Mark Divine 0:00

Coming up on the Mark Divine show. 

Jamie MoCrazy  0:02

On this run, my sister gave me a hug, and I dropped in. I took off, she couldn’t see my landing because of the jump. But she saw that I didn’t hit the next jump, which happens and Soapsaw quite frequently. But then she heard the radio crackle to life. The ski patrol radio saying we need all hands on deck and the helicopter on standby, and in an instant she knew it was bad.

Mark Divine  0:32  

Mark Divine and this is the Mark Divine show. On the show, I explore what it means to be fearless through the lens of the world’s most inspirational, courageous, and compassionate leaders. My guests include notable folks from all walks of life, martial arts grandmasters, military leaders, high powered CEOs and Olympic level skiers sometimes who’ve had an unlucky break. That’s what we’re gonna be talking about today. Climb up an alternative peak, how to be the personal best, even when life hits you really hard in the head. 

My guest today is Jaime MoCrazy who grew up on the slopes by the time she was 18. She won Junior World Championships, moved to Utah to continue training as a professional slopestyle and halfpipe skier. She went to the X Games became the first woman in the world to do a double flip at the X Games. Back in 2005, she crashed hard at the World Tour finals, was in a coma for several months became paralyzed. So in an instance, she went from being one of the world’s best slopestyle skiers, to having to relearn basic gross motor skills. When she had her accident Jamie sister Janine started the hashtag MoCrazy strong connecting supporters globally, which has now developed into the creation of the nonprofit MoCrazy Strong, found in April 2015, which inspires individuals to create their own luck with the modal live MoCrazy, using the science of psychology, neurology, nutrition, kinesiology and education. Well, MoCrazystrong changes policy and protocol that affects brain injury survivors in the family members from returning to living amazing lives.

Super stoked to have you join me today. Jamie. Jamie, I’m super stoked to meet you. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for being here today. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 2:05

Thank you so much for having me. I can’t wait to get started talking. 

Mak Divine 2:08

I have a lot of questions. And we’re gonna get into this. But I first have to ask you MoCrazy, like, did your dad just adopt that name? Just because it was cool. Or where did that come from?

Jaimie MoCrazy 2:19

That’s a great question. My actual birth last name is Crane-Mauzy. 

Mark Divine 2:23

Crane-Mauzy. 

Jaimie MoCrazy 2:25

Crane-Mauzy. Crane is from my dad and Mauzy is from my mom. And my mom actually wanted to have us all be the MO crazies right away. But my dad actually didn’t like that. And so they hyphenated and Mauzy is au and it’s French. And it was mispronounced a lot. And my mom liked the name MoCrazy and had a daughter who was MoCrazy. And she dubbed me her little MoCrazy. When I was about 10 months old. I actually climbed the drapes in our living room and got stuck at the top. And she came running outside and said oh my little MoCrazy and that name just stuck. And then it got stronger when I was competing, because the announcers would say, Jamie Crane Mauzy,  MoCrazy is now on course. And then after my accident, my little sister started the hashtag MoCrazy strong. It’s on my wrist. I have it  as a tattoo. And that was the idea that MoCrazy me was going to become strong again, we’ll talk more about the accident. But within 24 hours, she started the hashtag MoCrazy strong. And that’s developed into our nonprofit and my legal last name.

Mark Divine 3:35

Did you have to legally change it? So like when you pay taxes and whatever, or people pay you it doesn’t get confused. 

Jaimie MoCrazy 3:40

I did legally change it. And part of that was because I actually just got married at the end of May.

 

Mark Divine 3:47

Oh, congratulations. Wow.

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 3:49

Thank you, my husband, when we were talking about names and like what would happen and things like that. He was kind of agreeing and supporting me that I should become who I’ve always wanted to be and who I felt most comfortable in my identity. So I would legally change my name to MoCrazy. He kept his last name Clark. And then our kids will be MoCrazy Clark. 

 

Mark Divine 4:10

Nice. Well, thank you for clarifying that. I had a hunch that there is some story there. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 4:16

Yeah. Because no crazy is a name that will catch, catch your attention. 

 

Mark Divine 4:20

So let’s talk about when you were, you know, early MoCrazy, maybe not as early as climbing that the drapes but you know, what was childhood like? You grew up in kind of the Northeast, similar to me. You said Connecticut or New Hampshire? What was it like? And, what were your parents like? And what were some of the influences that had helped shape you?

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 4:38

As a child, there was a couple of things. My mom had a master’s in psychology and she had a federal grant from the government to teach self esteem to women. And so I was raised by this woman. And so when I was a kid, I never really understood whether girls could or couldn’t do things because they weren’t girls. I just was taught to understand that if I performed at my own personal best and set attainable goals, I could reach the growth goals that I wanted to set.

