Rising from the Wreckage: Finding Purpose After Crisis

Have you ever faced something so shattering, a sudden crash or a devastating loss? A moment where the ground literally disappears beneath you and wondered how you could ever possibly come back. Our guest today knows that feeling intimately. We're talking about trauma not just as a concept, but as a real force that can break us and incredibly make us. Today we're sitting down with Jeff Rasley, if I'm saying it correctly, an author, a Himalayan expedition leader, and a dedicated humanitarian. Jeff is a survivor who navigated intense PTSD following a crippling motorcycle wreck in Mexico and a fatal avalanche in Nepal. His journey isn't about surviving those highstake moments. It's about what he learned on the other side. This conversation is for anyone who's ever felt broken and needs a guide on finding their way back to purpose. So, we're going to get dive right in. This is Keeping It Real on Purpose and I am Edna White, your host and I welcome my guest guest Jeff Rasley to the show. >> Thank you, Edna. It's very good to be with you. >> Yeah, you too. So, I'm really excited because I when I was reading your bio, I was like, man, I got to see what this guy looks like. [laughter] >> Well, sorry. Sorry to disappoint you on >> all of this. I has, oh man, I got to see this guy because he's he's got some strength or and some angels around him, you know, and just really defying the odds. That's the word. Defying the odds. So, um, so tell us about, you know, how you show up in the world because I know I know some of it, but the audience doesn't know. >> Well, um, currently, uh, I'm a writer. I've published uh 17 books um I think about 90 articles. Uh so that's sort of my primary focus now. Um I practiced law for 30 years. Uh then I I taught a class on philanthropy at Marian University and Butler University here in Indianapolis where I live. Um, and I've been married to the same woman for 50 years. >> Wow. >> Um, Alicia. Um, we were college sweethearts at the University of Chicago >> and we have two grown kids. And I have a puppy cat who's wandering around every now and then. Sticks her sticks her tail where the camera can see her. >> That's wonderful. Jeff, your life is in is is has included two lifealtering events. The motorcycle wreck in Mexico and the avalanche in Nepal. Most people can't even imagine that level of crisis. In in this immediate aftermath of either of those crises, what was the first thought or feeling that signal this was more than just a bad day? >> Well, yeah. So, I was 19 um when uh uh I was on a motorcycle with a passenger on the back who I had actually just met that day uh down in Mazatlan, Mexico. And we were uh riding into town from a camp. Um and uh we came to a cross street. I looked both ways, started to cross, and then there was just an explosion, and I went flying through the air, and we had been t-boned by a car. Um, I flew over the handlebars, landed on all fours, sort of cat-like, >> and uh, my only injuries were I cracked my radius forearm, and broke my shoulder. But the my passenger uh wonderful guy named Bob Dell uh who had uh taken my buddy uh Tim Cosnov who he and I had ridden over 4,000 miles together um from Indiana down through Mexico. But Bob and his friend Jean took us in um were kind of looking out for us because Tim's motorcycle was stolen that day. >> Wow. >> So within a matter of hours, uh my riding partner's motorcycle was stolen with everything, his pack. >> Wow. >> All of his clothes, uh his money, and then I was hit and my motorcycle was wrecked. and Bob was really very seriously injured and we were taken to a hospital. But you asked what was my immediate reaction. So um I I was in shock. I mean medical a state of shock but I saw Bob um in the street with uh bones sticking out from his shoulder and his hip. Um, and I just started yelling uh for an ambulance, you know, get >> ambulance, ambulance, and which eventually an ambulance came and we were taken to a hospital, >> right? That's that's tough. That's really tough. That's a there's a lot of like um I know I know I've been in a car accident and you know and I didn't even think about PTSD from after it but I know that there's there's an amount of PTSD that you experience. Can you talk about that? Yeah, it actually it took quite a while because I was in survival mode for um for some time because after the >> crash uh Bob and I were in the hospital and we were under arrest. Uh there was an armed armed guard uh sitting at the at our doorway into the hospital room 24 hours a day. >> Wow. >> And Uh Bob came out of emergency surgery and was crying and moaning and was obviously in terrible pain. And I kept asking the guard to go get a doctor because uh my friend needed, you know, help, needed to be looked at, uh because