Rising Above Adversity: A Conversation with Nadalette La Fonta on Resilience and Transformation

It's truly incredible how a life-altering tragedy can completely transform one's path in life. This is exactly what unfolded for Nadalette La Fonta when she lost the use of her legs following a surgical accident nine years ago. From that pivotal moment, her soul took charge of her journey.

Before the accident, Nadalette was caught up in a relentless chase for goals that didn't resonate with her true self. Her accident shattered her entire life and identity. But it also served as a catalyst, propelling her onto a path of authenticity and profound self-discovery. 

In this interview, we discuss how Nadalette refused to let her new condition define her. Instead, she began to reclaim her body, soul, and mind. Through her transformative process, she fulfilled her lifelong dream of becoming a writer, and she now shares her message of resilience and love for life through her writing and public speaking.

Visit Nadalette 's website:
 https://xn--nadaletteauteureetconfrencire-6tcz.fr/
Listen to her TEDx Talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBfRGouD1PE
Read her latest book:
https://www.editions-tredaniel.com/nos-tempetes-sont-la-hauteur-de-nos-reves-p-10522.html

Thank you for listening to Women Rise. Sign up for my distribution list so you never miss an episode. Learn more about the Women Rise leadership program for women change-makers on my website. If you'd like to be considered to be interviewed on this podcast, please write me directly or take this survey to find out if you're a good fit.

Transcript

Claire Molinard: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Women Rise, a podcast about women changemakers that explores the emergence of a new leadership paradigm, which calls us to lead from within. I'm your host, claire Molina, and I live and work on the island of Corsica, in the south of France. I'm a holistic coach and therapist. I teach and facilitate developmental programs for conscious women changemakers, helping them move from depleted and disconnected to resourced and interconnected. Every week, I meet with other women leaders and we explore the inner game of leadership and how, in this time of emergency, we are being called to our unique self-emergence to co-create a world that works for everyone. Hello and welcome to Women Rise.

Claire Molinard: 0:54

I have the delight today to be sitting with Nadele tte La Fonta, who is a writer and a motivational speaker. Nadele became paraplegic in October 2014 due to a surgical accident. and prior to the accident, her life was very fast-paced, and so when that happened, her life changed dramatically. However, instead of resonating herself to the tragedy of all that she had lost, Nadelette was able to turn her fate into a remarkable transformation. With patience and perseverance, she embarked on a journey of self-discovery. She reclaimed her body, her heart and her mind, and, along the way, she fulfilled a long-held dream of becoming a writer. So, nadele, welcome to Women Rise and thank you for coming here to tell your story.

Nadalette La Fonta: 1:44

I am so happy to be with you, Claire, and so grateful Hmm.

Claire Molinard: 1:48

Likewise, I have your book in my hands. Our Storms Are as High as Our Dreams and I loved reading your journey and seeing how you were this perfect Wonder Woman who suddenly changed in 2014 after a surgery gone wrong and you found yourself paralyzed. And reading about your journey, your resilience, the power of your story is inspiring for us all, regardless of our own path. It's a love letter to life.

Nadalette La Fonta: 2:19

It's a love letter to life. Yes, indeed. When, in 2014, I had this surgery, which didn't went that well as my bone marrow was hurt and I became paraplegic, I had before a life which could seem to many people and many women very successful. Everything was ticketed the husband, the daughters, the job, the house, the friends, the parties, traveling internationally, not being a reasoned problem, with enough money to live properly, and so on and so forth. And in one day, my life was totally destroyed. I had no more career because I was lying in a bed for one year. I had no more family life because my daughters, which were teens, were living on their own in my home, but I could not connect with them for nearly one year. And my husband was doing his best, probably, but he was not with me. And my friends were my friends which were used for me, somebody very attractive and funny when I was partying with them. We are not every day at the bed of my hospital and this is normal, and you can see this sort of happening as a disaster.

Nadalette La Fonta: 3:35

Somehow, for a time, like every event which is tragic in life, you have this process of mourning, the process that Elizabeth Kubler was so well described, of being first in sederation, then in anger, in sadness and, hopefully, one day, in acceptance, and that was my, honestly, my life for a good year.

Nadalette La Fonta: 4:01

Then, after I had a chance to have to write a report on what happened to me, and this report became a book, my first book, which was somehow a dream I had since my 18s.

