Ep. 5 I Didn't Think This Was Gonna Be History Class

Chatting about how I came to be into the realm of healing arts. My trajectory onto the path of health and wellness. Dipped into some past stories and shared about glimpses into the future!

We may never understand our life path when we are younger and in high school or determining our futures. Why is there so much emphasis on knowing "what we want to be when we grow up" so early in life. At 18 or 19 just getting out of high school. Nobody knows what they want to do. 

Here is the route I took, I'm still learning how to be the best version of my weird Wizard self I can be! One day at a time, I hope to bring some wonder and magic to your minds!! Thanks for tuning in. Remember, these are raw and aid as a creative flow to vibe with the collective tribe!!

Book a virtual session! FieldsMindBody.Janeapp.com Let's groove, work 1:1, and help build the life you are eager to begin!!

For more information on my practice or how to work with me 1:1 - Visit FieldsMindBody.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello there, sweet one. So glad for you to be here and join me today. So my name is Joel Fields, and this is the Wizard of Wonder podcast. So glad for you guys to join me today. Wow, five weeks in. We are really doing it, and we're we're moving and grooving and having a good time. I am so glad you guys are here. It's it's wonderful, really. It's truly wonderful. So a little bit about me. I'm a licensed therapist, I'm a craniocral therapist, I'm a somato-emotional release practitioner. I've been doing this work for over 10 years, and I'm also a certified professional life coach, and I help people transform both from the inside and out and from the outside in. So that way we meet in the middle, and it's somewhat of a an alchemy, right? I'm also known as a holistic wizard, an alchemist, a somatic alchemist. But I'm I've just developed this whole lifestyle around helping people feel better, both mind and body, as so within, as so without, as so above, and so below. Anyway, I'm so glad to have you guys here today. So as this is getting into it, as we're starting to get a little bit more developed, last week I spoke about some nuances of the work that I do within the realms of cranium, sacral therapy, and somatoemotional release. And then this week, I would like to kind of talk a little bit about my my transition into the realms and things of holistic health and why I started doing what I do and why I love doing what I do. So back in 2014, I had the the past several years before that, the past five, four or five years before that, it was almost five years, I had been working for Verizon Wireless, and I I really loved customer service. I really loved showing up for people and helping people with their Verizon Wireless bills. And I was I was going through a lot of my own personal journey at that time. I was I was pretty heavy set. I at my heaviest, I actually weighed about 340 pounds. And that was probably 2013, 14, right around there. Well, 2014 is basically when I made this big change in deciding to get healthier because I I just was in a bad place, right? I I was you know eating junk food all the time. I was drinking a lot. I I just had a lot of bad habits. You know, I I was smoking cigarettes back then. I have an interesting, you know, I I grew up a nerd, right? So I was always always snacking for comfort. And I would eat a lot of junk food, and you know, I would go, I remember going to McDonald's just out of pure boredom, just because I was like, oh, you know what? I I'm bored right now, I don't know what to do with myself. Oh, let's go get a couple cheeseburgers. And you know, growing up in Northwest Ohio, that was that was just kind of a normal thing for for kids my age, I guess. You know, I I would just eat like a bowl of frosted flakes and I would play some video games and I wouldn't think anything of it. You know what I mean? Back then I had I don't know, I still had negative self-esteem, but maybe I didn't care as much what other people thought of me, and I just just kind of did what I did. And it it got up to a point where I I had put on all this extra weight and I just I did not feel comfortable in my body, I didn't feel feel comfortable in my own skin anymore. I would look in the mirror and just kind of hate myself. You know, I would be just so beside myself and who I was, and it didn't it didn't fit my inner version of who I think I am, you know. Even today when I like look in the mirror, I I know I'm I'm a little chunkier than what I used to be. I I used to really be on top of my my physical health, and I used to work out hardcore, and I I still work out regularly. I I work out about 30 minutes a day, 30 to 45 minutes a day, sometimes an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, it maybe even depends on what mood I'm feeling into, right? I I'm a generator in human design, so I I really try to do things that light me up and make me feel good at the moment. And that's why I, you know, sometimes it's like an ADHD, like I'll jump over here, I'll jump over here, I'll do this, I'll do a