I’ve seen just over 2,000 individual clients so far in my time in practice, seen miracles, struggles, wins and challenges. When people first come in they’re being introduced to muscle testing, quantum physics, practitioner-grade supplements and our little community of passionate helpers. Most people, regardless of their level of understanding or how it works, get to have the experience of improvements in their health rather quickly and this is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in the sense that they’re getting results from something that has been ailing them and a curse in the sense that they think once it’s fixed, it’s fixed for good (sometimes it is) and that all the wins come that easily.

The truth is… healing is usually pretty uncomfortable. The truth is it takes work. And commitment. As a practitioner, I have an incredible set of tools to provide guidance but the majority of the work is done by the person. Our body, our physical matter, takes time to turn over, to recover, to heal. It requires change. Because the current environment allowed the body to create symptoms in the first place. Changing nothing, or very little, likely won’t move the big mountains that most people want or need moved.

The biggest factor in our physical health is what goes into our body. We are what we consume. Most of what we consume is in the form of food and drink, but we also consume sound, air, energy and chaos or harmony based on what is around us. This is where we like to leverage supplements because it’s dense, intentional, specific nutrition or medicine for the body. And it can make a huge difference, especially when you combine whole food nutrition with herbs and homeopathy.

I’ve been on this journey for almost 9 years. And if you don’t know by now, I was the opposite of organic or natural before. I drank to excess and I mean excess. I smoked for 14 years, took acid reflux medication, ate a Standard American Diet (SAD) and treated my body and mind with almost no respect. Without even realizing it. My wake up call was my oldest son’s vaccine injury which propelled me into natural health at warp speed. I’m passionate and outspoken in the first place and when I was given some true north guidance, I dove in to not only healing my family but opening my practice and assisting in the healing of my community.

I’ve had my own ups and downs. The demons that I had before entering this enlightened side of life didn’t just stay in the past and as life has happened and I’ve focused on building my business, raising my boys, growing professionally and healing my relationship with my children’s father, I’ve made millions of choices that have affected my overall wellbeing. Imagine a double-pan balance scale but instead of two pans, you have at least 8 and it still doesn’t take much to throw the balance off. That’s your nutrition, physical fitness, family, business, relationships, spirituality, emotional health and passion. (Those are the areas I think of first for overall well-being). If only one or two are half as full as the rest, the scale might appear to be compensating but that shit is still out of balance.

Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels

After 15 civilian contracted deployments, our divorce, the instability that came with it and life in general, I entered into survival mode where I got pretty dang comfortable for a while. Your adrenals won’t fail you while you’re in battle (perceived or real) but they will tank when you exhale. If you don’t ever let your guard down, you can justify anything to “get by.” And when you’re building a business that by nature requires caring so deeply for others (which I would consider my super-power), you can draw upon a lot of stolen energy in the moment. Which I’ve been doing. For five years.

Priorities can be muddled so easily when we’re in the trenches and “simple” or “easy” become very subjective. About a month ago (with some planning leading up to it), I decided to shift back to what I believe in and literally stop with excuses. The balancing pans scale needs to balance. It just does. It can stay a little out for a little while but if you don’t check that, it’ll get out of control fast. So I’m about a month into yet another of my own major healing processes. Prioritizing the life I want to live, not the life that felt just out of reach when I was living in survival mode.

I know that I’m more capable of this now because my rock (Jasper) is solid and we help balance each others scales. And it’s providing me perspective, which is my favorite thing about life. Perspective. Because seriously, if you think things are hard or the challenge is too great, you just need to step back and get some perspective. If you are judgmental or jealous or constantly wanting… perspective. If you are scared or learning or confused… perspective.

I get perspective from my own life that helps me relate to the people who can benefit from my clinical nutrition practice and that’s constantly guiding me. My beacon of light is always, “Give the body the tools that it needs to do what it’s supposed to do.” Sounds easy. No. Simple? Yes. But not always that easy.

I’m currently working out daily, drinking tons of water, eating super clean, not consuming alcohol and my brain is so crystal clear and this way of life is so obvious. Yet for the past five years I couldn’t get this fancy combination working together long enough at a crack to keep those scales from tipping (now I’m talking about all the scales too). And that’s life. Even when we know exactly what needs to be done and it’s simple and actually kind of easy too, it doesn’t mean we’re in the right frame of mind to do it. Perspective.