Nadalette La Fonta: 4:16

I wanted to be a writer, you know, when I was 18, but at that time, in 1980, 1985, if you wanted to succeed in life you had to be in marketing, communication, in big companies, and then there you made money and for me, for many reasons which came from my past, I had this collision between money and happiness. Both were going together, which is absolutely false. And then, when I realized that I could because I was no more in this race write a book, and when I wrote my first book, I realized that I was realizing the dream of my 80s but good when it happens even later and that I was deeply in myself a writer. And on the top of it, what was important for me I knew that somehow, but I never had the guts to express it and to claim for it was to transmit, to share, to be helpful somehow to some people, without for not being a coach, but sharing experience. Who can help people? And in fact, it's what happened after the surgery.

Claire Molinard: 5:33

So you wake up in October 2014. You know you've lost your life as it was until now.

Nadalette La Fonta: 5:40

You go through this year of anger, denial, resentment my state was so bad that I couldn't do anything. I was unable to read, unable to write, unable to talk. Somehow, all was left to me that there was a time that I never had before to think about life, to see what were my myths, what I had as an asset, what I wanted to do of my life, of what was remaining of my life.

Claire Molinard: 6:10

So that's very interesting, nadella, because, as we know, you know, in such a moment, most of us would go into anger, denial and stay there or just become bitter or feel like our life is over. What resources did you have? Of course you had time and you had your loneliness. How were you prepared for this? Did you have anything in your life that prepared you for that?

Nadalette La Fonta: 6:41

I think I had two things in my life, one which is rather material and easy. In the year before, for many reasons, at IBM, as I was an executive driving top talent education in IBM, I had the chance to follow for myself education in order to work properly with the young executive I was working with. I had my master in NLP. I had run some courses in Ignosius. I went to systematic analysis with Malarevich. I did some coaching. I have my coaching certification, even if I don't want to act such a course. I did corporate coaching in the US. I did some courses in France and so on and so forth. I had a sort of toolbox of things which I never used really in my professional life, which were already there for me to support me.

Nadalette La Fonta: 7:36

That's one thing, but the most important thing, I think, really was my story, my love for life, and the reason why is very deep in me. Because when I was born, I was born with a brother twin and my brother twin, for a reason which has never been explained to me by asking my parents, was dead, either in the womb of my mother or when she gave birth, and I always had the feeling that I was missing, of course, probably of guilt, because one of us was alive and another was in the bin and I was the one alive. So for me you feel guilty not to have been able to save your mother. But most of it, my strongest feeling in life was that life was a gift, was extraordinary, and that you all to yourself, you all to the world, you know, I hope my brother, I hope everything in the world the fact to be alive and to do something of my life good or well or not, sometimes what I do of my life in the past, or maybe a few things I did in the past of my life, were not particularly admirable and worse.

Nadalette La Fonta: 8:57

But the fact to be alive is a responsibility, so it's really a gift. And even when I saw myself lying in this hospital, which was absolutely disgusting, in this room which was not fashionable, with two people which with me for one year in a really difficult situation, had a strong feeling that life was worth giving it a chance and trying to do something out of the mess. So it's something which is embedded and you know, sometimes what I say is what is your quality is also your failure. It's the two faces of the same middle. And me I'm stubborn. I'm deeply stubborn, but this obstination is also a strength, in some cases, to give me the will to create something out of nothing.

Claire Molinard: 9:54

Right, and in your book you mentioned, you never believed that you were never going to walk again. You just refused to accept it from the beginning when they told you.

Nadalette La Fonta: 10:03

And it's to be honest, it's because I'm so obstinate that I knew that they were saying the truth in medical terms. But it was not. I'm very tuned to visualization and never visualized myself not being able to walk. I knew that to Ronald Marathon or to dance, for instance which is something which I adore impossible. But I knew that I will be standing, that I will be walking at my pace. But walking, of course there is some trade-off. I walk, but when there is some wind or when I'm tired, I can't walk on my own because I fail. When you leave, like I do at the seaside, you have terrible storms and in that case I can't go out because I don't have enough strength in my legs to walk alone or not alone. But there are things which I think I can do. I mean, probably I will walk with. I don't know what the term is in English for Becky, it's just crutches. It's all my life, but that doesn't matter. I'm standing, yes, you're standing, I'm standing, and even more.

Nadalette La Fonta: 11:18

This past weekend I decided with my coach that we were running a strong practice about getting into the water for walking. It's called long-schedeworth in French, and I do that even during the winter with a full equipment, probably three times a week. So I'm more sportive than ever and we decided that to celebrate somehow the ninth anniversary. Is it to celebrate, I'm not sure, of my accident, which was October 14th 2014,. We will climb the place.