little of that. Well, it's because I'm responding to what feels good at that time. And now that I know this about me, I have a little bit more control. So I'm not just like, oh, hey, go go get a couple cheeseburgers, you know, just go eat some French fries, go go get a donut, you know, things like that. So I won't really jump at those things as much anymore. But basically in 2014, I came to this realization that, hey, you're on a pretty unhealthy trajectory of your life, you know. And Joel, if you don't get your things together, you're probably gonna have a heart attack. You know, you're probably gonna develop diabetes, you're probably going to start developing all these things that could come from a poor lifestyle around, you know, eating. So I I at the time when I was working for Verizon, I was just starting to get into some of this stuff. So this is probably 2013 now that I'm thinking about it. And I was working in Delphus, Ohio, with a good buddy of mine, Adam, who got me into Verizon, and he was my manager at the time. And so I started in with Verizon around 2011. It was like summer of 2011. So from 2011 until about I don't know, it was probably like spring, summer of 2014. I want to say summer maybe of 2014, that I had worked for Verizon. So pretty good chunk of little time right there. And and anyway, Adam got me in and he saw something in me that that he once told me that you know he had a stack of resumes on his desk from all these guys that had all this sales experience and all this background, and I didn't have any of that, you know. And and at this time, I was I had lived in Denver, Colorado for a year, and I had come back and I was trying to really find my footing again in life. I got into involved in some nonsense while I was out in Denver, and it just got a little weird, and I ended up having to move back home. And, you know, I was I was like, okay, you know, I I have this college degree and I I want to work in tech, but I don't really know what I'm doing. This is this is long before I even got into bodywork or anything that I'm into right now, right? Obviously, I'm telling my backstory, but so I I had you know, I I got into Verizon, and you know, what Adam really liked about me was that I could smile and I could talk to people on a normal basis. You know, I didn't try to, I I just I didn't normally have like the sales, you know, mentality or like aura around me. You know what I mean? So I I just naturally made people feel comfortable and I naturally made people engaged, right? I would I would use normal everyday terms and just actively help people, you know. So I I liked getting people in who would be like, oh, show me how to do this. Oh, okay. You want to learn how to how to text, you know. We I had a lot of people who were just getting into phones, just just getting into smartphones. At the time that I worked at Verizon Wireless, there were four smartphones on the market that had 4G. 4G was brand new, and there was just four phones that had it through Verizon at that time. And so that's that's a long time ago. So a lot of people are just getting put onto like smartphone plans, and it was like $30 more than the regular plan. And believe it or not, that was like this this weird, huge issue. And I'm sorry, I'm having some weird screen difficulties. Screen just went black on me here. Oh, we got it back anyway. Woo-hoo! Technology, it's great when it works, but yeah, anyway, so I got in at Verizon and Adam hired me in because like I had this like whole personality to me that was unlike you know a lot of sales dudes. And I just had this lovely way he told me of breaking down the sales process. It made people feel comfortable, and I got really good at sales, and I just did that just by listening to people and having a conversation. It was it was great, I loved it. And I worked there for so long. Well, Adam was always into fitness, and he was into like health and wellness and taking care of his mind and his body, and uh we started working together a little bit, and he started giving me some tips, some pointers and things, and that's that I like to think that that's kind of what tipped the scales into my health and wellness world because I started taking an investment into myself, you know, and I started moving my body in a new way that I was completely unfamiliar with at that time. And I because I I wanted to get more fit, I wanted to feel better, I wanted to move better, and I had read a little bit that you know exercise is one of nature's best tools for fighting depression. So I was like, well, let's find this out, you know, and it 340 pounds, you know, big dude. I just started with I actually started with yoga and I did yoga for a while. I probably did maybe two, three weeks of yoga. I found somebody online, a big shout out to yoga with Adrian, and I I found yoga with Adrian online, and I started paying attention to her YouTube channel, and she had like these 30-day yoga adventures, and so I started just started doing those, and because it it helped keep me keep me accountable, and then it also, you know, showed me like a progression within the yoga