Unveiling Resilience: Laura Renner's Story of Healing

Rich Bennett 0:00
Thanks for joining the conversation today. We have a truly inspiring guest. Laura Renner, Laura's Life at Perfect, with a successful career as a charge nurse in a neonatal intensive care unit and a bustling travel schedule was a stark contrast to her personal battles with anxiety and a series of alarming health issues. Her journey took a critical turn, with emergency brain surgery leading to a profound awakening about her mental and physical health. LA's relentless pursuit of healing led her to write the book. No, I'm not Fine. Thank you. I love that title. A candid exploration of her journey confronting a fast paced lifestyle, unearthing deep seated childhood traumas, and committing to comprehensive healing. Her story, while unique, strikes a chord with many who have faced similar struggles. In our conversation today, Laura will delve into her expertise. Areas, including mindset shifts for healing post major health scares, insights into traumatic brain injury, recovery, breaking negative mindset cycles, and the crucial role of self-advocacy in health care. She brings personal experience in therapies like somatic experiencing EMDR and neurofeedback, offering a rich perspective on nervous system regulation. LA's mission extends beyond her own experiences through her podcast, Healing hashtag Nofilter. By the way, no filter on this either. Lauren Miller I'm sorry. She offers relatable, practical methods for tackling mental, physical and trauma related challenges. Her story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of healing. So let's dive into this enriching conversation with Laura Renner. I said, Lauren, is your issue. Lauren, actually your first name? Or is it Laura? 

Laura Renner 1:56
It's Laura. But, you know, because my last name is Renner, everyone just combines it all together and everyone calls me Lauren. So I just respond to everything. 

Rich Bennett 2:04
So thank God they call you that. I ain't got to tell you some of the names. They call. 

Laura Renner 2:07
Me. 

Rich Bennett 2:10
Well, two things. First of all, thank you for your time as a nurse, because I do believe that first responders don't hear that enough in the nurses and the doctors. And thank you for starting a podcast and still doing it because a lot of people jump into the podcast world and they quit usually after like five or seven episodes. But you started since August and you're going strong. 

Laura Renner 2:38
Thank you. You know, it's it's something that I don't know. I love talking. I love telling my story. I love sharing knowledge and the things that I've learned. And I feel like I mean, not only are podcasts easy, accessible, free, but also it's such a great way to hear different people's perspectives and just hear, you know, people's personalities. I love reading, but I love listening to people like, yes, it's a great way to connect and really kind of get to know someone on a different level. 

Rich Bennett 3:04
Oh yeah. And the other thing I like that you have guests on your podcast. 

Laura Renner 3:09
So not yet. Not yet. Will be in the works. Okay. 2024. 

Rich Bennett 3:12
Because that's one of the things I love about this, the friendships that you make, you know, just the different guests you have on the friendships you make and the networking, which you don't even think about. Some of the people I've had on, I've actually sent them customers for their business. 

Laura Renner 3:28
Because, yeah, I have, you know, over. I agree. It's such a it's such a cool network of everyone helping each other and connecting each other. And that's what's so cool is everyone I've gotten so many messages from either podcast have been on or just people I know saying, Oh, you should really connect with this person and be on their podcast, or this person would be really insightful for this event. You want to do. And it's just, it's, it's really great how everyone kind of works together in that. 

Rich Bennett 3:50
Yeah. And what better way to build of your podcast because from what I know, everybody has a podcast also listens to podcast. 

Laura Renner 3:58
Exactly. Yes. 

Rich Bennett 3:59
And they don't listen to podcast, then they shouldn't be podcasting in the first place. Yeah. So I want to go back to some ways now, not to the beginning, because, you know, not when you were born. You don't remember that nobody done this, but during school, was it always your dream to be a nurse? 

Laura Renner 4:19
No. Oh no, absolutely not. My dream. My dream was actually to be a writer when I was really when I was in elementary school. I loved writing. But in middle school and in high school, I really excelled at science and math. And I kind of what I learned through that time, it was really kind of ingrained in me that you needed an objective career that you needed to go to, to go to college, and you needed to go to a good college, and you need to get a degree that leads directly to a career because otherwise you're going to be stressed, you're not going to be successful. And that's just kind of how I interpreted it. And that's why I thought, Oh my gosh, so what do I do? And I was really drawn to science. I was really interested in health care, and I really got interested in nursing, actually, in college. I didn't in college, I didn't know what I wanted to do. 

Rich Bennett 5:04
Oh, I would say. 

Laura Renner 5:05
Yeah. I was a clinical exercise science major using that mostly as prerequisites to kind of figure out what I wanted and my my sophomore year, that's when I realized why I really wanted to be a nurse. And I just went, you know, full steam ahead with that path. And then that actually brought me out to Colorado for now. 

Rich Bennett 5:24
Yeah, I'm glad you said that because a lot of people and I've always said this in high school, they're pushing college down your throat more or less. Yeah. They want you to have a career path. I forget about what grade, but most of the time when people head off to college, sometimes after their first year, sometimes even in 2 to 3 year or more, they finally realize what they want to do and they change what they, some of them even graduate and still end up changing what they. 

Laura Renner 5:53
Well, it's you know, it's wild to think about that. We're asking, you know, 17, 18, 19 year olds, you know, seemingly kind of what you know, the idea is what you want to do for the rest of your life. It's wild. And, you know, I felt I felt that pressure. I felt like I needed to make a decision. And of course, I love nursing. I'm very happy with that. Pursued. Right. What exactly would have done things a little differently in hindsight that I had? I felt a little less pressure on myself. 

Rich Bennett 6:19
What would you have done differently? 

Laura Renner 6:21
Well, I mean, I basically got a four year degree that I didn't use at all. And I'm not going to say, you know, it was useless. I learned so much during that time. I went to Ithaca College in upstate New York, absolutely loved it, met amazing people, learned a ton. But I just felt like the entire time I had to figure out, you know, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? What are you going to do with the rest of your life? What's your career going to be? And I just internalized all this pressure and it made things really challenging for me. And, you know, I wish that I had given myself a little more freedom and ease at that point in my life and really just enjoyed more of what I was doing. 

Rich Bennett 6:54
Yeah, Yeah. So with the nursing, because you worked in the was it neonatal intensive care? 

Laura Renner 7:01
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 7:03
I actually had I think I had a nurse on that that worked in that as well. How hard was that on your mental health Because 

there is no way I'd be able to do it. No way. 

Laura Renner 7:19
You know, it's it's interesting because in every facet of health care there, every every person who works in health care always has one field or they're like, no way, I could never do that. How could you do that? And, you know, for me, like you, I actually I had I had held one baby in my life prior to nursing school. Oh, wow. I, I thought I was going to go down the cardiac ICU path. I loved all things cardiac. I was going to work with adults. That was my plan. And in my second semester of nursing school, I did my labor delivery rotation and I got to spend a day in the Nick U. And I was just like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. Like, not only is this, you know, a small environment where you're able to, you know, utilize critical care and, you know, stimulating your thinking and all that stuff, but also you get to be around these adorable babies and watch them grow. And of course, yes, I will, of course, say it's incredibly challenging. There's negative outcomes. There's a lot of really difficult stuff in the Nick you. But for the most part it mostly is positive outcomes. So getting to watch those kids, you know, that are in there for four or five months, you know, grow and go home, connect with their parents. And then, you know, the beauty of the Internet these days, I keep in touch with a fair amount, a few of them on like Facebook and Instagram. So I get to see these like eight year olds that I took care of when they were, you know, like a 27 weaker in the neck. You And so it's it's it's really rewarding in that respect. 

Rich Bennett 8:38
And how long did you do that for? 

Laura Renner 8:41
So nine years. 

Rich Bennett 8:42
Nine years. Wow. Yeah. The other nurse I had on she does that does the same thing. She's retired now but keeps in touch with a lot of them. And just to see you grow up, it's 

amazing. 

Laura Renner 8:56
That's that's really the beauty of the nick, because there's really no other realm of health care like it because you you know, of course, like there's other areas in the adult world where you have patients for longer periods of time, but it's a way different experience with this one. You're also like helping to teach these families how to take care of their baby and you're watching them, you know, gain this confidence and develop these skills and just get really good at it and just connect. It's really cool. 

