Lisa's Own Health & Wellness Journey

As a highly sensitive individual, anxiety was prevalent throughout my childhood (though I didn't know it was "anxiety" until well into adulthood). Internalizing my emotions in the absence of the safety or guidance to feel, express, and process them led to me eventually becoming bulimic at 16—a private battle I faced daily through age 25.

No longer bingeing and purging, my emotional healing journey continued - but my physical healing had just begun when, at age 25, I found myself too young to feel this crappy:

❌ Being ~35 lbs overweight

❌ High cholesterol

❌ Brain fog

❌ Bloated everywhere - especially in my face

❌ Low energy

❌ Arthritis in my knees and feet

❌ GI issues galore (Irritable Bowel Syndrome/D, painful chronic gastritis)

Physical activity wasn’t ever an issue - I regularly exercised 3-5 days a week through moderate hiking, jogging, playing softball, rollerblading, or hitting the gym. So why was my health having all these problems?

Not only was my physical state taking a hit, but my interpersonal life at the time was reflecting back to me that I needed to love myself more. With nursing school graduation around the corner - and basically the beginning of my “real” adult life - I made a bold, intuitive decision to reevaluate the way I was living and being - and committed to healthier changes.

Things had felt off for some time. The life I was living didn’t feel right - I knew I could do, have, and be better.

As a perpetual personal development junkie, even at 25, I knew that only I could change my life.

And as a full-time nursing student waiting tables 25-30 hours a week to support myself, I didn’t have much money to work with, but I knew I needed to figure some stuff out for myself.

I decided that I was going to experiment and just see what my life might feel like if I changed a few things.

I started with some very simple dietary changes and being more conscious about how/with whom I chose to spend my time.

This was just the beginning of a lifelong healing journey. I began to see real, lasting changes through altering the building blocks of my physical health as well as my emotional and mental energy, and understanding the interconnectedness and alchemy of it all.

A year later, at age 26:

✔️ My cholesterol dropped by over 60 points

✔️ I had no more arthritis - ZERO, undetected by X-ray

✔️ My mental clarity and physical energy were higher than ever, and

✔️ I lost 35 pounds in the process! (without any changes to my physical activity!)

It was a year of transformation, self-actualization, and spiritual awakening, and the end of this year concluded with me meeting the love of my life, Jason.

THEN...

Starting my nursing career at 26, working swing shifts, I couldn’t maintain the routine of playing sports that had been my outlets.

The trauma I witnessed in the Spinal Cord Injury unit and later as a charge nurse on the med/surg floor weighed heavily on me. I developed pain, worsening GI issues, and terrifying phobias that led to countless debilitating anxiety attacks.

I knew I needed something to change, but the only solutions I ever got from the conventional medicine world came in the form of pharmaceuticals that would later lead to other issues downstream.

ON TOP OF THAT...

After becoming a mother at age 32, post-partum anxiety and depression snuck in (I literally didn't know I had PP until after my second daughter - nearly 4 years into my motherhood journey!).

I viscerally feared the world for my baby(ies), and OCD crept deeper into my life, affecting my relationships. OCD made me an excellent nurse, but the pressure of carrying the weight of the world was too much to bear. I found myself dissociated, disconnected from joy, struggling to let my Mama-Bear guard down let alone enjoy myself, and after social gatherings, I couldn’t even recall conversations with friends with whom I'd spent the previous several hours' time.

Drinking alcohol seemed to be my only "relief".

In Nov 2020, after my husband got COVID, I hit rock bottom again at 36 (the first was in college at the peak of my eating disorder). I didn’t want to be alive. Despite a decade of therapy and clean eating/living, I needed more. My primary doc offered antidepressants - I took them out of desperation. But I knew there had to be more to address the root cause.

That’s when I found functional medicine and finally got the answers I needed.

A complex web of dysfunction between my hormones, nervous system, and gut-brain axis led me to nutritional and behavioral approaches to correct my issues at the root. It took time, persistence, faith, and support, but I finally began to feel like myself again.

I knew I had to learn more about this way of healing and share it with others. With my husband’s support, I went through certification at FMCA to become a Functional Medicine Health Coach.

After pivoting from a successful clinical nursing career, I’ve spent the last few years being the coach I wish I'd had in my own times of need.

At 41 now, my inner healing journey continues still today, as layer by layer peels away with each year of growth and transformation - a process I welcome and honor - as this, to me, is what life is about! 🦋

If you’re looking for real, deep, lasting change and healing in your life, I would be honored to support you.