When The Spin first reached out to SCI BC peer Mike Shaw to learn more about his journey with SCI, he had already been on a run, given a CBC interview, and made breakfast—and it was only 9:30 am. As an ex-professional freestyle skier and coach, Shaw is used to busy, challenging days and his schedule on this particular day is reflective of the goal-oriented and value-based approach he now brings to his work as a certified counsellor and living life to the fullest with an SCI.
In December 2013, Shaw was coaching athletes on the Canadian Development Half Pipe ski team at a World Cup competition in Denver, Colorado when a routine jump resulted in an SCI. “It was a trick I’d done a thousand times,” Shaw describes. “I knew the snow wasn’t quite right but I ignored my gut instinct and performed the trick. When I landed, my body pitched forward and my feet came over top of me, like a scorpion tail.”
In the moments following Shaw’s accident, ski patrol and emergency personnel responded quickly. He underwent medical imaging and had a catheter placed even before leaving the ski hill. It was soon confirmed that he had dislocated his neck at the C4-5 vertebrae and sustained a fracture at C6. By midnight, he was in surgery.
“The doctor described it to me like my spinal cord was in a barroom brawl, not a knife fight,” he says. “My spinal cord was displaced, but my bones had not splintered around it. Still, it wasn’t pretty.”
Shaw knew how fortunate he was to have been injured while under insurance coverage through his work and to have such immediate medical attention. At the same time, he also understood that luck would only get him so far. “When the spinal specialist in Denver said that I should prepare myself to never walk again, I left the door of opportunity open in my mind, even if it was just a small crack, that one day I might walk again. I didn’t eliminate that possibility.”
Unknowingly, this early combination of luck and dogged determination within the first few hours of his injury would come to define his recovery in the years ahead.
After two weeks in intensive care in Colorado, Shaw was transported via air ambulance to Vancouver where he spent a week at VGH and then went to G.F. Strong. “This is where gratitude started to enter the picture,” he says. “The first thing I could feel in my body was emotions. I couldn’t feel my legs or arms. But emotions like gratitude felt warm, and things like despair and grief and guilt and loss felt cold or dark.”
Prior to his injury, Shaw wasn’t overly familiar with mental health practices or any therapeutic strategies, but he quickly recognized the impact of his feelings and leaned into a positive mindset. “I ended up purposely and intentionally focusing on the gifts in my situation. Fortunately, because I was experiencing some healing, I had reasons to feel thankful. But I think there’s a reason for anyone to feel thankful, even if you’re regaining a small form or part of your independence in whatever way that looks like to you.”
Whether it was being able to lift his hand high enough to touch his face or eventually transfer out of bed, Shaw looked for and celebrated every little achievement and credits the practice of gratitude as a critical part of his healing. Three weeks after his accident, he had enough strength to hold a toothbrush and, with the help of his mom and a nurse, was able to brush his teeth. “I used my tongue to move the toothbrush around to each tooth, because I didn’t have wrist dexterity and I ended up crying. I was so happy that I could do one part. It wasn’t even all on my own, but I had some of my independence and dignity back and I was so thankful.”
Another contributing factor in Shaw’s initial few weeks of recovery was peer connection. As a young skier, Shaw was coached by Josh Dueck, an accomplished freestyle skier, Paralympian, and former SCI BC Peer Program Coordinator. The two remained close throughout Shaw’s skiing career and Dueck was one of the first people Shaw called after his injury. “He didn’t sugar coat it. He told me, ‘Welcome to the spinal cord injury club’. No one wants an invitation to the SCI club and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. It’s devastating. There’s no question about that. But he also said something like, ‘Trust me—although it doesn’t feel like a gift right now, there will be gifts that can come from this and they’ll reveal themselves over time.”
Over the next few months, Shaw kept Dueck’s words in mind and began to look for silver linings during his painful recovery. He eventually regained the ability to walk and left G.F. Strong on his feet on the day of his discharge.
Within a year, he was back on the mountains in a sit ski (following the exact same timeline Dueck had taken to return to the slopes) and looking for new challenges.
Shaw acknowledges he’s been extremely lucky. “I was very fortunate in that I had a chance… I had a mechanism of injury that could recover and I know that’s not the case for everyone.” This recognition is something he grapples with everyday and it has proven to be one of the most challenging facets of his recovery, both in his personal and professional life. “Most of the time, people don’t know [about my SCI],” he explains. “But my skin on the lower half of my body is still numb to soft touch. I feel pain and I can feel pressure, but there’s been some pretty awkward games of footsie under the table. I don’t have great proprioception. I lose my balance up to 50 times a day or more.” As Shaw describes, oftentimes our identity is linked to our abilities or what we can and cannot do. For people in the ambulatory SCI community, this can be especially challenging because their disability doesn’t fit neatly into a category of ‘can’ or ‘cannot’.
