Hey! Today’s blog post is a personal story. I feel my path is similar to many of you and I want to share how I have gotten where I am today in my health journey.
In April 2020, I was at my all-time low. I got out of a miserable relationship that made me feel helpless, alone, and controlled. Work was another sore spot. The owner of the company I worked for was a micromanager, narcissistic, and bi-polar. I was working 60 – 70 hours a week under high stress and not getting enough sleep. My hair was falling out, I had gained nearly 100 pounds, and I felt… lost.
I don’t know what made this week different from any other – maybe it was the idea of Thanksgiving, maybe it was my upcoming birthday. Whatever it was, this week hit me square in the face. I was tired of feeling miserable and alone. I was tired of being tired. So.. changes were in order.
I have always loved being outdoors. Communing with nature, listening to the birds and the water, being at peace in the woods. The forest is my sanctuary, even more than my home is. So, I started walking. At first my goal was just to do it. I literally had been walking no more than 350 steps a day for months. I got up, went to my computer, worked, and went to bed. Nothing more. My first goal was to walk 1,000 steps a day. I had a small park across the street and decided I would walk around it and eventually went around the neighborhood too. My next goal was 5,000 steps. It took a while to get there, but I did and continued expanding my goals as I achieved them. I went from walking my neighborhood, to hiking in the forest for 1 – 2 hours each evening and running in my basement when the weather was bad.
I also had other plans. I needed to get healthy again. I have always been good about eating nutritious meals, but I was depression eating, and that had to stop. As I started exercising more, the need to eat as much waned. Exercise is a great help for anyone prone to depression. It doesn’t have to be high aerobic or weightlifting or ninja warrior training, it just needs to be active. Start small, yoga, Pilates, walking. Find something you enjoy doing – or someone you enjoy doing things with and start.
And even more challenging for me was my work. When I tried to address this with the owner of the business, he took away the things that gave me the most amount of pleasure and dumped more stress on my plate. The stress got worse, and no amount of exercise would counteract the effects. I couldn’t sleep, I was irritable, I couldn’t focus, and my migraines were getting worse.
As I physically started feeling better, I knew I had to make changes with my work environment. I wasn’t too smart though, I moved across the country thinking that being at the office would help. Remember I said he was a micromanager? Bi-polar? Yes, I bet you can guess how much that helped. When I moved back, things got even worse, and I snapped. In September of 2021 I quit my job and went back to school full time to become a Certified Holistic Health Coach. I am blessed to have family that took me in and has been very supportive through the entire transition.
Going back to school and being away from the stress of a bad job helped pull me out of my funk. Don’t get me wrong, it took months to destress. But I worked on myself, resolving past traumas, learning how to manage my stress better, and learning to live again.
Through all of this, I continued on my walking journey. By the time I graduated in April 2022, I was walking 10,000 – 15,000 steps a day. My next goal was 20,000 steps a day and to run 3-miles a day. While I can’t say I’ve made it to the 3-miles a day, I have made it to 2-miles a day and continuing to improve.
I have lost all the weight I had gained and more. I work with people all over the world to help them heal their mind and body from traumas in their lives and I LOVE IT!
What I am trying to say is this: You can do anything you set your mind to! Dare to dream – and take steps each day that lead you to reaching that dream. Sometimes you will fall, we all do. Pick yourself back up and dust your bum off… and try again. Reassess your goals as you grow, you will find they change just as you do. Things that were important to you last year, may be a drop in the bucket this year. That doesn’t mean you are a quitter or that you have failed, it means you are growing! Finding a better you. That is the best thing you can do for yourself. Go for it! You CAN do this!!
Blessings – E