries, taking accountability, making plans, but also having enough self-worth and enough self-love to go, do you know what? If I don’t tick that box tomorrow, it’s okay.
Jo (17:34):
Yes. Oh, I love that. Oh, I love that.
Mimi (17:37):
You can’t give and give.
Jo (17:40):
I’m doing my best. I’ll try again tomorrow.
Rhiannon Tracey (17:42):
That’s it. I’m doing my best. And that’s the thing, especially within the disability community, people refer to us as inspiring. And when I speak to the disability community, we’re all just doing our best. We don’t see ourselves as inspiring.
Mimi (17:55):
You’re not waking up in the morning saying, “I’m going to be inspirational today.”
Rhiannon Tracey (17:59):
I woke up and pissed excellence this morning. But we are. For me, I’m just playing the cards I’ve been dealt. I didn’t want to be sad. I didn’t want to hold on to what happened or what has happened throughout life. Just wanted to keep going. And there are times where that backfired because, going through therapy and doing the work has educated me enough to understand that, when I have gone through things, I haven’t processed and grieved them. I’ve done what most of us women do, and I’ve just kept going.
Jo (18:31):
Hello, sister.
Rhiannon Tracey (18:32):
And that’s come back and bit me on the ass.
Mimi (18:34):
Well, this is what Jo and I want to know is, the A to Be of it all, what is it that has made you so resilient in who you are? Because stuff happens to other people and they certainly don’t pick themselves up and keep going the way that you have.
Rhiannon Tracey (18:50):
I guess, for me, when I’m not here anymore, I just want people to… I’ve got a lot of famous friends, as such, and I always say to them, I don’t want to be famous. I just want to be somebody who’s made an impact. And I watched my mum and a lot of women in my family really struggle with toxic relationships and trying to pave the way for them, that I was raised as a very independent woman. And again, that’s backfired as well at times. But for me, I just want to know that when I’m done, I can look back and say, I’ve done that and I’ve actually created space for all of the things. I look back, Mum and I were having this conversation the other day, and I look back and I think, years ago I was the first woman on wheels to be on Melbourne Fashion Week runway. And now I’m like, oh my gosh, there’s so much disability representation. And Mum’s like, you did that though. And I’m like, yeah, I guess.
Jo (20:03):
Yes, you did. It’s amazing you broke that ceiling. You also did the small thing of setting up a charity that is, well, it’s a program really, it’s not necessarily a charity, that’s all about…
Rhiannon Tracey (20:11):
Oh, no, it’s bricks and mortar.
Jo (20:12):
It’s the Spinal Cord Injury Treatment Program that was the first of its kind in Australia. Can you share with us the A to Be, the moments that led to you saying, oh, this is the difference I’m going to make?
Rhiannon Tracey (20:26):
Well, you played a part in that.
Jo (20:28):
This is the hook.
Mimi (20:30):
I want to hear the story. You tell me.
Rhiannon Tracey (20:32):
So when I left hospital… What they really focus on when you’re an inpatient is just to get you well. What happens after you leave hospital is really on you. And the real rehabilitation and the real therapy happens when you leave the hospital. And I just wanted more. My goal was to walk again. That was my ultimate goal. I was 20 years old, tell me I couldn’t do that and we weren’t friends. So we spent all the time that we had finding ways to make that happen. And none of those ways existed in Australia. So we, as a community, being that I had my injury in Bali, there was no compensation.
Mimi (21:12):
Where did those ways exist?
Rhiannon Tracey (21:14):
So there’s a lot of things available, especially in the States, but what it ultimately came down to was exercise. And it’s not even rocket science. When I tell the story, I’m like, it was exercise and it was looking at me as an individual and going, she’s injured, but the things that aren’t working are the things we need to work on. Whereas in hospital it was like, your arms, they’re kind of starting to move, so let’s work on that. And I was always like, but what about my legs? What about my legs? That’s my goal, it’s to walk again. And not everybody has the same goal, but for me, that was my goal. And it took hours and hours and lots of funds. We found a facility in San Diego that was an intensive activity-based exercise physiology facility. And when we went in there after fundraising, and that’s where Jo came in, because Fox FM, the Matt and Jo Show, donated $10,000 to my recovery.
Mimi (22:16):
Oh, wow. Amazing. How did you meet Rhiannon? How did you hear about it?
Jo (22:22):
To a degree, it really didn’t have much to do with me, well, largely, and wasn’t my money. That’s the first thing I have to acknowledge. And we had this Fox to the Rescue regular feature on the show.