Rich Bennett 9:22
So with the trauma, 

because and correct me if I'm wrong, but in the book, you it started when you were younger, right, When you were growing up. 

Laura Renner 9:32
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 9:33
Do you mind sharing what happened there be so nerve for to that before 2017? Because I want to get to 2017 because I heard something is like how in the hell did that happen? So before 2007, I think you know where I'm going here. 

Laura Renner 9:51
I do. I do. I know that's what's funny. I mean, it's interesting. It's not funny, but I mean, I come off about, at least in some respects, but, you know, my adult trauma is so intense and back to back to back. But my childhood trauma is, I think, considerably more intense and shaped so much of my adulthood. So when I was about five years old, I was sexually abused by an adult. And I also that was unfortunately, that was something that I didn't know until I did hypnotherapy. And so that was something that I had repressed. And I always knew that there was something I had these weird little flashes of memories, but I wasn't connecting them. And that's the beauty of our brains. Our brains are really skilled at protecting us in a lot of respects. So I didn't actually fully recover that memory until about like 14 months ago. And 

yeah, and then also when I was young, I almost drowned in a river in Maryland, in the St Michael's River. What? When I was seven, I fell into the river. My family was visiting. We were, I think, in like Easton for the day. And then we went to we were standing on some dock and my sisters were swinging around. And now I can't think of what they're called. But the giant poles, you know, hold up the dock. 

Rich Bennett 11:20
Yeah, the Palms. 

Laura Renner 11:21
Yes, the pirates. And they were just kind of swinging around them. And I was seven and I thought, Oh, I can do that. And I fell right in and it was February. 

Rich Bennett 11:32
Oh, my. 

Laura Renner 11:32
God. And I didn't know how to swim. And I remember it's I mean, I can see it. I can visualize it in slow motion. It was I truly thought I was going to die. And that was incredibly traumatic. And, you know, I had a lot of instances also and also just another, you know, the beauty I mean, the thing about complex trauma is you can have little single events that just all together when they combine, they just create really catastrophic and devastating levels of trauma to your body and your brain. But I also was bit by about five different dogs between you. I know between the age of, I guess like four and seven. 

So all of these combined together really just created this perception that my brain and body took on of the world is not safe. It doesn't matter if your family is there, it doesn't matter who is there. You are never safe. And I fully enveloped that deep in my core. And what that led to was very severe anxiety and fear that led basically steered most of my life really until the last year, year and a half. 

Rich Bennett 12:41
Holy shit. Lawyer It's amazing. You're still walking. 

Laura Renner 12:44
Yeah. Yeah. And then on top of all my, you know, bizarre health problems since 2017, it's my I have the utmost respect for my body because my body is so incredibly resilient and it's amazing what it's been able to recover from and bounce back from and be strong from. 

Rich Bennett 13:00
Okay, I'm just God holy. Wow. I didn't. 

Laura Renner 13:07
Know. 

Rich Bennett 13:07
I had no idea about all of that. That just. 

Laura Renner 13:11
You know, I didn't want to just, you know, do a full list out of all the things that happened to me. I really just wanted to hit the highlights in the book. 

Rich Bennett 13:17
To highlight 

what you know what. But the good thing is you can laugh about it. 

Laura Renner 13:24
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 13:25
So and I've always said laughter is the best medicine okay with the drowning part? Who? How long how long were you underwater before somebody pulled you up? 

Laura Renner 13:35
So I don't. I mean it. To me, it felt like eternity was probably at most, you know, 2 minutes. And I remember seeing in slow motion my you know, my my one sister was so long timing and I was barely keeping my head above water. So they all ran over to her. And then they and then my my mom and my other sister see me and they're like starting to get ready to like, get me. And then my dad jumps right in and grabs me and pulls me up. And then there's a stranger who helps pull me up and 

that was it. It was just I, you know, I my my brain and my body, you know, my little seven year old self thought, I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm dying. And it was cold. You know, I couldn't really breathe. It was February. And, you know, I talked about this a lot with my parents. And I don't blame them in any way for their response because they did what they thought was best. They were terrified. They thought I was dying. So they dried me off. We got in the car and just went home and there wasn't really any, you know, 

decompression or discussion or I mean, I say debrief. That's what we say at the hospital a lot. But deep or just, you know, any like reassurance, right. That I'm okay. There wasn't much comforting and I don't say that as you know, they didn't do anything wrong. They just they thought they were doing their best to, you know, keep me safe, keep themselves safe, keep my sister safe, and go home. But I j I just sat in the car, just bracing, just tense and just filled with fear. And I'm. 

Rich Bennett 15:04
In shock. 

Laura Renner 15:06
100%. Oh, I was upset. In shock. My sisters were in shock. I mean, we were all in shock. We were all just terrified. And it really messed me up. 

Rich Bennett 15:15
So do you know if you even had, like, hypothermia or even frostbite? 

Laura Renner 15:21
I don't think so. I guess I'm sure it was fast enough. 

Rich Bennett 15:25
Well, they got out quick enough to dry off, too. That's good. 

Laura Renner 15:28
Yeah. So it wasn't too bad in that respect. But 

that I mean, that rightfully so, jolted me to my core in a way that, you know, definitely deeply impacted me for the majority of my life. 

Rich Bennett 15:39
Wow. Holy cow. Okay, so 2017, when I heard this, I'm like, how in the hell does this happen? You crushed some vertebrae while you were sleeping, right? Yes, multiple vertebrae. 

Laura Renner 15:57
Yeah. So that was actually 2018. So 26, which is when I broke my back snowboarding. But 2018, Good Lord. 

28. Yeah. So in 2017, I got divorced. I broke my back snowboarding. And then the next year is when everything got real weird with my health. 

Rich Bennett 16:20
Okay, wait a minute. All right, so you're already in Colorado. Take it. That's where you broke your back snowboarding? 

Laura Renner 16:28
Yep. At Arapahoe Basin Mountain. 

Rich Bennett 16:30
Was it your first time snowboarding? 

Laura Renner 16:32
It wasn't, but I was new enough and a little more confident than I should have been. So. 

Rich Bennett 16:36
Okay, so that happened in 2017. You said right after you got divorced. 

Laura Renner 16:42
Yeah. My divorce finalized in September and I broke my back in December. 

Rich Bennett 16:46
A hell of a way to celebrate a divorce. 

Laura Renner 16:48
Seriously. 

Rich Bennett 16:50
Okay, so 2018 is when you crushed multiple vertebrae walls while sleeping. 

Laura Renner 16:56
Yeah. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 16:58
How do you do that? What's sleeping? So you're divorced, so you can't blame it on a husband? 

Laura Renner 17:05
True. True. So, you know, it was. It was really interesting because I remember this time so vividly because it was so weird so that the day before. So I work night shift. Okay. And the day before my shift, I went for a walk. I live near a park in Denver. I went for a walk and I remember just getting this overwhelming sense of déja vu and feeling almost like this had rush and just like this weird feeling. And I was like, What is this? But then it went away. And so I just went, Oh, weird. And just, you know, kept going about my life, went to work. Same thing happened during my shift was about 3 a.m.. I was charting on the computer, sitting down, chatting with one of my coworkers and it happened again. And I thought, That's so weird. But I didn't. I didn't say anything. I didn't do anything. It just went away. And I just thought, okay, weird. Didn't think much of it. So then I come home for my shift, go to bed and normal, just normal routine of going home, all that, go to sleep around like 830 in the morning. And I wake up around one in the most excruciating pain I've ever experienced. And I'm just like. And I just feel it all through my chest and my back, just like my torso was just gripping with just this intense pain. I could barely breathe. I was just like, What happened? And I of course, I first went to Urgent Care because I'm a nurse and we avoid hospital at all costs, which I do not recommend. 

Rich Bennett 18:37
But I was going to ask you about that too. What processes do that. 

Laura Renner 18:40
Nurses do that and I still I even do that with my brain injury. Unfortunately now I finally learned my lesson, I will say. But I. 

Rich Bennett 18:47
Did. 

