Humboldt County listeners will have a treat Thursday when Keith Mitchell, a former National Football League All-Pro, will be interviewed and featured on the KMUD radio station during the Chi Talks program at 9 a.m. Thursday. On the program, moderated by Samantha Montoya and Javier Rodriguez, Mitchell will speak to his journey of recovery after a traumatic injury on the field left him paralyzed. Using conscious breathing, mindfulness practices, yoga, and other modalities, he was able to regain full use of all his faculties. He’s released a book called “The Mindfulness Mastery Playbook,” and is looking at the possibility of conducting wellness retreats in Humboldt, potentially at Montoya’s “My Humboldt Abode” retreat property.
Growing up in Texas, Mitchell said he aspired to play football amidst the unique culture the state has for the sport. From a young age, he was keen on the potential of maximizing one’s dreams and manifesting opportunities. Offered scholarships to any school he wished, he chose Texas A&M, and achieved All-American and Hall of Fame status there. He became an All-Pro linebacker for the New Orleans Saints in the NFL, spending six years there and a year in Houston before one year in Jacksonville, where he was going for a routine tackle and broke his neck, diagnosed as a spinal contusion, which he dealt with by using breath work to help him “process the moment, not going too far in the past or too far in the future, but just being present. That is the closest place you can be to homeostasis when you’re dealing with trauma.”
“That allowed me to regulate my nervous system to participate in solving the problem to be healed again. If my mind would’ve gone in the direction of being a victim I would’ve stayed the victim, but the reality is my mind provoked me to say, ‘This is not my end. I will overcome it.’ That’s why I suggest the concept of mindfulness and why I feel it works.”
After retiring in 2005, Mitchell read “The Art of Loving,” by Erich Fromm, which offered a perspective that intrigued him about learning, also absorbing the craft of Jay Christian Murray, who was featured in the book. These teachers offered “cutting edge ideas and philosophies” which Mitchell has followed religiously from ’05 until present day, putting him on a base of scholarship that he says he wishes he would’ve had in college.
Keith Mitchell played for multiple NFL teams. Hiis longest stint was with the Saints. (Contributed)
A resident of Mexico for the last seven years, he’s opened up the 1440 Meditation Center outside of San Jose, he’s spoken around the world, and he’s worked with the Obamas, creating his own care plan with the University of Rochester back in 2015, working with Rick Dorsey on cutting-edge telemedicine practices. He said he’s been an advocate, working with children in detention centers, also creating the Congressional Yoga Association, bringing Democrats and Republicans to meditate together every quarter on Capitol Hill, where he facilitated practices with Charles Rangel, Tim Ryan, and Barbara Lee.
Mitchell said he’s a “big advocate of creating your own reality, and doing. We’ve been talking for a long time in the world and these arenas, I want to put it into action what it looks like, an eco-friendly, high-end, mixed-use type developments where we work with nature, not pasteurizing it but complementing it, integrating with the locals to empower them, developing the land inclusively, building schools there, with some great projects we’re doing there.”
Asked what he’s hoping people take away from the Chi Talks segment, Mitchell said, “sickness is a huge component in our society that I would say contributes to a lot of the unconscious decisions we make. I’d like to showcase how we can fuel consciousness and get clarity within ourselves, to have a strong mind and strong body, doing things that we have purpose to do, solving our problems.”
The bedrock of the exchange on Chi Talks will be centered around the concept mindfulness and human growth and development, much of which Mitchell says he learned in pressurized, competitive environments, “giving the tangible to some of the vague interpretations, saying this is a concept you can be engaged in and do, the purpose not being to follow mine but to create your own … whether it be breath work, yoga or meditation. That’s where ‘The Mindfulness Mastery Playbook’ comes in.”
As far as spreading his message, Mitchell highlighted how currently everything is generated “to solicit the clicks, negative things that people are entertained by, I guess … It’s said when you live long enough, things become surreality and you can test whether your beliefs are accurate or not, we’re seeing this. If people don’t have a practice that’s going to stay in their minds, this is a very vulnerable moment, and people can lose it.”
Samantha Montoya (Samantha Montoya — Contributed)
Montoya became familiar with Mitchell on Instagram last fall, seeing how he was talking about mindfulness. As a Reiki practitioner, part of the formula she teaches her students is mindfulness and energy body, and what they are co-creating in their world. She saw the book had been released, and the quotes Mitchell posted resonated with her. She offered to see if he was interested in her reading his book for submission to Audible, for which they concluded Mitchell’s voice would be appropriate and Montoya might read introductions or subtopics for “dynamic energy.” A talk in the Humboldt area could be in the offing as Montoya hosts retreats. Nothing is set yet, but Mitchell is likely to come teach a workshop in the area.
Montoya has co-hosted previously on Rodriguez’ show, and said Rodriguez is a member of the wellness community in Southern Humboldt, Chi Gong teacher, and podcast producer. They were part of a winter wellness pop-up where they both presented workshops on their respective modalities, and Montoya was asked onto the show to promote her Reiki practice and workshops.
She was very much looking forward to interviewing Mitchell, with whom she has developed a friendship, and thought that “things can only go up from here, and the community would benefit from any modality where that creative spark can be renewed.”
_Ken McCanless can be reached at 707-441-0526._