Rhiannon Tracey (22:34):
Which I used to listen to pre-injury all the time, driving to work.
Jo (22:37):
And it was literally the greatest part of doing that job. We were able to change people’s lives and it was just, what a joy to be able to do that. And Rhiannon was a part of that. And I remember so clearly her being on the phone and explaining what had happened. And for us just to be able to say, well, we’ll kick in 10,000, which it was probably a drop in the ocean for what you needed as far as getting to the States. But as far as that sort of, well, the whirling dervishes, those sliding door moments where I’m going to go. I’ve often had to think about how to make sense of that good fortune of doing that show for 10 years, breakfast radio in Melbourne. That was crazy. But also it was really, in a lot of ways felt very shallow, and it’s a very superficial kind of world, as you imagine. But then to know that we were able to have impact, that was pretty powerful.
Rhiannon Tracey (23:26):
And it was. This is, I guess, the fallback. Had I not made it to the facility, my facility wouldn’t exist because we had to go there multiple times. So that particular time was our first time over there. Mum and I went on our own and we were meant to be there, I think, for a month. And Mum rang my stepdad while we were over there and said, “Sell my car. We need to stay for long. This place is amazing.” But it wasn’t just the fact that they were working on my body as a whole, it was the mindset side of things as well. So it wasn’t the dark dreary hospital setting. It was set up literally like a gym, like at Anytime Fitness. Everybody was there for the same reason. Everybody was there to improve their quality of life. There was dogs running around, support dogs and therapy dogs, and the trainers.
(24:14):
The trainers were just like ex-football players that had become exercise physiologists because they know how important their bodies are, and they all wanted to be there. It wasn’t a job for them. And they were all getting paid peanuts to be there. They would work 14-hour days, and you would learn this because we would get to know them personally because they were the ones taking us out in the community when we weren’t training. And there was just all these little things that they were doing.
Mimi (24:39):
And I’m thinking, why aren’t we doing this in Australia?
Rhiannon Tracey (24:42):
Why? Why isn’t this happening? And every time we would come back to Australia, that’s when I’d fall into this depressive state because there was nothing to back it up. So then I’d feel guilty that we were wasting everybody’s money by going over there. But also because every time we went over there, we were meeting more Aussies having to do the same thing with their families, having to uproot children and move over there and sell their houses. I think our house was the only thing my parents didn’t sell, because I was like, where will we live?
(25:10):
So the third time we went over there, just in between the second and the third time going over there, we came back and I was now walking with a walking frame, and we went back to one of my appointments with my surgeon or my consultant, and I always had words with him, because I was always like, “This is what I’m going to do.” And he’s like, “Okay, Rhiannon, sure.” And I was like, “Well, look at me. I can walk now.” And he was like, “Mm-hmm”, and I said to Mum, we were walking through the gym at the hospital, and I was like, this is crap. We can’t keep doing this for me. We’ve met all these families and look at all these people in here. And I was like, Mum, we need to open a facility. And she was like, with what money?
Jo (25:53):
Good on you, Shaz.
Rhiannon Tracey (25:54):
I don’t know.
Mimi (25:55):
Let’s call Jo.
Jo (25:55):
I’ve got to say, Shaz is on the money there, pardon the pun. But yeah, with what money?
Rhiannon Tracey (26:00):
But that’s what it is, and I was like, I don’t know. But something that I always really love to talk about is that there was a moment when I was in the hospital, so I was in the Royal Talbot for seven and a half months, which is a really short amount of time for somebody with my injury. And the reason why it was so short is because Mum took on the role as my full-time nurse and carer to get me out of there. I was the only girl in the ward of 20 people, and it was just horrible. I just didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be out doing things. So Mum became my full-time carer. And so we had a moment where we went into the kitchen of the ward when I was in there and I was in an electric chair at this point.
(26:39):
We went into the kitchen, and I was completely paralyzed, and I started crying and Mum said, she was comforting me, and I said, “I’m not crying for me. I’m crying for everybody else.” Because we were also opposite the Mellor Ward which is all the people with acquired brain injuries and not being able to be verbal and things like that. And I was like, in that moment then, I realized what was happening to me was horrible, but I still had my voice. And that’s what Mum said. She was like, “You’ve still got your voice. You can still make all your decisions.” So I said to Mum, when I said, “Let’s open a facility.” I’m like, “We may not have money, but we have a voice.” And she was like, “Touche.”
Jo (27:16):
I love it. Is there something in you that makes you a problem solver, though? That to me is…
Rhiannon Tracey (27:23):
I’m a fixer.