Laura Renner 18:48
Went to Urgent care and they were like you. Absolutely have to go to the hospital. And unfortunately, it was, you know, I mean, very busy per usual. I mean, as most hospitals are especially these days, and they kind of brushed me off and they just didn't really believe me. And there were, you know, I ended up at that time being diagnosed with one thoracic fracture and my vertebrae, which was shocking to me because I was like, how how could I do this? I just went to sleep. I didn't understand. They ended up sending me home the next day. And it just it was it was so much pain. And I tried to explain, you know, I'd broken my back before. And when I broke my back the first time I knew it hurt. But I didn't go to the hospital. I kept working, I kept exercising. I kept going about my life like, it was painful, of course, but it wasn't bad enough to stop me. But this was bad enough that I couldn't do anything, and I was terrified that something was really wrong. So I kept going back. I kept going back. I kept going back. And they kept drug testing me. They kept treating me as a drug seeker. Why? Well, that was my interpretation, was that I was being treated as a drug seeker. They kept asking if I was drunk, if I and just all these things that were really just I was just floored. I was like, what? What's happening? Like I would just listen to Yeah, I was I mean, and I was just I was so terrified. I didn't know what to do. So finally the third visit I had called my parents. I told them I was going to the hospital again because also I kept having these weird, those weird, like, deja vu instances. Yeah, I was having some memory loss associated with them. Just things were going haywire and there was no explanation. My parents were flying out at this time to help me. And finally they do. They do an MRI and they were like, You actually have four fractures in your thoracic 73 or four or five and six. I had lost almost four inches in height because they were so severely compressed. And so your thoracic vertebrae, because they're attached to your ribs, are incredibly hard to injure. So it's either pretty much a car accident or a seizure. So presumably I had a seizure in my sleep and then and then after that, they after they told me that they immediately were consenting me to have surgery on my back to put cement in my in my vertebrae and rebuilt like rebuild those vertebrae. 

Rich Bennett 21:13
And yeah, did it. Jared, did you have surgery when you broke your back as well? 

Laura Renner 21:17
I didn't the first time ago. The first time I because I waited too long to get care because I thought I was fine. I ended up just little mattress classic nurse. 

Rich Bennett 21:28
How many times did your parents call up and and yell at you? 

Laura Renner 21:32
You know, they were kind enough to see my fear that they and recognize how afraid I was at this time. They, they they held it back. But I think those are some words for said at different points that I wasn't privy to. 

Rich Bennett 21:47
So we I back up a minute because you broke your back. How long did it take for that to heal. 

Laura Renner 21:54
The first time. 

Rich Bennett 21:55
Yeah, well yeah. 

Laura Renner 21:56
Yeah, the first time it was 12 weeks. I was in a brace for 12 weeks. 

Rich Bennett 22:00
12 weeks. And then I'd take it right after that brace came off. You went right back to work, didn't you? 

Laura Renner 22:05
Oh, I went to work in my brace. I was doing Jesus Christ. Well, no, not as a nurse. I was doing, like. Like work like a working at, like, the front desk, doing, like, more secretary stuff and things like that. 

Rich Bennett 22:17
Should you have even been doing that? 

Laura Renner 22:19
Probably not in hindsight, but I, I had I had you know, I had Gilt. It was around the holidays and even though I was getting zero pressure from my coworkers, my unit, hospital staff, I felt bad. I felt bad. I mean, it's terrible. I was hurt. I was you know, I was in this giant metal back brace, but I felt like I needed to help in some way still. 

Rich Bennett 22:41
So you must have some Irish or Italian and you don't you Irish. Okay, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yep. US Irish ain't going to let anything keep us down. We're going to, you know. 

Laura Renner 22:55
To our detriment. Sometimes. 

Rich Bennett 22:59
All right, So then you crushed your vertebrae. How many. 

Laura Renner 23:04
For you? 

Rich Bennett 23:05
Sure, four vertebrae. And they did surgery for that? 

Laura Renner 23:09
That. 

Rich Bennett 23:09
Yeah, the cement is. 

Laura Renner 23:12
It's bone cement. It's not, you know, street like sidewalk cement, but. 

Rich Bennett 23:18
They said that you lost four inches. Now, did you after the surgery, did you reduce four inches back? 

Laura Renner 23:26
I got about three inches back. 

Rich Bennett 23:27
Three inches back. Okay. Yeah. I'll get into something else a little bit later about the growing your inches back at you. Sand it, roll. 

So that happened and then when how soon after that was the table incident 

when you fell. Yeah. When you fell it was right. 

Laura Renner 23:53
Oh well so it wasn't after, after. Well so after the back injury I still had stuff happen so I'll go back to your dream. I developed pulmonary embolism, which is a blood clot in your lung. That happened about three weeks after my surgery. I also shattered my wrist in eight places, six months after falling in a parking lot in the mountains. Jesus Christ. And so, yeah. Oh, all the things. And so actually so at this time I was pursuing a bunch of specialists because I was seeing, you know, top tier specialists in the state that were in endocrinology, bone specialists in Colorado. In Colorado, Yeah, neurology. I was seeing all these specialists and getting all these tests and no one could figure it out. And I just finally got to this point where I was like, I just for my own sanity in my mental health, I need to be done like I've been okay for, you know, at this point I was like, four months is like, I'm okay. I need to just move on and live my life. So that was the end of 2019. And then of course, COVID happened. So 2020, I was getting, you know, murdered as a nurse in the hospital for about a year straight. And 2020, I mean, health wise, I mean, not my mental health, but my physical health is decent. Nothing happened during that time. And then December 2021. So Decembers are challenging months for me, unfortunately, as we're approaching it. But it was December 6th, 2021. I well, the fifth actually. Sorry, the fifth is when I was at a Christmas market in downtown Denver with a bunch of friends and some of their kids. And I was playing with one of the kids. We were spinning around and we were on this like big structure. It was like this like marble stone structure. And I lost my balance backwards, fell backwards and just landed on the back right part of my head. And I cry. I mean, I don't remember. I didn't lose consciousness, but I definitely didn't. Log is memory at least like a good 2 minutes of that? And I remember being back with my friends and they were like, Oh my God, you're bleeding on your neck. And I just went like this. I had held my hand to the back of my head and it was just covered in blood. Oh, and my classic nurse response, Oh, well, heads are very vascular. There's a lot of blood supply. I'm okay. And I did my own kind of neurological assessment, and I was like, you know, I'm conscious, I'm fine. I know I am. Everything's okay. And actually, by not going to the hospital that day, that saved my life. 

Rich Bennett 26:15
Really? 

Laura Renner 26:17
Yes. Because they wouldn't have given me a CT scan. I was too physically. Well, you know, outside of you know, obviously hit my head. But I knew exactly what happened. I knew where I was. I was very oriented. And, you know, to time and space and everything. And I knew what was happening. But what happened was I woke up the next morning, so I landed back. Right. Just behind my ear. I woke up with massive bruising under my left, around my left eye, which indicates that my brain, it's called a contract injury injury. My brain smacked so hard into the front left of my skull that it, you know, led to that kind of damage. And I know in nursing school that when you have bruises underneath your eyes, which I had a small one under my right and a giant one under my left eye, I knew, oh, no, this means a skull fracture and I couldn't stop vomiting. And at first I was like, you know, I have a sensitive stomach. This is a high adrenaline thing. In hindsight, maybe it's just related to that. But also, I know that vomiting is also a neurological sign. So with my boyfriend and I'm like, I don't know, I feel like I should go to urgent care. And he appeases me. Instead of going to the hospital, we go to Urgent Care and they're like, What are you doing here? You need to go to the hospital. So I go to the hospital and he takes me a while to get seen because again, I'm present. Like I mean, I mean, outside of being in pain in my face, all jacked up and I'm vomiting. I'm pretty. Okay. 

Rich Bennett 27:47
And what year is this? 

Laura Renner 27:49
20. 21. Okay, so almost exactly two years ago. Okay. And so I finally get through, I explain what happened. I do a full neurological or like they want they do take me through a neurological assessment and they agree. They're like, you know, you're pretty fine from a cognitive perspective. However, given the bruising and the nausea and vomiting, we're going to give you a CT scan. 

