Tag: Adaptive warrior

Trust The Process

Trust The Process

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What if the very thing holding you back isn’t your body… but your fear?

In this week’s episode of Be a Warrior Podcast, I’m coming to you in real time  in the middle of something new, uncomfortable, and humbling. If you’ve been following along, you know last week I talked about life lessons from the ski slopes and how we have to stop looking down at our feet and start looking ahead at what’s coming. That lesson didn’t end on the mountain. It followed me straight into this week.

As an above-knee amputee, I’ve learned that one of our earliest survival habits is looking down. When you first get your prosthesis, you watch it constantly. You can’t feel your foot, so you visually confirm it’s there. Every step is deliberate. Every movement is monitored. Adaptive skiing taught me the same lesson when I ski with one leg, my instinct is to look down at my ski to make sure it’s under me. But when you look down, you miss what’s coming at you. Hazards. Forks in the road. The bigger picture.

And that’s not just skiing. That’s life.

This week, I’m leaning into something I do every year  choosing a word that will guide me. My word for 2026 is trust. And wouldn’t you know it? I was immediately handed an opportunity to live it.

A prosthetics company from France, Hopper, reached out and asked me to try their running blade. Now, if you know me, you know I’ve used a running blade before. I even completed a 10K during my first year as an amputee adding socks mid-race as my limb volume shrank, hoping my leg would stay on. That race required grit. It required strength. But above all, it required trust.

This new blade, however, is different. It required a different knee a microprocessor knee I’ve never used before. For six years I trusted my Ottobock C-Leg. Last September, I transitioned to the Össur Navi knee because it’s waterproof  I can snorkel with it, travel with it, take it into the ocean. I love how it responds. I trust it.

And now? I’m back at square one.

New knee. New blade. New mechanics. New fear.

New Blade- Trust the Process

 

Hopper Running Blade

Standing between parallel bars in an office, with people watching and cameras recording, I felt that old instinct creep back in. Tight muscles. Hesitation. Looking down. Wanting to be good immediately. Wanting to “perform.” Wanting to prove.

But trust doesn’t grow in 30 minutes under fluorescent lights.

So I brought the blade home.

And here I am walking in it around my house. Stepping outside. Trying to “run,” which currently looks more like a gallop from a newborn deer. It’s awkward. It’s humbling. It’s vulnerable.

And it’s exactly where growth happens.

Here’s what I’ve realized: when we don’t trust, fear takes over. And fear tightens us up. We don’t relax into movement. We don’t open up. We don’t visualize success we visualize what could go wrong.

What if I fall?

What if I break my wrist?

What if I embarrass myself in public?

I’ve fallen before. On sidewalks. In front of cars that didn’t even stop to check on me. I’ve tripped on hikes. I’ve fallen skiing. And every single time, I learned something.

Failure is feedback.

On my last ski trip, I intentionally chose the harder side of the slope. Why? Because I realized if I wasn’t falling, I probably wasn’t pushing. I did fall exhausted from aggressive turns my muscles weren’t prepared for. And that fall told me exactly what I needed to strengthen.

If we never risk failure, we never gather information.

And that applies far beyond prosthetics or skiing. It applies to relationships. To careers. To faith. To stepping into something new.

Trust requires us to first identify what we’re afraid of.

For me, I had to name it: I’m afraid of falling. I’m afraid of being embarrassed. I’m afraid of injury that could set me back. Once I name the fear, I can address it. Once I address it, I can begin building trust.

 

 

That’s my call to action for you this week.

First: choose a word. A guiding word for your year. Maybe it’s trust. Maybe it’s courage. Maybe it’s surrender. Maybe it’s strength. But choose something intentional.

Second: identify where fear is showing up in your life. Where are you tightening up? Where are you looking down instead of forward?

If you’re a new amputee and you’re exhausted from thinking through every step — I see you. I remember the mental drain of early prosthetic use. I remember wondering if I’d ever be able to carry laundry without watching my foot. And now? I do it without thinking.

But it took time.

It took repetition.

It took falling.

It took lifting my chin.

If you’re not wearing your prosthesis because you don’t trust it, the only way through is through. Wear it. Practice in your home. Slow your gait. Gradually lift your eyes forward. You will build that trust, one step at a time.

And if your struggle isn’t physical — if it’s relational, emotional, spiritual — the principle is the same. Face the fear. Name it. Then take one small step toward trust.

This week, I’m in the middle of it with you. Learning a new knee. Learning a new blade. Learning to open up again after five years of not truly running. I don’t know yet how it will end. But I know this: I won’t build trust by standing still.

There is a warrior within you. And warriors don’t avoid fear they walk straight into it with their chin lifted and their eyes forward.

So let’s do this together.

Choose your word.

Face your fear.

Trust the process.

And until next time,

Be Healthy,

Be Happy,

Be YOU!!!

 

Much love,

 

 

Life Lessons From the Ski Slopes

Life Lessons From the Ski Slopes

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:39 — 33.2MB)

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Facing Fears, Letting Go,  and Breathing

 

What if the thing you’re most afraid of… is the exact mountain you were meant to ski?