And so I just had this understanding and became competitive at a very young age and was very good at competing. When I was nine years old. I actually won state championships in gymnastics. And the very same year, I won state championships and skiing. And I was interviewed. And I said in the article, my sports Fantasy was to combine skiing and gymnastics on snow, which I ended up doing.

 

Mark Divine 5:35

This is before that really existed, right?

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 5:38 

Yeah, I didn’t really know how I was going to do it, because I was actually a ski racer. So I did ski racing and gymnastics. But I wanted to combine both. And when I was 9 X Games didn’t exist. And then when it started, girls weren’t in X Games. So it took it took aways like when I was competing slopestyle and halfpipe were not even Olympic events. And so now they’re both in the Olympics.

 

Mark Divine 6:00

When did they start to become popular and then become Olympic events, it was the time frame?

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 6:04

Skiing for freestyle, it started in like the 2000’s as an X Games sport. Um, and so it started gaining in popularity. And then X Games was getting really big reviews, and even stronger reviews in some sports then the Olympics were getting, and they were getting a lot of attention. And so a lot of those sports that were X Games sports have now become Olympic sports. So they made that transition. But actually, when I was 17, I was competing at Junior World Championships in skiing and slopestyle skiing in New Zealand. And at the Junior World Championships were some members from the International Olympic Committee, and I ended up winning Junior World Championships. So they interviewed me on why it would be beneficial to add slopestyle skiing into the Olympics.

 

Mark Divine 6:53

By the way, what is slopestyle skiing for people who aren’t familiar? 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 6:56

Good question. So slopestyle skiing is when you have multiple jumps and rails and you’re judged on your overall impression. So like your style, your degree of difficulty, whether you spin to the left or spin to the right. So from the top of the run, you’ll have three or four jumps, and you’ll have three or four rails, and you’re judged from the top of the run to the bottom of the run. 

 

Mark Divine 7:16

Wow. Okay, so you did this interview? And then did they bring in the Olympics after that, or where are we at now? 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 7:22

Yeah. So a few years after they brought it into the Olympics, the first Olympic event it was in was in Sochi, Russia, I actually went to the test event in Sochi, but then actually, not my big injury, I had a different injury, the year of that Olympics. And that was something that was a bit challenging for me, because I always since I was a child, I was raised by the belief I could accomplish what I wanted. And my belief was that I was gonna go to the Olympics. That’s what I really wanted. And I was going to take the steps and make that happen. And I never went to the Olympics. And I’m never going to go to the Olympics. And that was a huge challenge for me. Because after that first Olympics, when I had the knee injury, I was like, Oh, it’s fine. I’m still like, 21 years old, like, I’ll go to the next Olympics. And then I had my traumatic brain injury. And I stopped competing. And the next Olympics that happened was actually a mess. I was crying all the time. I was unable to, I couldn’t really support or hold myself. So that was one of the big challenges I went through mentally, and emotionally. 

 

Mark Divine 8:30

Yeah, just dealing with that loss of the unfulfilled dream. Well, we can come back to that. Can you discuss the incident? You know, are you comfortable discussing your accident and kind of what that was like what the experience was, like at least going through it? And then you know, the aftermath? 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 8:48

Yes. And so my big accident was on April 11 2015, I was going to World Tour finals, up in Whistler, Canada. And I was actually driving up with my little sister Jeanne, who this was the first World Tour  finals that she made to compete in halfpipe. So she was competing in her first World Tour finals. But on the day we’re talking about it was slopestyle. So Jeanne was actually watching me, she gave me a hug as I dropped in for my second run. And I was sitting in fourth place. And as someone who had been ranked first or second overall in the world for three consecutive years, fourth place is not on the podium, you know, it doesn’t really count. No one remembers the fourth place finisher, so I had to upgrade from my first round to my second round my off axis backflip to an off axis double backflip, because two years prior, I had become the first woman in the world to compete a double for that X Games. And I was still the only woman who was competing a double flip. So I had a really good chance of getting high on that podium. And on this run, my sister gave me a hug, I dropped in. When I took off she couldn’t see my landing because of the jump, but she saw that I didn’t hit the next jump, which happens and Soapsaw quite frequently.

But then she heard the radio crackled to life, the ski patrol radio saying we need all hands on deck and the helicopter on standby. And in an instant she knew it was bad. And then when she skied down to me, she saw me spewing blood convulsing. And my eyes were rolled back in my head. 

 

Mark Divine 10:19

Do you remember what happened? Or is it not clear still, to this day?

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 10:22

I don’t remember anything that happened, which is interesting, because it changed my life. Before that, I do have a memory. And then I don’t remember six weeks after, because I was in a coma for 10 days. And then when I woke from the coma, I had serious amnesia, which means absolutely no memory, kind of like the star of 51st dates. But I wasn’t as okay, seeming as she was.

