“Follow Your Heart” | Phil Devitte

One moment Philip Devitte had everything a guy could dream of: A beautiful wife and family, a great career, a fancy car. The next moment his car suddenly spun out of control and with it his life. The doctors and nurses said he would never walk again. He refused to accept their doomsday’s predictions.

“It wasn’t denial,” he says. It was something he firmly knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. Devitte was so determined to walk again that he fired his doctor, surrounded himself with positive people who would help him achieve his goal and equipped himself with the most important tools in his arsenal: faith, willpower, determination, alignment, discipline, flexibility, and patience.

He took the best Western medicine had to offer and supplemented his treatment with the best alternative medicine he could find: visualization, meditation, and prayer.

Follow Your Heart is the story of one man’s defiance of his fate and his heroic efforts to stand on his own two feet again. Philip shows how we can stand up in the face of adversity and still achieve extraordinary success.

ABOUT PHIL DEVITTE

Is it possible to recover from a spinal chord injury when your doctor says you will never walk again? When Philip Devitte was just 27 with his whole life ahead of him, a car accident left him paralyzed from the waist down—for life, according to his doctor’s prognosis. Married to a beautiful wife, he was also told he would never be able to have children.

Devitte suffered a T-8 injury, damage to his eighth thoracic bone and other vertebra. Acccording to his doctor, less than 1% of people with injuries like his ever walk again.  But Philip Devitte refused to accept his doctor’s dire prognosis. Something deep inside him, “a knowing beyond knowing,” assured Devitte at the core level of his being that he would walk again.

Philip Devitte devotes considerable time these days advocating driver safety to young people. A former director of Think First in Palm Springs, he has given many motivational speeches to students in California and Washington about the dangers of unsafe driving habits, and the importance of believing in themselves even when the odds are against them.

“I learned the importance of being mentally involved in my own life,” says Devitte, “and focused on the outcome. The journey takes care of itself.”

A father of two grown children who has been walking for more than 25 years, Devitte wants to share his story so that others may realize the importance of always following one’s heart and the power of one’s inner spirit.