Louise Forget

What if you could be all you can be without fear of being judged? What if you could express the whole range of emotions you know yourself capable of expressing without guilt, remorse or shame? What would your life look like? Living the life you crave for at the deepest level of your soul is living with passion. You may say, “This is impossible, I can’t just do that!” This is exactly the point: you can! All you need to do is work through the blockages that prevent you from living your life the way you want.

In 2004, while serving with the Air Force, I was involved in an important flight incident that changed my life. On my first training flight onboard the Aurora, Canada’s maritime patrol aircraft, a propeller overspeed forced us to declare a mayday and prepare to ditch in the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean. As a student, I was stunned this was happening on my first flight. The extremely loud noise and violent vibration of the aircraft clearly indicated the seriousness of the situation.

I felt extremely helpless and horrified. I had no control over this situation I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. With 10 students and seven instructors on board, I expected chaos. There was none of it as the well-trained instructors took over control of the situation and prepared us for the ditch. They were focused, authoritative but never in a state of panic. I calmed myself and my training kicked back in. I put on my emergency wetsuit, helmet, and gloves, and helped the crew secure the aircraft for ditching. While helping a fellow student zip his suit, the zipper broke in my hands. The look on his face terrified me. Fortunately, there was one spare suit and he was able to change quickly into it.

Time was suspended as we reviewed our training scenarios and visualized the steps we needed to take to get out of the aircraft and launch the safety rafts (assuming we survived). My heart was pounding like a racehorse on race day. I was terribly hot and sick to my stomach. We were informed of the most likely scenarios: the propeller could detach and cut the airframe in two, or the engine could catch on fire, forcing us to ditch 200 miles from the coast. Fortunately, our mayday was heard and we knew that a search and rescue Hercules aircraft and a Cormorant helicopter were on their way to our location to pick up the survivors, should there be any.

I started thinking about my family and felt reassured that I had no outstanding conflicts to resolve. I felt reassured they knew I was happy doing what I was doing and amidst their grief, would understand I died living my life just the way I wanted to live it. On the other hand, I felt sad for my crewmates. Both student pilots had newborn babies, one of which was only 4 days old; my instructor was still nursing; a student had just gotten married while another one was planning her wedding three months later. Were they aware of the risk they had taken getting onboard that day? Was it worth it?

I don’t know why but at one point the propeller stopped spinning and the aircraft stopped shaking. We landed safely, in awe about how close we came to our deaths.

In the following years, I continued flying, experiencing three more serious emergencies. At one point, anxiety and nightmares made it impossible for me to do my job safely. I was removed from flying duties and released from the military for medical reasons after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. I was stunned! My whole life had just crumbled like a house of cards. My identity as an officer and a crewmember was shattered and forced me to redefine myself.

Through counseling, I discovered a place on Gabriola Island that changed my life forever. The Haven, a personal development and psycho-educational centre, was extremely beneficial to my recovery. This institution bases its teaching principles on honest direct communication, compassion, self-responsibility, integrity and relational experiential learning. I learned to know myself through others and dissociate my military identity from my unique authenticity as a human being. I was allowed to be however I chose to be, while feeling compassion from the staff and the other participants. I worked through multiple personal blockages to find who I truly was and wanted to be. I acknowledged my strengths and accepted my weaknesses. I felt empowered to live my life in the moment, with no regrets. Suddenly it was OK to feel joy, shame, gratitude, sadness, anger, fear, love or anxiety. These were normal human emotions and needed to be expressed to define who I was. I realized I often chose to repress my feelings because I was afraid of what others might think. In reality, I was afraid of appearing a certain way to others. I was unaware I didn’t have the power to cause other people’s emotions, providing my intentions were truthful.

Bennet Wong, co-founder of The Haven, described passion as “the pressure of the soul to be expressed”. Being human comes with a whole range of emotions and when we block ourselves from expressing them for whichever reasons, our body accumulates the effects of this stress. Many illnesses and diseases are caused by this accumulated stress in our bodies.

Through The Haven, I have learned a wide range of tools to live my life to the fullest. I learned to communicate, to practice self-compassion, to live in the present, to be responsible for my own health, to state my boundaries, to connect more deeply with others, to be vulnerable, and mostly to be honest with how I felt.

Through my recovery, I gave myself permission to feel anxious, to feel depressive, to feel fear. The important lesson being that I am not this anxiety, I am not this depression, and I am not this fear. It’s wonderful to allow myself to express those emotions so I can process them and move on with my life.

Last April, I faced my fear of flying. I chose to fly back east to be with my mother, who was undergoing surgery, the day after my grandmother passed away. For the first time in two years, my motivations for flying were greater than my fear of flying. I felt anxious and fearful and at the same time, I made the conscious choice to not let it stop me from doing what I want to do in my life. I recognized that these feelings were part of a past experience. Living in the present meant I chose my actions based on what was most important to me in my life. I don’t like flying and yet I promise myself I will face those fears to accomplish three of my personal dreams: kayak the Croatian coast, hike the Cinque Terre in Italy and see the Grand Canyon. Perhaps I will gain more confidence as I get back in the air for what matters most.

I can now say that this traumatic experience in my life was by far the best thing that happened to me. Difficult to believe considering where I was two years ago. I am extremely grateful for all the personal learning gained from my recovery. I look forward to a new career in tourism. I am a much stronger person today and I know who I am in the moment as I choose to live my life with passion, honesty and integrity.

What are your blockages? What prevents you from achieving your dreams and expressing your soul?

Click the pic for the Open House slideshow

Louise Forget has taken a number of courses at The Haven, including Come Alive and Phase I.