Author explains how to unplug, reconnect
Nancy Whitney-Reiter was on the 18th floor of one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
“I had two thoughts. One was that I hadn’t helped anybody. I was successful on paper but I wasn’t happy. And the other thought was that I hadn’t really lived,” she said.
Surviving the terrorist attacks prompted some soul-searching for Whitney-Reiter. She quit her job as an economist in Washington, D.C., to take another as a market analyst in Texas. She broke up with her boyfriend.
“I tried just changing locations and changing jobs, but that didn’t work,” she said. “I knew something was wrong; I just didn’t know what that something was.”
Eventually, she took a year off, spending two months teaching elementary school students in Costa Rica, traveling the United States and working as a wildlife researcher in South Africa, fulfilling a lifelong dream.
“I thought the reason I was feeling lost, dissatisfied, was because I was a 9/11 survivor, but on my travels I met people from 18 to 64 who felt the same way and were not tragedy survivors,” she said.
She compiled the results of her personal journey into a book, “Unplugged: How to Disconnect From the Rat Race, Have an Existential Crisis, and Find Meaning and Fulfillment.”
She was at Fort Bragg on Aug. 30 to sign copies of the book and to lead a workshop to help active-duty personnel and their families after a deployment. It’s called, “The Need to Unplug: How to Save Your Health, Your Relationships and Your Life.”
As a tragedy survivor and the daughter of a Silver Star veteran, Whitney-Reiter says, she has a message that can help service members re-integrate after deployments.
“Unplugging” is Whitney-Reiter’s term for taking an occasional break from technology, especially cell phones. It entails reconnecting with yourself, taking a break from normal life and being open to a new path in life.
Lanie Ensey, a mother of four and wife of a Fort Bragg soldier, attended the workshop and said she likes that the book discusses in detail how to plan vacation time specifically to unplug and offers concrete suggestions.
Whitney-Reiter recommends that service members take advantage of their leave when returning from deployments to take time by themselves or with their spouses and children before attempting to reintegrate into normal life.
She also encourages them to take advantage of government holidays and military discounts and benefits.
“I want them to understand that it’s normal to need to take some time off. The human mind, body and spirit need downtime,” Whitney-Reiter said. “It’s not about being strong; it’s about the right way and the wrong way to reintegrate.”
—Margaret Damghani, Fay Observer