 

Mark Divine 10:48

What does that mean, so could you remember what happened in a day, but not the next day or can remember moment to moment?

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 10:55

I have no memory, I like looking back on it. That chunk of life I have absolutely no memory of. And day to day, I don’t have any recollection of what happened, during that time. My mom was living with me in the hospital, and my family would visit me all the time, I could barely know who my immediate family was. But I wouldn’t know who any of my friends were. There is pictures all around the wall of my friends, because that’s something my Jeanne did was I originally went to Vancouver General Hospital. And then I was airlifted in a Learjet from Vancouver to Intermountain Medical Center, in Murray, Utah, in Salt Lake City. And when I was airlifted, I was actually still in the coma. And so when I arrived in Salt Lake City, she decorated my wall with all these pictures. And she did that in Vancouver as well and all these pictures so that when I began to come back, I would be able to rebuild my identity and figure out who I was. 

Umm, that was something we actually did when my mind was beginning to return. Some of my first memories are looking at my friends and having to remember recite who they were, what was happening, what was going on.

 

Mark Divine 12:04

Aside from the memory gap. And you don’t remember the day to day experience. But do you remember this just sense of being present with your family at all, did any of that thread through? Even though you didn’t remember specifics around what happened? 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 12:18

Well, it’s interesting, because I don’t remember, like coherently like, I can’t tell you exactly what happened. But when I was in the coma, one of the doctors was saying how, according to the statistics, I had a really critical case and my fatality report was written and that was originally not expected to survive by a lot of people.

 

Mark Divine 12:41

And, this is just head trauma, or was it spinal trauma?

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 12:44

It was head trauma, I had eight spots of bleeding in my brain and damage to my right brainstem, which paralyzed the right side of my body.

 

Mark Divine 12:51

By the way, has that come back? Or where do you, where is your physical health now?

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 12:55

My physical health is great.

 

Mark Divine 12:56

You’re able to walk and perform 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 12:59

Yep, I’m able to walk, able to ski, go to bar class, do Pilates, I’m very active.

 

Mark Divine 13:05

Wow, you must feel very fortunate, by the way, on that.

 

Jamie MoCrazy  13:09  

Well it’s very fortunate. And one of the things about it is what we do with Mocrazy strong. What we’re passionate about is that a lot of the things in my recovery are miraculous. However, it can also be repeatable, because with neuroplasticity and rebuilding your brain pathways. The statistics for regaining mobility after brain stem damage are still in single digits. However, if you do things like when I was in the hospital, starting when I was in the hospital, my mom would tape down my good hand and make me make breakfast with my weak hand. and forcing me to use those muscles reopened and recreated different pathways so that it started to work again. And when I left the hospital for over a year, she would still tape down my right hand. And of course you can’t do this for like eight hours during the day or even an hour probably during the day, she would just do it for like 20 minutes or a half an hour. The longest was like an hour that it would be taped down. So you do it sure you don’t want to over stress yourself and over stimulate yourself, but you have to force your body to reuse that side. They got damage and many individuals who have brain injuries and they do have body impairments after and a lack of mobility. They do the opposite. So instead of taping down their strong hand and making them make breakfast… At the beginning, it took me an hour to make cereal and pour milk and cut up the strawberries with a plastic knife. It was so hard. And so the family caregivers do the opposite. They think, oh, my family member, they suffer this huge trauma. Why do you hold your cup in your left hand? Why don’t you do that often? Here? I’ll help you cut that up. I’ll help you do this. I will support you but I’m actually coddling you. So I’m putting a brick ceiling on your recovery process. So you’re only going to get to this level. And a lot of doctors do that as well. My older sister is a doctor. And I think very highly of doctors. 

However, a lot of times when they say like what started this tangent, I was talking about when I was in a coma, and the doctor said, one of the doctors because I had fabulous ones, but one said, she will never be able to live independently. We don’t know if she’ll ever walk again, she definitely won’t ski again, she will never be normal. And I woke up telling my mom, I want to be normal. And I had never wanted to be normal. My life before that I was a professional skier.

 

Mark Divine 15:40

So part of you, you’re conscious too,and was able to be present and hear that it’s just the brain wasn’t able to store the memory. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 15:46

And then I said, I literally said, and this was during my amnesia time. So I don’t have memories of this. But I literally said to my mom, “that man told me, I will never be normal, I just want to be normal.” 