And, you know, the one of the unfortunate downsides of technology these days with hospitals is that often in a lot of cases, you, the patient, can see the reports and lab results and things like that before the medical team comes in and explains them. So I read that I had massive multi compartmental hemorrhages on my brain that led to a complete shift that was compressing my brain leftward and downward and come to find out that I would have been dead the next day because the bleeds were building and I. 

Rich Bennett 28:45
Got. 

Laura Renner 28:46
Pressure on my brain that I would have stopped breathing. So they came back, consented me for urgent, emergent ish. It would also, I'll say emergent because it was supposed to be emergent, but this is terrible to say. I don't know how to say it without sounding like terrible person, but people kept coming in with more with gunshot injuries and more severe injuries. So they were bumping me back. So at least I wasn't emergent enough to. I was able to wait a couple of hours, but. 

Rich Bennett 29:14
I guess that's a good thing. 

Laura Renner 29:15
Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's a way to spin it positively. Yeah. But yeah, so I had I had like about a almost four hour brain surgery where they drained the bleed, stop the bleeding, put plates in my skull and stapled me up. I have a, I have an incision that's about six and a half inches long on the back of my head. That led to about like 40 to 50 staples. Yeah. I'll just from an innocent fall. 

Oh. 

Rich Bennett 29:47
Wow. You know what? After hearing that, now I can understand why your sports like NFL wrestling and all that, are serious about concussions now. 

Laura Renner 30:02
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 30:03
Because it's true. For those of you listening, 

just looking at law, you want to know everything she went through, I mean, at all. I mean, she's a young, beautiful woman. So you would definitely not think, hey, hey, no way. She went through all that shit. Yeah, No, it's it. Wow. Holy cow. Back to when you're seeing all these specialist, did you ever think about coming back home and going to Hopkins? 

Laura Renner 30:37
I did, actually. So am I. My mom was amazing during this time and in trying to pursue getting me in with specialists, she reached out to NIH. I think she reached out to Hopkins. There was a 

I'll just say hello. So Cleveland Clinic offers offers a out of state program for people that need to see specialists who don't live in the area too. You apply, you give all your records. Mm hmm. And what they do is they will give you, you know, a four day window where you will see all the specialists that you need to see. So I had that planned. I got in, I got accepted. I was supposed to see neurology, endocrinology, rheumatology and something else that I can't remember now. And so that was scheduled for May. So I had taken time off from work. My parents were going to fly out with me. And then as the days kept getting closer, I got an email. Neurology had to cancel and then endocrinology had to cancel and then another specialist cancelled. So I was like, And they were basically just like, We're no longer able to accommodate your needs. And so I was I mean, I was really upset. My mom was, yeah, because we had, you know, we booked flights. We, we were prepared for all of this and I'd been waiting for answers. So I was just like, We're not going. It's over. I'm like, I'm not going to see one specialist. This is ridiculous. So this is funny. I can truly laugh about this. I think it's hilarious because so what happened was I had this time off from work. It was May. So I'm like, okay, I live in Denver. I'm going to go out to the mountains for for a couple of days. So for the first two days, I went to this area called Pagosa Springs with a couple of friends. So and we went to Hot Springs. They went home. I went on to Telluride, where my drive from Pagosa Springs to Telluride. It's about 2 hours. Well, yeah, a little over now. It's probably closer to four, I don't remember. But anyways, I get out, there's this beautiful path. So if you ever heard of Million Dollar Highway, it's on. You know, it always makes like top 20 most scenic, but also most dangerous roads in America so right the $4 million highway I had to take that drive and there was this beautiful pass called most pass and so it passes when it's you know, it's like pass over the mountain. You're at like 13,000 feet. I got out at this rest stop. I take a look and take some pictures was gorgeous. But because it was my at 13,000 feet, there was still snow. So I was in sneakers and I fell hard on my left hand. And I just looked down and my left wrist is just bent. It is just so crooked. And I'm just like, I just broke my wrist. I'm alone out of service and I'm in the middle of the mountains. 

Rich Bennett 33:37
So thank you. Your wrist. 

Laura Renner 33:41
Yeah, exactly. No. Well, and there were other people around, and, you know, I could have been like, Hi, I need help. But. But also, again, like, I was so remote that, like, I'm alone. What are they going to do, Leave my car and drive me somewhere? And I don't know. So I was like, I have to get to Telluride. That's the closest. That's where I'm going. And that's also the closest medical center. So of course I have to drive on this million dollar highway again. Beautiful. But there's no guardrails on most of it because they have to be able to push the snow off the side of the mountain. So I'm driving, shaking, no music on in silence, gripping with my right hand just resting my left because it's so painful on this, you know, semis like because there's still snow. Terrifying road. Nope, nope. I make it through. Finally, I'm on normal, normal highways, normal roads. I get pulled over for speeding. 

And it was you know, I know. It's just it's just ridiculous. And so then it's from like the sheriff of this small, you know, jurisdiction town. I it was an area where like the speed limit, you know, drops, you know, there's a lot of snow like Maryland. And yeah, when it drives like 60 to 37 back up is one of those and I'm just shaking and he's like, are you okay? And I'm like, my wrist is broken. And he looks at it and he's and he starts freaking out. He's like, Oh my God, we have to call an ambulance. And I was like, No, I can't because I can't leave my car. I'm alone. And he was like, We have to call an ambulance. And I just start crying. And he's like, okay, I'm not going to call. And it was like, Don't speed. So at this point I have about an hour and a half left in my drive again, just silence. And just like I just I have to get there. I walk in and, you know, Telluride, it's a tiny it's, it's, it's a medical center. It's really small. It's like the size of a large room. And the police officer actually kept saying, don't go to Telluride. You need to go to a bigger hospital, you need to go to a bigger hospital. And so I'm like, I don't have another option. I have to go to Telluride, which ended up being the best possible thing because Telluride, it's a ski town. They are all about ortho injuries. Oh, okay. Perfectly snapped my wrist back into place. I went my I well, I was I was, I was under Propofol. So I don't I don't remember it, but I shattered my I shattered my radius in eight different places. And my ortho doc in Denver had said, I'm shocked that this was reset so well like this, like 90% of the time they had surgery. So my trip my trip was my trip was terrible. Basically, I was in I was in a splint like a brace from my fingertips all the way up to my shoulder. Good Lord, I had to cut myself out of my shirt. 

And then two days later, I got to drive home back to Denver seven and a half hours and deal with that. 

Rich Bennett 36:37
But please tell me nothing else has happened after that. 

Laura Renner 36:41
Not until the brain injury and after after the after my wrist. Nothing happened until the brain injury. 

Rich Bennett 36:47
All right. Which was from the marble in your head? The marble. So nothing else after that? 

Laura Renner 36:52
Nothing else. 

Rich Bennett 36:53
Thank God 

your boyfriend is probably scared as hell to go anywhere with you, is it? 

Laura Renner 37:00
Yeah. Yeah. You know, And of course, I mean, after the brain injury I had a slew of complications. I had a seizure. I had a life threatening one in a million chance medication reaction that can be fatal. Oh, my God. I had. I just. I developed a new brain bleed and is facing another surgery, and that's when I just hit my lowest low, low imaginable, which, you know, having a lifetime of anxiety, intermittent, significant bouts of depression in my life. This was the worst. And I was just like I was having all these sorts of I wish I died after my brain injury. I wish I never went to the hospital. And then thankfully, just one day I had this this just wake up call where I was like, if I don't change my mindset, I am going to die, I am going to die. And that's when I started diving into healing work and mindset work. And that all led me to trauma. And that's really when when I was able to really recognize and identify how much trauma I had experienced. Because prior to that I always just throw bad things happen. I'm just unlucky, you know, whatever. But no, no, no, it was very traumatic things that happened. 

Rich Bennett 38:09
Like to say you're not unlucky. I think somebody has got a freaking voodoo doll of. 

Laura Renner 38:13
Your ass or something. 

Rich Bennett 38:16
So you back like, Okay, here, let's put a pin there. Let's put a pin in there. Oh, my God. 