system or like a yoga flow, so to speak, to allow me to start moving my body, start becoming aware of my body movements, start becoming aware of my breath, you know, and that's that's kind of where it took off. So I started doing all these yoga with Adrian videos because I don't I didn't want to go to a class and look like like the weird, weird chubby guy just being like, Yeah, look up my belly, everybody, you know. But yeah, so I started doing yoga and then I slowly started doing some weight training, you know, lifting weights here and there, and like, well, that was fun. It it wasn't really my thing. And then I actually started, this is so funny to say, but I started playing a lot of, you know, I like I said, I grew up as a big nerd playing a lot of video games, so I had a Nintendo Switch, or I'm sorry, a Nintendo Wii. Let's let's rewind the clock back. A Nintendo Wii. And I played a really cool game called Nintendo Wii Fit. And I played this game religiously. Like every day I had to get in my Wii Fit. I had to make sure my scores were good, I had to play so many games, and I I played this for a long time. And I even had like the little step tracker that I would keep in my pocket. I actually went through three of those. And after I lost the third one, I'm like, you know what, let's just let's just do something else. And by that time, I had like really gotten into some other more fit more interesting fitness things. And but yeah, I did a lot of we fit and I did a lot of running in place to to lose a lot of weight, which which sounds really kind of funny. But I would run 10 minutes every day. Uh, when I started this, I was I was living, I had moved home from from Colorado, so I was living in my my folks' house at the time, just kind of like getting everything restarted from where I was. And so I just started running, right? Started running in place on carpet every day, every single day. I would do this. And I I think that's kind of where it's where a lot of the motivation started, you know. And I just I every day I showed up and I held myself accountable. And I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna make this change. I'm gonna make this change because I was sick and tired of feeling so fat and so lazy and out of breath. And, you know, it's just it wasn't who I wanted to be anymore. I didn't want to be the kid who just ate cheeseburgers for fun. You know, I wanted to eat cheeseburgers when I'm hungry. And anyway, so I did a lot of we fit. I ran in place. I there was even a point where I would put on like this big trash bag, and I would cut holes in the arms, have my arms out, and I would have my head out, but I would just kind of be in this trash bag, and then I would wear a hoodie on top. I would tuck the trash bag into my gym shorts, and I would run for 10 minutes, and I was just sweat buckets, and it was awesome. And I did that for a long time, I don't even remember how long, but I I I put in a lot of miles on Wii Fit, and there was like these little competitions within the game where you could see like how many steps you took, and it's like, okay, you just walked up Mount Kilmajaro, and it's like, holy moly, that's awesome! And you you would like run around the island and do stuff fun stuff. It was great. I loved it. Eventually, I moved on to I got a Wii U, and then I started doing Wii U Fit, and I just kind of kept on continuing it, and that was amazing. And then eventually I ended up getting into I really liked the boxing on Wii We Fit, and then I ended up getting my own boxing bag, and that started a whole new thing, and I I started boxing for a long time, and I loved it, and then I oh sorry, big yawn. And then I got into let's see, what did I say? I got yoga, boxing, biking. Eventually, yeah, so I I boxed for a long time and I still box, I still love boxing, and what I do, my protocol is I do six rounds, three-minute rounds, one minute rest, and that's my thing. I lay it down and I love it. And I use a heavy bag, I I don't spar with anybody, I just use a heavy bag, and yeah, I love it. I think it's a really good workout, especially it gets the fire out and the rage out from me being an Aries, and I love it. And then I got into biking eventually, and not actually too long ago, I got a spin bike. I invested in a really nice heavy-duty spin bike, and I ride my bike. And now I do that quite regularly. Oh gosh. Sorry for the yawns, everyone. Uh I'm it's it's like two o'clock on a Thursday, and I'm about to start seeing clients. I'm I'm doing my my uh lunch break right now, and then I'm about to see clients. But anyway. Yeah, so I did spin bike for a long time, and I don't I don't know why I just started talking about like the things that I started doing that that increased my health and wellness to make me want to start getting better. But these are the things that I use on a regular basis. I I use boxing, I use yoga, I still do weights. I have a weight bench and I still lift weights from time to time when I'm feeling inclined. And I do a lot of spin bike, and that's kind of my jam. And I like to read and listen to techno music and ride my