And they’re doing more and more studies, that people are receptive in comas. They understand they know a little bit about what’s going on, which is actually one of the protocol changes that Vancouver General Hospital actually did, after my traumatic brain injury in the care that my family did. And we’re actually coming out with a short documentary, and the doctor who was in charge of my NeuroCare, my Pendersecion. He’s actually interviewed in it saying they changed their protocol, because they were taught that family members would stimulate the brain, so keep them away from critical coma cases. And my family basically didn’t listen. So they would touch me and they would sing to me and they would read to me.

 

Mark Divine 16:43

Of course

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 16:43

Or pet me. And now they’re realizing that your brain needs to come back, obviously, if you go to a disco and overstimulate, that’s bad, however, family stimulation is very beneficial to a brain injury recovery.

 

Mark Divine 16:57

In addition, and I’m sure they’re doing this, to be very careful what you say in the presence of a coma victim. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 17:03

Yes

 

Mark Divine 17:04

You know, awareness and cognition, right are two separate things, right? Cognition requires a healthy brain, right? That’s what you experienced, your cognition was temporarily stunted or shunted down or interrupted, but it didn’t mean that you weren’t aware, right? And you still had the rest of the functioning of the nervous system. And just pure witnessing awareness itself, which again, gets more into the metaphysics of what is, you know, what is that compared to the use of the brain for storing memory and making meaning and what not, there’s little study of this in the medical profession, because how do you study awareness, they have this belief that awareness is the same as consciousness, which comes from brain activity, whereas the spiritual traditions say that awareness comes from your spirit, and innervates your brain, and then your brain creates cognitive, you know, kind of representation of reality. So when you go into a coma, your awareness is still present, it’s just that you didn’t have use of the brain to communicate. And the brain itself isn’t capable of storing memories, you know, the brain has to heal and come back online for you to be able to communicate what your awareness was able to perceive, during that time frame, which is what you did, like you came, once you were able to communicate again, then you were able to basically express something that they didn’t think you were able to perceive, because they had this mistaken view of what awareness and consciousness is. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 18:23

I do agree on that a lot. And it’s interesting, because there’s a lot of my belief that I experienced my recovery and MoCrazy strong has helped with our peer to peer guidance and some of the other individuals and families that we’ve been working with, on like family involvement, and education. Because similar to you, my mom, who was a psychologist, like smart brain person, also studied early childhood brain development. And so that allowed her to have ideas and be an active family caregiver for brain redevelopment. And so that’s why she knew about taping down my hand and making me use this hand and I had to relearn how to walk, relearn, how to talk, relearn all of my basic gross motor skills, everything that I learned, you know, during your education, years and everything like that, I had to relearn how to read, relearn how to write, I became her full time job for a year because we were literally relearning how to write like a kindergartener again, and having to relearn all those things. But one of the big things is that it is possible to relearn and that’s something a lot of people don’t understand, and are taught that it’s not possible. I actually had a sister who was studying neuroscience at Brown University. I have a couple of sisters but one of them was studying neuroscience at Brown University. And she had a big disagreement with a professor because the professor was teaching them that after a brain injury, if you, you only had a certain amount of recovery opportunities and potential.

And she was like, but I think like anyway, so they had a disagreement. And this was like, probably like about 15 years ago. And it’s just phenomenal. So my other older sister went to Georgetown medical school, she was taught by the doctors that scientifically, you had two years of recovery after a brain injury, and then the deficits were permanent. Again, that’s scientifically false. There’s so much this society has learned about brain injury recovery, that is scientifically false. Like an example, you should not go if you’ve had a concussion, or mild concussion, you should not go turn the lights off and do absolutely nothing. Because if you don’t stimulate your brain, you’re not going to recover. You shouldn’t go drink a lot of coffee, you should not go to a disco. But you should go for a light walk and do little exercises that will stimulate your blood flow. But don’t jar your brain. But, you need stimulation. So there’s just so much we could talk about you and I about brain injury recovery teachings that are scientifically false. 

 

Mak Divine 21:10

It’s not just the only area where the science is way off. Let’s just leave it at that. Right. But it’s a big, it’s a really important one. And I agree with you there just barely understanding the power of the brain and also the totality of the brain. And also the fact that the brain isn’t just in your head, right? My view, I call it the body mind, I my view is the body is the brain, the brain is basically spread throughout the body. The part that’s in your head that we call the brain is you know, if there were a most important component, that would be it. 

