The Lessons within My Story

Its time for her to share her story!

The past ten years have been a ride, and she's finally ready to dive right in.

She believes strongly that sometimes life has to knock extra hard to halt you from autopilot, sift away the bullshit we believe, connect with your heart compass, your souls purpose, and see the true lens and meaning in your life....and how beautiful it can be if you let it!

A mothers journey from being a fitness professional to then moving through a medical diagnosis, becoming a medical mom, and facing hard realities and the fear that showed itself.

Miranda Lee speaks to her journey of suddenly facing a rare neurological disease, navigating the emotions of being a medical mom, trying to adjust to living in a changing body, running a fitness studio, meeting a pandemic, marriage struggles, and more.

But here she is, to tell you how she shifted her energy and mindset, met herself with vulnerability, came out on top and is living an intentional, beautiful, authentic life.  

She shares how she grew, crumbled (and continues to allow it all), and how it all had purpose, power and made her stronger and much more connected with what really matters in life.

Interested in booking Distance or In Person Soul Healing, Coaching & Mentorship, Breathwork, Reiki Energy Work, her Retreats or More:

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Miranda Lee Podcast. A life fully lived embraces every season, the highs and the lows. Allowing ourselves to love fiercely, feel our feelings, and trust to land side. This is a heartless space created for just that. Deep vulnerable conversations, connections, learning to unlearn, become part of a beautiful community while growing and healing right alongside me. Because everything is easier with support and lived experiences shared with the right kind of people. Let's step off autopilot, get a little uncomfortable, take a breath, and dive right in. Welcome back to our community where we love fiercely and we land softly. I'm so grateful to be able to chat today about something I've been putting off for a really long time. Um I think sometimes sharing our story can be feel really ego-driven almost. And yet I sit here, again, approaching 40, reflecting on some really a challenging decade, really. And sometimes I ask myself, like, why did all this shit happen to me? Like, why did I have to experience this? And over and over again, it comes up when I do my inner work of like sharing my wisdom. And so sometimes when I sit here at the age I am, and I'm like, I've experienced all these things, and I feel like I have a lot of wisdom, and I explain things to people much older than me, and they're like, Oh, you're so wise. I like want to laugh because I just think like it's little me, and I'm 40. And then I remember that there's like all of us have a life purpose, and all of us have reason why shit happens to us, and the value in it is why I do the work I do. It's why I host the sessions for healing that I do at my studio, it's why I do the mentorship, it's why I try to help support youth because I think it is our stories that truly can help and support and shift people into navigating life in a way where they can own their power and be reminded of how much their intentions, their thoughts, their actions can impact their future and the life they want to create for themselves. And so I remind myself that the reason I want to share my story is because it gives me so much experience. It allows me to meet people where they're at and have actually walked the path. I think nowadays there's so many opportunities and careers where people are put in positions to help people but have no experience. And so I guess I sit here today being able to speak as a woman of disability, to speak as a medical mom, as an entrepreneur who's worked through a pandemic and some huge financial um walls that were thrown my way. I've been the woman who tried to just do everything herself and be independent and oh, do all the things without asking for any help or support. I've lived in a marriage that felt like a roommate relationship, um, and have come to the other side of that with who is my best friend and my person and my rock. I'm the one who chose to move towards a different career and shift into more holistic work and more spirituality and more healing modalities. I'm also the friend who speaks to what I think real friendship looks like and what the movies portrayed it to look like and what friendship loss actually means and how normalized that is. I am certainly still working on owning my power, especially with my health. I do believe I'll get to a place where I no longer live with disability. I do believe that's in my power. It looks a lot different than how other people might approach it, but I trust myself in that. I still continue to work on normalizing that I can create my own life and that I can dream and I can chase those dreams, and that can be something I do successfully. I continue to navigate where my trust and my faith is. I was not a religious person, though I believe very deeply in the universe, in energy, in the moon, in old traditions that I think really need to be fired up and passed down. I think it's so important to believe in something that you can't see and to have faith and to be able to release that control. And as I sit here podcasting, working through imposter syndrome, and oh gosh, even I've been 20 years in the fitness industry as an exercise physiologist, and now being a woman who walks with a cane and has physical limitations, I even catch myself working with high-performance athletes and feeling like an imposter, and like I have the knowledge and I have the experience, and yet I still sit here being like feeling like an imposter, and even bigger, perfectionism. Oh man, that's wired in me so hard, and that I still think is the thing that gets the most in my way is perfectionism. And even though I've been through all these things, I don't regret a single one. I'm grateful that I've had to walk through each hardship, through each chapter, that I've got to feel the success and the enlightenment and the joy that comes from overcoming and pursuing what your heart calls for. And so, yeah, I get to sit here today and explain to you my journey and where I'm at. And hopefully some parts will be relatable, or you'll feel heard, or it'll