he was in so much pain and the the guard, the policeman wouldn't let me and he wouldn't do it. So, um, eventually I knocked him down and, uh, >> jumped over him and ran out and finded found a doctor and they came back and gave Bob more demoral to treat the pain. Mhm. >> Um but then you know uh it was complicated situation to get out of the hospital and get out of the country, but eventually we did. And then Tim and I hitchhiked home to Indiana from California. >> How far How far was Okay. Okay. Okay. >> Yeah. So, you know, 2,000 m. So, we were about 750 miles uh down in Mazatlan from the California border. Um, and I I had uh relatives uh aunt and uncle and cousins in the LA area. So, we we took a train up there, but then we hitchhiked home because we were 19 year olds. We were determined to get home on our own power. got her own power, but uh heard your dog. And uh so anyway, so we hitchhiked home and again it was just like I'm in survival mode. Uh this isn't really affecting me. And then um after I was home, I was working in a factory uh before I went back to school at the University of Chicago and I had a steel pin in my shoulder and my arm was in a cast and then a sling and it was you know still just you know surviving that and then it wasn't really until I was back in school I started waking up every night completely completely covered in sweat. Just >> wow. >> Total body sweat. >> And uh you know, at first I didn't know what was going on. I mean, I had never experienced this before, but eventually I kept having, you know, kind of reliving the crash and seeing Bob with the bones sticking out of his hip and his shoulder. And uh we we stayed in contact and wrote each other and talked on the phone. Uh we eventually over the years lost contact. I don't know what's happened to him. >> Um >> but he was crippled. I mean he he would be >> you know he was going to walk with a limp at best the the rest of his life. And so, um, even though the woman who hit us was eventually also arrested and it was determined by the local prosecutor that it was her fault. >> Um, >> you know, I I felt this really terrible guilt that this was the first time Bob had ever been on a motorcycle. >> Oh, wow. and he asked me to give him a ride and take, you know, ride him into town and then that happened. >> So, it was, you know, for a 19-year-old, it it was just hard to live with. >> Yeah. And that the the sweats um lasted um for about nine months basically through the school year. And then that next summer um my wife and I got married. And I don't know if I don't know if I should give her credit, but it seems like eventually uh over the course of that next year, I mean, they continued even after we were married for a while, but it became, >> you know, less and less often. Um, more time would go and so it was, you know, maybe once a week and then eventually it stopped. >> Wow. Wow. you experienced some significant PTSD from from that and I know maybe even even Bob probably right so um I know it seemed like a the way you're telling me it's like a relentless cycle and even there was great joyous things happening you still experience this is there when was a time that you saw that small crack of light that you you you could start to kind of dig out dig out of that survival mode Yeah. Well, you know, when I was in the kind of the survival mode, um it was all about just sort of I can kind of equate it to um doing trucking and mountaineering where you know the u physical challenge is so great that you just focus on your next step. you know, put that one foot in front of the other. Uh, and you just you keep going by taking the next step, the next step, next step. And I think that's that's sort of, you know, how I was living until the the um, you know, kind of the the night sweats and the nightmares sort of took me out of that and I had to start confronting, you know, what had happened as opposed to just focusing on that next step and to be more introspective and just really look down deeply. into not only what happened but how I felt about it, how it affected Bob uh and that I had to, you know, take some responsibility for that >> and um >> and what happened to me and um you know eventually it was something like okay I can live with that it happened >> there's nothing I can't change it >> right >> and >> so now I'm trying to just go back to enjoying life. >> Yeah, that's good. Did you ever incorporate writing or any anything like that into into that as you were going through survival mode or no? >> Well, actually um I wrote my BA paper uh so two and a half years um later uh about that experience. um my uh advisor was very kind of um flexible liberal guy and so I was supposed to write a paper about philosophy >> and uh so what I did is I got permission to start a novel and the the novel was based on