Jo (27:23):
You are.
Rhiannon Tracey (27:23):
I’m a big time fixer.
Mimi (27:23):
Is that from being an only child when you were younger? What was it about your childhood…?
Rhiannon Tracey (27:32):
Probably the trauma within the women of my family. I’ve always been the peacemaker within my family. My Mum is the oldest of five, and all of our mixed families just don’t get along. And whenever there’s a family function, I’m always just the airy fairy one that’s just like, it’s fine for you to feel that way and it’s fine. So yeah, I think so. And I think that, again, I just always want more. And I think that that’s a good thing and a bad thing, because…
Mimi (28:03):
Where do you think that mindset comes from? Obviously you’ve been through a lot in your adult years, but when you were a child…
Rhiannon Tracey (28:12):
A spoiled child, are there more?
(28:12):
Spoiled only child. Nothing is ever enough. And the neurodivergency as well, because Mia Friedman from Mama Mia, I heard her say on a podcast, she’s got ADHD, and she said she drops glitter bombs because she always wants to be doing more. And so she’s running a business and she’ll go in and she’ll be like, “I had a great idea today. Everybody needs to do this” and will run away. And that’s me. That is 100% me. But the difference is I’ll be like, Rhiannon, I had a great idea today and now you need to do all of these things. And then I exhaust myself in the thought process. And those things sometimes happen and sometimes don’t happen.
Jo (28:49):
The thing is too though, you’re a fixer. You’re the person who problem solves, doesn’t take no for an answer. But there’s also in you inherently hope, which you’ve alluded to the fact that in Australia, the conversation around spinal cord, and I’ve heard this from other people who have experienced spinal cord injury, that people don’t like to speak from a hope maze.
Rhiannon Tracey (29:10):
Yeah, hope doesn’t exist. It’s like a swear word.
Jo (29:13):
Isn’t that terrible? How could you exist without hope?
Rhiannon Tracey (29:16):
And I get asked that question multiple times every day because that’s how often I’m speaking to newly injured people. And the question always is, why do they just say the worst thing? And to this day, 14 years later, I still don’t have an answer for that.
Mimi (29:32):
Is it fear? It’s that fear that if we give false hope, then it’s worse than…
Rhiannon Tracey (29:36):
Then we have to take responsibility…
Mimi (29:36):
… no hope at all.
Rhiannon Tracey (29:36):
… if it doesn’t happen. There’s a big difference between saying no, and I’m not sure, and that’s what I can’t ever wrap my head around. I’m just like, why is it just a no? Why can’t it just be a we don’t know?
Jo (29:55):
Or you never know.
Rhiannon Tracey (29:56):
Yeah, you never know. When, we don’t call them patients, and we don’t call them clients, we call them athletes that come to our facility, when we have those initial conversations, that’s what we say, because you want somebody to tell you that this is what’s going to happen. I know I asked Mum every day. I was like, “Am I going to walk? What am I going to do this?” And everything that she told me versus the doctor, I believed her.
Mimi (30:19):
So let’s talk about manifesting. Is that, do you think, a big part of recovery and being able to get the best outcome for your health wellbeing? Is it about having the vision and believing the vision? I
Rhiannon Tracey (30:33):
I think it’s so much more than the vision; it’s the action. People are probably going to come for me when I say this, but yes, I’m a manifester. And yes, sometimes I do vision boards. I’m a huge list maker. But I think that you can sit there and say that you want something and you can say all the affirmations in the world, and I know I heard this a lot during lockdowns and things like that, if you are sitting on your couch and you aren’t actually out there doing things, I say this to a lot of my single friends, I’m like, you’re not going to meet the man of your dreams on your couch.
(31:05):
You’ve got to go out and you’ve got to do it. And you’ve got to find something to get you out on those shitty days. Like I said to you today, I woke up this morning exhausted. I’ve had about four hours sleep. I also have an injury that is very debilitating, health-wise. And for me, knowing that I was coming here and I was going to leave feeling amazing, was enough to get me here. And that’s why I do speaking as well. It’s the dopamine.
Mimi (31:35):
It feels good.
Rhiannon Tracey (31:38):
I know it feels good, and I know when I do it, I’m going to be like… I hate exercising. I’m never going to be the person who goes… Yeah, exercise helped heal me, but I don’t love it. But I know that in the long run it’s what’s going to enable me to live until I’m hopefully late 80s, 90s. I might be pushing it, but there’s little haze. There’s always a good outcome if you just do it, you just do it. But again, some days you can’t. And that’s okay.
