The Courage of Self-care & Intentional Living

By CB Bowman-Ottomanelli MCEC, BCC, CMC, CVF, CVP

“It was so freeing. She released me to do what I really wanted to do. And so, I pursued what I really wanted to do because I was passionate about itthem instead of trying to bottle myself into being a good little mom and wife.” – Marva Sadler

I spoke with Marva Sadler, MBA, TOC Jonah, and COO of the Programs & Events Division at Coaching.com.

We discuss:

● Marva’s upbringing and how her mother set her free

● Navigating genetic mental health conditions

● Combating a traumatic brain injury and COVID

Marva’s upbringing and how her mother set her free

Marva grew up as the sixth child in a Mormon family of eight children, with none of her siblings in her age group.

“I grew up all by myself. My next older sister was five years older than I was, and my next younger sister was six years younger than me. I was this little island in the middle of an ocean of children.” Marva shares.

When adrift in all the hustle and bustle of a large family, you learn to fend for yourself, and independence is a close friend at a young age. Marva knows this intimately.

One morning as her mother was loading her up to take her to her babysitter like any other day—her father was very ill at this time, and her mother worked—Marva escaped the car without her mother noticing. This event led to her arm being run over and breaking.

“I ended up with a cast on my arm, so I got to stay home from the babysitter for a couple of days.” Marva explains, “When I went back to the babysitter—the person who was my nemesis, he would beat up on me—I must have understood that revenge is best-served cold because I waited till that cast got hard, and my arm got better. He would try to bother me, and I would whack him up the side of the head with that cast until he quit beating up on me.”

That is only one example of how she learned to solve her own problems from a young age and discovered the impact of taking action.

If we zoom out to her later years as an early teen, we find a stubborn and determined young woman set to reckon with the cards she’s been dealt. Her mother sat her down one day and gave her a talk that Marva would remember for the rest of her life.

“She said to me, ‘Marva, you are too ornery and bad-tempered for anybody to want to marry you. You will need some skills because you will have to support yourself—your father and I will not support you. I am enrolling you in a business machines class for the summer so that you can learn to type and program.'” Marva shares.

What seems like harsh criticism of a minor, let alone from a mother to a daughter, proved the key to unlocking Marva’s ambitions and freeing her from the restrictive timeline of wife and mother.

“It was so freeing. She released me to do what I really wanted to do. And so I pursued things I really wanted to do because I was passionate about them instead of trying to bottle myself into being a good little mom and wife.” Marva says, “I’m not sure she realized she was giving me a gift. But it was a gift all the same.”

Navigating genetic mental health conditions

As Marva grew into herself, explored her interests, and built a family on her own time, she learned more and more about what makes her tick and the genetic background of her family: with the tendency of depression among her siblings, she took matters into her own hands.

“Knowing that I have this tendency has been extremely helpful to me so that when I have moments of feeling depressed, I use my other skill sets, which are about driving for answers, and organizing my thoughts and so forth.” Marva shares, “I use those skill sets to remind myself this is something I’m going to battle with all the time, but it doesn’t mean I’m a failure, it means this is a tendency that you need to find ways to cope with.”

The difference between introversion and depression

Marva is a textbook introvert. However, she has learned to recognize the differences between a depressive episode and the need for alone time.

“It feels different. If it’s introversion, and I need to withdraw and recharge my batteries, that is a calm feeling.” Marva explains.

Introversion for Marva means being content by herself, reading, cooking, and watching a favorite show, all with enjoyment and peace. Whereas with depression, she can’t drive herself to do any of those things, let alone enjoy them.

“It’s the calm and the love of what I’m doing versus I’m doing it out of frustration, and I’m not enjoying it, or I can’t bring myself to do it.” Marva shares.

Combating a traumatic brain injury and COVID

Alongside her vigilance with her mental health, Marva suffered a traumatic brain injury after being rear-ended on the freeway by a driver who had not noticed the stopped traffic.

“I walked away from it, but my car was totaled. I thought I was okay.” She explains, “But what happened was I hit my head really hard on the headrest, and I ended up with a traumatic brain injury that wasn’t diagnosed for a few weeks.”

She kept trying to work as her condition worsened until she relented and saw a neurologist, a chiropractor, a physical therapist, a vision therapist, and a traumatic brain injury psychologist.

“I was losing my ability to think in any kind of pattern that made sense.” she shares, “I was at the point where I could not make a list of three things in my brain, I would get to number three, and my brain would start to stutter and repeat.”

Loud noises and bright lights would trigger screaming headaches, and work became a battlefield. As Marva sought treatment and made optimistic progress, she began to see improvements, only to test positive for COVID and lose it all again.

“What came out of that was a real clear intentionality about how I have to take care of myself,” Marva says, “I’ve found things that work for me.”

Among those efforts are:

● Frequent meditation

● Walking in nature for at least 20 minutes daily

● Listening to calming music

● Speaking calmly and deliberately

“I have learned to recognize my limits. It has taken a great deal of discipline to get to the point where I recognize the signal and go, ‘okay, I need to take a break now.’ If I’m at work, if I need to take a break, I’ll be gone for 30 minutes, and I will lie down and reset my brain and come back.”

After decades of pushing herself beyond her limits and soldiering on using that hard-won independence, Marva is listening to her body and doing things differently while recognizing that taking care of oneself does not equal failure.