Live the Passionate Life: (And Quit Settling for Survival)!

By Shane Nicolich

If you need motivation to break out of that cage and live an energized, fully-engaged life, THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU!
This is my story about surviving a traumatic brain injury (and being comatose for a couple of months), practicing alcoholism and drug addiction for four years, being in numerous accidents through the years and now living with multiple sclerosis. I also give you, the reader, a glimpse into how I stay motivated and inspired to endure this life with a smile on my face! Shane Nicolich
Not only does he give you a look at his life, but he shares with you the tools that enable him to keep moving forward and living THE PASSIONATE LIFE!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Aug 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504362641

Shane Nicolich

Shane is married and lives in Washington State, not too far from Mt. Rainier (his favorite place to go hiking). He and his wife have no children but they do have a few pets: four cats, two dogs (a wire-haired terrier and a Papillon), three bearded dragons and a betta fish. One may think that they cannot do things in life simply because they allow their fears and doubts to rule the day. Shane thought along those lines for a long time, but now he is living THE PASSIONATE LIFE! Despite a traumatic brain injury (and the resulting 2-1/2 month-long coma), becoming an alcoholic/drug addict, numerous accidents, homelessness, joblessness and now multiple sclerosis, Shane now wants to inspire and motivate people to keep moving forward and living THE PASSIONATE LIFE instead of just surviving.

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Copyright © 2016 Shane Nicolich.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-6263-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-6265-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-6264-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016911976

Balboa Press rev. date: 08/10/2016

CONTENTS

Gratitude List

1

Bibliography

This is my story about surviving a traumatic brain injury (and being comatose for a couple of months), practicing alcoholism and drug addiction for four years, being in numerous accidents through the years and now living with multiple sclerosis. I also give you, the reader, a glimpse into how I stay motivated and inspired to endure this life with a smile on my face!

Gratitude List

RATHER THAN HAVING A Dedication page at the beginning of my book, I opted to go with a Gratitude List. Seriously speaking, I feel that there are far too many people to list if I was to dedicate my book. I did not get to this point in my life purely by my own doing. I am EXTREMELY GRATEFUL to every person that has had a part in my story. If it were not for each person playing a particular part at a particular time, I may not be in the here and now. I may have ended up somewhere else, or my story may have ended earlier. I am most grateful to my Higher Power, whom I choose to call God, for having His Plan carried out (regardless of my deviations from the obviously right way at times). Apparently, He wanted me to stick around for some reason. I have been shown that it is my purpose to share my story with others so that they may become inspired and/or motivated to keep going on this Journey of Life and to continue becoming better people. I will be forever grateful to my parents for bringing me into this world and doing their best to keep me going, even when circumstances and/or my screwed up mind wanted to end the story. I am grateful to each and every one of my family members, no matter the relation. Whether it is by blood, marriage, adoption or whatever the connection is, we are all family in the end anyway! I am grateful that I began drinking and doing drugs so soon in life (strange as that may sound), else I may have never been granted the Gift of Sobriety before the end of my story. I am grateful for my beautiful wife, whom I love with my entire heart and whom puts up with me on a daily basis. I am grateful for the ability to drive a car so I can get places faster, even though riding my bicycle everywhere I went was more conducive to a healthy lifestyle, and more eco-friendly, at that. I am grateful for the roof over our heads, because I know from experience that cold sidewalks are not very comfortable. I am grateful for our pets (two dogs, four cats, three bearded dragons and a betta fish), for they are our kids, as we are planning on having no children of our own. I am ever so grateful to all of the medical professionals who have helped me heal throughout the years. I am grateful for my friends in the 12-step recovery programs that have shown me the way over the past twenty-four years. I am grateful for my fellow MS’ers, as they help me to live with multiple sclerosis in a much more graceful way than is the alternative. I am grateful for my coworkers who showed enthusiasm for my writing a book, especially The Cuatro Amigas, with whom I work in the kitchen at the restaurant where I am employed. When it comes down to it, I am grateful for EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY in my life, from birth until now, for the simple fact that ALL of it had a part in who I am today! THANK YOU!!! With that, it’s ON WITH THE SHOW!

1

I WAS GOING TO start my first book with a long, detailed autobiography. I have decided to keep it short, since that is not the primary reason I wanted to write a book. I ran across this quote a while back: To be inspired is great. To inspire is incredible! THAT is why I want to write a book. I want to inspire others to greatness, to strive to carry on and be better than our circumstances may seemingly dictate us to be. I have read books by, and watched videos of, great motivators/inspirational speakers such as Brendon Burchard, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, and Tony Robbins. There are probably more I could list, but my point is that I have been inspired by these people to keep moving forward, and now it is my turn to do the inspiring.

Life has tried to put me down (and keep me there) so many times but I just keep getting back up and moving forward. Sometimes, it was a downfall brought about by my own bad decision-making about how to play the hand I was dealt. Other times, I was simply dealt a bad hand. After all I have been through, it is obvious to me that God has a plan for me. At forty years old, I still have no clue exactly what the precise plan is. I may never know the full details of it, but I am just going to keep moving forward in a positive direction and maybe I will discover the full itinerary of what I was born to do.