spin bike at the same time. Goodness, these yawns. I tell you what, guys, so sorry. But yeah, but when I started back in 2014, let's rewind the clock, when I started getting into exercising and taking care of myself, right? I I realized that I had all these habits that needed to go away. And I needed to take full accountability of these things, right? So one of the things that I didn't like back then was that I was smoking cigarettes quite regularly. And I didn't like it. I did not like it. And you know, I I could tell how it was having an effect on like my breathing and my endurance, right? So when I started working out, I was like, I can't smoke cigarettes anymore, obviously. So I quit smoking cigarettes, right? So, in a way, working out, you know, helped me get over that. And getting into yoga really started to open my mind. Goodness gracious. Sorry for the yawns, for real. But yoga really started to open my mind to how I'm feeling on an internal level, how I have an external experience, you know, and there's many facets to yoga, if you don't know. It's not just postures, the postures, the asanas, are just one little portion of the eight limbs of yoga, right? So a lot of a lot more aspects. I started getting more involved with yoga, and I wanted to learn more about the yoga systems and beliefs and philosophies, and that took me into learning a lot more interesting things about that whole system, about my own health, my own wellness, my own mental wellness, even, and so on and so forth. And around 2014, around let's say fall, like late, late summer, fall, I was I was let go from my Verizon job. Some some goober there, some new employee, some hot shot, saw basically a post that I made on Facebook about sales, pushy salespeople. He thought that was about him, which to be totally honest with you guys, it absolutely was. It absolutely was. He was just he was pushing everybody into sales, and it was so gross, right? Instead of actually listening to what the people were saying that they wanted. Imagine that, right? That's why Verizon has kind of a you know, Verizon salespeople, all salespeople have like a weird feel to them. Anyway, anyway. So anyway, this guy cost me my job. So because I'd worked there for so long, I was like, you know what, I'm gonna take this unemployment money and I'm gonna go back to school for something that helps people, that makes people feel better. But I didn't want to go the traditional route and I didn't want to uh, you know, go to medical school, and I didn't want to like I don't I don't know. Now looking back at it, I'm like, oh wow, I really could have done that. But at that time, I really didn't believe in myself a lot. And not not to say that, you know, you don't have to believe yourself to go to massage therapy school, but I'm just saying that I I don't know, it it just felt Fort More right. So when I decided to go to the school that I went to, the Institute of Therapeutic Massage in Lima, Ohio, shout out to the Meyer family. Unfortunately, the school is no longer there. I was their valedictorian of their last graduating class, and I had an amazing experience. I loved it. But when I went there, it was on Halloween of 2014, and it just felt like home. Like I had the atmosphere was just very inviting. It was very calm. It was very peaceful, it was very professional. You know, at no time did I feel like unsafe or weirded out about anything. It just felt super, super good, very grounded, you know. And I decided, let's just go ahead and do it. You know, I got some feedback from some friends who were in the industry. They told me I'd be great at it. You know, I have a good heart, I have a good, good mind, my intentions are pure, you know. I'm not trying to be weird about anything. And they're like, go for it, you know, go for it. So I signed up and I started classes in November. And yeah, it was lovely, you know. My whole experience was great. It was a 16 and a half month program, and I chose like the middle track or whatever, and I I absolutely loved it. And yeah, I just and I was 26 at the time when I went back to school. So, you know, I was in c I was the only guy in this class, and there was about 10, 11 of us, maybe sometimes 11 depending. And I was the only guy in my class, and everyone else was more out of high school, you know, fresh out of high school. So I had this like wisdom to me, you know, everyone else is like six years younger or so, and I had this or six or seven years younger, so to speak, and I had this wisdom about me, maybe. I don't I don't even know. I don't even know looking back if it was actual wisdom or just maybe a little bit more life experience, perhaps. But so I I I felt when I went into massage school, I felt this connection like like I just understood it, you know, and and keep in mind, you know, when I was in high school, I was not like a really student-y person, you know what I mean? I wasn't very studious in my my academic career, I wasn't very enthusiastic about my academic career. I really didn't care about my academic career. School was just a big waste of time that that took away from Legos or video