Beyond Pushing Through: Reinventing ResilienceBeyond Pushing Through: Reinventing Resilience
A Quest for Well-Being
Host Valeria Teles talks with former CEO Nancy Deo about how chronic pain, opioid dependence and identity loss led her to rethink resilience as acceptance and possibility within limits. Their conversation centres on rebuilding self-trust, redefining success and learning to live differently when pushing through stops working.
1:01:28•16 Jun 2026
Beyond Pushing Through: Redefining Resilience with Chronic Pain
Episode Overview
- Resilience can shift from pushing through at all costs to recognising “possibility within limits”.
- Acceptance of a new normal is an active process, not passivity, and can free energy for what is still possible.
- Trust in one’s own body can be badly shaken when medical tests say you are fine but pain persists, and rebuilding that trust takes time.
- Healing chronic pain involves physical, emotional, mental and spiritual dimensions working together, rather than focusing on the body alone.
- Choosing to re-enter life in an honest, visible way—such as studying or working while lying down—can become a powerful turning point.
“I used to think resilience was about pushing harder. Now I understand that it’s about possibility within limits.”
What drives someone to seek a new kind of resilience after life has fallen apart? This conversation between host Valeria Teles and guest Nancy Deo follows that exact question through the raw terrain of chronic pain, opioid dependence, identity loss, and gradual rebuilding. Nancy shares how a spinal injury on Mount Kilimanjaro turned a high-achieving Silicon Valley CEO and athlete into “a chronic pain patient. Period.
Full stop.” For 15 years, she lived mostly lying down, hearing doctors say she was “fine” while her body screamed otherwise. You’ll hear her reflect on how that mismatch slowly eroded her self-trust, and what it took to get it back. A big theme is the shift from pushing to accepting. Nancy admits she once saw resilience as endurance and control: “pushing harder, pushing through, discipline, control, perseverance.” Over time, she realised the pushing was hurting more than helping.
Her turning point came when she chose to re-enter life horizontally—literally—dragging an army cot into graduate school seminars and saying, “I want you to know I’m okay with it so you can be too.” The episode also looks at the emotional layers that come with pain: grief for a lost identity, depression, anxiety, and the tricky idea of being told to feel “grateful” for suffering.
Nancy is clear she isn’t grateful for the injury itself, but she can see how it reshaped her into “a compassionate human” with deep empathy for others in pain.
For anyone dealing with chronic illness, post-injury life, or burnout from constantly pushing through, this chat offers a grounded, honest re-think of resilience: possibility within limits, acceptance as an active choice, and a gentle reminder that “your body will always tell you the truth.” What might change for you if you started listening to it?
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.
Related Episodes
Similar episodes from other shows in the catalogue.