You know, that’s the meaning-maker the most of the functions are, but it’s not just the only part of your brain. Right? Now we know that there’s neurological processing power and neurotransmitters in your heart and in your biome, and in your enteric nervous system. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 21:50

 

Mak Divine 21:51

Yeah, now they even think maybe in your fascia, your skin, your body is your mind, your body becomes your mind. But the brain that’s in your head is critical, which is why it’s stored in this very hard device. The problem is, it’s just floating in that device. And so even micro trauma has an effect on it. This is why a lot of my SEAL teammates and why I’m really involved in brain health and brain injury healing for vets is because every Vet, especially Special Operators have TBI and they don’t know it, or they’re ignorant of it, or they’re in denial of it. Because every time you shoot a gun, every time you have a hard parachute landing fall, which is every time practically. Every time you blow something up, and especially if you’re in combat gets magnified. And then you take it to another extreme, like, if you have a massive trauma to your brain, you know, that brain is just getting bounced around in there big time and just smacking into the walls, and then what that means those injured areas of the brain then have to heal, and they’re not getting the blood flow they need and everything. So unless you stimulate them lightly, you’re not getting the blood flow and oxygen and energy they need to recover. But so that’s just part of it is recovering the traumatized parts of your brain. 

But the brain itself, you know, at any one time, you’re using just a small percentage of your brain, and certain areas that we say, Okay, this area of your brain is, you know, for your olfactory, in this area is for your auditory this area is for your visual and blah, blah, blah, guess what your brain can relearn this stuff and other healthy areas, your brain, which is what you were proving, right,? Which doesn’t mean those old areas won’t come back online and share the load. But while they’re healing the traumatized area, the rest of your brain can pick up the slack and start to really open up and take on some of those functionings. And this is what you are proving.

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 23:24

We have trillions of synaptic connections. And there’s so much in our brain that even if it’s like right next door, and so this path was shot, but this path opens right next door, you can heal and live a good life. But one of the things that popped into my mind that you were mentioning about your brain being part of your body. When I was recovering in the hospital, my older sister would bring in organic food every single day, she would bring in meals for me, because we recognize how your brain is your body, which means that the food you intake, so like It all affects it so much. And my mom is studying Mind Body PhD program. And her specialization is on brain injury recovery, because we are so passionate about it as well, because there’s so many things like your food choices. A lot of people don’t recognize it, it actually plays a role in your recovery, that certain things like coffee and alcohol right after a brain injury will affect your brain. And also sugar. Sugar has such an effect on your brain after a brain injury that I didn’t have any coffee or sugar or alcohol for the year. Now, I personally am not super stringent on a diet. I don’t have a diet. I try to eat healthy and I make choices on things but I’m open to eating a percentage of everything so I don’t have a strict diet. 

But I do passionately  believe that if I had had coffee right after my accident, or if I had had white sugar right after the accident, it would have affected my recovery? 

 

Mark Divine 25:09

Yeah, I totally agree. So from the intake, fueling intake, if there’s a traumatic brain injury, that sounds like three big no no’s are obviously caffeine. Is it the caffeine or the coffee? That’s bad? Like, can you drink a decaffeinated cup of coffee?

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 25:25

It’s the caffeine that affects you the most.

 

Mark Divine 25:27

It’s primarily the caffeine, there’s other toxins in coffee, too, that probably aren’t good for the brain. So alcohol, obviously, that’s a no brainer. And white sugar man, that is evil for the body, in general, but certainly for the brain. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 25:38

So when you’re recovering, everybody has those days that you just feel blah, and you just need comfort food, and you need something happy. And you can make comfort food that doesn’t have sugar in it without being like a super health nut. Like I make banana bread. And when I actually met, who’s now currently, my husband five years ago, he didn’t think he could like a dessert that didn’t have sugar in it. And I made him my banana bread. And I didn’t tell him, it didn’t have sugar in it, and he loved it. And then a couple months later, I was like, there’s no sugar in it, there’s some honey in it, and you caramelize the bananas, because honey still has that sweetness factor. But it’s much better for you than sugar. 

 

Mark Divine 26:24

Once you recognize this, and you get off of it. And it takes, you know, like for our clients, it takes a few weeks for them to detox from their sugar addiction, then all of a sudden, they have all this energy. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 26:35

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 26:36

Right. And all this clarity because the brain is getting healthier. And also, like you said, you can eat those healthy, tasty treats, but you don’t end up with that crash, then where I’m going with this is if someone puts a doughnut in front of me, like after one of our long SEALFIT weekends and what not. You know, during the event, and I haven’t eaten in 18 hours, something someone puts a doughnut in front of me, I might have a bite just for the hell of it. And I actually feel horrible after that. I enjoy taking that one bite and then I immediately feel the sugar rush and then the crash just from one bite of donut, it creates this massive contrast, you’re like holy cow, there was a time in my life where I could eat three donuts. And I would still crash, but my whole system was like propping up you know this dysfunctional, you know, habit and creating long term distress in the body. And the contrast is extraordinary, right both how good you feel when you don’t eat it even if you eat healthy treat when you don’t eat sugar, but also how bad you feel when you do when it sneaks in or you deliberately do it. And those right there, you gotta listen to your body’s telling you the truth. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 27:36

That’s something that just made me think of moving on, is that people will say, Do you pay attention to what you eat? Yes. Do you take supplements for your brain health? Yes. They’ll say oh, you’re completely healed like you don’t worry about it. And I was like, No, like our brains, we always need to pay attention to our brains. Because we’re always getting older, we always have to be conscious of things. 

