When I Fell: How I Rerouted My Life and Found Strength in a Severed Spine

by Michael Murphy

1.6 seconds. That’s how long it takes to fall two stories. That’s how long it takes for life to change. When Michael Murphy was 21, he fell off a roof at college and landed flat on his back, severing his spine. They say that nobody understands their own traumatic injury just after it happens—but Michael did. Every person falls. They fall short in school, in life, in work, and in love. Their lives sometimes feel punctuated by those downfalls—the rejection letters, the unrequited love, the missed promotions, the life altering traumas. Everyone falls. But then what?

When I Fell is a true tale of going from abled, to disabled, to empowered. It combines the story surrounding Michael’s recovery with the science of resiliency and thriving—what psychologists are now calling Posttraumatic Growth (PTG)—to teach readers how to hit home runs when life throws them curves. Befitting new mainstream acceptance for disabilities, When I Fell is as much a memoir as it is a message. It features the five principles established by Drs. Tedeschi and Calhoun—the pioneers who coined the phrase in the 1990’s—for scientific validation to bring PTG further into the public eye.

295 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 5, 2021

About the author

Bestselling author Michael Murphy has been called the father of the human potential movement, one of the most influential movements in twentieth-century American culture. His bestselling book Golf in the Kingdom (1972) inspired the creation of the Shivas Irons Society, a nonprofit group dedicated to finding beauty and discovery through the game of golf, and has recently been adapted into a movie starring Malcolm McDowell (2010). His other books include Jacob Atabet (1977), An End to Ordinary History (1982), In the Zone (1995), and The Kingdom of Shivas Irons (1997). He lives in California.