I’ve been in the right frame of mind and the wrong frame of mind. When my head is right, watch out world because I am successful at everything I touch. But my head has been wrong too, understandably it was wrong before I found this path in natural living. But those demons can also allow us the misery of seeing the light and still operating inappropriately, with full awareness. Head wrong, can see it, can’t figure out how to change it.

This isn’t a movie though where we just see an ending and that’s where our subconscious mind leaves it. If you can make it through any challenges in life without completely dumping some of the pans off your scale, you’re doing pretty well. With the awareness that addiction or excuses are running the show, there is always hope to get your head back right. Often, it’s helped along greatly actually by supplements that help balance your gut (which is your first brain) or microbial levels. But even then, it’s tricky. Because it takes consistency and discipline (both of which are low on my list of strengths, by the way).

I see the whole spectrum of where people are at in my office. I see the chronic pain cases, the fertility cases, the simple rash cases, the severe addiction cases, the hormonal headache cases, the hopelessness that some people feel after having tried other things with no success, the defeat that people feel when they are invalidated in their truth, I see the just curious cases, the one person whose family doesn’t even know they’re there or the whole family (I have one family who has four generations with me). Every single one of these people, no matter how sick or healthy or down and out or positive they are, has a story and a life outside of the food and the supplements. (This is a huge reason we do emotional work in our office as well and refer everyone to chiropractors). They have challenges that they don’t share and they have a completely different set of circumstances than any other person on earth (or dog in the case of our pet clients). I hope that sharing my own personal challenges makes people realize it’s all okay. We start where we stand and I’ve stood in worse places than the majority of the people I see. No judgment. It looks different for every. single. person.

And I don’t always have time to explain all of the alternative ways this could go down (I see 60-90 clients per week, keep my prices low and try to spread myself as far as possible, so inevitably we don’t get to have every hypothetical conversation, though I could talk for hours with most of my clients).

This healing thing. Sometimes we’re working on big things, sometimes small things but there are usually only a few ways it will go. People get better almost immediately (which I expect), people trend toward improvement with minor setbacks along the way (the most common), people get worse before they get better (which sucks but thankfully doesn’t happen all that often because of our testing), or the one that keeps me up at night, the people who get better in one way and worse in another. This is the one where the healing is the most needed and the hardest to accomplish. This is where I am right now. This is the one that I want to share much more about.

Those things coming up along the way, those were always there. They were just suppressed by your body because your body couldn’t tell you all the things so it just gave you the priority symptoms first.

I have been feeling overall pretty stellar over the past month but I can’t believe what is unfolding that I didn’t even know was there as I peel through these layers and focus on my health and nutrition and physical fitness and mental toughness pans on the scale (I know I just added one that wasn’t there, I don’t do rules). When I started taking time to work out and shut off every other part of my life I was met with terrible anxiety. What needs a reply? What are the kids doing? I could be cleaning right now. I could be working right now. And every other panic-stress-anxious thought in the book.

And it’s uncomfortable. But healing is. The next layer is going to suck too. But it’s also achingly beautiful.

Our motto in the office, which became extremely relevant over the past year is, “If you want normal, act normal.” It’s time to decide what my normal is based on what I want it to be and then put in the action steps and the work to do it. There are pans other people would love to put on YOUR scale. Let those shatter. And pro tip: It’s always time to decide what you want your life to look like and do that. Reassess. Regularly. Keep yourself in check. Know what pans are attached, what shouldn’t be, feed them all (some may need more or less attention to stay in balance). Pretend you have never seen a TV or had other social influences and decide what you want your life to look like and then make each day look like that.

Whether you’re ready to make big changes or you’re just trying to keep your pans from tipping or exploding, every decision you make matters. There are things within your control. When life is hard and you’re in survival mode for any extended amount of time, you can come out the other side bruised and worn down (like I did) or you can come out half dead and fighting for sanity (which I’m surprised sometimes I didn’t). And thanks to your conscious mind, even when you’re in the suck, you know you have choices (I didn’t just say screw it, it doesn’t matter because things aren’t perfect). And if you make some bad ones, that’s okay. Your story doesn’t end there.

I plan to share more as my current voyage unfolds, just needed to get this out for now. I like to tie things all together but I’m in the middle of a story in my life right now (middle of a chapter would be more like it) and I’m in action mode, not planning and pulling together mode. But the moral of the story, as usual, is that we need to use the tools available to us to create the best life. Our potential awaits.

Much love.