One week ago I almost died.

What a medical emergency taught me about presence, capacity, and the life we slowly accept as normal.

A week ago today, I was supposed to be on a plane to Las Vegas.

Not for vacation. Not to wander around casinos pretending I understand how slot machines work. I was headed to HypnoThoughts Live to present two workshops I had been working on since November. I had built the workbook, refined the material, created resources, thought through the flow, and prepared as carefully as I know how. I was excited to teach. I was excited to meet people. I was excited to finally deliver something that had taken up a large amount of my life for months.

Instead, I fainted in the Jacksonville airport terminal.

That sentence still feels strange to write. One moment, Vegas was the plan. The next, the plan was gone. We canceled the flights, left the airport, and went to the emergency room. What I thought might be dehydration, sickness, low food intake, medication issues, stress, or some weird combination of all of it turned out to be something much more serious. My heart rate had dropped dangerously low. In the hospital, it was falling into the 20s and 30s. They diagnosed me with heart block, a diagnosis which qualified me for an immediate Life Flight helicopter ride to Baptist Jacksonville, placed a temporary pacemaker, and the next day implanted a permanent pacemaker.

That is a very dramatic way to miss a conference.

I am home now, and I am feeling so much better. The dizziness, fainting, and blacking-out sensations are gone. I am still tired and recovering from the procedure, but overall I feel better than I have in quite a while. That is part of what makes the whole thing so strange. I did not realize how bad I had gotten because bad had slowly become normal.

And that is really where this series begins. Yes, this is a story about a medical emergency. But if it stays only a story about heart block and a pacemaker, it will miss the larger point. Most people reading this are not going to faint in an airport with a pulse in the 20s. I sincerely hope you do not. But many of us know what it is like to slowly accept a reduced version of life and call it normal.

We get used to being tired. We get used to being anxious. We get used to carrying resentment. We get used to living on edge. We get used to relationships that drain us, work that consumes us, bodies that keep whispering warnings, and spiritual lives that feel more like memory than experience. At first, the discomfort alarms us. Then we adjust. Then we compensate. Then one day we realize we have built an entire life around managing something that needed our attention a long time ago.

That is the part I want us to look at together.

In the days before the flight, I had been sick with what I assumed was a cold or virus. I had some diarrhea. I had eaten very little. I had been feeling very lightheaded when standing. I had adjusted a few medications, in consultation with my cardiologist. There were several reasonable explanations available, and every one of them made it easier to keep moving toward the airport. That is one of the tricky things about denial. It does not always sound irrational. Sometimes it sounds very practical.

“I’m probably dehydrated.”

“I just need to eat something.”

“It’s probably the medication.”

“I’ve been sick.”

“I’m stressed.”

“The machine may be wrong.”

Those explanations were not stupid. They were plausible. That is what made them dangerous. Plausible explanations can help us think clearly, but they can also help us delay facing reality. At some point, a pulse dropping into the 20s and 30s is not a motivational challenge. It is not something to push through. It is not a mindset problem. It is information.

My body had been giving me information for a long time.

I had become used to feeling lightheaded when I stood up. I had become used to feeling physically limited. I had become used to having less capacity than I used to have. I explained it in reasonable ways because there were reasonable explanations available. Age. Medication. Stress. Illness. Blood pressure. Being busy. Being out of shape ...well, reducing my gym time, I still look hot! Maybe all of those played some part. But underneath all of that, my heart’s electrical system was not doing what it needed to do. That is humbling. It is also clarifying.

When I finally went to the ER, the whole story changed quickly. This was no longer about missing a flight. This was no longer about trying to salvage a trip. This was no longer about whether I could still make it to Vegas. The medical team understood the seriousness before I emotionally did. Doctors and nurses were moving with urgency, and I was still partly thinking about the presentations I was not going to give. That may sound ridiculous, but it is true.

I was close to dying, and I was disappointed about the talks.