 

Mark Divine 27:56 

100% agree with you

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 27:58

And so my choice is actually our house is sugar free. But I do go out and have ice cream. I don’t actually feel as terrible as you were saying, but I don’t eat it very often. But I do sometimes in other places have sugar. But in our house, we make alternative choices to still get that comfort food or that sweetness without sugar in it. It’s surprising. When we make like pancakes or waffles, we make them really simple. It’s just like eggs, a little bit of baking powder, flour, milk, and that’s about it. Sometimes you put some cinnamon or other things. But most of the time when you go out to a restaurant, your pancakes will have sugar in them. And you don’t need sugar and all the stuff that’s sugar is in.

 

Mark Divine 28:48

No I’m with you,  I haven’t had pancakes in years. I veer mostly toward paleo keto type, but I don’t consider myself to be on any particular diet. Either I just I eat what my body tells me is healthy and what’s good. And I consider this training. And so what there’s training for recovery, which is what you’ve done mostly, but now you’ve shifted to training for life, which is what we teach at SEALFIT, it’s like we train for life. And what does that mean, to cut out the bad and rebalance your body. And then in order to keep your body healthy, you optimize your nutrition, your sleep, your exercise and everything. And then you work on an incremental program to actually improve the quality of your thinking. And this is a mental development through meditation, visualization and other techniques, as well as the emotional development clearing up the shadow items of your past. Which is what we call integrated development. Because if you’re not training yourself, the world’s training you, let’s say absent a traumatic injury like yours, once you get to a certain age, the expansion phase of your life is over and you begin the contraction phase, right and so then it requires a lot of pushing against that inertia of the energy of kind of like what we would normally think of as aging, right to include the brain, you know, aging. We have such extraordinary mental powers as humans we’re barely tapping into it, which your story has helped prove. To include the ability to constantly learn and grow and improve the capacity and the power of the mind using the brain. Right? 

 

Jamie MoCrazy  30:13

Yeah. And one of the things I was actually introduced to an individual about four months after my brain injury, who sells B E M ER, Bemers. I don’t know if you’ve heard about them. 

 

Mark Divine 30:26

Yeah, I’ve heard about them.

 

Jamie MoCrazy  30:28

But I started using it in my recovery process. And whenever I became agitated, because emotions were a huge invisible challenge for the next couple of years, they were really relevant after my brain injury. And it took the longest time for me to be able to settle them down. But so when I became like flustered or upset, I would go lie down on the Bemer, it’s electric, magnetic, and it activates the blood flow through your body. And so I would lie on it and kind of a combination of like what the bemer does, and then also what you mentioned about meditating and calming your mind, I would just lie there, and try to calm myself down. And then by the time I was done, it’s about eight minutes. And by the time I was done with that, I’d be able to articulate why I was upset, what could happen, instead of just getting super flustered and out of control, um which after brain injury, that’s one of the big lifetime challenges that some people face. And it’s one of the invisible challenges is that your mind, you become a little bit irrational, so you just, you can feel it. So when I was beginning to recover, I could feel myself almost getting like, pulled, like when I started getting upset, and I would just get really upset and then tied up. And then you can’t, I wouldn’t be able to think anything through. 

And so I would just behave and respond irrationally and stressed out. And then if I calmed myself down, and increase my blood flow and things like that, then I’d be able to articulate why I was unhappy with something. And then mostly, I don’t really know any of them that weren’t solved.

 

Mark Divine 32:10

You can’t solve a problem if you’re all hyped up, right. So you got to get into that de-aroused state and calm everything down. And then A you can feel and let the energy flow a little bit better. And B, and you can, you can make more sense of it, and at least then begin to objectify it and solve the problem. I think what you’re describing back to the Vet situation, one of the reasons there’s so much suicide amongst veterans and first responders is because of the hidden nature of TBI, traumatic brain injury, and especially when it comes in small doses over a long period of time. You know, if you have small doses of TBI every week, over 10 years, it’s no different than getting clunked in the head a couple of times in a big incident, it’s just it just then slowly creeps up on you, and you never have the pause to say wait, something just happened. Let me look at my brain health, right? And so suddenly, 10 years into it, or whatever, after a career in some cases, they have a seriously traumatized brain. And yet they’ve never been told it. And they’re in denial about it. Because we’re supposed to be, you know, healthy.