Jo (32:07):
Can you tell us a story though? Was there a moment, and can you describe it for us, where you had felt no hope perhaps, and someone or something restored it for you?
Rhiannon Tracey (32:18):
Yep, absolutely. It wasn’t my injury, it was my divorce. We weren’t even at divorce point yet. We were probably two weeks into it. And my mum and my girlfriends had all bound together. They were like, we need to go out. We need to go out. And I was like, okay, let’s go out. Because I love to go out and I love to dance and I love to party with my friends. I love to have a boogie. I love karaoke. So does Shazza. So we all went out and we ended up at Young in Jackson’s. And the long and short of it was, we were leaving and I had somebody lean on the back of my chair, and I came backwards out of my chair and hit my head on the concrete and ended up back on a gurney, back on a spinal board, back into the hospital.
(33:01):
We suspected spinal injuries, and I was done. I was tapped out. So my best friend and her husband, her husband was my ex-husband’s best friend, so he’s calling him. He didn’t want to be there. She’s calling him, everyone’s calling him. And I was just done. I said to everyone, I was like, I can’t. I can’t. I don’t have any more strength. This one person has all this control of me right now. And that’s when I was like, yeah. Mum, get out of the room. My best friend came in and I just cried to her and I said, “I don’t have any more strengths.” Because everyone was like, “You just have to be strong.” My mum and my stepdad. And I was snapping at them. I was like…
Mimi (33:45):
Like I’ve been strong.
Rhiannon Tracey (33:46):
I’ve been strong, and this is where it got me.
Jo (33:47):
I feel like that’s a really shit thing to say to someone too. Be strong. Fuck off.
Rhiannon Tracey (33:52):
And that’s exactly what I was saying. I was like, really? And my best friend, I said, “I’ve got no more strength.” And she grabbed my hand and she said, “Well fucking take some of mine.” And I tell that story all the time because she just knew what to say. There was no sugarcoating it. She was just like, and in that moment, I just went, right. And it was interesting because I had a very strange relationship with my dad, and while all this was happening, my dad and my ex-husband were best buddies. So in that moment, I cut ties with my dad. As well, I was about to turn 30, so I was like, “I’m not doing this for the next 30 years. I’m not letting other people take control of my feelings.”
(34:45):
And I said to Mum the next day, I said, “I’ll never ever let another human being make me feel like I don’t want to be here anymore.” And from that day, I made myself a promise. Her words just really pulled me out of it, and I needed that. So now that’s what I try and be for whoever bloody needs it, because I’m like, when you are vulnerable, you don’t need to hear “everything happens for a reason.” You don’t need to hear “you just need to be strong.” Sometimes you just need a little bit of tough love and you just need somebody you love to go, “You know what? Here’s some of my strength or just cry. Have a cry. Let’s cry together. Let’s have that wine together.”
Mimi (35:26):
I’m on your side.
Jo (35:27):
And I hear you as well. I hear and I see exactly where you’re at, and I’m not asking you to be different. I’ll be it for you. How beautiful is that? And from that one moment, here you are with the freedom of making, again, those boundaries of the people who are going to be in your life.
Mimi (35:46):
And not only boundaries, you’ve just stepped into your power in the most exhilarating way.
Jo (35:53):
Incredible. Wow.
Rhiannon Tracey (35:55):
It was a really beautiful moment, but it did definitely set the tone. I’m 35 now, so well, I’m almost 35. And that’s how I’ve done life the last five years. And it’s been interesting because my partner now, he did not understand boundaries at the start of our relationship. And I said to him, I was like, I have boundaries for these reasons. And the main reason is so that I can live. And when I said that to him, all the little tiptoeing I did around boundaries, it was when I said, so I can live, he was like, right. And I was like, knowing that I am a fixer, I will wholeheartedly make you food before I make myself food, but I’m not going to do that for you. And it’s still to this day. Last night or the other night, I made myself dinner and I was like, I’m tired. You’re just going to have to make your own dinner. He probably ordered Uber Eats, but I’ll always put myself first if it means that the next day somebody gets the best part of me.
Mimi (36:53):
The oxygen comes first.
Rhiannon Tracey (36:55):
I get the best part. That’s right.
Jo (36:56):
Yeah. I also think when you say it’s so you can live, all of us, when we put other needs ahead of our own, we are shutting down parts of ourselves until sometimes people, they aren’t living right? They’re just…
Mimi (37:11):
They’re just alive.
