Kathy shared with me the story of how mindfulness saved her life. And not just the living breathing part, but her job, home and relationships too.

In 2000 Kathy had a perfect life – dream job, great partner, perfect house in a perfect location, a thriving daughter.

After a fun Melbourne Cup Day with friends, Kathy woke up with a swollen arm.

“I woke up and my whole arm was swollen. And I thought crap, I’ve been bitten or something. It was a really strange, thumping funny pain. It was really swollen and my hand was turning from red to black to blue to black to red to blue. And then it was going white. So, I went into the GP thinking I can get this looked at and I’ll go to work afterwards. I’ll just be a little bit late.

“He’s taken one look at it and said I’m gonna run some tests. Let’s go up to get an ultrasound done. And I went up to go up the ultrasound done. And from next to my heart and on down my arm was a blood clot. I was told we’ve got a call an ambulance and you’re not allowed to move on your own volition from now until we get you on something because it was right next to my heart and it was bad.”

Despite a number of treatments to try and remove the clot – none of which were pleasant – the worst happened and the clot moved and stopped Kathy’s heart. She was revived and had a venaplasty to remove the clot. 14 days later, still in hospital, it came back! And once again entered her heart, this time not stopping it completely but putting Kathy into fibrillation and giving her a mini stroke.

Kathy was in and out of hospital for 3 months before the doctors gave up on keeping the clot from returning. They gave her 10 years.

Life did not go back to normal. Kathy was angry! She did not have sensation in her arm, she had ongoing injections. She was fit, never smoked or drank. This was not meant to happen to her.

As a result of the anger Kathy lost her partner. She battled constantly with her daughter. She was angry at work for no reason. And in an unrelated event lost her house.

“So finally, my boss of the woman that I owe virtually everything I am today to a lovely lady by the name of Christine. My manager took me aside and said ‘Kathy, you are one of the most amazing assets our team has. But with this attitude, you either have to fix it or you’re out. No one wants to work with you. We’re sick of it. And if you don’t want to change, if you can’t, whatever, then there’s the door. Think about it.’ And she sent me home. This talk happened around lunchtime, and she sent me home for the day. She said leave now we don’t want you here”

On her way home Kathy went past a milk bar with a sign in the window asking ‘Are you stressed? Would you like more happiness in your life?’ and it caught her attention. Yes, she would like more happiness! What was being offered was 3 one-hour sessions on mindfulness. And Kathy went along!

Kathy was not immediately convinced “When I went to the first mindfulness sessions, I thought it was going to be all hippy stuff and I wasn’t sure whether I should go.”

“In that first session, I learnt that all that anger was not from external, it was internal. It was my own attitude that was perpetuating it.”

And even once she was on board, Kathy struggled to tame her mind and control her anger. It took hard work, dedicated practice and time before “I began to be more calm and accepting so I could connect with people and re-build my life and relationships.”

“And the rest is history as the world says.

“The mindfulness practice that I learned I think saved my job. I was able to reconnect with my partner, I found a new house that was equally good. And my daughter and I became close. But I think that that mindfulness practice helped me rebuild everything that I had destroyed through this anger and frustration after my illness. And it’s helped me cope with that illness. And the last part of my story is they gave me 10 years to live. And I firmly believe that my mindfulness practice in the way that I’ve been able to heal my mind has helped me heal my body. Because I was meant to die 10 years ago.”

Kathy’s doctors are fascinated to know what she did to heal herself.

But her message? “Don’t believe all the hype about mindfulness, don’t believe all the research about mindfulness, don’t go on into all of the studies that have been peer reviewed, don’t care about any of that stuff. You hear mindfulness too much these days. Try it for yourself and see if there’s benefits for yourself. And doesn’t matter what anybody else says. If it works, and you find benefit, keep it. If it doesn’t, dump it, just like what we do in agile teams. We do a retro, right. It’s almost the same thing. Try few things. Keep it if it works, dump it if it dies, and mindfulness despite what’s been said and all the myths and all the rumours, give it a go. And of course get in touch with me if you want to learn more.”

About Kathy:

With a background in software development, Kathy is an agile professional with over 30 years of experience in I.T. She delivers agile training and coaching services to many organisations in Australia and around the world including large corporations and government departments. Since 1999, Kathy has been studying, practicing and teaching mindfulness. Kathy works with organisations to implement mindfulness practices to improve teamwork, be more innovative and deliver better customer value. She is passionate about seeing people, teams and organisations succeed and thrive in an environment of collaboration and harmony.