Welcome back to Be a Warrior. I’m Angie Heuser — above knee amputee, equine therapy lover, skier, and someone who refuses to live life from the sidelines. And if you’ve been following me the past several weeks, you know we’ve been diving deep into the energy of the Year of the Fire Horse — a year of movement, momentum, fearless expansion, courage, and decisive action.

But before the fire horse came the snake.

And I can’t stop thinking about that metaphor.

The Year of the Snake ended February 16th — a year of shedding. And if you’ve ever seen a snakeskin left behind, you know it’s both fascinating and a little unsettling. Snakes don’t just slip out of their skin like changing clothes. They rub up against rough surfaces. They press into discomfort. Sometimes it takes extra effort around the face or certain tight spots to fully shed what no longer fits.

It’s not gentle.

And neither is growth.

When I think about amputee life — about losing a limb, whether by trauma, illness, or in my case, elective amputation after years of surgeries — there is so much shedding. Shedding fear of the unknown. Shedding anger. Shedding grief. Shedding the identity we once had. And it doesn’t happen smoothly. It happens against the rough edges of life.

But once the shedding is done?

The new skin is ready to grow.

And that’s where the Fire Horse comes in.

This year only happens every sixty years — the Horse combined with the element of Fire. It’s bold. It’s fast. It rewards courage. It exposes comfort. It does not tolerate stagnation. And if you’ve built your life around playing small, it’s going to make you very uncomfortable.

Which brings me to the ski slopes.

If you follow me online, you saw we were just in Park City. I’ve been skiing since I was seventeen — long before amputation. But I’ll tell you something honestly: there isn’t a single day I clip into my ski that I don’t feel fear.

Even now.

Especially now.

Three months after my amputation in 2018, I got back on the slopes. I had already missed five years of skiing due to surgeries. I had told my husband if I didn’t ski that April, I might never do it again. So I did it scared. I did it sick to my stomach. I did it unsure.

And here’s what skiing has taught me — lessons that mirror life perfectly.

First: the person in front of you has the right of way.

On the mountain, it’s your responsibility to avoid the skier ahead of you. What’s behind you? That’s their responsibility.

Isn’t that life?

If I constantly look behind me — at my past, my trauma, my failures — I lose balance. Literally. With one leg, if I look back, I fall. And metaphorically? Same thing. If I live looking backward, I miss the beauty and the hazards in front of me.

That doesn’t mean I ignore the past. I learn from it. I listen. I stay aware. But I don’t let it dictate my line down the mountain.

Second: you will face forks in the slope.

Left might be safe. Right might be steep. Green or black diamond. Easy or challenging.

Comfort or growth.

The Fire Horse energy says choose courage. Choose the line that stretches you. And I had that moment on this trip — two blue runs splitting off, one steeper than the other. I heard myself say, “Just go.”

So I did.

I picked up speed. I carved hard. I pushed myself. And eventually, my leg gave out and I ended up on my butt. Not a dramatic crash — more of a tired surrender.

 

Take five and reassess your path every now and then

 

But here’s the thing: I was proud of that fall.

Because if I’m not falling occasionally, I’m not pushing hard enough. Growth requires risk. Risk requires vulnerability. And vulnerability sometimes ends with snow in your face.

Warriors aren’t built in comfort.

They’re built in the steep sections.

Third: breathe.

One of the biggest lessons my ski instructors taught me after amputation was breathing rhythm. As I carve down the mountain, I exhale into the turn and inhale as I rise. The mountain becomes a rhythm — breathe in, breathe out.

When I hold my breath, I tense up. When I tense up, I rely too much on my upper body. When I breathe, I find flow.

How often in life do we grit our teeth and forget to breathe?

When we breathe through discomfort, we release tension. We think clearly. We stay grounded. Whether you’re walking in a prosthetic, stepping into a hard conversation, or heading into an interview — breathe.

 

 

Finally: visualize the run.

I watched Olympic skiers at the top of the mountain, eyes closed, moving their bodies as they mentally rehearsed every turn. They had already succeeded in their minds before pushing off.

That’s not luck. That’s preparation.

If you only visualize falling, you’ll hesitate. If you only picture failure, you’ll create it. But if you visualize walking confidently in your prosthesis… if you visualize that difficult conversation going well… if you see yourself succeeding — you are building neural pathways toward that outcome.

Will you still fall sometimes? Yes.

But falling isn’t failure. It’s feedback.

The Fire Horse doesn’t reward perfection. It rewards courage. It rewards action. It rewards getting uncomfortable.

I came home from those mountains thinking about all of you. About the warriors who are afraid to let that bold part of themselves out because it might mean discomfort. It might mean risk. It might mean exposing the places you’ve been playing small.

But that’s where grit is forged.

That’s where character is polished.

That’s where life gets amplified.

 

 

So here’s my call to action:

Do the thing that scares you this week. Maybe in baby steps. Maybe messy. Maybe imperfect. But do it.

If you fall, smile. Ask yourself what you just learned. Visualize the next attempt. Breathe. Adjust your line. And go again.

Stop waiting for the perfect mood, the perfect date, the perfect version of yourself.

The mountain is here. YOUR mountain!

Embrace it, charge forward!

The Fire Horse energy is here.

And you, warrior, are more capable than you think.

Have a be-YOU-tiful week ahead and as always,

Be healthy.

Be happy.

Be YOU!!!

 

Much love,

What’s your “mountain”?

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