RESILIENT PEOPLE

The healing of the mountains: Nathan & Dana Schmidt

Episode Summary

Nathan and Dana Schmidt of the Mountain Seed Foundation are my guests on this episode of the RESILIENT PEOPLE podcast. Mountain Seed Foundation helps build resilience in children and families impacted by war with some of their biggest work being done in Ukraine. Nathan is a former Marine who completed three tours in the Iraq war. He and Dana met there when she went as part of the Foreign Service. Both are very open about the effects that war has on individuals and their families. Nathan spoke about openly about his post-traumatic stress disorder and his transparency on needing to talk about it with others and get help. Dana honestly spoke about the challenges it presented to their marriage and the tools - as well as people - that helped them. Mountain Seed Foundation offers children impacted by war the opportunity to learn climbing to help overcome their fears while also offering the mothers of these children therapy in various forms and the opportunity to build a peer-to-peer community. Learning to climb helped Nathan to battle the demons he lived with after Iraq and he instinctively knew that it could do the same for others impacted by war. We spoke about the power of community, being transparent about feelings and mental health, the value of seeking professional therapy and finding simple joys in life to build resilience.

Episode Notes

The RESILIENT PEOPLE podcast is hosted by Janet Fanaki. The show profiles regular people from around the world who are admired for their resilience. They have lived through a major life challenge, found a purpose from it and now help others to be resilient too. 

Nathan and Dana Schmidt of Mountain Seed Foundation are the guests on this episode. 

This episode covers:

To learn more about Mountain Seed Foundation, visit this link

If you consider yourself to be resilient, or know someone who you admire for their resilience, please share your story with me. Go to the RESILIENT PEOPLE contact page 

For more information on Janet Fanaki and RESILIENT PEOPLE, go to www.resilientpeople.ca

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