Laura Renner 38:23
Yeah, but. But you know what? It's it's. And you're not the only person who said that. So many people have said that. But you know what? Like, there's so many people like me who think, oh, bad things happen, it's fine. It's a normalize and we normalize it and we're like, Oh, it's not that bad. But then when you're really laying it out, it's like, yes, it actually was it actually was really terrible and a lot of really terrible things. But yeah. 

Rich Bennett 38:46
All right. So now you change your mindset and I take it actually, what year was it yet that you stopped working at the hospital? 

Laura Renner 38:54
So about six months after June 20, 20 to. 

Rich Bennett 38:58
2022. Okay. So a little over a year now. And now you have it said that you're on another path to help people through everything else that you're doing, Correct. 

Laura Renner 39:13
So really right now, my big focus is getting my story out there to help people because I really want to find, you know, people like me, which there are a lot of people like me who prior to, you know, my brain injury, I was like, I'm fine, but I wasn't fine. Hence the title of my book. No, I'm not fine, thank you. Because I was living with very severe anxiety. I was in a constant, fearful, worrying state, incredibly negative. I was going a million miles an hour overcommitting to my job, needing to be a workaholic. I was constantly in my time off just exclusively living by escapism, needing to be constantly drunk and partying all the time because I just couldn't live with my thoughts and myself. And so this was truly like that hit in the head was truly the wakeup call that I needed to be like, hang on, just because I'm outwardly, you know, seemingly, societally, I have it all. And do I you know, I own a nice home. I have a thriving, great career. I'm doing all the things I'm able to travel and have fun. But I was extremely unwell. Extremely unwell. 

Rich Bennett 40:11
And actually, what is it that you're doing now that you're no longer at the hospital, if you don't mind me. 

Laura Renner 40:16
Asking right now. 

Rich Bennett 40:17
Besides being an entrepreneur, I just love that. 

Laura Renner 40:20
Yes. So. So the author preneur is the big thing right now. Okay. And then the podcast. And actually I am slowly dipping my toes in, getting back into the nick. You really I know it's you know, it was even just probably, you know, three months ago, the thought of I was always like, absolutely not. No chance, No chance. I'll go back, but I'm ready. I think I'm finally ready, not just from a PTSD perspective, because the way I left, you know, was really traumatic. I was forced to go back to early when I still wasn't able to do math. I was struggling to speak. I was having severe TBI symptoms. And I basically was thrown back into this work environment that I thrived in that I was not even able to do, and it jacked me up big time. But So I left in a very unfortunate way where I knew I needed to focus on healing. And I thought, I'm done with nursing because I had no boundaries. I worked more overtime than the 95% of the people on my unit. I was crazy. I just committed to anything and everything and was always available and just completely overdid it. Yeah. And I thought that, you know, that was too unsafe of an environment for me to go back into. But I realized that it's not. I realized that I'm at a point now where I know how to set boundaries. I know how to say no. I know what I want out of this job, and I know what I want to do with my life. And so right now I'm just going back in a one shift a week capacity and I'm really excited. I mean, I miss the babies. I miss you know, I miss the critical thinking elements. I miss I miss being a nurse. There's a lot of things that I miss. And for a while I thought I was just romanticizing it all. Because don't get me wrong, health care is awful right now in a lot of respects to be involved in truly. But there also still are a lot are a lot of great elements to it that I'm excited to get back into. And now that I know my limits and I know I know I can look back and see all these things that I did I don't want to do again and know how to avoid that. Right? And I'm not going to be a Chargers anymore. So I'm excited to get back in in a different capacity and have more balance. 

Rich Bennett 42:24
Good, good. I'm of you. That's awesome. It's great with your healing. You do something. I had a guest on not too long ago that talked about this and I never heard of it. A And correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you're doing it. And if you're telling everybody. Hill that's how it's helping you. The tapping. 

Laura Renner 42:47
Tapping. Oh, my gosh. Yes, tapping. So it's called emotional freedom technique. Or here you have tapping or just tapping. And so it's actually it's considered psychological acupressure because it's based on different acupuncture points and from traditional Chinese medicine and what you do is when you're tapping on these points, so there's different points in your face and your chest, top of your head and your side. When you're tapping on these points, you talk through a script that basically, while you're tapping on these points, what it does is it basically reduces activity in your amygdala, in your brain, and that's what sends out kind of a threat. There's a problem, though, like the sound alarms that set off the stress response in your body. So when you're tapping, it minimizes that. So you're able to talk about emotionally uncomfortable things like anxiety, something you're worried about, sadness. You can even talk about happy things or just wanting to boost your mood, things like that. And so it's incredibly effective when you're having, you know, you're struggling with like for me, I love using it for anxiety. And if I'm really anxious, it's really interesting because a lot of times when you're anxious, you feel like there's no way out. You feel like there's nothing you can do to get out of it. But when I'm tapping, I'm talking through these scripts, which there's a lot of YouTube resources. One of them is Brad. Brad Yates I'm obsessed. I watch all this, all of his videos, and so he will guide you through it. You can just follow along. And as I'm going through, I will just note this, this just very obvious shift in how I'm feeling and everything just feels so much more like, oh, this is manageable, this is okay. And even if I don't feel 100%, you know, reduced down to zero anxiety, I feel better and I feel good enough to know that it's okay. Thank you. Okay. And so I tap almost every day, whether it's about anxiety, just wanting to have a good day, feel good if I have, you know, something coming up that I'm nervous about, I'll talk about that. But tapping has been really instrumental to me. It's very it's something that you can do kind of anywhere. Sometimes I'll do it while driving, even if I'm really stressed, if there's a lot of road rage and it's very effective and there's a lot of research to support it too, which is really cool. 

Rich Bennett 44:59
Yeah, it's something. Who is? Oh, and Hintz is the young lady I had on. She talked about it and it's something I tried doing it one time, but apparently it takes practice. 

Laura Renner 45:11
It does. So it's it's not just practice. It's basically the reason it takes practice is because it takes time for your brain and your nervous system to get on board with feeling those changes, because at first you're like, This is new, I don't get it. And so that's why, like with a lot of nervous system regulation techniques, it's recommended that you start trying it when you're at kind of your baseline. If you try when you're in the middle of a panic attack, it's probably not going to be effective. 

Rich Bennett 45:33
Right. 

Laura Renner 45:33
But if you try doing it, you know, when you're feeling kind of normal ish and then you kind of can notice the difference a little bit more and then your body's like, Oh, this is safe. This is okay to do it. The more you do it, the more effective it is as a way of reducing stress, calming it down and making you feel better. 

Rich Bennett 45:50
Now, it's something else that I mentioned 

in your introduction. Somatic experience. What is that? 

Laura Renner 45:59
Yeah, so somatic experiencing. So it is a type of somatic therapy which is a body based, a body focus therapy. So it was created in the 1970s actually by this stress physiology researcher who was studying stress physiology in animals. And he saw that, you know, after animals, because they're dealing on a daily basis, oftentimes in the wild with predators. Right. You noticed that they weren't they didn't have symptoms of PTSD. They didn't have symptoms of trauma. And what was the difference? And the difference that he found through a lot of research was that animals after they have, you know, these fight or flight responses from fear, from from a predator, they will run around and move their body around to discharge that energy. They'll shake, they'll play. They'll do different things to get this energy out. And so we as humans and, you know, especially just the way society is are taught to hold it together. And so that's why, you know, sometimes you'll see like if if there's a car accident and someone's shaking, that's their bodies way of trying to discharge this energy that's built up from this, you know, primitive means of our brain is trying to tell us fight or flight. It's like, oh, danger. We either need to run or we need to fight back. So you're building up all this adrenaline and all this blood is going to different places in your bodies, in your body to keep you alive. But then when you just sit there and don't do anything, it doesn't just go away. There's you know, there's a book called The Body Keeps the Score. There's a lot of books that and that talk about just how much your body stores trauma. And this is a prime example of that. So the somatic experiencing what happens. You have a trained therapist who will walk you through, you know, they will kind of slowly get you. It's the key is safety here. The key is making your body feel safe. So we'll kind of slowly introduce a topic that, like something traumatic can happen to you. Like for me, like my drowning incident, they would they would be like, what was the weather like that day? And kind of talk about neutral things to kind of get you back to that memory in a neutral, safe way. And then what happens is wild. It's it sounds crazy, but as you've like, if once you experience that, you it really just changes your world. So your body just starts moving in different ways that it needs to release energy. So for me, that's been shaking, flapping my arms, My eyes will move all over the place and your body just starts doing this involuntary movement, which may sound like it would feel scary, but because you've created this really safe environment to release in that your body's never felt safe enough essentially to release and you're able to just discharge all of this stock energy that can often manifest as like tension and and discomfort in your body. And it goes away and it just moves out and it stops. And the feeling afterwards is just indescribable. You feel just this weight lifted off of you. And it's it's just a really unique way to heal trauma without necessarily even having to completely walk through those memories. 

