S2 EP 1: Your Paycheck Should Never Cost Your Mental Health

 💫 In this first Monday Motivations episode, Athena opens up about her journey of resilience — from a childhood marked by challenges, to surviving a traumatic brain injury that doctors believed she wouldn’t recover from. She shares how her fight to walk again, her struggles with mental health, and her search for purpose ultimately led her to become a trauma-informed coach. Athena’s story is a reminder that setbacks don’t define us — it’s how we choose to rise that shapes the next chapter.

 ✨ Do you have a story of resilience, healing, or transformation that could inspire others? I’d love to feature it in a future Monday Motivations episode. You can share your story by sending me a message on Substack, Instagram, or by email — all the links are in the show notes. Your journey might just be the spark of hope someone else needs to start their week. 💜 

Transcript

Odelia (00:04.802)
I've spent the majority of my 36 years of life embroiled in a mental health battle. I had a very complex childhood filled with taking on burdens that I shouldn't have had to deal with. Because of this upbringing, I grew up fiercely independent. I thought I had found my calling at university to be a stagehand, specifically to be a wardrobe technician and dress actors very quickly to get them back on stage. As a trained dancer, this role was perfect.

I was working, but I loved my job enough so that it quietened the mental health struggles I'd been battling. The depression was still there, but it wasn't my focus. Then life threw a wrench into my plans. When I was 24, I was in my then boyfriend, Tony, at his sister's camp.

Odelia (00:51.832)
When I was I was with my then boyfriend Tony at my sister's cabin in Utah. We went for an ill-fated ATV ride and we flipped. This landed both of us unconscious at the scene. We were life flighted from Utah back to Las Vegas. I was in a coma for two weeks and had to undergo brain surgery, a craniotomy, to relieve the swelling in my brain. The doctors didn't think I would live. They told this to my family. I woke up before they could track.

Odelia (01:25.078)
I woke up before they could track me. A tracheotomy tube.

I woke up before they could track me. That's using a tracheotomy tube. Then, when I was awake and took stock of the situation, I had broken my arm. My head was partially shaved due to the surgery. I was on oxygen. I was told I wasn't going to walk again. The punk rocker in me immediately dissented and said, or thought, watch me. I'm not sure if I had said this because I'm not sure if I was able to talk yet. I had to really learn how to be a person again.

standing, walking, talking, writing, swallowing, drinking, all of those human tasks we don't even think about. I had to learn to do all of them. And I was really confused because I was a dancer, able to turn eight times on one leg. So surely I'd be able to walk. I couldn't even stand on my own at this point. The funny thing was, I had been battling mental health and depression for years. I'd been actively suicidal at some points in my life.

And there I was in a hospital bed with an out. And there I was in a hospital bed with an out. I had an exit opportunity. If I wanted to take it, it would have been so easy. If I had an exit opportunity, if I wanted to take it, it would have been so easy. I've never fought so hard for my life in my memory. I spent two months in the hospital with the singular focus of getting my life back and going back to work.

I thought of nothing else. I just wanted to be able to walk so I could run a marathon. I wasn't a runner before. And I was going to write a book, but I wasn't going to go back to my job backstage.

Odelia (03:14.146)
but I was going to go back to my job backstage and carry on. When I was released from hospital, I was able to walk it with a cane. I remember I just wanted to go home and be in my room alone. And while I had been working so hard towards that moment, I never stopped to think about what would happen once I got it. I remember sitting on my bed, in my room, at home, and just feeling lost. I struggled walking and I struggled with my words due to...

I struggled walking and I struggled with my words due to aphasia. I wasn't working. I wasn't yet in rehab. I wasn't working. I wasn't yet in rehab. I had nothing to do. I was just lost. Getting to rehab helped. I was there for 46 months. I honestly can't remember. I had a goal again.

I was there between four to six months. I honestly can't remember. I had a goal again to get back to work. did all of my therapy tasks with the goal to get backstage. I did all of my therapy tasks with the goal to get back backstage. I didn't stop. I was again singularly focused. Finally, I got there. I wasn't prepared for how different things were going to be.

I had taken so much of my mobility for granted and things were hard. I was back in the throes of a mental health battle. And then after a few months, through lots of drama, I had to leave that show. It broke my heart, almost literally. I was working freelance for a bit and for some reason I decided to take a steady job and found myself in a call center. It was a whole new world that I wasn't prepared for.

I'd been doing customer service with wardrobe because rapport was crucial to put actors at ease, but I wasn't prepared for customers on the phone.

Odelia (05:14.03)
I'm not sure if it was the lack of creativity or the meaninglessness of the job, but I found myself really deep into a mental health battle. I was trying to fix everything myself.

I was trying everything to fix myself. I was sure it was my fault and I had to fix it. The fiercely independent woman was back and I felt like I couldn't ask for help. I almost lost my mental health battle. The job I was working was taking such a toll on me. Now I can clearly see it was the job and I should have quit. Now I can clearly see it was the job and I should have quit. But 27 year old me didn't know what 36 year old me knows now.

My experience with my TBI inspired me that I wanted to get into the wellness and physical therapy world. I wanted to be a teacher or a coach and help others, but I didn't know what that looked like. Through a series of insane events, I moved my life from Vegas to Phoenix, got lost in another call center, and then left because I was going back to the theater. This was late 2018, 2019, and then COVID happened.

and that threw another wrench into my carefully laid plans. I needed a job to pay my rent. I needed anything that would keep me afloat. I found a job in a call centre yet again, the place I swore I would never ever return to, but it helped me pay my rent and kept me afloat. What I didn't know was how much I was leaning into that limiting belief of, it's a good job, so even if I'm miserable, I can pay my rent. Things were not good.

I was able to work from home, but things were not good. I remember vividly being so frustrated and overwhelmed that I picked up my keyboard and smashed it into the floor of my apartment repeatedly. And I knew things were not okay. During that time, I'm still trying to fix myself. I have no idea what a nervous system is. I have no idea about somatic embodiment. I just knew that I was in this call center that was about to do me in.

Odelia (07:21.228)
I was livid that after all that I had overcome, I was going to go out like this. And I knew I wanted something else.

An Instagram contact reached out that she was starting a program for aspiring coaches and I should be part of it. I accepted and enrolled while I was working with this pandemic call center job. I started learning how to be a trauma informed coach. I learned about the nervous system and what happens when it's dysregulated. And suddenly I had the answers. People aren't supposed to get screamed at daily. Our nervous systems don't like being yelled at, belittled and gasless.

It wasn't all my fault. I just needed to take better care of myself. I learned what real self-care is during this time. I learned that I have to sit with my shadows and unsavoury parts of myself and make peace. I learned how to listen to my body and my mind and how to tell the truth from the lies. I've learned that life is meant to feel good most of the time.

In the last year, I've quit the call centre and set out to help frustrated humans quit their toxic jobs. What I really do is help folks heal their nervous systems. I also help them be able to identify when things are getting dysregulated and know how to come back to centre. My rallying cry is that your paycheck should never cost you your mental health.

As if to test me, life shifted and I found myself in need of a normal job with a steady income again. I've been there for the last 15 weeks and I documented in field reports I write on my sub stack. It's the proof that my program works and I'm a different person. I'm not the woman I was when I quit the pandemic call center job. I know that I didn't survive to burn out in a customer service job. I was meant to help people and that's why I'm doing and that's

Odelia (09:23.916)
And that's what I'm doing through coaching and speaking. I just want to pay it forward.