Who am I? Alexis Goldstein, That’s Who!
Hello readers! I was asked to introduce myself for my readers. My family did not find out that I was deaf until I was about a year old. Being in a hearing world, sports were too competitive for me, therefore I was never able to join any sports at my school where I was mainstreamed. Although, I played sports outside of school such as soccer, bowling, baseball, flag football, and basketball. Looking back, I wish I played sports at my school for the experience of sportsmanship and making memories with friends. To be honest, I did not feel like I belonged, and I could not wait to leave high school.
When I graduated from CSU, Northridge in Liberal Studies major with a Credential specializing Special Education/Deaf and hard-of-hearing; I learned a lot from my Deaf students by seeing how they saw the world. Many felt that they were limited to reach further in the hearing world. They did not know they could be an actor/actress; fly an airplane; be a model; compete in the motocross; or be anything they dream up to become. The most abused phrase that Deaf people hear all the time is, YOU CAN’T BECAUSE YOU CANNOT HEAR, and those words get stuck in our minds. To change that negative mindset, I needed to and wanted to help change that perspective for our Deaf children and reach out to others with disabilities. They CAN reach further in life and do what they have always dreamed of doing.
This is the part where I will tell you how did I get into the mudder world. I have known my boyfriend, Patrick for about a year now. Before we started dating, he told me about his plans, he wants to compete as many obstacle mud race as possible. At that time, I knew about Tough Mudder, but that was all I knew. I decided to watch Patrick do his second race; but it didn’t hit me until I saw him compete his third race which was at Tough Mudder last February. I was in awe watching him and all the other mudders doing this race in 44-degree weather and the wind wasn’t funny, but they kept going until they finished the race! Feeling completely inspired, I found the opportunity to help deaf people build their confidence by doing these races and I was hooked every since. I have done ten obstacle races, including a Half Marathon. I never thought I would do something like this in my lifetime, but here I am and I have never felt so good, so ALIVE!
I have learned so much about myself that I never knew before. A lot of my fears were there and I overcame them. My view of life has changed and all I wanted for myself was to get stronger, better, and healthier. Patrick and I got a GoPro camera and our runs were recorded! The pictures and videos of our perspectives of what we saw and how we overcame the obstacles were something we treasured. We wanted to share them to give inspiration and motivation to encourage our friends to join us! In order to share them, Patrick and I came up with an idea; create an Instagram account, called @deafheartactive. We also created another account Facebook page and YouTube account, also called Deaf Heart Active for deaf users to see the videos in sign language. These accounts were successful in most part. We have gotten several messages from Deaf people asking us more about the races, and several have joined us on this journey!
Thank you for reading! Please ask away if you have any questions!
Alexis Goldstein
DEAF HEART ACTIVE
NEVER QUIT!