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 33:06

Tough

 

Mark Divine 33:06

Tough, exactly. Grit through anything. And what that does is it affects their emotional imbalance and your ability to make sense of reality. And their decision making suffers. And I had a really good friend, a 30 year retired Master Chief Navy SEAL outwardly just so squared away such a great guy. He killed himself in April. And it was so surprising to everyone because we’re like everyone, you know, he was not one of the ones that was suffering, right? He wasn’t a down and out case. He was like me.

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 33:35

Sorry to hear that.

 

Mark Divine 33:36

It’s horrible. I know. I’m still sad thinking about him and his family and all that. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 33:39

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 33:40

My point for bringing it up is you are doing such great work with your foundation. And people need to know that it’s not just limited to a professional skier who bonks her head on a ski jump, right? This is something that practically everyone in our culture is dealing with, right? Trauma happens in many different ways. And trauma can come just from, you know, just being emotionally abused, right, that affects that, you know, they now know that affects your brain.

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 34:07

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 34:07

…just like getting clonked in the head with the stick. Right? It’s important work you’re doing.

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 34:10

Well, thank you very much. And we have, there’s 4.3 million individuals every year in the US that have disability insurance help because of a traumatic brain injury, and the cost to society. They did a study to find out the cost to society for traumatic brain injury is $76.5 trillion, which is insane, because it’s invisible. 

 

Mark Divine 34:39

Yeah, it’s not we’re not bringing them back into healthy functioning because it’s like, oh, sorry. You’re on disability and sucks that that happened. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 34:49

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 34:49

So what you’re trying to change that narrative. So it happened. It happens a lot. By the way, a lot of it’s unreported. So it’s probably higher than that. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 34:56

Yes. And undiagnosed.

 

Mark Divine 34:58

Yeah. Micro trauma and trauma that is undiagnosed because it’s emotional trauma that’s not being reported. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 35:03

Yeah. 

 

Mark Divine 35:04

But all of its healable 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 35:05

Yes

 

Mark Divine 35:05

I think is what you’re saying, I agree. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 35:06

And that’s what I’m really passionate about, and why we’re working on changing policy levels. And it’s interesting because NASHA and NASHA, created a bill that was passed bipartisan in the Senate, and was signed by President Biden on August 16 th. And it’s a five year training program for first responders and the police force on how to respond to individuals who’ve encountered a traumatic brain injury or PTSD, because they’re realizing that a lot of the actually the mild traumatic brain injuries cause lifetime deficits that could be completely healed. A lot of the individuals who have lifetime disability insurance, and if you look at somebody like me, I was 22, when I had my traumatic brain injury, you’re looking at like 80 years of health, that is really draining on us, actually, if on our economy, if we could just fix it right away by a little bit more upfront care and awareness and education. NASHA stands for the National Association of State Head Administrators. And so it’s an organization that works with all the different state affiliates on their traumatic brain injury funds protocol.

 

Mark Divine 36:30

We’ve talked around a lot, but let’s say someone listening as either themselves dealing with a prior injury, or they know someone in the family or someone that’s two things. One is, what should they do like right now? Or not do you know…what are the top three things? Let’s just say that they, you, we already talked about nutrition training. So what are the like the top three things you recommend? If there’s that? And then how do they find out more information from you and your organization? Or how do we support them best, I guess, is what I’m asking. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 37:00

So I think some of the top things are, as we already talked about nutrition, outdoor therapy, getting outside and experiencing, like I started my outdoor therapy, when I was in a wheelchair in the hospital, my family would bring me outside, as you’re in the whole process of recovering, believing that you can recover is so important. I don’t know how to like quantify, and as you said that there’s not tons of research and study on like, the different things that we talked about, but how important belief is, if you believe you can recover, and then you start taking steps to do it. So you believe that you’re going to have a recovery. And then you do things like you make the choices, you make the choice to eat this versus this because of the outcomes that you’re going to receive? So you make choices, you build the habits, habits, change your synaptic connections, you actually can change your brain because of the habits that you build. So you believe that you can do it. And then you build the habits that will make those beliefs come true. And then you’ll be able to recover and live a life that you want to be living. And even if you have permanent changes in ability level, because there are permanent changes in ability level that do happen. I have a friend actually, who when he was a teenager, he got his leg amputated due to cancer. And he had been a skateboarder. His goal was to become a pro skateboarder. He got his leg amputated, he began snowboarding, and he won a gold medal in the Olympics. 

 

Mark Divine 38:34

No way!

