I feel compelled to share some of my story (more parts to come), hoping it will offer you insight into who I am and the experiences that have shaped me. My intention is to give you a deeper understanding of what I do and the reasons behind it. I share this with the hope that it might resonate with you and be of help in some way.
It started in my gut when I was very young. For years, I had digestive issues–pain and discomfort, you name it, I had it. As a highly sensitive person I held all my emotions in my gut, and being in my skin just didn’t always feel good. Finally, in my early 20s and in massage school, I decided to try to do something about it. This was after feeling discouraged yet again with Western medicine (I saw a gastroenterologist that diagnosed me with IBS and told me I wasn’t going to die or anything. NO JOKE).
This empowered me to take my health into my own hands. I started making changes to my diet and started exercising again (after falling off when going to school and working three jobs). After navigating this on my own, I learned what my body needed to feel well, what foods actually nourished me, and what foods wreaked havoc on my system. All of these steps, of course, helped. I felt better. But, it wasn’t everything I needed to heal my gut health.
Because the thing is, the more you tune in to your body, the more you can begin to hear what it’s saying. Through diet and exercise, I moved through the layers of stomach pain and inflammation, but there was more my body wanted to communicate, now that it knew I was listening. So I turned to other methods of “healing,” holistic health, acupuncture, naturopathy, homeopathy, massage, chiropractic, biofeedback…you name it, I tried it. And again, a lot of it helped! But what was I really doing? I was looking outside myself to fix what I thought was a problem in me. Meanwhile, I was repeating my old patterns of burning the candle at both ends and doing everything myself, just with some self-care added in.
Eventually I started working on my emotional wounds, my past traumas, and peeling back some layers there…And then…fast forward a decade and the pain in my leg came. A shooting pain. It felt hot and on fire. And it was sooooo intense. Nearly debilitating. So I did all-the-things-PLUS EXTRA. I went to my trusted sources, nourished my body, moved it as I could, but nothing was helping. I started to get really, really frustrated. At myself and my body. I just wanted the pain to go away. I felt I was doing everything in my power to help it, but it wasn’t budging. Luckily for me, something new came into my life that *shifted everything.* That thing was discovering more of the body-mind connection, but what do I mean by that?
Well, I started learning that my pain wasn’t just a problem to fix…because I wasn’t ever broken. It was information. It was my body’s only way to speak to me, to try to tell me that something far deeper than my muscle and my bones was in need of attention. I needed to PAUSE and LISTEN. That was when BodyMind coaching came into my life. I had hit burnout and knew there was an easier way of doing life. My coach (the creator of the BodyMind Method) helped me (1) learn my body’s language; and (2) take an honest look at my values and my life. It turns out, I was very much living out of alignment with my values and boundaries, and moreover, I didn’t have support (this was a key part of what my lower back/leg pain was trying to tell me! I needed support!) Bodymind coaching helped me make healthier and more aligned choices in my life by leading from within. I not only relearned how to listen to these messages from the body; I also honored it by changing how I was operating daily. I started to create healthy boundaries for myself by working less and creating a schedule that worked for me, not taking on things that I didn't really want to do - saying no. And, saying yes to the things that would light me up.
It wasn’t easy, taking my body’s advice. It meant I couldn't do it all. I had to choose what was most important, and deal with the very real fear that came with those decisions. It also meant being vulnerable and calling in support in previously neglected areas, so that I wasn't carrying the load alone. This, too, caused immense discomfort (and still sometimes does!). But at last, I could LISTEN to what my body was saying to me. At last, we could work TOGETHER. My body carries so much wisdom (and so does yours), and I’m just eternally grateful that I had (and have) the opportunity to give it a voice.
And this my friends is exactly what I do to help my clients. Most people come to me with a physical pain or frustration in the body. We start to get curious and explore deeper by helping you give your body a voice. It’s always talking, are you listening?
