Happy Holidays my friends! For those of us in the US, we just finished celebrating Thanksgiving. This time of year I begin to look around at all the things that truly make me grateful for my life. First off, I'd like to say Thank You to my Founding Members who have been receiving my newsletters since I began my business over a year ago! I'm so grateful for each and every one of you! As some of you know, last year was a very hard year for me. I lost my dad, my dog, my job, my relationship, and my home in NYC AND had a broken foot the whole time all within 6 months of the arrival of C19. It was a total uproot to the life I had worked so hard to build. An uproot to my identity. I felt like I was at the peak of everything! I was a highly successful Project Manager - Engineer for the JFK Airport living in the greatest City in the world (imo) haha. And then... poof! Gone. But it's in those moments when you "lose" everything is where you find out who you really are. Over my lifetime I wasn't the best at handling stress and I attribute it to the defining moments that brought on my disease diagnoses' of Crohn's, RA, Diabetes, Hashimotos, and finally cancer. I would blame things that happened TO me as the reasons why my life was hard and why my health was falling down the drain. But it wasn't until I started looking at health, disease, and stress in a new light 7 years ago that changed my life forever. I reversed every illness I had by following the science of the biology of the body through Functional Medicine & health coaching! It was miraculous how when I changed my life, how everything changed with it. Key reason why I became a Health Coach (& am becoming a Functional Medicine Practitioner) and have furthered my studies in health @ Stanford, Yale, and in Functional Medicine. I'm completely nerding out with the knowledge that returned my body to true health! So when things hit the fan last year.... I got to step up to the plate to show myself what I am made of! Did all my hard work and knowledge pay off? Or was the overload of stress going to do me in? It was like a teeter totter. One day I was healing, the next I was breaking. But the tools I learned and the strength I had gained from years of practice led me to this moment. This moment where I stepped back, took responsibility of my own life, travelled to Europe and took a deep dive look into emotionally healing and coming out stronger than ever. I GET TO CHOSE HOW LIFE HITS ME! << Daily mantra So I ask... when the poo hits your fan, when your knees buckle at the weight of the world... Do you look around at all that you lost? God, why did this happen to me? Or do you change your perspective of life of how can you use this to serve you? What are these moments here to teach me? I called 2020 my #yearofloss but came into 2021 like a Gladiator rebuilding my life and ME to be exactly what I wanted it to be. I quickly found out how strong I am, how to accept help when I truly needed it (cuz did I ever!), how to better set boundaries, and how to truly begin to fully put my well-being first. My life doesn't even look the same because I invested so much in myself to create:
a thriving coaching business where I get the pleasure of helping people find relief and vitality in their bodies!
time for myself to do things that bring me joy because I am now my own boss
an opportunity to go back to school to become a Functional Medicine Practitioner
an amazing, fun filled #1 Amazon New Release best selling children's book series about my mischievous pup Mishka
a global network of people who make the decisions to thrive and not just survive
my own ideal health and body that I can be proud to live in every single day
time to write a memoir about my own healing journey to share with people who are suffering just like I used to
My dad had been so proud of me (even tho he hated me living in NYC lol). Taking this step out of engineering was one of the hardest decisions of my life. But I know that if he could see me now: my thriving business that I built from the ground up, my radio show appearance, my book hitting #1 on Amazon, my stress level plummet, and my joy in following my dreams. that he would be 10x more proud for my bravery to face the world head on.
So, I know that 2020 had a different affect on everyone. Looking back at the last 21 months, is there a part of your life that you found to be a struggle? How can you change your perspective of how this circumstance is actually serving you? Maybe moving you in a different direction but for good? Or teaching you something about yourself that you didn't realize before? Again, it's in these moments in which you find out who you are! Who are you? Is it someone you want to be? Or do you want to make some tweaks? Or do you want a complete overhaul?? As humans, we are always evolving. Making choices every single day to show up as _________ (the 'you' you created). We have the ability to wake up tomorrow and decide to be someone completely different. I'm talking about all of this now because it's typical for most of us to also look around at our life as the year comes to a close. We begin to set New Years Resolutions to "be better", lose weight, eat healthier, detox, read more, do more yoga, etc etc etc. We look back at the past year and think "I have regrets" "I didn't do enough" etc. Heck - I think mine is going to be to stop being a Type A-freaking-workaholic working on stuff 7 days a week! lol. I'm a bad boss apparently ha! But if you are one of those that looks back with regrets - - - >> STOP IT! You are exactly where you are meant to be. As I said, we are always evolving. Life, health, joy - these are all JOURNEYS, not destinations. I damn sure didn't get here overnight! And neither will you! And that's okay...! :) So, as part of your journey, what is something you've been thinking about implementing this year into your life to help make your life more enjoyable? Really take a moment to sit back and think about this.... Seriously... stop and think about it. Okay, now answer this.... WHY? Why are you wanting to make this change? Why now? How will it better serve you? What benefits will you gain in your life by succeeding and reaching your goal? What will your life look like? How will it impact others in your life? Really take some time to think about your why. How strong is it? Is it something that makes you HAVE to do this?! Or is your why something that isn't really important to you so you'll let the goals slip when life gets hard? On a scale of 1-10, how bad do you want it? What's been getting in your way? It is you? If you make the decision to change your IDENTITY in regards to your goal, how will this change your success rate? For example, if you are a smoker and decide you need to quit smoking. Yeah, but WHY? Think about all those people who die in the hospitals from throat & lung cancer. EEEEK! You can change your IDENTITY to: I don't smoke. (Trust me, I know how hard quitting smoking is which is why I love this example!) Do you think a non smoker even thinks about smoking? Once the monkey is gone and the poisons are out of your body, it's only your mind left to battle. But YOU are in control of your mind. Period. Where your focus goes, energy flows. What is the identity that this new you would take on? As you can see,
changing your perspective
making the decision
finding your WHY
and changing your identity
are super important for making any lifestyle and habitual changes as well as building resilience for all that life can throw at us. When we are constantly working on ourselves, we can be ready for anything! I like to say "luck is when preparation meets opportunity". It's the preparations we do behind closed doors that make all the difference in our wellbeing mentally and physically. When we are standing up FOR ourselves every single day, nothing can shake us (much).
Trust me, you are not alone. My clients struggle with this every single day. Hell, so do I when I'm trying to change really engrained habits or those mornings when I'm ugly crying on the bathroom floor. But I let it out, I get off the damn floor, and I keep going because it is not my identity to let life keep me down. I'm not going back to the girl who was sick! I'm not her anymore. I finally know in my entire being that I deserve so much better than that life!
So, what was the one thing you wanted to change, implement, or remove from before?
Comment below and let me know!
May you live your life with purpose, passion, and joy!
Have Courage, my Friends!
In Health & Wellness,
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