Rhiannon Tracey (37:13):
Oh, I say that. There’s a big difference between being alive and living.
Jo (37:20):
So we do a little fun thing here where, it’s a bit of a surprise and delight, where one of us will bring an origin story to something that is really, really well known, that’s already in the world. And we’re like, oh, I wonder how that happened. And I bring this because I like to learn from these origin stories. And this particular one happened in someone’s dream. I don’t know if when you were putting all your plans together and vision boarding or writing lists, which I’m a big list maker myself as well, I don’t know if you ever had a dream about how the next step might look or feel, but it changed the world for many people. Twilight exists, right? Twilight, the series.
Rhiannon Tracey (37:57):
Oh, yeah.
Jo (37:58):
I don’t know if you’re a fan.
Mimi (37:59):
Not the time of day.
Rhiannon Tracey (38:00):
It came out literally while I was in hospital, and I watched it repeatedly while that was in hospital.
Jo (38:06):
Did you love it?
Rhiannon Tracey (38:07):
I did love it. I feel like I need to go back and watch it, though, because I feel like I won’t love it as much. I also read all the books.
Jo (38:12):
So Stephenie Meyer, who wrote the books, and my daughter, she’s mad into vampires, so I’ve said to her, you’ve got to read these books, because some people loved them. I didn’t read them at all. Anyway, she says that she had a dream and in her dream, two people were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl, a bit like Kristen Stewart, probably. I’ve just added that. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly and a vampire. A bit like….
Mimi (38:39):
Robert Pattinson.
Jo (38:40):
Robert Pattinson. Thank you. I’d forgotten his name.
Mimi (38:41):
I was Team Jacob.
Jo (38:43):
Anyway, that is actually what she wrote in chapter 13 of the book. She, from that particular dream, woke up and said, “I’m going to make that a series,” and rest is history.
Mimi (38:54):
That’s amazing.
Jo (38:54):
It is amazing. And it begs the question, how much of what we create in our lives is actually something that we’ve dreamt and whether consciously or unconsciously we’re bringing it into our reality. Have you had dreams that you’ve then been inspired by in your day-to-day life?
Rhiannon Tracey (39:15):
Not really. Honestly, not really, because my dreams, when I do dream, are just complete gibberish. But in saying that, I love to read, and the author of Eat, Pray, Love…
Jo (39:30):
Yes, Elizabeth…
Rhiannon Tracey (39:31):
Elizabeth…
Jo (39:32):
Elizabeth Gilbert.
Rhiannon Tracey (39:32):
Elizabeth Gilbert. So she wrote a book called Big Magic.
Jo (39:36):
Amazing.It’s amazing.
Rhiannon Tracey (39:37):
So the metaphor behind that is very similar, but she goes deeper and actually talks about when you have these dreams and, I guess you don’t activate them, we’ll say, they can actually be passed on to other people.
Jo (39:52):
What? In what way? What do you mean?
Mimi (39:57):
Like there’s some sort of dream bank.
Rhiannon Tracey (39:58):
So it’s basically that, again, coming back to purpose. So there’s something that you were meant to do, and if you don’t do it, it’ll be passed on to somebody else, and somebody else will do it. So if you ever had a moment in your life where you’re like, shit, that person’s done exactly what I was going to do.
Jo (40:12):
Yes.
Rhiannon Tracey (40:14):
So that’s what she talks about in the… You’re going to go and read Big Magic, you have to.
Jo (40:20):
I’m so going to go and read it.
Rhiannon Tracey (40:21):
So now that’s why, when I have these glitter bomb moments, I’m like, I’ve got to write that down and I’ve got to actually make it happen. I have a priority list for life, but it was the same with the next step. For us, it wasn’t just a dream, it was a need. I needed somewhere to go. And ultimately, I also needed, at some point in my life, to be making a wage because I couldn’t return to veterinary nursing at the time.
(40:46):
So there was so much more to it than just being able to have bricks and mortar and have a facility. It was ultimately what it is for me now, it’s the family and siblings I never had, because my staff who I’ve had since the day I opened the doors, are my best friends. And I’ve been there. We’ve all been through everything together and everybody’s like, how have you had the same staff like that? How have you not had staff turnovers? I’m like, well, I have, but the main… My team leader is like my brother. So I’ve created in this space all the things that I’ve needed or I’ve wanted, or I guess, yeah, maybe I did dream about at some point, but the dream, it just doesn’t end there.