Rich Bennett 48:48
I think the first time I would see that, I would think your hands would have been possessed or something. 

Laura Renner 48:52
Yes. No, exactly. Like, it's weird. And I remember the I remember it when it was being explained to me thinking, this is weird. But but also I knew so much of my trauma was related to things that happened to my body. I knew how much my body was storing and it was crazy. And even with my, you know, childhood abuse situation, I did somatic experiencing with that. And again, you know, my body was just moving in all these ways that it needed to and I just let it happen. And it was incredibly therapeutic, it incredibly relieving and just truly felt like all this pain and trauma that I'd been holding on to was able to finally release. 

Rich Bennett 49:30
I guess because of your love of science when you were back in high school, that's how you found out about this stuff. 

Laura Renner 49:37
Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm a big time nerd. I love researching things and I love I love I love things that are research supported and not saying that everything has to be research supported. But this is something that has a very scientific basis, although it doesn't necessarily sound like it does in a lot of respects, but it's incredibly effective. There's so much research to show how profound it is for PTSD, for trauma, for really just any really painful, significant moments of your past. 

Rich Bennett 50:05
And another thing that's helped you a lot is meditation, correct? 

Laura Renner 50:09
Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, meditation. 

Rich Bennett 50:12
Okay. Because, I mean, that's something I always push, too. I know it it helped me a lot with my anxiety. 

Laura Renner 50:21
Yeah. So, you know, I think I actually started meditating in 2011 and not like you can do it wrong, but I did it wrong. I wasn't really ever able to get out of my head. It took a really long time for me to get out of my head. Okay? Oftentimes I would just get feel too uncomfortable or get too antsy or have too many racing thoughts that I would give up. But after my were having. 

Rich Bennett 50:44
A hard time focusing on one thing. 

Laura Renner 50:47
I was just completely uncomfortable with sitting with myself and sitting with my body like it was just like, No, no, I can't do this. But after my after my brain injury, when I had this new bleed and I was facing potentially another brain surgery and the chances of me coming out of this other brain surgery, as you know, decently as I did, were way slimmer. And I knew I needed to shift something. And I started meditating three times a day. I would listen to healing meditations. I would listen to meditations that were all all about positive like positive mindset had healing sound frequencies. And I would just visualize I was able to get just really calm state and I would just visualize, you know, being told by my neurosurgeon that my bleed, it healed and I didn't need another surgery, that I could speak again, that I could do math again, I could drive again, that I was, that I was fully healed. And I just got in the space where I could fully believe it and see it. And also when you're not when you're when you're at those levels of deep relaxation, your subconscious is much more suggestible. So your subconscious is able to think that that's actual reality. And so all of these things actually ended up happening in my life. I was able to the bleed, I was able to resolve that stuff. I didn't need another surgery. I was able to fully heal my speech, fully able to do math again, except, you know, if don't throw any super complex math problems at me, those are a little more challenging. So I will say. But, you know, for a while I wasn't even able to do basic addition. Wow. And I was able to drive again. I was able to work again. I was able to get back to my self again. And I truly attribute a lot of that to meditation. 

Rich Bennett 52:15
So what are some of the other things that you're doing to help yourself? 

Laura Renner 52:20
So, I mean, I I'm a big experimenter. I love to trial as much as many things as possible. So I've done I mean, so I've done EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. So I've done neurofeedback, which is geared towards basically retraining the electrical activity in your brain to kind of help reduce trauma and anxiety and depression symptoms and a lot and help sleep. There's a lot of there's a lot of other benefits to neurofeedback. I've also done what's called biodynamic cranial psychotherapy, which has some similarities to somatic experiencing. In some respects, it's mostly geared towards regulating your nervous system and showing your body safety. 

And I've also done rapid resolution therapy, which this is super interesting. That's basically a type of therapy that is geared towards uncovering your unconscious mind and getting deeper out of your conscious mind into the way that your body responds to things in a way that you know, you might consider irrational. Like for me, it's been really focused on healing anxiety because I still have a lot of anxiety or had a lot of anxiety especially, but and basically just retraining your brain and your nervous system to respond differently. So my big focuses are really a lot of unconscious work and a lot of nervous system regulation and healing. 

Rich Bennett 53:33
Okay, So with everything because I mean, to me, you're just simply amazing. You're smart as hell. Seriously, have you a you're a writer. I don't want to say writer. You're an author. To me, there is a difference. Have you thought about unless you're doing it already, but writing about all these different things in different books as guidebooks or whatever. 

Laura Renner 53:57
I have, yes. So I've been toying with the idea of another book because I love So one one thing I did in the hospital a lot, actually, I loved education. And one of the things that I think I'm really good at and I've gotten the feedback that I'm good at in that environment is simplifying really complex topics. And so I love teaching about really intense scientific, dense topics and bringing them to a level that's more relatable and understandable because, you know, with a lot of especially books about trauma, they're often written by 

M.D.s and psychologists and people from these really high level scientific worlds, and they're not really written for everyday people, right? And they're often really dense. They're very scientific, which I can appreciate, but not everyone else can. And also a lot. 

Rich Bennett 54:41
By like they wouldn't understand. 

Laura Renner 54:43
But yeah, a lot of that comes kind of, you know, a monotone. Yeah. 

Just storyline and it's not as you know, easy to read because it's not fun to read. And so for me, I really enjoy and that's what I've also love with doing with my podcast is, you know, breaking down concepts that are a little more scientific in ways that are more understandable and relatable. And yes. 

Rich Bennett 55:05
Thank you for doing that. Seriously, because I've listened to some of your episodes already, it's like, Oh, okay, I can understand. 

Laura Renner 55:14
That. I appreciate that because I think it's so important because, you know, if you if you're giving out all this information and people don't understand it, what's the point? Yeah, what's the point? You know, the point is for people to understand it and being able to, you know, decide, you know, ooh, maybe that's something I want to do. Maybe that's something I want to try. But if they don't get it, they're not going to do it. It's not going to resonate with them. So finding that relatability piece, I think is so huge. 

Rich Bennett 55:37
That have you also thought about either teaching or going out and speaking? 

Laura Renner 55:42
Yes. So I did do a speaking event in October where I talked about basically all of these different trauma therapies. So it was a holistic approaches to trauma healing, and I love teaching. So that's my next plan is to pursue speaking, pursue teaching and as many aspects as I can, because that's really where my heart is and what I enjoy doing. 

Rich Bennett 56:03
Good. All right. So the book. No, I'm not fine, thank you, God, I just love it. How long did it actually take you to write that? Because you correct me if I'm wrong, you started writing that while you were going through everything, right? 

Laura Renner 56:17
I did. Okay, Yeah. So I initially started, like, therapeutically writing mostly for journaling. I my short term memory after after my traumatic brain injury and then I also just it's as I was doing that, I started just writing out just how I was feeling and what I was struggling with. And through that I realized, you know, wow, I've got a lot of stuff that could really help people. And so, yes, it was therapeutic, of course, for me. But really I realized I was like this me sharing my story could actually make a significant difference in other people's lives and help them to identify trauma and their mental health struggles and find ways to heal. Because healing can seem like this just constant uphill battle that's unattainable for many, but it's not. And so I started writing actually in June of 2022, when I lost my job. I and I basically just I mean, full time that that book writing process, which at times was I mean, I loved it in a lot of respects, but it was challenging, of course. And so I finished my manuscript in December and I published the following June. And so June of 2023, I published your self-published. 