feel like you have a community that you can lean into and be heard, your most authentic self. I definitely will claim right now that it's going to be emotional. I, oh man, just building up to this point. I think it's such a pivotal moment of really finally dropping the perfectionism and dropping the ego and being like, it's okay to tell my story. It's okay. I moved through my life very value-driven. Um, my family, my husband, my kids are top tier. I will admit there was a chapter when I was building my studio and trying to build up my business that that wasn't the case. However, grateful for that version of me that could choose also myself and my destiny and what I wanted to create and prioritize that. But now I will say my kids, my husband, top tier, um, I very much value all aspects of holistic health, all the aspects of health in general. I'm not very Western medicine driven. Um, in my journey, I I live very much in believing that when the body says no, there's reason. Gabriel Mate is one of my favorite humans. I value very much his insight on health and wellness. I own a fitness studio. However, I'll say that I never say the word fitness. It feels like the F-word. It feels like it's always something that we have to work towards to be successful. And so I'm more movement focused. Um I'm not super goal-driven in my life. I like to think of it as intentions. I don't like to be overscheduled. I very much like to live with the seasons of life. I like to be able to pause and reflect and allow myself to decide what I want for this next chapter, which is very different than me in the past, being very hustle, very autopilot, dragging my kids behind me. And yeah, my I do very much try to focus on aligning with my heart, living in the moment, and I live a much slower life, kind of tucked away, away from people, um, just because that is that's what feels good and right for me in this chapter of life. So I'll start with my health. Um, I think a lot of people, or I feel like a lot of people see me happy and like living the way I want to live. And I feel like they're calling me out on my bullshit because they see me walking around with disability and they think, like, how could she be? She's not that good. There's no way she's that happy. But I will say, this whole journey in my life got me to where I am. And if you haven't walked a line with a health condition or a moment where you don't know how long your life is really gonna be, I mean, I know that's always in our minds, but when someone says to you you might have a disease or a condition that might take your life, there's no going back after that. There truly is this huge life or lens shift on life. It really can't help but shake you to your core and let you see what really matters. For me, I think the biggest takeaway is I burnt out. I was so overscheduled, I had way too much on my plate, I wasn't asking for help. I was trying to carry everything in the house and the family, and that wasn't working for me. The invitation of or the lesson I was supposed to learn in this health journey has been to slow down, to understand that I'm more than movement, I'm more than what my body can lift, and very much needing to understand that though fitness got me through dark chapters, it was I avoided it mostly by putting my head into fitness and putting my head into the work. And so that that door opens again later in life and says, Okay, how are you gonna handle it this time? It came up after I had my son. Um, my walk just felt off. Then it was my bladder, and so exercise physiologist trained in postnatal, I'm like, oh, this is postnatal stuff, then my balance is off. And it took me finally being like, Okay, what is going on to finally get a diagnosis? It took a year, it took a year of going in for an MRI, and then getting sent to a neurologist, and then getting genetic testing, and every 60 days being told we think it's this, and then doing the oh my gosh, Google whatever it is that they think it might be, and see all the possibilities of outcomes, and then go back and be like, no, it's not that. We're gonna test you for this. And so we did this for a year, and I'm really grateful because during that I got to meet the part of me that's really positive. Um, and humor saved me, and I'm real grateful for that part of me because I also felt the sadness, but that's a really hard walk to walk that waiting for diagnosis and also the unknowns of like, will there be an answer? Like, can I just do something and it'll be treated? Or is this like going to be possibly life-ending? And during that chapter, I'm also trying to run a business. I'm raising two small kids, and I'm also meeting this new body that has symptoms coming up and trying to adjust my life, but also trying to. Oh, I just wanted to do everything fitness related and like use my brain and my knowledge of biomechanics and exercise physiology to try to fix it, and nothing was working. Like, nothing was working. It did take a lot of advocating for myself, a lot of telling my doctor to slow down to look at my record, to just talk to me and ask me questions instead of just diving into the next possible prescription, the next possible Western medicine thing that could be thrown my way. And then I get a call from my neurologist that they got a diagnosis. And so my husband and my son come with me to the appointment. The entire journey, um, when I look back, and I think my husband and I have talked about this, but I did it all myself. Like I went to everything by myself. I took one of my youngest, well, I think I took my son with me to a bunch of these, and like, ooh, just put on my strong hat and didn't even let myself need to feel these things. But I do remember my husband always offered to come with me, but I very much just wanted to do this alone. And I remember like leaving the office on my way home, because I was always have to go to the city, which was an hour away, and I'd call my husband and be like, oh, they think it's MS. So then the whole hour drive home, then I'd sit with that diagnosis, and then the next time it was something else, and oh, it was like that on repeat, anyways. So the day that I'm getting my diagnosis, I bring my husband and my son.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

And oh this this moment still cracks me wide open.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