When I have shared bits and pieces of my story with people through the years, I have been told I am inspiring. I have thought a few times about putting my story in print, but haven’t done so yet. A couple of years ago, a young woman began working as a server at the restaurant where I was washing dishes. Regardless of the positive facade I was showing the world at the time, I was in one of my Eeyore states of mind and had been for a while (Woe is me. I am never going to amount to amount to anything. Life sucks and then you die.). The new server had this positive vibe/aura about her that I latched onto. I awoke one morning and thought, Why am I in such a dark state of negativity? Screw that noise! I have so very much to be grateful for! Negativity, exit stage left. Let the good times roll! I made a gratitude list and once again came to the realization that while my life may not be what I’d like it to be at any particular point in time, I am still alive and not six feet under as of yet. So why not be grateful and positive? Some days, my mind seems to be all about negative thinking but I simply need to think about the things I am grateful for and the negative thinking melts away.

I still wash dishes at the same restaurant and I’m sitting at home on my day off, not wanting to give in to negative thinking and limited beliefs. Instead, I am going to focus on POSITIVE thinking and UNLIMITED beliefs! I may have limitations, between having multiple sclerosis and the residual effects of a traumatic brain injury I suffered at the age of 11, but I can choose to sit here and focus on what I CAN’T do or I can focus on that which I CAN do! FOCUS is where it’s at for me. Today, I choose to focus on being positive and productive!

I have never written a book before. I only know that I have been inspired to inspire and since I have been told that I am inspirational, I have decided to put in print what people say is inspiring so that I can inspire more people. If you followed that and you’re still with me, kudos to you! I thank you for opening this book, and my hope is that when you finish reading, you thank YOURSELF!

I DO WANT TO give you an overview of what my life has been like up to this point so you have a general idea of who I am, quite possibly why I am the way that I am. So here’s a glimpse, a little bit of an overview, of my life:

I was born at 6:52 AM on the Eighth of July, 1975, in Enumclaw, Washington. Enumclaw is a small suburb which sits on a plateau, right at the base of the Cascade Mountains, with Mount Rainier about an hour’s drive away. The name of the city is a Pacific Northwest Native American word which was a mythological spirit of thunder. Some say that the name of the town means, home of evil spirits, referring to either thunder and storms in the mountains to the east, or high winds blowing through the foothills of the Cascades. (I have always been interested in the history of places.) At any rate, now that I’ve started giving a history lesson instead of telling a bit about my own life, you get a glimpse of how my brain seems to be wired differently at times. Oh well. Consider the history lesson a bonus.

My parents dropped out of high school when I was conceived, as Mom could not be pregnant and go to school (they were really picky about that back then) and Dad had a son to support so he began working full-time. A few months later, my parents having been married for a few months and finding it not working out too well, I was dropped off at my grandparents’ house to live, as that was the best place for me at the time. I lived with them, my grandparents on my dad’s side, until I was three. At that time, I was moved back in at my dad’s house as he and my mom were divorced a short time after I began living with my grandparents, and dad now had a girlfriend living with him and she could care for me while he was away at work. They got married when I was four, at which wedding I was the ring bearer, and we moved to the neighboring town of Black Diamond shortly after. I went to kindergarten there in Black Diamond. When the school tested me before the school year started, they said they thought I should have started in first grade but my parents thought I should stick with kids my own age. (On a side-note, I was fluently reading the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer at the age of three.). My dad was, and still is, in the powerline-construction trade so his job moves around a lot. The union he belongs to is the I.B.E.W., which abbreviation its members explain as I’ve Been Every Where, when it actually stands for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He was transferred to a job up north, so we moved to Everett after the school year and I attended first grade at Madison Elementary. I don’t recall why, but we moved to a duplex a few blocks away the next summer. There was a huge weeping willow tree in the back yard and I began my interest in tree-forts. My dad even built me a log-tent fort on the side of the duplex, which I named Fort Comanche. We lived there for about three-and-a-half years, during which time I was in the gifted program at View Ridge Elementary for second through the middle of fifth grade. I do believe I was in the fourth grade when my little brother, Travis, was born on January Seventh, 1985. I was so happy to have a baby brother. At any rate, we moved back to Enumclaw and stayed with some family members for the remainder of fifth grade. I finished out fifth grade at Southwood Elementary there in The ‘Claw. As soon as the school year ended, we moved again, for what would hopefully be the last time, since my parents decided to buy a house over by Lake Tapps. Everything was going great in the new house, figuring I had made three new friends as soon as we moved into the neighborhood. We even had a little party on my birthday. My new friends and I were together all of the time, riding our bikes in the streets, playing video games or climbing trees in the greenbelt between our houses.

Six days later, the good times came to an end. On July 14, 1986, my step-mom was trying to clean the house and was still working on getting everything unpacked. I was being your average 11-year-old boy, being rambunctious and causing her to not be able to focus her attention on what she was trying to do and take care of Travis, too. She gave me the last piece of my birthday cake and told me that when I was done eating it, to go outside and play. I went straight to the greenbelt and started climbing trees with my buddies, as we were searching for the perfect spot to build a tree fort. The next thing I knew, I was coming to, lying in a bed at Orchard Park Nursing Home in Tacoma, on September 9, nearly two months later. I asked my nurse where my parents were. She called them and they rushed right down to see me. I forget who told me, but I found out that I had fallen from a tree and had been comatose. I am not sure how hard it was to hear what I was saying at that time, since a tracheotomy had been performed on me right after the fall and I still had the tube in my throat, but I was somehow being understood. My stepmom had worked as a secretary and knew that I had also worked with typewriters and computers, so she drew up a keyboard and printed out a few basic words on a piece of paper and put a clear plastic cover on it. This enabled me to communicate by pointing at a piece of paper