“Most people associate SCI and paralysis with a wheelchair. So, if you’re striving to live your life without a wheelchair, it can be hard because you don’t look injured. If you use a cane or a walker, people may not understand that it’s because you have an SCI and it’s difficult not being recognized for that or feeling like you don’t belong with the broader SCI community,” he says. “Even though I look fully healed to the untrained eye, I know there’s a zero percent chance I could go and play a good game of pickup soccer or go play basketball with my friends and keep up with them. So for me, it’s a bit of a tug of war.”
In 2023, Shaw earned his Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology and now works as a clinical counsellor with his own practice, Gratus Health (“Gratus” is a Latin word meaning grateful or thankful). His experience with SCI directly informs his therapeutic work, offering both valuable insight and unique challenges. “It’s one of the most difficult things for me when working with the spinal cord community. I am very sensitive to people’s experience and honour their view of the world,” he explains. “You’re the only person in the world who knows what you’re physically, mentally, or emotionally capable of and I believe that you can do as much as you think you can do. Some people don’t see themselves getting better. I have to honour where they’re at while also moving them towards reflection and living a full life… those things don’t always align at first.” Through his counselling work, however, Shaw hopes to equip people with the tools to eventually bring those pieces together.
Shaw conducted a series of monthly workshops for SCI BC’s ambulatory community in January to March of this year. In April, he delivered a workshop to SCI BC’s Peer Program staff that discussed the feedback and findings from the workshop series, focusing on concepts of identity, goal setting, self-care, mental health, grief, and comparison through the lens of ambulatory peers.
The main takeaways of the presentation included the importance of setting value-based goals tied to personal meaning rather than relying solely on your willpower to accomplish them.
Shaw explains that using a structured framework that moves from a long-term vision to daily behaviors, alongside narrative goal setting, can help create emotionally resonant goals and encourages progress aligned with one’s values. Self-care is also an important part of accomplishing our goals and nurturing our well-being. When we’re feeling “off”, we can focus on the seven pillars of self-care: health literacy, mental well-being, physical activity, nutrition, risk avoidance, hygiene, and rational health service use.
Having self-compassion for ourselves and practising healthy boundary setting are ways we can show up for ourselves while navigating challenges.
In regard to identity and the ambulatory SCI community, Shaw encourages peers to focus on enduring personal qualities like resilience, kindness, or humour rather than limiting yourself to labels or roles. “We unintentionally give our actions and labels, like job titles, the permission to take up a really strong foothold in our identity. But that’s not actually who we are. My definition for identity is, it’s who you are in all situations. The things that are with you no matter what’s going on; your core values, your moral fibre, your personality traits,” he says.
SCI peer and clinical counsellor Mike Shaw shares three pieces of advice for practicing daily gratitude.
Use Gratitude Triggers: “A gratitude trigger is a specific moment, action, or object that’s part of your daily life that can prompt feelings of gratitude. It could be a cup of coffee in the morning or anything that you’re sincerely thankful for. The first time I noticed getting triggered with gratitude occurred when I started transferring in and out of bed independently. It didn’t matter which side of the bed I got out of—boom—gratitude triggered!”
End Your Day with Gratitude: “Finishing your day with thankfulness can turn bad days into good days. While I’m well aware some days are truly bad, most of these days are only bad because of one difficult interaction or situation. If you do a quick audit of your day, you might notice that things are most often weighted heavily in the positive but our negativity bias latches onto difficulties. If you take stock of the good things in your day and feel thankful for them, it can override stress and negativity.”
Feel It: “There is a vital component for making sure gratitude practices actually work. It’s not enough to think about all you have to be grateful for, you have to also feel grateful for it. When you feel thankful and connect with your body, it triggers neurochemistry that can foster a better mood and override stress hormones so your body is ready to heal.”
True to form, Shaw’s upcoming schedule is every bit as full as it was on the day he spoke with The Spin. He’s a new father, preparing to move from Lake Country to Vancouver Island, and busy building his clinical practice. Alongside his professional work, he continues to be a voice of support for the SCI peer community and offers speaking engagements and workshops to organizations.
Most recently, Shaw’s been involved as an SCI community partner in an upcoming clinical trial led by Dr. Chris West at UBC Okanagan, aimed at improving outcomes for people with cervical spine injuries. This research will explore whether using dobutamine—instead of the more commonly used epinephrine—to increase blood pressure after an SCI could help reduce secondary damage to the spinal cord.
Above all, Shaw remains thankful. “I just want to say thank you to everybody with SCI who shows up each day and keeps putting one, you know, figurative foot in front of the other and keeps moving because it’s hard. I appreciate that.”
You can contact Mike Shaw at mike.s@gratushealth.com or visit gratushealth.com to learn more.