my motorcycle experience with my buddy Tim and so it was really it I called it a novel, but it was really a memoir >> and I just I started writing about that entire experience and um >> Yeah. So, yeah. So, I did I I really, you know, relived it through writing it out. >> Wow. That's good. That's good because I know a lot of our audience um um audience, they write or they're interested in writing or they're book readers. So, it's so important to kind of see if that even helped cuz I know for me, um, coming out of my trauma, writing helped a lot. I mean, putting it down on paper and getting it out of you is so, you know, liberating and it it it kind of frees you up to the next step, as you were saying, to the next step. What's the next thing? So, that was really good, you know. So you've led expeditions to um in the Himalayas and you you run an humanitarian work like the Basa Village Foundation. You guide people through through intense risk. How do you personally experience um with the person with the trauma that you had changed your approach to leading other people? Well, the so I had been um I started going to Nepal in 1995 and had done a couple mountaineering expeditions but not as a leader and on the third yeah the third mountaineering expedition >> when uh we were trekking out from the mountain so climbing experiences is over. We're just trekking out to um get back to what Lucla village, which is >> high up in the mountains, and it's an airirst strip, and we're going to fly back to Catmandeue. And uh there had been avalanches uh all the time that we were up in the the mountains this time. And uh you know, but they'd been in the distance and wasn't really dangerous for us. Um, and we were going across this very this high path was 15,000 ft high, but you know, compared to a 22,000 foot high mountain, you know, no big deal. We're just, you know, getting through it. But the >> the snow had gotten really really deep and it was thigh high as we were going across this pass. And um what happens when there's a lot of snow, >> if there was warm weather before that, which there was, then there's this sort of um division. there's a soft >> uh where where it's warm and the snow is piled up on top of that and it can become dangerous because this snow up here uh can because of that difference in the layer can start falling off on a steep incline and turn into an avalanche. So that's exactly what happened. And um above us actually on a higher ridge were uh three Nepali porters. And they they weren't the porters from our group, but they were porters from another climbing team. >> Okay. >> And uh we, you know, we heard this roar and immediately, you know, knew the sound. This was an avalanche and it was up above us. And so there were four of us, our guide and then the our three climbers. And um we just started running or actually four climbers. So there were five of us. So we just started running down the the incline down the mountain side. And um by the a by the time the avalanche got to us, it was just what we call spin drift. So just like you're inside a blizzard and you know just sleet and snow, but you know, no boulders, no, you know, flying rocks, nothing that's really going to hurt you. You can't really see because it's just so thick. >> But so we got down uh to the bottom of uh this mountain side and uh the three porters that we had seen up above us before were just gone. Um, we didn't know what happened to them, but we found out later that they had been killed. They were >> wiped out by the avalanche, and the avalanche separated us from the from our porters who were carrying all of our our heavy baggage, the tents and cooking uh supplies, all that kind of stuff. We just we had just our own backpacks uh with our own gear and um so then so we're separated from them. The avalanche is blocked so they can't get to us. We can't get to them. And our guide decided we should just go on uh to Lucla. So the the five of us, the four um four climbers, four westerners, uh and the guide, we had to cross three streams to get to Lucla. And each stream was getting higher and higher. So like the first one was ankle deep, next one was knee deep, the next one was thigh deep. And um but we made it to Lucla. We were soaked and freezing. Um but we were there. We were safe and we were staying at a um a lodge. Uh and so our guide went back to try to get to the our porters. Um and so he's gone. He said, you know, just stay here, get warm, uh get fed, you know, take care of yourself. So we're doing that and the woman who runs the lodge in Nepal you call them Deei which means big sister. So our dei >> is looking out for us and then she comes to us that evening and she's very upset and what's happened is her brother was on a flight flying in from Catmandu to Lucla and the plane crashed and it turned