I waited a year for an answer to know what the fuck was going on with me, and hopeful that maybe there'd be a treatment, right? And in no way do I have any hard feelings. I'm so grateful for my treatment team. But in one split second, it went from hey, you have adrenomyeloneuropathy, you're a woman, so they don't typically get much for symptoms, and it'll be over a long period of time, which I'll just say right now, it was a couple of years, and they're always shocked at how bad my symptoms are. So owning that, believing that I'm going to move past that. However, right after being told my diagnosis, there was a flip of a switch. The scary news is that it's genetic, it affects boys, and since you have a son, he needs to be tested immediately to see if he has the gene, because it can be life-ending for some boys.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

In that moment, I went from a woman looking for her diagnosis to a mom whose whole life flashed before her eyes as someone explains that her son has a condition. Some boys don't make it past ten. Um yeah. Total flip. And I think in the moment, obviously, I didn't even think twice about that.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Like, completely forgot about myself and my shit, and needed to focus on this kid and this urgent thing that like I'm sitting with a healthy boy in front of me, and you're telling me he might not make it. Uh, this crippled me the most. I think in my entire life up to date, that moment cracked me to the deepest core I think I can possibly be cracked to. It was hard for me to focus on running a business, all the things, because everything felt urgent. Um I did turn into a mom that would lay in bed for days on end and not be able to contribute. I'm so grateful for my husband, and I'm excited to have a chat with him about this because we never really have about how that impacted him. Um the price tag on treatment, should my son ever get sick was a million dollars. It was out of country. I lived in a headspace of being absolutely terrified to spend any money. I needed a new vehicle, but I was like, nope, didn't want to get a different vehicle because what if I lived in fucking what if land. And every six months he would go for a scan, it would feel like I was playing Russian roulette, and I would basically shut down the month leading up to. It would feel like I'm holding my breath till I get a phone call, and it still does, but I navigated in a much different way, thankfully. And as I previously talked about, this is this was the thinking every possible negative outcome possible, and then needing to come back to now. Like, thank you, thinking thought for all the possible scenarios you could throw my way, but coming back to now. And I sit a lot with that version of me who oh, she was so broken, and yet she was so strong because she would literally go and teach a fitness class, smile on, things are good, doing the workout, doing all the things, come home and lose her fucking mind, and just crumble and be dysfunctional and lay on the couch, and like, oh, it was like that during my diagnosis too. And the ability for us to just like be on as women, put that mask on, and men, sorry, and then have your mini breakdown while you're driving somewhere, and then be around someone and like switch right back on to being okay. And I think the people in my life knew I wasn't okay, but I don't think they knew oof how not okay I was. And this ties into partly people just not understanding. If you've never been told that news, it's hard for people to understand and relate. I was also going through just like my own health stuff kind of falling apart. I was losing my gait, I was losing strength in my legs. Oh, I was hard shit. I was really hard shit. And so I'd kind of hit a point where oh, I couldn't just be laying in bed for days on end. That's that wasn't going to keep working. And I'm grateful I had some good friends who would check in on me, but again, I'm sure they felt their hands tied a bit too on like how do I support her with this? Like, no one's experienced this. The best advice I got then was from my friend. She passed me a number for a psychologist, and oh, so grateful. Um, she was exactly who I needed. And I remember going into my first session with her and thinking, like, this is what I need to deal with. I need to deal with my physical limitations, how they're impacting me, and my son's diagnosis. And being the amazing psychologist that she is, um, it was not really about that. I had set this bar on what parenting was supposed to look like, what my identity was with being athletic and being a very active mom. And um I really needed to just take care of myself in that moment. It needed to be okay that I needed help from the people in my life. I needed my husband to be more, I needed more emotion from him. I needed to cut myself a fucking break. And I think that was the beginning of a really beautiful journey of learning to unlearn all the shit that controlled me that I thought I needed to be, um, dropping the walls that I'd put up around my own vulnerability and some real boundary setting around things that I thought were priority that really weren't. I was grateful as I sh as I shared with you about the awareness of thoughts, allowing myself to come back to now, trusting that no matter what comes up in life, I can't, I don't have control over it. And at the end of the day, if shit comes up, we'll figure it out. But there is no point in living in the dark chapter of what ifs when I could be instead living in a good place while there still might be what ifs. It's that allowing. Myself to know that there's some things that are really hard in my life, but not blocking myself from having joy, also allowing myself to be both. Um, I didn't know how much I needed her. I needed someone that wasn't my husband and someone who could just hear me and validate the things I didn't actually know that I needed validating. And I had amazing friends, but I can't speak enough to how important it is to have friends that are in similar chapters as you because you need to be able to have someone who can meet you in a really loving way and gone through some of the things that you've gone through. And then a really big one my parents are amazing, my upbringing was amazing. I love them to pieces, but allowing myself to know that there were things that could have been