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FROM THE DESK OF
Quentin Vennie
Author of Strong in the Broken Places
[quentin-vennie-100-110.jpg]
Dear wellness seeker,
While many of my friends and family spent the majority of their lives enjoyed the simplest pleasures, I spent years frequently burdened by fear, hesitation, and uncertainty. I was often too afraid to leave my house for days at a time. There were times where I'd spend my nights sleeping in my car in the parking lot of the hospital's emergency room. I found comfort in my ability to get immediate medical assistance if I needed it.
For an estimated 40 million Americans, including myself, anxiety is more than just an acute emotion—it's a chronic problem.
This is why I wrote [Strong in the Broken Places: A Memoir of Addiction and Redemption Through Wellness]( document and address the pervasive difficulties of those of us who struggle daily with debilitating mental health disorders and addiction. Through my own journey, I was fortunate to find sustainable health and healing, and it is my goal to inspire others to look beyond their barriers and unlock unimaginable strength.
In this book, I share my life, the mistakes that almost ended it, and the decisions that ultimately saved it.
Throughout my life, I've learned that when we fight against anxiety, it inevitably fights back harder. When we try to avoid it, it responds with extreme force. And when we focus our attention on it, it becomes more prevalent and more powerful. It tricks us into believing that discomfort is danger and that the only way to escape it is to run from it.
I believe that anxiety lives in the future, so when we react to it, we are essentially reacting to a negative perception surrounding something that has not yet happened. However, in dealing with anxiety and/or panic disorders, the goal is not to avoid, evade, react, or fight against it. Instead, our focus needs to be on simply allowing the sensation to pass through, and listening for the message it wants to convey.
I was born and raised in Baltimore, one of the most dangerous cities in America. I'd been shot at, witnessed my father battle a heroin addiction, watched my mother struggle financially to raise me, and experienced racial discrimination—all before my 13th birthday. I've learned that our reaction to pain doesn't change the fact that it exists, but rather it changes the impact it has on our lives.
I never had a positive relationship with my father, and the book cover shows the only picture with me and both of my parents. It's not only a stark reminder of what could have been, but also what was to come. While others experienced anxiety and depression, I moved there—constantly attracted to the brokenness of life. However, I firmly believe that we all have the innate ability to heal ourselves internally, allowing the external changes to occur as a direct result.
We may not be able to predict the future, but through diligence, faith, and determination we can make choices knowing that what we do in each moment defines the future we will live.
My mission is now to spread that healing power by bringing yoga, meditation, and other wellness tools to underserved communities. The forgotten neighborhoods and populations need it more than anyone, yet they are the ones who have the least access. I'm trying to do my part to change that.
Join me on this journey.
Be well,
Quentin
The Day My Childhood Changed
Adapted from [Strong in the Broken Places](
[strong-broken-places-500.jpg]
A voice pushes up through the floor, like a jolt. I don't know what's happening downstairs and I'm too afraid to find out. I just want to go back to sleep: where I feel safest, where nothing is real, where I can be whomever I want.
I close my eyes, but my mind doesn't rest. Something's whispering, nudging me to find out what's happening downstairs. I'm after answers.
I open my eyes again, or maybe they open on their own.
The noise downstairs lifts--furniture shifting, bursts of yelling, but I don't move. I stick my finger into the hole in the lining of the comforter, see how far it can go. I look outside and watch the clouds float lazily behind the church. This is my defense: Separate yourself. It's how I once stayed protected from my parents' fighting; now I do it all the time, avoiding loud noises and crowded places. I like it all stripped bare, down to the basics. No surprises that way.
I've seen enough of this neighborhood, out with Pop on the streets near addicts lining up to get their fix. People sleeping wherever, snorting or shooting whatever, willing to do whatever to make it through the day. Bad shit building up like a dam that could burst at any second. Spill right into Grandma's house.
I'm scared, but I have a growing sense of duty, especially to my family.
I throw the covers off and dart out of bed, hoping the momentum will bring courage. I take the stairs two at a time--trying to outrun my anxiety--and smack right into the arm of my grandmother's emerald green sofa, wrapped in thick plastic. I get up and trip over the rug runner that stretches from the front door to the dining room. I gather myself again and run toward the noise--through the empty dining room, the narrow kitchen, and down the wooden stairs to the basement.
I run around my grandfather's pool table, past his poster of sex positions on the wall, all the way to the bar in the back. At the far wall I see Uncle Jason kneeling down in front of the pullout bed. Just seeing him makes me relax. I exhale. There are no strangers around; no one is struggling, no one is fighting. Everything is frozen still when I walk in, like a painting. Just Jason. And my grandmother in the back room by the washing machine, gone quiet for a moment.
Jason is holding a small mirror with a powdered residue smeared across it. I'm not sure what it is, but I know it's not baby powder.
"Yo, what's that?" I ask him, still out of breath. "What's going on?"
Jason looks up. He's never been one to sugarcoat things for me. "Puddin' gone off that dope, yo."
Puddin' is my father's childhood nickname, though I call him Pop. "Gone off" means hooked. Dope is heroin.
My father had spread drugs on the mirror, using the hard surface to separate the powder into lines, making sure he didn't waste any and making it easier to sniff. The powder is the residue of the heroin he had snorted--a few hours earlier, right below all of us.
That discovery was the dividing line of my childhood. It was like a screeching halt and then a sharp right turn. And that morning felt like one long skid out. Even with my habit of disappearing inside myself, I couldn't ignore the truth anymore: My father was a drug addict. For a long time my family wanted to protect me from it, afraid of what I would think of him if I knew.
"Maybe I can talk to him," I said to Jason. "I can get him to stop whatever he's doing. I'm his son, right?" I wanted the love a father has for his son to be stronger than the pull of any addiction. Maybe if I had the opportunity to tell him how much he meant to me, he would stop using. Maybe he'd become the father I needed him to be. Hearing me, my grandmother came out from the back room. The look on her face said it all.
Even at 10, I knew this was magical thinking on my part. But I wanted to matter, to have the power to inspire Pop to turn his life around. I was already an insecure kid. Now I felt lied to, abandoned, and disowned by the one man who was supposed to love and protect me. Maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe we had different interpretations of what our relationship was supposed to be. But that morning, over that mirror, it all crumbled.
A switch was flipped in my young brain. I stopped trusting, stopped believing in people. I refused to believe in anything but disappointment. I vowed to never allow anyone to hurt me as badly as my father had, to never show how much I cared. I promised myself to be as cold and heartless to others as the world had been to me. I would show nothing: I'd be all sword, all shield.
To read more from Quentin, visit [RodaleWellness.com](.
Recommended for You:
[Strong in the Broken Places]( is the harrowing story of Quentin Vennieâs life, the detours that almost ended it, and the inspiring turns that saved it. The odds were stacked against him, but he was able to defy expectations and claw his way out on his own terms. He is living proof that during our weakest moments, we have the power and ability to unlock unimaginable strength.
[ORDER NOW](
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Quentin Vennie, author of 'Strong in the Broken Places'
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