Nadalette La Fonta: 11:53

In my place there is a huge mountain of sand, a dune called la t'vipila, and you have a number of stairs, which is absolutely infinite to climb it, and then, just before and just after, you're on the sand. So it's really difficult to walk on that and we climb it last Saturday night to see the sunset. And it's very strange because when people see me climbing on the videos and so on, as they say, well, she's not paraplegic that the fact that I have what is called and I would like to discuss about it because it's really important I have what you call an invisible handicap. That means, when you see me walking in the street, you think that this poor lady, she broke a hill or whatever, doing some shopping or something like that, and if you see me climbing the dune, you just don't think I'm paraplegic. You think that I'm old, not very sportive, but it's not that I am paraplegic.

Nadalette La Fonta: 12:59

There is plenty of things. Since nine years I haven't been able to really have my full autonomy of moving and going out. But there are plenty of things that I can't realize. If I fight for it, if I want it, if I visualize it, if it's one of my goals, and of course, I have the cleverness not to have goals which are absolutely not possible, like dancing rock and roll, which is too fast for me.

Claire Molinard: 13:27

So what is it like every day to have an invisible handicap?

Nadalette La Fonta: 13:31

It's uncomfortable because first you don't have, if you are in a willing chair, the people see it and they understand that you have difficulties. They help you for that. If you are standing with a fragile equilibrium and difficulty to walk, most of the people who meet me in the street or in the city they say Bonétablisme. I don't know you say that, but well soon, but well soon. And the soon is nine years. So there is no soon. So it's complicated socially first. It's complicated on a daily basis because sometimes I would think I'm able to do something and there is a will. Yesterday I went out in the street, there was a wind, I was walking with my two inches and then, you know, I was with a friend, we were going to a concert and I say oh, Nadine, I need your help because the wind was so strong that I was going to be taken and to fall.

Nadalette La Fonta: 14:28

And it's true that when I go to the sea side I go with the end of my coach, with a belt in the sea in order not to have any trouble. And then, when I get accustomed to the sea, when I've got enough water to support me, I'm able to take out the belt, to leave my coach hand and to walk like anybody else in the street, but in the sea, and up to the point where we come back. And then you know Thomas Pesquet, who went to the moon. He said when he came back to the land, he lost his strength, his muscles and he can't walk for a few hours. And it's exactly what happened when I get out of the sea, when the sea is no more supporting me, I go back to normal. That means my legs are not working. I have part of the muscles of my legs which are not there and I have to push and to take all the tools I need to walk and to go back to the car. And that's the end of freedom.

Claire Molinard: 15:33

As you're describing this, I'm also reminded of a few of your interviews I've listened to, and you mentioned it in the book as well. You're in constant pain as well, and so you've trained yourself this incredible, strong, resilient mind to live normally through the pain and through the paraplegia, and that also is for others who don't know you. It's invisible.

Nadalette La Fonta: 16:02

Totally invisible, and part of the responsibility is mine also. I don't want to be shoot with any medicines which are possible for me against pain, which are based on morphine and all these delicious things, and I say no, I don't take anything but one medicine which I'm obliged to take. That's very light. The counterpart is I have pain. I try to avoid circumstances where the pain is too high and for too long. It means I know that, for instance, traveling for me during three, four hours sitting in a car is easier. Staying at a dinner party at 2 o'clock in the morning, I prefer to leave the table to sit and lay on the couch and keep on on the discussion days Circumstances where I try to ease the pain.

Claire Molinard: 16:51

But I live with it. Yeah, and that's also what you describe in the book that from this woman who is always pushing your body and not listening to yourself, with absolutely no connection to your body, you've been forced and you've learned to be self-compassionate, to take care of your body. Your body is your best friend now and you are her best friend. So it's very touching to realize how much you have to turn back to yourself with such tenderness and self-compassion, which you had known at all before.

Nadalette La Fonta: 17:28

No, I mean, I don't know what my surgeon has done or not to my body and I will never be incapable to prove it, but what is true is at 59, I brought in a body which was totally destroyed, at a scoliosis of 73 degrees, of double scoliosis, which is in fact the woman you see bending. I could not support anymore my structure, I was totally falling into pieces. So what he did somehow is a miracle, because he unbend me so much that I gained 60 centimeters of high in this surgery. So you can imagine growing at 60. And then, well, I think somehow something was destroyed, and that's beautiful. But what I bought on the table of surgery was not a gift. I destroyed myself, not listening to myself, trying to serve everybody, both family, friends, relationship or whatever I was the best servant of everybody but me. I don't know if it's leadership.

