Rise Again Coaching
BOOK DETAILS
Beyond the Chair
Beyond the Chair is the true story of a man who was born adapting — living with cerebral palsy from childhood — and then had to learn how to adapt all over again after a spinal cord injury changed his life in 2009.
This isn't a polished, everything-figured-out kind of memoir. It's the real one: the three months it took to get a diagnosis, the friend who gave tough love instead of sympathy, the slow and often unglamorous work of therapy, grief, faith, and finding purpose again. Abe Bilodeau — certified life coach, budding motivational speaker, and founding Oola ambassador — takes readers through his own struggle, shift, and rise, and invites them to find their own way through whatever "chair" is holding them in place.
Whether that chair is literal or not, this book is for anyone in a hard season who needs to know two things: they're not the only one who's been here, and they're not finished.
Author Bio: Abe Bilodeau is a certified life coach, budding motivational speaker, and founding Oola ambassador with a background in social work and special education. Living with cerebral palsy since childhood and a spinal cord injury since 2009, Abe founded Rise Again Coaching to help others navigate disability, injury, and major life transitions. Beyond the Chair is his first book.
Excerpt from the Introduction:
Beyond the Chair started as two words in my head before it ever became a book title. The first time I said them out loud, I was talking about the actual chair — the wheelchair I've used since 2009. But the longer I sat with it, the more I realized the chair means something bigger than metal and wheels. It's whatever holds you in place. For me, that's been a wheelchair, a hospital bed, and more waiting rooms than I can count. For you, it might be grief, a diagnosis, a marriage that fell apart, a job you lost, or a version of your life you're still mourning.
I was born with cerebral palsy, so adapting has never been new to me. But in 2009, everything changed again. What started as unexplained falls turned into a spinal cord injury that took my ability to walk without help. I spent months in and out of hospitals and rehab facilities, relearning how to do things I'd done my whole life without thinking about them.
This book is the story of what happened next — not the polished version, the real one. The three months it took to get a diagnosis. The friend who gave me a Gibbs slap instead of sympathy when I needed it. The night I got locked in a bathroom at work and had to figure my own way out. The slow, unglamorous work of therapy, grief, faith, and finding my way back to purpose.
I'm not writing this because I have it all figured out. I'm writing it because I don't, and I've learned that's okay. Recovery isn't a straight line, and neither is this book — it moves through the struggle, the shift, and the rise, because that's honestly how it happened for me too.
If you're reading this from your own chair — literal or otherwise — I want you to know two things: you're not the only one who's been here, and you're not finished. Whatever this season has taken from you, it hasn't taken your story. Let's go through it together.
