When downward dog changes everything

Thirteen years ago, snowboarder Kevin Pearce was at the height of his career, on track to compete in the Winter Olympics. But the trajectory of his life changed forever when he suffered an accident during training.

• Kevin struck his head on a halfpipe while attempting a trick. He was left with a traumatic brain injury – one of the over 2.5 million that occur each year in the US – that left him hospitalized for years to come.

🧠 I gotchu, bro… Kevin had to relearn how to walk, talk, and do things on his own – essentially starting life over as a 22-year-old. However, when the going gets tough, the tough answer the call; Kevin's older brother Adam quit his job and moved across the country to help him through rehab.

• “What I remember most, and the best thing I remember, hands down,” Kevin said, “is Adam being there and doing it all with me.”

🙏 Finding his flow… Through his long months of treatment, Kevin picked up yoga as a way to find mobility again. Adam was shocked to find his brother acting more and more like himself after each session.

• “It was the first time I remember so clearly coming out of a class with him and just seeing in his face this new expression, this new person,” Adam said. “We were like, ‘We need to figure out why and how that just happened.’”

Five years and plenty of healing and yoga classes later, the brothers founded the LoveYourBrain Foundation. The nonprofit org offers weeklong retreats and community-based yoga classes for both people with traumatic brain injuries and their caregivers.

📈 Bottom line: The LoveYourBrain Foundation aims to bring healing and community to people suffering from traumatic brain injuries. In the nine years since its founding, they've reached over 35,000 people. 

• “I think people feel isolated after brain injury because they don’t feel able, and when you don’t feel able, you generally retreat back inside,” Adam said. “At these retreats, people are given the space to lean into those deep challenges and express them and talk about them.”

+Editor's note: An earlier version of this story was published in Positive DONUT in March 2023. It was so sweet that we had to share it again🥰.