Page 7 - Hawaii Island MidWeek - Oct 20, 2021

Retired Army Colonel Is On A Mission To Help Others Beat Their Stress
FROM PAGE 6
dered her lungs to expand and contract, and her legs to keep moving along the path.
is — a retired U.S. Army colonel who just released her book Why is Pono not Pono Today? — is one of the world’s foremost coaches on stress management.
Two of her free courses on extreme stress and stress ba- sics have already registered 3,800 people from 110 coun- tries, she says.
In many ways, Lewis’ three-decades-long career in the military — which in- cludes surviving life down- range in Iraq as well as in Washington, D.C., during the 9/11 attack at the Pentagon — makes her the ideal men- tor and motivator for those hoping to overcome obsta- cles and reach their potential.
West Point? I can get you on the riding team.”
Lewis continues: “West Point was a huge test. I knew it would be hard and I thought I’ d be prepared, but no one can prepare you for a social revolution. There was a firestorm of publicity and controversy with people weighing in on both sides, and the faculty and cadets were all whipped up. Even the superintendent before we arrived said, ‘Over my dead body will women come to the academy.’ And that created a very rough environment.
“I said to myself, ‘I’m go- ing to pass out before I fall out,’” she remembers.
“When I retired (in 2010), I wanted to help people be successful when things got tough,” adds Lewis, whose book may be purchased at mentallytoughwomen.com. “It took a while to come up with Mentally Tough Wom- en, but the idea was how do we gracefully handle tough situations? People keep tell- ing us to de-stress. The prob- lem with that is, are problems getting easier or are they getting tougher? Are people dealing with it well or deal- ing with it badly?”
Intrigued by the offer, Lewis simply replied, “OK.” “My mother was the rid- er in the family, so I got that from her,” says Lewis, whose father taught her and her two older brothers to swim at an
Lewis neither fainted nor threw up that day. In fact, she not only completed that run but every run thereafter. In figuring out how to control her breath and heartbeat, she discovered she could do ex- traordinary things when she allowed her mind to over- come a daunting challenge.
“We need to be stronger,” demands the Hilo resident. “We must figure out a way to handle more stress so that when we face challenges, we can bring out the best in ev- eryone and get more done.”
early age.
“As a young person, you
As she explains, “I learned that stress can be your super- power if you harness it, tame it and focus on what you want done.”
Her book captures the es- sence of her Mentally Tough Women initiative, which seeks to strengthen both women and “enlightened men — or those unafraid of strong women at their best” — through online courses and one-on-one sessions.
“I’ ve faced death,” she states. “I’ ve faced people trying to bomb me, shoot me, kidnap me, insult me and put me down. I’ ve had it all. I was asked a question recently, ‘How do you handle (stress)? Well, I said, for one, you learn to get back up. And Iin my case, I’m going to get back up fast! I’m never going to wallow in it.”
want to do things tough ear- ly on. I think that’s where I get a lot of my toughness. It was tough being a horseback rider,” she continues, adding that she ultimately became captain of the equestrian team during her senior year at the academy.
“But it was good for me because if you can survive in that environment and learn to still be yourself, then that can be very helpful.”
Little wonder why Lew-
“It was also tough being a swimmer and moving around a lot. I think my path could have taken me in a number of ways, but I was definitely drawn to West Point.”
Lewis survived and then some. Following her time at the academy, she also learned to manage large projects while training and supervis- ing scores of people.
t only seems natural that Lewis would wind up in the military. Her
OCTOBER 20, 2021 HAWAI‘I ISLAND MIDWEEK 7
Fans of Lewis (center) and her just-released book include (from left) Christine Reed, co-owner of Basically Books and Petroglyph Press in Hilo, and Dr. Sonia Juvik, professor emerita at University of Hawai‘i at Hilo.
SEE PAGE 11
father, Bennett, graduated from West Point and was a mechanic in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He also served in multiple wars before retiring as a lieu- tenant general in 1984. Even her mother, Malvene, had ties to the military as the daugh- ter of a naval officer.
Lewis is certainly proud of being a part of the first grad- uating class of 62 female ca- dets. In the years since, the U.S. Military Academy has seen more than 5,000 women successfully pass through its hallowed halls, and today, its female population comprises 25% of the corps.
After joining the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, she was put in charge of two districts: first in Philadelphia, where she oversaw 550 em- ployees across five eastern states; and second in Seattle, where she managed 850 peo- ple scattered over four west- ern states.
Still, Lewis — who was born in Frankfurt, Germa- ny, and raised in locations around the world — claims her career pathway was any- thing but a foregone conclu- sion.
Attitudes about the sexes have certainly changed in the last four decades, she ac- knowledges.
Later, while assigned to the Pentagon, she was the engineer in charge of writ- ing regulations that would protect the highest levels of the military from terrorist attacks. Ironically, she was there at the U.S. Department of Defense headquarters the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when a hijacked commercial airliner crashed into the west- ern side of the building.
“I was going to be a doc- tor,” admits the woman who planned on attending the Uni- versity of Virginia following high school graduation.
“They didn’t think we could compete back then. They would say (to male cadets), ‘How could you possibly let women graduate from West Point?!’ My own classmates stopped talking to me at times during my four years because they were get- ting hazed and they didn’t want to take the abuse. But I was like, ‘Join the club, be part of the group! It’s not so bad — you’ll get used to it!’” she says with a laugh.
Circumstance, however, would pull her in another direction after a cadet friend of an acquaintance asked the young woman with a clear passion for horses, “Have you thought about going to
“I’m always where trouble is,” she says jokingly.
Five years later, she was