What Falling Through the Roof Taught Me About Pain, Healing, and Profound Stillness

In mid-2023, while cleaning gutters, I fell three metres through a roof. The impact severely damaged my body, requiring surgery and leaving me unable to, lie down or sit up independently, for four months. I couldn’t sleep flat on the bed or roll or move and I had to completely relearn how to walk.
This photo was taken during my first in-person teaching event after the accident. Every moment was physically excruciating. We even had to bring a toilet seat to the venue because getting onto a standard toilet was impossible. Yet, despite the pain, stillness remained unshaken.
Throughout this journey, I lived something rare: even as my body held pain and damage, and my mind and nervous system would go a little wonky from the drugs, underneath it all everything stayed profoundly still. There was only deep presence with what was unfolding.
Every moment became a lesson, a teaching in how the body, mind, nervous system, and energy respond to trauma and recovery. I observed it all, not from resistance, but from a space of absolute acceptance and curiosity.
I deepened my understanding of how the body holds constriction, not just physically, but energetically and emotionally, and how it begins to release when met with presence.
I witnessed my nervous system recalibrating, the profound interplay between pain and healing, and the intelligence of the body that knows exactly how to recover when we stop resisting it or pushing it.
I understood, more deeply than ever, that the mind can remain still, even when the body is in pain, when we choose to anchor ourselves in presence.
This was not just a recovery. It was a teaching that now infuses everything I do.
When I work with students and clients, I bring this lived understanding of how body, mind, energy, and presence are deeply interconnected. I guide others not just to release what is held in the body and mind, but to fully meet it with stillness, because that is where true transformation happens.
Sitting in that wheelchair, teaching while my body was still so early in its healing, I witnessed the profound stillness that permeates all things. The room thickened with presence. My students experienced shifts beyond what they thought was possible.
It reminded me:
Stillness is not about avoiding suffering. It’s about being fully present with it, without resistance, without fear, and without losing yourself in it.
This is why I teach what I teach, not as a concept, but as a living truth.
To those walking their own path of healing, whether from physical pain, emotional wounds, or spiritual exhaustion – I share this moment as a reminder:
You are not your pain.
Your body and mind guided by presence holds profound wisdom to guide you.
And stillness is always within reach, even in the most challenging moments.
The body heals when we allow it to. The mind quiets when we meet it with presence. And transformation unfolds when we surrender to what is.
Never give up.
P.s I’m looking forward to sharing more of my journey this year. If you’re ready to move beyond what you know then let’s talk.