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 38:35

So it’s a change in his ability, his life is permanently changed, and very different because of his injury that he encountered. However, you could still build an amazing life, you can still climb any alternative peak that you want to if you start out with that belief, and then make that belief come true. And you can find out more information with https://mocrazystrong.org/ is our website. And then also Jamie MoCrazy is my Instagram, and I’m pretty active on Instagram. And if you message me I will respond. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time. Because if we’re not mutually following each other, it gets pushed a little bit. But I do always make an effort to read through the messages that I don’t have connections to and respond to the people who reach out to me. So the best way to reach out to me personally is on my Instagram, Jamie MoCrazy, then we do have a MoCrazy strong Facebook, and we do have a website moCrazystrong.org And you can find out more information. And if you are a brain injury survivor or you have connections to one, we do offer some peer to peer educated guidance and education. Both my mom and I are certified in peer to peer as well as person centered which is something that we do a lot of behind the scenes stuff like going to different places. 

Going into hospitals and education portion. But teaching individuals and in trauma centers to see each person as a person, not as a patient. So see them as somebody who has interests, likes and dislikes, versus a patient who has numbers and statistics. Because if you just stick to those numbers and statistics, I would not be having the conversation with you today that I’m having. If you looked at my statistics, it would not be possible for me to have the recovery that I did. However, I can do it and other people can as well. 

 

Mark Divine 40:30

Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, you can be a victim of a tragic incident. But if you remain a victim, you’ll never heal.

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 40:39

Very True.

 

Mark Divine40:40

So that is both in terms of how you see yourself and how others treat you. If you’re listening to this, and you had an incident and you still feel like you’re being victimized by others, or you feel like a victim, this time to get out of that rut, because you’ll never heal and get back to your fullest potential in the future. That’s amazing. Thanks so much, Jamie, what an incredible story. You’re a very strong woman, and you’re gonna inspire a lot of people and you already are so and the message that you’re getting out and what you’re doing is really important. And thank your mom for us as well. It sounds like she was your bedrock through all this, and your sisters. 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 41:12

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 41:12

Without them, I would have been a very different story, probably. So 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 41:16

They are the heroes. It’s a story about me, but anybody who watches our documentary, it’s a short documentary, and we’re starting to submit it to film festivals. So next year, we’ll be in film festivals. And I will share the trailer with you because we’re trying to raise attention and some crowdfunding for some of the last sources so we can just share it out. But you can see during that the shore, it’s very relevant that the story is Jamie MoCrazy had the accident. But there are so many other heroes that created that story and just gave me a platform to share what they did. Because we didn’t even get started talking about the person I call miracle MET, my doctor,, who went to Cambridge, England, to learn about the oxygen and pressure analyzing brainbowl, and I became the first patient in North America to use. He’s a hero. So there’s so many heroes in the MoCrazy, strong story. And none of them are me. I just get to tell them all I get to talk about all the amazing individuals that I was fortunate enough to get to interact with and who saved my life and created this story. 

 

Mark Divine 42:25

Wow. I love that. It takes a team. Right? 

 

Jaimie MoCrazy 42:28

It does. 

 

Mark Divine 42:29

Awesome. Well, Jamie, thanks again. We’ll put that stuff up on the show notes and everything and everyone can go check out MoCrazy.org is the website.

 

Jamie MoCrazy  42:38 

It’s  mocrazystrong.org. 

 

Mark Divine 42:39

Thanks again for your time and it’s been a really, really powerful interview. Appreciate you.

 

What an amazing woman Jamie MoCrazy, overcoming that extraordinarily painful accident. She doesn’t even remember she has complete amnesia from the period of time when she concked her head on the slopes to her recovery. And her message that most brain injury people get told they will never use their brain fully again, and how that holds three or 4 million people with brain injuries back because the brain can heal and you can heal it and regain all your functions. You’ve got to do the work. And we learned how on this episode.

Show Notes and Transcripts are on their site and MarkDivine.com videos up on the YouTube channel. You can find us on social media at Mark Divine and Twitter and @real Mark Divine on IG and Facebook. Always hit me up on my LinkedIn account. quick plug for the new newsletter Divine Inspiration. If you’re not on the subscription list, go to MarkDivine.com, to subscribe. Every Tuesday. In your inbox, you’ll get my blog, as well as a synopsis of the weekly show and other really cool things across my desk, including what I’m reading, especially shout out to my amazing team, Jason Sanderson, Q Williams, Geoff Haskell and Jeff Torres, who help produce this podcast and bring these incredible guests to you every week. reviews and ratings are very helpful. So if you haven’t done so please consider doing so wherever you listen to it helps other people find the show and keeps us doing what we’re doing here. Thanks for being part of the change that we want to see in the world, remaining positive and doing the work of training your mind because as I say repeatedly, if you’re not training your mind, then someone else is training it for you and the results will speak for itself. Till next week. This is Mark Divine and this is the Mark Divine show. Hooyah!

 

Transcribed by Catherine and Otter AI