Claire Molinard: 18:46

Well, you were in a hyper masculine of being with yourself and you had to turn inward and you reclaimed your. I don't know if you reclaimed it or if it was born At that moment, but there is this sense that you had to find your femininity, your resilience and sensitivity as well.

Nadalette La Fonta: 19:10

Yeah, the world I was working since my 20 was a work made for men, by men, where they had the reins of the poor and if you wanted to have a good seat on that, on their table, you had to be a man. That's true. And also because of the dead the death of my twin brother probably I adapted as well a very masculine Behavior in life. I was always talking about fight and I was always fighting all over Because I didn't have the conscious of what was happening in my own unconscious. And then, of course, when I started to be more conscious, to work on myself, to meditate, to Work with people like Joe dispenser, like Catherine, or replace a Me I was not on my own in this, but it's true that I found Myself after the time passed in a most, much more Equalibrated way and feminine, of course.

Claire Molinard: 20:10

I'm curious, you know I'm thinking of how you went through that first year of anger and denial and grief and Then something happened when you were Writing that report for your insurance. That then became that first book. What, what's your sense? Was it the success of the book that was hailing to you, or was it the book itself, the writing of the book? And yeah, I'm just wondering how did that first Transformation come to you or through you?

Nadalette La Fonta: 20:46

The first thing came certainly when I finish a book and I realized I had written a book and say, oh my god, what I'm doing if I am putting it back in my PC or I'm I'm. I'm looking for an editor and, pushed by two good friends to to my house for some advice, I Said it to editors and one pick it up and when I saw the Rosa penchant that book on the shelves of Liberia, that was terribly healing, but not completely. And then it become wild because in the past I had been working in communication so I knew all about translation. Of course I was supporting my book at some TV TV show, radio and so on and so forth.

Nadalette La Fonta: 21:32

And Just out of the blue I sent the book to somebody you may know, isabella Leonardo, with the Belgium lady working in Belgium but all over Europe with doing some for him, for woman, and Didn't know her very well. And she said, okay, well, we have a forum in Paris, come and talk to us. And Then I became to tell my story after for all. That was the first time. And when I finished the story I Looked at the audience and there was five hundred women's all rising and crying. I Say, well, not the result that was expecting.

Claire Molinard: 22:13

So you were speaking to something that they knew about.

Nadalette La Fonta: 22:19

And as that that's the new speaking about. And this emotion was something which was really structuring for me, and I had shared that experience with some other friends. Another friend, martin, just one month after, and she said oh, brad, you should do a TEDx. Say what? I didn't know what was TEDx at that time and she put me through because she was part of the organization. To the woman running TEDx, who was CEO in Paris.

Nadalette La Fonta: 22:56

We were not very enthusiastic with my story at the very beginning and then, two weeks before it was mid-November, she said OK, you go on stage, october the 3rd 2018, at Mogador, 3,000 people. I was not afraid, because I had been doing media training for people for years, so that was helping, of course, but honestly, in the days before, my pitch was not ready at all, I was not feeling uncomfortable. I was a bit anxious. I didn't know how I would stand and maintain my equilibrium on stage, because she said you will hold two chairs. I said well, I hope the chairs will be strong enough. And then I arrived at the Art de Mogador in Paris. I felt because I don't know about, probably, emotions she was rehearsing and in a mood which was absolutely awful.

Nadalette La Fonta: 23:52

At one point I said OK, I have to go. The theater was full. I put myself in deep meditation, in auto-opness, with my listening to something I had I don't know if it was Chopra or what and I had entered on stage and it was it. And I didn't know, of course, if I did well or not well, but I went through. When I get out of the stage, my girlfriends told me it was great, but I didn't believe it because they would never tell me that it was wrong. My daughter told me well, it was a bit too long. I said probably she's right, you know. The impostor said oh, but I was happy to be able to do so. I was not asking too much for life and the pleasure of being watched by 3,000 people.

Claire Molinard: 24:45

Yeah, and it got over 2 million views. It's obvious that there is something healing in your story that's universal.