games or friendship hangouts, you know, and you had to get up early and do all these things anyway. So I I never really thought like, oh wow, I'd be really good at something, right? Yeah, you never know until you know, right? So I got involved with with this program and I just understood everything. And in high school, I never took like anatomy and physiology or anything other than that, right? I took environmental chemistry and I took physical science, and there's another one that we had to have three years of of science in there. Biology. Biology. And anyway, that that filled my science credits, right? So I never took anatomy and physiology or anything like that. I should have. Looking back, it's like, dang, I really should have gotten started off. This much earlier. I always felt like I was getting into the things that I was getting into about 10 years later than everybody else, or you know, a little slower than everybody else. But the thing is, I had to have all this weird life experience. Like I had to live in Denver, I had to, you know, get my associate's degree. I had to do all these other things before I went into the world of holistic health and things that I'm into now because otherwise I wouldn't have learned enough about life to be able to do what I'm doing with enough gumption and love, right? That I have. And yeah. So anyway, we got in, we blew through that massage therapy program. I felt really connected because I wanted to change my life. And then in changing my life, I wanted to help change the lives of other people. And it snowballed, right? And I had an amazing support system at that time, and everything was just so good, you know? And I graduated, like I said, valedictorian of my school, and everything felt great. And then I immediately went into working for a giant company in the United States here. And it I worked there for a little bit and I didn't like it. I'm not even going to drop their name. I didn't like it. It wasn't me. It was just it, it was like herding cattle into this place, massaging these cattle, and then moving them on, selling them this package, getting their credit card on file for a year, and then moving them forward. And it just felt icky. Yeah, right. So I had been in sales world for a while and I knew all the things and stuff. And I saw a lot of the things that Verizon was doing in this massage business, and I didn't care for it. So I had to get out of there. And then I worked for about two years for a chiropractor, and then I worked for about three years or so at a spa. And then I worked for four years at a corporate health facility that I've talked about before. And that's kind of been my trajectory before I started my own practice. And so it's been 10 years since I've finished school now. March was the end of my my uh marked the end of graduation. And yeah, so now we've been going for 10 years. So I've been practicing hands-on body work for 10 years, and now I'm getting into more of the online space and doing more coaching with people, doing more one-on-one work with people. And as a craniocral therapist and somatoemotional release, that's where a primary of my focus happens right now because I love helping the body unwind from the inside out to make people feel really at home inside their bodies and inside their nervous systems to help start supporting themselves, help start making big changes within their life. Because if you move through some of the emotional turmoil and through some of the physical stuff that really holds people back, then they can have this whole world open up in front of them that can create a new trajectory of living, right? Living your through true authentic self. Because at the bottom of it, my friends, that's what we're all really wanting to do, right? We want to have deeper connections to love and connections with the people around us in our community. And we, you know, I don't know. Maybe this isn't you. Maybe you're just like, not me, Joel. All I want is my frosted flakes and my my video games, right? All I want to do is play Halo 3 all day long. You know what I mean? I get it. I get it. I've been there, I've done it. Anyway, this has been a little bit longer of a podcast episode. I just kind of kept it going, and I'm really finding that I enjoy sitting down and chatting with you guys because these things are important, right? And like I've said before, maybe somebody out there in the world can be like, yeah, dude, I get you. I like what you're laying down and I want more of it, right? I don't know. But if you guys are curious about working with me one-on-one, doing anything like that, please visit my website, fieldsmindbody.com. I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at Joel at fieldsmindbody.com. Let's chat. Let's get to know each other, right? Let's let's start incorporating some cool stuff together. And anyway, thanks guys once again for listening to this episode. I hope it's been fun, maybe a little bit educational, maybe informative. Maybe you're like, that's where he gets it all. So there you are. Anyway, take care, guys, and have a lovely day.

unknown 26:22

Bye.