Rich Bennett 57:28
Correct. 

Laura Renner 57:29
And self-published. 

Rich Bennett 57:30
Okay. Now, as far as the book goes, when was it released? 

Laura Renner 57:34
I'm sorry, June of this last year. 

Rich Bennett 57:36
Okay. 

As far as marketing goes, besides going on podcast, how have you been marketing? The book is a lot of authors. That's the big, especially if they're self-published. The hardest part is the marketing. 

Laura Renner 57:50
1,000%, and especially with someone with zero marketing background, it's been that's been incredibly challenging. So that's really been the bulk of my spent. So it's been on ad creation, it's been on doing things on social media, getting myself out there, getting my book out there, explaining myself, you know, providing for teaching concepts and just kind of talking like this about things that I enjoy that are helpful to people. But I've been just trying to cast kind of this wide net through other people's podcasts, my podcast, social media ads, reaching out to, you know, local articles and magazines, newspapers, getting my book in bookstores. I'm really just kind of spreading myself outward in as many ways as possible to just get my book out there. 

Rich Bennett 58:30
Now, have you contacted any hospitals or I don't know, even public health facilities about it? 

Laura Renner 58:36
Such a great question. No. Okay. And here's why. Here's why. No, no. And that's a great question. It's actually it's actually something that I'm interested in because so much of my journey, especially with my traumatic brain injury, was being and even prior, not listened to or understood by my health care team, I was basically pushed to go back to work when I before I could drive, I had to tell them I wasn't allowed to drive yet and I couldn't do math. I was, you know, when I went back to work, I was wearing noise canceling earplugs and rose colored glasses. They're called aspects to help with light and noise stimulation. And I was still and even just doing like a four hour shift, I was throwing up in trashcans, I was having migraines. I was not ready. But I as a nurse, as someone who's educated in health literacy and the medical field, I still couldn't even advocate for myself in with my neurology team. And so it's really that's another platform that's really important to me. So it is something that I want to do. I'm just finding the best way to tell 

delicately walk that line, I guess, you know, because you kind of, you know, I don't want to come across as 

everything that everyone does is bad. But I have a lot of experiences where, you know, I was so many times, countless times I was in the hospital, I was told by the people taking care of me, Oh, so many bad things that happened to you. I read through your chart and oh my God. And they would ask me questions about things that were completely irrelevant to why I was there. But they just wanted to know. And they're curious, but they didn't presented in that way. They presented it and just this way that I just felt like no one cares about me. Like they just think like they just they don't. They don't care about why I'm here today. They just want to know about this. And so it's really important to me. And so as I'm going back into the hospital setting, I'm exploring different avenues for ways that I can provide education about just, you know, even just simple conversational tools, because there's really minimal in nursing and medical school in pretty much any facet of health care, education, very minimal education about trauma sensitive communication. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:40
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I've talked to a lot of well, the local health department here, one of my sponsors, but I don't think we've ever covered that. 

Laura Renner 1:00:51
No, exactly. And you know what? And for me in the hospital, I mean, we had not in the nine years I was there, very minimal education about trauma and even just I mean, trauma in terms of being trauma informed and providing trauma sensitive care, but also just dealing with the trauma that you're facing as a health care provider. There's very minimal support and very minimal education around that, too. So my goal by getting back in the hospital, yes, of course, getting back into the nick, but also to kind of pursue this avenue because I think there's a gap, there's a need there, and I would love to provide that education. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:22
So how are book sales going for you? 

Laura Renner 1:01:25
So they've been they've been decent. I mean, it's kind of been just slowly, slowly trending in the right direction as I kind of get myself further out outward and right, keep kind of doing more things and getting more exposure. It's been definitely going upward. But is it a fully sustainable career right now? No, but but that's the goal. I mean, the goal is to I mean, not just exclusively use the book, but use the book to also provide, you know, other education and get my foot in the door with speaking with education and with teaching with all these different avenues. So basically using the book as kind of a stepping stone to do more. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:59
Well, the good thing is you're a writer and there's a ton of things that you can write about, you know, just from your life experiences. I mean, God, just a shattered risk can be a whole freaking story. 

Laura Renner 1:02:12
I mean, I know, you know, I'm I'm someone who I like. I like things to be very succinct. So I didn't want to have, you know, a 500 page book where I go through every single thing. That's why I said I want to just, you know, hit the highlights. But but no, absolutely. There's definitely a lot more that I have to talk about. And yeah, and in many different ways. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:31
So something very important. Everybody, those of you that are listening, when you buy Lara's book, which actually you can actually watch your website tell everybody your website so they can get your book. I'm sorry. 

Laura Renner 1:02:42
Absolutely. Yes. So my website, it's my first and last name, Laura Renner. So, Ellie, you are a r, e, and E brought me am E, and on my website you can buy a copy of my book. I also have actually this what I call the Beginner's Guide to Trauma Healing. And that's free. And so that's just kind of my ultimate resource guide where I give, you know, some of that like, like Brad hits the YouTube channel that I was talking about. I have some meditation channels that I like a lot of free resources and a lot more information about pursuing different therapies and where to find therapists. I also have my podcast information on there as well. And yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:15
So those of you listening, when you buy her book are you will you better I'm going to come hunt you down if you don't make sure you leave a full review because that's going to help. Laura So even more books and trust me, you're going to love it when you read it anyways. So healing hashtag nofilter. Why did you decide to start a podcast? 

Laura Renner 1:03:39
So I, I just felt like I had so much more information I wanted to give because, you know, when I wrote the book, this was about my, you know, basically my yearlong experience diving into trauma healing. But that's how that hasn't stopped. So my book ends in around the time that I stopped writing was around December of 2020, too. But ever since then, I haven't stopped. I've, you know, I've learned so much more about, you know, trauma healing and general nervous system healing, anxiety, a lot of different tools and tactics and strategies, a lot more mindset work and things like that. So I just felt like I still have a lot more to share that I'm learning. And also this is another way outside of the book to kind of build on that, where I'm also giving my experiences in an unfiltered way where, you know, I speak conversationally like I do myself. I will say there's a fair amount of cursing that I've limited today, but I, you know, I want it to just be very authentically me. But I also want to talk about my experiences to people now. Okay. Which not to say my experience would be someone else's, because I think this is all incredibly individualized. And so that's why I want to share my experiences and the different tools and therapies that I've used. Because when you hear and learn more about what other people use, you can be like, Ooh, that sounds good for me. Or No, that doesn't sound like that. That fits me. But the more exposure that you get and I'm not saying, you know, not everyone's a researcher, I'm a researcher. I love doing it, but that's not for everyone. But so my podcasts are short and quick. They're anywhere from like 15 to 20 minutes mostly. And I go through a bunch of different topics, a bunch of different therapies, a bunch of different strategies and tools that I like to use. And I provide my experience. I provide the science behind it and give people resources from there. So I feel like that's another way to just kind of provide that help and experience that I have knowledge that I have to other people. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:23
And yours is strictly audio, right? 

Laura Renner 1:05:26
It's strictly audio, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:27
Okay. Those of you listening, check it out. You can find it on good pods. Spotify, I'm sure it's everywhere. 

Laura Renner 1:05:36
The all the. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:37
Places. Yes. Yeah. Healing hashtag no filter. Start with the first episode. Seriously, you have to start with the first episode because that's when Laura tells you basically how all of this came about and why she's doing it. And trust me, okay, you're good. You're going to love it. You're probably it may make you cry. It's probably going to make you laugh. It's probably you're probably going to sit back and say, What the hell did you. 

Laura Renner 1:06:05
Just. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:08
You know, sit back with a Guinness and enjoy it? 

Laura Renner 1:06:12
Yeah, I 100% agree. Yes. And, you know, that was that was exactly you know, that was what I wanted my book and my podcast to be like. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:19
Like a Guinness. 