Jo (41:25):
It’s amazing to me that you say you have created for yourself the family and siblings that you always wanted to have, as an only child. Can you imagine if you could go back and talk to yourself as a child, to say you will have a family and siblings, that you built that yourself? Incredible.
Rhiannon Tracey (41:44):
The thing for me, I guess too, is that, like I said, it doesn’t just end within those brick walls. It’s having that facility has been the basis of my entire life since. So I say to my guys now, I’m about to step away from the facility for the first time in almost 10 years to start a family. And I always say, this dream is big enough for all of us. And that’s reality, sometimes. Sometimes your dream is big enough for a multitude of people, but instead of working against each other, they’re trying to make that dream come true. We’re so much powerful when we bring all of that together, when we work together.
Mimi (42:23):
And often we’re taking part in creating miracles for others and other people’s dreams. It’s not always just about our dream. And then there’s the difference between the dream of the author of Twilight, which is like a sleeping dream, and then there’s the dream, which is a metaphorical concept, I suppose, about the daydreaming dream, when we actually do visualize and dream of something where we can be of service, which is exactly what you’ve done. So it sounds like you are in your being, as we like to call it. And how is it that you connect to that? Is it through having built this family around you? Is it through the satisfaction of seeing that you’re doing life changing work? How do you actually connect with it? Or do you just go and wheel out into the meadow and sit and look over the…?
Rhiannon Tracey (43:14):
I wish I could do that.
Mimi (43:15):
… view and reflect.
Rhiannon Tracey (43:15):
I’ll build that meadow. Oh my gosh. For me, it’s, I guess, always having somewhere to go. And that’s in a person and in a place. No matter how I’m feeling, I’ve always got somewhere to go. And that can be in my garden, it can be with my dogs, it can be with my people, or it can be within my facility. For me, that’s enough.
Jo (43:38):
So then if someone you love needed guidance as to how to find their be, their purpose, what would you tell them?
Rhiannon Tracey (43:48):
I would ask them what they need in that moment. What they need, who they need. And I would work with them to ensure that they become that person, because we’re such powerful individuals. And even though saying, I’ve created somewhere that I can always be, if you’re not enough for yourself, what else is there? Because we can’t rely on everybody else to make us feel better. It would be great if we could. It would be super easy to get through life that way. But one of the biggest blessings I had when I was pulled out of that dark moment was to realize that I needed to become that person for myself. Because if I can’t access the people or if I can’t access the things, then I’m enough. I can just sit in my feelings and I can eat them. I can put on my favorite TV show, hug my animals, but as long as I know I’m enough, that’s what I want to help and encourage people to become.
Mimi (44:50):
What does it feel like to be in that level of being that you are living your purpose? What does that actually feel like for you? Is there a different feeling that you’ve got in your life that you know didn’t have before?
Rhiannon Tracey (45:05):
Again, the goods and the bads. Sometimes it can feel isolating because sometimes I feel like I’m just enough in those moments that I actually don’t need… And I guess this is also the neurodivergency in me. Sometimes I just don’t need those people or those things. Sometimes that is too much for me. But how it feels for me is, I’m proud. I am proud of what I’ve overcome. I’m proud of every single person that has wheeled into my facility. And we don’t all walk again. I can walk, but I’ve chosen to live my life on wheels because it means that I have a quality of life and I can do so much more. So I’m proud of everything that I’ve done has led to something bigger, and I still see other people out in the community doing all of these things that I’m like, I would love to be doing that. But I’m like, but they’re doing it, and I’ve got this other list, this huge list of all the things I want to be doing. So I’m proud. I’m proud for the work I’ve done, and I’m proud that that work has been bigger.
Mimi (46:12):
We are so proud of you, Rhiannon. Thank you so much for talking to us today.
Jo (46:18):
Truly, I don’t know, can we say inspirational?
Rhiannon Tracey (46:19):
You can. I don’t have a problem with the word.
Jo (46:20):
Thank you for listening. We love you joining us for our A to Be chats.
Mimi (46:29):
Yes, we do. Please see our show notes for our acknowledgement of country, and all the people who help us put this podcast together, as well as interesting links to our guest’s work and other references we’ve mentioned.
Jo (46:40):
Such as your frequently unverified quotes.
Mimi (46:44):
Yes, I may still need to check a few of those. Thank you.
Jo (46:47):
We’re Jo.
Mimi (46:48):
And Mimi, from A to Be. Rate, follow, and get in touch on our website.
Jo (46:54):
And let us know who’s A to Be you’d like to find out about.
Mimi (46:57):
We can’t wait for you to hear our next conversation.