I want to share with you how a disability helped me do what most people won’t try. You see, when I woke up one morning paralysed from the waist down, my life didn’t just change, it was dismantled. The old goals, the assumptions, the path I was on? Gone.
What came next wasn’t easy. It was raw, painful, and full of uncertainty. But in the rubble of everything I thought I’d lost, I found something unexpected: opportunity.
Living with a disability didn’t just challenge me. It pushed me to try things that most people would never even consider. Things they say they can’t, or shouldn’t, or won’t try, because fear or comfort holds them back.
From Rock Bottom to Record Breaking
CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) is one of the most painful conditions known to medicine. It limited me physically, but it also redefined what I believed was possible.
Instead of running from limits, I started testing them.
- I handcycled 100 miles across South Wales.
- I climbed Pen y Fan in a wheelchair.
- I represented Wales in wheelchair rugby.
- I summited Mount Kilimanjaro in leg braces and Mount Everest Base Camp on crutches.
- I played squash in the Masters category.
Not despite my disability, but because of it. Because it forced me to live differently, think differently, and dream bigger.
Flipping the Narrative
We’re taught to see disability as a disadvantage. As a life less lived. But what if it’s a different kind of access?
Access to:
- Inner strength you didn’t know you had.
- A new community that gets it.
- The freedom to live outside the box, because you were never in it to begin with.
Disability doesn’t limit ambition. It forces innovation. It challenges comfort zones. It shows you what really matters.
Why Most People Won’t Try
Here’s the truth:
- Most people don’t challenge themselves until they have to.
- Most people don’t get uncomfortable unless life demands it.
- Most people don’t learn how strong they are, because they never have to find out.
I was given that demand. That discomfort. That challenge.
And it became my invitation to live fully.
Final Thought
A disability didn’t stop me from doing what I love; it gave me the clarity to discover what I really love. It didn’t limit my life. It refocused it. Resilience is a skill. It’s a life choice. Resilience isn’t something you’re born with. It’s not reserved for the elite or the brave. It’s a skill. And just like any skill, it can be learned, practised, and strengthened – even in the darkest of times.
So if you’re facing your own mountain, physical, emotional, or circumstantial, ask yourself this:
What if your struggle is the very thing that could push you to do what most people won’t?
Because once you’ve been broken and rebuilt, you don’t fear falling. You know how to rise.