Not because I do not value my life. I very much do. But the mind does not always process danger in the order we think it should. I had spent months preparing for those workshops. I cared about the material. I cared about the people who had supported the classes. I cared about showing up and doing what I said I would do. So even while my heart was failing to keep pace with the demands of my body, part of my attention was still in Las Vegas with the room I never entered and the talk I never gave.

That tells me something about identity.

Some of us are so used to being responsible that we do not notice when responsibility has started crowding out self-care. Some of us are so attached to being useful that we can miss the fact that our own life is asking for attention. Some of us are so used to pushing through that we do not notice when pushing through has become dangerous.

That may be the part of this story that belongs to you.

Maybe your body has been trying to get your attention. Maybe your marriage has. Maybe your work has. Maybe your anxiety has. Maybe your anger has. Maybe your exhaustion has. Maybe your lack of joy has. Maybe the version of you that keeps saying, “I’m fine,” is not actually fine. Maybe you are not in a crisis, but you are living with signals you keep explaining away.

I am not saying every discomfort is an emergency. I am saying peace requires honesty.

That is one of the reasons I created the PEACE Path. Peace is not pretending everything is fine. Peace is not spiritual bypassing. Peace is not pushing through until your body, your marriage, your business, or your soul collapses in the terminal. Peace begins when we pause long enough to perceive what is actually happening. Then we can accept reality, make grounded choices, and move forward with more clarity.

I have been rehearsing presence for years. I have practiced being here, now. I have practiced noticing. I have practiced not letting fear run every internal room. And when this crisis happened, fear never entered. The moments were just too captivating. The ER. The helicopter. The procedures. The strange reality of becoming a person with a permanent pacemaker. That rehearsal paid off in growth; I was not afraid.

But here is the honest part: presence helped me meet the crisis, but I still wish I had listened sooner. That is not shame. That is learning. The flight I never boarded has become more than a canceled trip. It has become a marker. Before that day, I was trying to get to Vegas. After that day, I am asking a different question: what life have I been accepting as normal that was actually smaller than it needed to be?

That is the question I want to carry through this series. Because the crisis may have happened in my heart, but the lesson is bigger than cardiology. We all have places where abnormal becomes normal. We all have stories we tell ourselves so we can keep going. We all have plans that matter to us. And sometimes, life interrupts the plan because something deeper needs attention.

I am grateful to be home. I am grateful for the medical team. I am grateful for the technology now helping my heart do what it could no longer reliably do on its own. I am grateful the dizziness and blacking-out sensations are gone. I am grateful that the flight I never boarded may have given me back a life I did not realize had been slowly shrinking.

If this stirs something in you about what you have normalized, what you are pushing through, or where your life has become smaller than it needs to be, that is the kind of work I help people do in the PEACE Path. Contact me and let’s talk about what it would look like to move forward with more peace, clarity, and capacity.

The Flight I Never Boarded Series

1. The Flight I Never Boarded
   www.caseycolecorbin.com/blog/flight-i-never-boarded

2. A Pulse of 20 and the Stories We Tell Ourselves
   www.caseycolecorbin.com/blog/pulse-of-20

3. When Abnormal Becomes Normal
   www.caseycolecorbin.com/blog/when-abnormal-becomes-normal

4. Near Death, but Not Afraid
   www.caseycolecorbin.com/blog/near-death-not-afraid

5. The Talk I Didn’t Give
   www.caseycolecorbin.com/blog/the-talk-i-didnt-give

6. Becoming a Cyborg
   www.caseycolecorbin.com/blog/becoming-a-cyborg

7. What Survival Is For
   www.caseycolecorbin.com/blog/what-survival-is-for

-Casey

PS: So I have always secretly been a bad boy. I filmed this during the gloriously beautiful Life Flight helicopter ride. The female EMT actually hit my arm to stop me from using my cell phone during the flight! I laughed. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1DKrHrYFyL/