Anxiety – it was the norm for me. Something clicked in my brain the year I had my third baby and turned 30 and I started having attacks for no reason I could see. Sleeping became a struggle – my mind racing with things I could do nothing about. I suffered from digestive issues and resigned myself to the fact that this is just how things were going to be. And I just dealt with it and carried on – raising my kids, being the volunteer mom, working – the normal things we all do.
In 2016, I had a pretty major crisis in my life and started attending AlAnon meetings. I met and listened to people who were just like me – control freaks, dealing with guilt and negative self-talk, people pleasers – I had found my people and I started to heal! Working the 12 steps and reading AlAnon literature and meeting with my sponsor – my anxiety eased and I was really feeling better about life in general.
But then in 2020, the reaction to COVID shut down my church, my work, my community – all the things that brought me joy! And I was just shocked that everyone around me seemed OK with it all. My anxiety spiked and then I spiraled into a depression I had never experienced before. I knew the virus wasn’t going away. It seemed we would be in this eternal state of lockdown and so what was the point of life anyway? I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t force myself to eat, I couldn’t find any joy in the things I normally love. Luckily, because I have good friends who encouraged me to talk to a therapist, I ended up hospitalized – instead of dead. I had lost 20 pounds in a matter of weeks along with all my energy and vitality. I was literally wasting away.
A week or so later, I was home on medication and in therapy and determined this wasn’t going to be my normal. I didn’t really know how I was going to figure it all out, but I couldn’t go through life collapsing or living on meds. Somehow, Life Mentoring School ended up in my social media feed (truly God working in my life) and I started following Dr. Edie on Insta. Her story resonated with me and I did one of her online workshops. And then another. And then I took the plunge and joined Life Mentoring School, and sat on the sidelines watching others get coached and doing the journalling work. I finally got up the nerve to get coached myself, took the homework seriously, and worked on the things I really needed to focus on. Within a year, I felt like a new person – Edie helped me deal with old wounds and heal them (many of which were self-inflicted!) and turn around my negative thought patterns. I’ve never felt better!
And so I decided to enroll in the LMS certification program – mostly so that I could learn the skills to keep myself healthy and in the right head space – but the more I learned and the more coaching I did in my cohort, the more I realized I didn’t want to stop! I had this strong desire to help others that I KNOW are dealing many of the same things I was. And so here I am ready to work with you!