out that everybody in that plane was killed including her brother. >> But at first you know we don't know what's happened to them. We don't know what's happened to our porters. So, we wait all night long and eventually late in the next day. The the good news is our guide Seth comes back uh with our porters. Um he had to carry one of them cuz he was uh had severe frostbite. But they made it back, brought all of uh the tents and all the gear with them. They were soaking wet because by the time they got to the river they uh it was neck high and Seth had to create a like a rope bridge >> and uh he had to go back and forth and uh he was just amazing I mean amazing courageous strong guy. >> Yeah. What lessons about fear do you now pass on to the leaders though out of all that you've done now? What lesson do you you about fear do you pass on to leaders? >> Well, I would say um perseverance that you know you just if you're if if you're afraid of something, you just look it in the eye and face it down >> and go on. And then that you know that sort of back into the survival mode of >> next step. Just take that next step. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, [snorts] you're now a prolific author. It seems you repurposed a lot of the pain and you transform a lot of the chaotic past into um purposeful communication after writing all those books and all those papers. For listeners who are currently struggling through their own wreckage right now, what's the most crucial step you took successfully to find meaning or purpose after those disasters? Well, it, you know, took a long time, I suppose, to reach this understanding, but um eventually it it occurred to me that um living your life is like creating a work of art. >> Oh, that's nice. >> And so every day you are adding to that work of art. And as an artist, you want to make it beautiful, >> right? >> And so, um, the actual the the banner on my website is live your life like it's a work of art and make it beautiful. >> And that's nice. That's very nice. >> Thank you. I mean, that's sort of the fundamental philosophy that >> I try to live by. >> Yeah, that's beautiful. I like that. What are you are you working on anything right now? Yeah. Uh I'm actually working on two projects. One is with my wife. We during COVID we started visiting small towns all over Indiana and we've been to over 250 of them. >> Wow. and we research each town, take photographs, um do a little a post in Facebook about each town, but we're compiling it very slowly into a book about small town Indiana, >> right? And then I'm writing um an autofiction book, meaning uh a novel based on uh real experience, which is I uh was a law clerk for a guy my senior year in law school who was the hottest criminal defense attorney in the Midwest and he handled a number of high-profile criminal cases and it was fascinating to work for him, but it's also tragic story because he went from being this, you know, high-profile guy. He had he was written up in Playboy magazine and, you know, things like that. >> Yeah. >> To um getting involved in cocaine, ended up losing his law license, going bankrupt, and >> fleeing the country. M >> um so it's a kind of the rise and fall uh story based on him but it's fictionalized. >> Okay. Yeah. You know they say a little little fiction is always a little little non-fiction in there [laughter] just a little bit. >> Yeah. Nowadays can we tell the difference between >> Right. I don't think so. Right. >> That's right. That's right. Listen, Jeff, we've been talking with you the your incredible story and I want to thank you for that. Turning tragedy into transformation. Um, what you share with us today is resilience isn't something that you're born with. It's something you build in the aftermath of being broken. And I like that. I like that your story. And I know your journey will prove um special to those in the audience um and and even to end their own trauma and to see it in a different light like you said, take your life and and create it like it's a work of art, you know, and and that's a great lesson all in itself. Is there one thing that you could tell our audience who is struggling right now with trauma or feel broken and what you could tell them? One last thing. >> Okay. Yeah, you you will live through it. You will live through it. You just take that next step >> and create your life like it is a work of art because it can be beautiful. >> Awesome. That's right. So, go find Jeff's 17 books and his incredible humanitarian work and I with Bassa Village Foundation. I believe you could just find him by just writing his name. Google him, Jeff Rasley. All right, audience. We want to thank you for being here today, hearing this incredible story. And I know that there's more to come when we talk about Jeff Raasley. Bye for now.