Laura Renner 1:06:21
Well, sure, I guess, you know, but more like I wanted it. Of course. You know, we're talking about trauma. It's going to be heavy. There's going to be parts that are dark and sad and and make you want to make you want to close and close the book. I completely understand that. But I also wanted to fill it with humor and lightness to make it more easy to digest and something that you're like, okay, I do. I do want to hear this. I do want to get through it. It's not like this is triggering or making things worse for me. I wanted it to be something that it's like, Oh, wow. Like, yes, she's been through a lot of bad stuff, but also like, look at what she can turn that into. Maybe I can do this for me, too, because you absolutely can. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:55
Well, see. And that's the thing that I you know, just from talking to you today. Yeah, you've been through a lot of bad stuff. Bad stuff. You've been through a lot of shit, period. A lot of stuff. But Just from what I've gotten from you, I you put off such a positive vibe. And if I'm feeling that here I am in Maryland, you're in Colorado, You know, I know everybody else that's around you feels that to the point where your boyfriend probably has no problem walking next to 

but not seriously because you have so much to offer. You're talking about it, which is something a lot of people are afraid to do. I think for podcast, because you're seeing more and more people come out and start talking about, you know, their trauma, whether it be from childhood on up or even just certain things. And you're doing that and you have so much to offer. And I want to thank you for that. And I'm going to get to tap in tonight. I'm going to try it. 

Laura Renner 1:07:59
Yeah, do it. I'll go find Brandy. It's on YouTube. I can send you this info, but. But no, but thank you. Thank you so much. I do appreciate that. Because don't get me wrong, it was terrifying at times to be like, wow, I am laying it all out there for my friends, my family, strangers, anyone who wants you to read. But also that was empowering. I was like, you know what? Like these aren't things that if people want to judge me for it, whatever, like, screw that doesn't matter. But really the intent is to help. The intent is to show, you know, like I had I talk about a lot in the book, my very intense, critical parts of myself, my very low self-worth, a lot of really deep, dark self-loathing thoughts that I experienced for most of my life. And a lot of other people, unfortunately share that. But we don't talk about it. Yeah, you need to start talking about it and providing more visibility and awareness so that we all are more comfortable talking about it because otherwise just going to continue holding it all inside like I did and like many of us do, and letting it eat at us in different ways and just pretending that, Oh, it's not there, I can ignore it. But that doesn't mean it's going away, that doesn't mean it's not impacting you. So by having more of these discussions like this, it really brings that exposure that really is needed. 

Rich Bennett 1:09:07
Also helps with your mental health. 

Laura Renner 1:09:09
100%. And I love that you say I'm positive because I used to be the most negative human ever. 

Rich Bennett 1:09:15
I was the same way, in all honesty, I was the same exact way. And I've said it several times, but when I saw the movie and read the book, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, that You can change my life. And one of the reasons I started my website Hard for Candy Living was strictly because I wanted good, positive news. I don't even watch the news. Yeah, you know, Now granted, do we talk about negative things on the podcast? Yeah, but all those negative things we talk about have a positive ending. Yeah, you're, you're a prime example of that. So something I like. Well, before I ask you my last question, is there anything you would like to add? 

Laura Renner 1:10:01
No. I mean, I feel like you asked a lot of great questions. We covered a lot, actually. No, I will say it's funny because I had a thought when you brought up the secret. I love that that was your reaction because mine was the absolute opposite. Mine was, This is crap. I don't believe this. This. It just I was not ready to hear it. And I think that that's really important because sometimes you're really just not ready to hear something, to experience something. And that and that's something that I feel like is really important also with healing and with therapy, you might not always be ready for something, right? And so when you kind of have that resistance and you don't agree, that's okay, you might circle back because now I mean, I've completely, fully accepted positivity and you know, your thoughts impact your reality as a part of my being. If you would told me that even two years ago, it would have been like, hell, no, no way am I going to be this person. But I think it's really important to keep an open mind, but also recognize that if you are feeling that, you know resistance, you're not ready for something, that's okay. That doesn't mean that you be. 

Rich Bennett 1:10:59
Eventually it may come around and I can attest to that because I gave my daughter the daughter the book The Secret to read. She didn't even get through the first chapter because she said was too negative. So. Huh. 

Okay. Which just tells me she's not not ready. 

Laura Renner 1:11:16
Yet for it. And you can't force that on someone. They have to get to know themselves. And that's that's key. 

Rich Bennett 1:11:20
Absolutely. So something that I like to ask all of my guests, are you do you even know how many podcasts you've been on so far? How many interviews you've done interviews? 

Laura Renner 1:11:33
I've done about 15 or 16, but I think only about nine are currently out there. Or maybe ten. 

Rich Bennett 1:11:40
Really? Only 15 or 16? 

Laura Renner 1:11:43
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:11:43
Oh, you got a hello. Yeah, you know, and a lot more. 

Laura Renner 1:11:47
I know that's, that's the plan. 

Rich Bennett 1:11:48
I actually check out. I think it's new new books network dotcom So sorry Adam from pod manager putting this out there but still no new books network dot com. The guy that owns it is Marshall Poe and it's filled with a ton of podcast. Find one that's in your niche for your book and pitch it to the host because they get it I mean a lot of listeners awesome and they're always looking for authors that release books to come pitch on. So anyways, all these 15 to 16 interviews that you've been on, is there anything a host has never asked you that you wish they would have asked you? And if so, what that question be and what would be your answer? 

Laura Renner 1:12:40
That's a great question. You know, 

I've gotten a lot of questions. I think really the only the only areas that I haven't gotten questions and this has been probably just because my I've had minimal questions, I'll say around and that's just probably because of I have minimal emphasis on it. And my book is about my marriage and divorce. And that's because I just wasn't really ready to talk. I didn't want that to be the focal point of my book. I really wanted to focus on all the all the other stuff. But that was also something that was really significantly traumatic. That was, you know, eight years of my life where I was emotionally tormented in a lot of respects. And it was just kind of a slow chipping away where it didn't start that way, of course, as it does for many relationships that are, you know, emotionally abusive and but it really just completely controlled and and tormented and controlled my life in a lot of respects. And I lost a lot of my identity. And that's definitely something that I do want to shed more light on because I know a lot more people struggle with that as well. And Breaking free from that, I mean, I'm just even before the brain injury and all of that stuff, it turned me into a completely different person for the better. And so I think that's definitely something that I want to also bring more awareness to and talk about more because it's it's important. 

Rich Bennett 1:13:58
Well, you know what that means, right? 

Laura Renner 1:14:00
Let's talk about it. 

Rich Bennett 1:14:01
Yeah. Yeah, I think in all honesty, you know what? And actually I, I want to do another episode about that and I'll have one of my co-host and I know who to get on for that one. Come on and talk about it with you. Because yeah, in all honesty, that's I don't think that story really, really talked about because lot of people don't like to talk about that. They'll just say, Yeah, I was in a bad marriage and now I'm divorced, right? That's it. But they don't talk about why and I is something that needs to be discussed because in all honesty, I think sometimes people rush into marriage. They don't really know the person that they're marrying. 

And people change no matter what. People change, whether it be for the good or for the bad, but they change. So, yeah, well 

yeah, we definitely have to do it. Well, you just let me know when you're ready and we'll get we'll get it scheduled and do it. I think in all honesty, I think it is definitely something that we need to discuss. So, Laura, I want to thank you so much. And you thank you for everything that you've done. And thank you for everything that you're doing. Keep up the awesome work and tell your boyfriend it's okay. Yeah, he actually are. Are you back to snowboarding? 

Laura Renner 1:15:30
No, no, that's something I think I think is is in my past, and I'm okay with that. Okay. My boyfriend skis when I go to the mountains. I like to just sit in the hot springs and. And have some wine. I'm pretty content with that. 

Rich Bennett 1:15:42
So I don't blame you know. Yeah, I think I did ski and one time I never won snowboard. Well, snowboarding on a flat area that doesn't count. So give me a sled. I'm okay. 

Laura Renner 1:15:57
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:15:58
Although if my luck, I'd be like Clark Griswold and, you know, put too much stuff on that saucer. Take off like a bullet out a hill or something. 

Laura, thanks so much. 

Laura Renner 1:16:10
Thank you so much, Rich. I appreciate it.