Nadalette La Fonta: 24:55

And the return I have from my books or my conference. Not, of course, 3,000 people, but some people are writing to me say it was exactly what I needed to read or to see or to hear and that's sufficient for me. It's usually sufficient for giving me the pleasure of being alive.

Claire Molinard: 25:17

Yeah, so you said that you visualize yourself walking. What else did you have in your vision as your future self when you were in the darkest time, in the lowest period of your life?

Nadalette La Fonta: 25:30

What's at the dream and visualization of a family life very warm and caring, which never happened for the moment, because I was. Rather it was difficult for my family to understand that I was becoming so weak after being this sort of superwoman who was organizing and dictating life for everybody, so it's only so weak and unable to contribute that it was a first stroke. And then, when they got accustomed for me to be given for a week for a good time, I arrived from the front of the head, from the ashes, and I stand up. And they saw me standing up at the theater and writing books and giving conference and being seen by others, not like the whole model, because I don't want to be seen as a whole model, but as a possible source of wisdom. And it's really difficult for them to get a question to my different personalities. But this will become more, probably more peaceful in the coming years, I'm sure.

Nadalette La Fonta: 26:42

But what I saw else? No, I was not visualizing me writing or giving confences, but I was visualizing me staying in the world. What is most important for me is not to stay apart, to have a social role. I mean I make my best effort to go out, to meet people, to discuss with people to find a way because I can't go on my own to a conference, to a concert, to an event to participate, and I was sure that I would not stay by willing chairs, somehow somewhere with a cactus and a TV set- Do you imagine writing another book?

Nadalette La Fonta: 27:31

Yeah, I have a novel which I did write already twice, and the first time it was a really difficult novel, very, very negative, and I keep it for myself. And then I wrote it a second time and some editors told me well, it's well, it's say, they will return. This story is interesting but it's not finished. And I agree with them. And for some reason I experimented in life, as I share you in privately, some events which were not terribly easy and that gave me another way, another scope of this novel, so probably I'm going to tackle it.

Nadalette La Fonta: 28:17

You're not finished transmitting no no, and really it's what I like. I mean and I think you were wondering what works the fact that I'm transmitting I think it's because when I am in normal life, like this morning, when I was in the sea, or now with you on the stage later, or giving an interview or discussing with a stranger in the street, I'm the same and probably this feeling of familiarity is what touched the people. I'm not a role model or guru. I did all the mistakes that somebody could do and that probably do some other game.

Claire Molinard: 28:59

I know that you have grandchildren, yeah what a joy. And with your joy of life and everything that you've learned, your resilience my sense is that they're lucky to have you as their grandmother and also, you know, in the world in which they are going to grow, what is the most important for you to be able to transmit to them.

Nadalette La Fonta: 29:22

Joy, because I was not educated in joy. I was educated in a very negative way and would I have no know about joy and gratitude before. It would have been very helpful. Joy, yes, and also, of course, reading books, because I think that all about story, imaginary. I mean, it's true that one thing I don't give up is I'm buying books the best customer of my life, or even since I'm born, because I love to teach them stories. I can't play with them because I can't hold, for instance. That's part of the frustration. I can't hold little children if I'm seated in my home but I can't hold. The other day was coming and saying take me in your arms and say, oh, it's sweet, I can't. I know if you want to come in my home, I have to sit and you come in my home but I can't take you to heavy. But we will manage something. We care the special relationship in another way.

Claire Molinard: 30:28

Yeah, beautiful. Well, you did write. I have a down in my notes. You wrote somewhere in your book my only validation is joy in my body, pleasure in my heart and the spark in my mind, and I think that really captures who you've become.

Nadalette La Fonta: 30:47

Yeah, and I will do that.

Claire Molinard: 30:51

Thank you very much for this interview. I'm very honored to have spent that moment with you. Thank you, Natalie.

Nadalette La Fonta: 30:58

Thank you so much, clara, and thank you for the gift you brought to me, including the wonderful book of Susan Anderson. You Make your Past by Hoping. I hope to meet you both in real life. I hope that will happen soon, okay, thank you.

Claire Molinard: 31:15

Thank you for listening to Women Rise. If you enjoyed the show today, please leave us a review. To get announcements when a new podcast is published, send me an email at Claire at Unixelfemergencecom to be added on my distribution list. If you're interested in being a guest on my podcast or you would like to join my private free group for female leaders, go to my podcast description for the links to apply. Thanks again and see you soon on the Women Rise podcast.