Sasha Blanchard — Let's make a difference.

A note from Sasha

Sasha Blanchard · Author

It is my intention that this story meets you wherever you are and reminds you that you do not have to carry everything alone.

The story

The magic of grit and grace.

Before

A shy girl who found her voice through movement. Notre Dame hurdler, gymnast, backcountry guide, self-defense instructor. A life built in motion — and a quiet belief that being valuable meant staying useful, staying busy, staying strong.

The diagnosis

At 29, the body began to whisper, then shout. Cramping. Numbness creeping up from the toes. Within five months, an athlete who could not cross a kitchen unaided. A Schwannoma tumor, wrapped around the spinal cord.

Held

Lying in the hospital bed, surgery cancelled, options gone — something shifted. Not a voice. A knowing. “I have you.” What had begun with grit unfolded into grace. Surgery happened. Recovery began. The hiking came back.

From the story

Three. Two. One.

There is a moment, just after you run out the back of a plane at 18,000 feet, where you stop holding on and realize something else has been holding you all along.

For about three seconds, you float in the slipstream. Time stretches. The wind hasn’t found you yet. Your body drifts, untethered, suspended in a space between what was and what’s about to be.

Then the air catches you.

If you do what every nerve in your body is telling you not to do — if you soften, open your chest, and trust — you stop falling. You fly.

Read the full story →

What the story leaves you with

Grit gets you to the door. Grace meets you on the other side.

Let gratitude find you.

A person who shows up. A breath. A pause. A small sense of relief. Gratitude is one of the purest forms of receiving — it shifts you from striving to allowing, from gripping to trusting.

Hold the vision lightly.

Get clear on what feels true. Take the next aligned step, but without gripping the future into place. Care deeply, hold lightly. Where pressure becomes peace, what once felt like falling becomes flight.

The door opens. The wind meets you. You’re not falling. You’re flying.

And you were never alone.

About Sasha

Built in motion. Found in stillness.

A shy kid who found her voice through her body — first as a competitive gymnast, then as a recruited hurdler at the University of Notre Dame. Later, a backcountry guide leading people through Australian bush and Sierra Nevada rock.

At 29, a tumor on her spinal cord changed every assumption she’d built her life on. The story of what came next is the heart of this book.

Read her story →

Get in touch

Let’s make a difference.

Reading group, podcast, event, or just a kind word — Sasha would love to hear from you.

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