Tribe Director Hannah's Journey to Wellness
By Hannah Whitesides, Director of the Tribe @ Project P and the Project Passport Wellness Hub
Note: The Tribe @ Project P is paused at this time for the public and only open to women booked for travel retreats
The member I am featuring this week is, myself! My name is Hannah Whitesides and I am the Director of the Tribe @ Project P. I contribute content, lead events, and well, direct! I wanted to feature myself for this blog because as the director of a wellness platform, it can seem like I have it all figured out. But that’s not the case… at all. I am still learning and growing just like all our wonderful Tribe sisters. To prove that, I want to share my journey.
Growing up, my mom was very vocal about mental health. She made sure we knew that we were encouraged to express our feelings. However, I’ve never really been quite like that. For some reason, it has always been difficult for me to be vulnerable about the struggles I was facing and the emotions that came with it. So to put it simply, I never saw myself working in the field let alone becoming the Director of a wellness platform.
Fast forward to my senior year in college. I attended North Carolina State University (go pack) and majored in International Studies with a concentration in European Studies. I know what you’re thinking, what are you going to do with that? Truth is, I had no idea but I refused to major in something that I absolutely hated just to be guaranteed a well paying career in, you guessed it, one that I hated as well. So I chose a major that I loved even if I didn’t know where it would lead me. Unbeknownst to me, after nearly 4 years of wondering where my life would take me, the spring semester of my senior year my future fell into my lap. I took a course that helped graduating seniors set themselves up for the transition to the real world. You know, mock interviews, successful LinkedIn profiles, and career readiness assignments.
One day I walked into class and there were a group of people sitting in the front of the classroom. Each individual was a NC State alum with different years of graduation. The point of this panel was for students to ask questions about the transition from college to the real world and what that looks like. One of the panelists caught my attention. It wasn’t only her bubbly personality and goofy raw honesty that made me want to be her friend. It was also the company she started, Project Passport. At the beginning, Project Passport was a travel retreat company rooted in mental wellness. I thought, this is perfect for me! Two weeks later she hired me as her travel expert and itinerary planner. After successfully planning, booking, and selling out our very first retreat to Kenya, cue COVID-19. The next few months would be a whirlwind of disappointment, confusion, and no more dream job. However, over these few months, Project Passport was able to pivot to virtual wellness retreats, where we have been very successful in a space that we had no idea if it would even work.
Fast forward to the present day. I have learned and grown a lot in these last two years. Yes, I am excited to get back to the traveling aspect of my job when we can but for now I am definitely in the spot I need to be. Life is weird like that sometimes. In order for you to understand my wellness journey a bit more, I need to rewind to before I met Sabriya.
I believe it was my junior year of high school when my dad got sick. He wasn’t sick in the general sense of the word. By sick, I mean we had no idea that the reason he began walking funny was because of an autoimmune disease that would eventually lead to his death. What we thought was a simple issue that could be fixed by shoe inserts was actually the beginning of his brain turning against him. Over the next 3 years it would progressively get worse and move up his body. He went from walking, to a cane, to a walker, and finally to a wheelchair. But it didn’t stop there. It affected his fingers, hands, arms, and eventually took his life in April of 2017 just a few days after his 58th birthday. The worst part about this whole experience was that not one single doctor could diagnose him (and yes, we went to the Mayo Clinic and Duke multiple times). If you looked at his hospital scans and tests he would appear to be perfectly healthy. So we had hope.
Before the last few months of his life, he seemed to be getting better at times. He would practice walking around the kitchen in the evening with his walker and it seemed like progress. But once the disease got to his brain it didn’t take long for the inevitable. I went from being optimistically hopeful to a doctor at Duke telling me, if you want to say anything to him you need to do it now because he won’t be able to understand you soon. Devastated is a laughable word to describe how I felt that day and the months following. In order for me to survive this loss, my brain did the only thing it could. It turned off all my emotions. I was a walking zombie refusing to feel anything. It has been almost six years now and I am still trying to figure out how to tap into who I once was.
Being a wellness leader has helped me tremendously. It has forced me to do the work I need to do in order to slowly chip that wall down that I unconsciously built up in order to cope with what happened. We all have work we need to do for our mental health and through the Tribe we have created a space for women to do just that while being supported and encouraged when dealing with not only the hard stuff but the soft stuff as well. I realize that my experience was a traumatic one and I don’t really talk about it but the Tribe has helped me manage all of the other symptoms that come with it such as stress and fear management. Mental wellness isn’t something you can achieve and then neglect. Whether you’re going through a tough time or living your best life working on your mental wellness still needs to be a top priority. I am so happy to be part of and lead this wonderful platform and I look forward to the future of it and all its members.
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The Tribe @ Project P is an exclusive women's community that provides a sacred wellness space for women to feel seen, heard, and valued; allows them to connect and build a supportive community; enhances travel inspiration; and helps women foster life discovery while uncovering joy in their daily lives. The Tribe @ Project P offers 1:1 coaching opportunities, surprise membership gifts in the mail, live virtual retreats, fun virtual social events and interactive wellness content, activities and challenges.