better and ways I could have been supported differently, and knowing my parents can be really good people, but also letting go of some of their shit that I was carrying for them, and as a parent, that's been so huge for me too, knowing that oof, I'm fucking up in parts for sure, but I'm doing my best and letting being vulnerable with my kids in letting them know that like owning up to the shit that I didn't do right, and letting them know that like I've never done this before. I'm also learning. I think just the vulnerability piece has been really huge about um me just not knowing all the answers. I think it was around this time that I listened to the podcast about my story will be beautiful, and just really deciding that yes, I had a medical diagnosis, yes, my son has a medical diagnosis, but it's gonna be fine. And that outcome that keeps popping up isn't going to be part of my reality, and yeah, like really embracing the photo of the family that's healthy and happy hanging on my wall and knowing I can decide and believe in the outcome that I want. And at the end of the day, no matter what happens, my story will be beautiful. That was a really big turning point for me. I had a friend who was at this time like learning some stuff about the moon, and I was always really into astrology, and I'm really grateful for her support in this because I started to dive into that a little bit. And like I said, I'm I wasn't a religious person, but uh, there was just I always loved the moon and the stars, and there was a like freeing piece that like I I didn't need to control anything. I could just believe a little bit into the like the phases of the moon and the energy of the full moon and following kind of the stories and then doing some reading about it. And I think then I also bought an oracle deck, and so each day I would flip a card and it would just give me something different to think about that wasn't some of the hard shit that I was navigating in my life. It just kind of allowed me to step out of the heavy shit and go into a little bit of dreaming, a little bit of pondering and living more in dreamland instead of the really heavy current place that I was feeling I was in. And I wasn't in a place where I was journaling yet. So trying to figure out timelines, but I'm pretty sure then next was COVID. And that just like cracked me to a deeper level. My husband and I were already in a challenging chapter. I think that highlighted it more than ever. Um, I was home with the kids because schools were closed, which I absolutely loved. I love being around my kids. Um I started reading again. I took full empowerment and embracement for the having nowhere to go and just being able to sit and be present. Um, I think that reminded me really deeply about how much I wanted to actually be around my kids during the day and how much I wanted downtime. It snapped me off autopilot. It made me not focus on my work because work was shut down, and there were so many positives in COVID. I hate fucking talking about the pandemic because there's so much yuck, but I did an amazing job. I was really proud of myself. I adjusted to teaching online classes. Um, when the studio opened, I was busy in ways, I was really good at being flexible. Um, and then it got into a yuckier phase of COVID and passports, and I started to really realize how much it was impacting my finances. Um, I wasn't willing to tell clients that they weren't able to come to my space dependent upon their choice with vaccine. So I just fucking stepped back from my business as much as I could and just decided it wasn't priority at that time. And I think I was just willing to deal with the finance piece later. There were much bigger things bubbling up. Um we at the time I thought I was losing friends, I thought I was losing clients. I was, but I think I'm in a place now where I realize people were falling away to make space for what I was going to be creating in the future. Um, family wasn't super happy with some of our decisions. Um, ultimately, at the end of the day, it really did force some necessary things to happen in our home life and in our family life. I found a lot of comfort in a small circle with the right people, made some new connections, um, made me really sit with what fucking mattered to me, no matter what anybody else thought. It was during this chapter I found my voice. Um, again, I'm sitting there walking a line that no one else has walked with my health, with my son's diagnosis, with running a business during this all. And so I really did feel a lot of support and guidance from oh, my past ancestors, which I would have never thought that was something that would become important to me, but I could feel their presence and I could feel them encouraging me to just honor my voice and and what I was feeling in my physical body. And I think it really brought me off the people pleasing, made me realize at the end of the day, those are my kids, that's my husband, this is my family. What I decide, what I feel in my bones we need to do is all that matters. Don't care what other people have to say, done, line drawn. I'm pretty sure it was in 2021 my husband and I decided we would start some counseling. Um there was very minimal connection between us. We felt like roommates. I hung out with my friends, he would work, um he drank, didn't tell me about it, he would come home late, and I would get to work late because of it, and ugh, it was yuck. It was so yuck. And then we didn't know yet how each other navigated, and I think nobody talks about this piece, which I'm excited again to talk to my husband on this podcast about this, but I was a runner when big emotions came up. I would run, I'd have to sit with and process what came up. He wanted to talk about things right away. That to me felt like he was coming at me, and me needing to walk away felt like for him that I was running away. There was just communication was so shit. There was very minimal intimacy, and I hated what our kids were seeing, and so we dove into couples counseling. I'm again so grateful for the support that we ended up finding in our life. Um, because the couple that did our counseling was amazing, and I'm really grateful also that my husband was open to that because unfortunately, I hear a lot with my clients that there's a lot of couples where one partner just isn't willing to dive into the work. It was only doable though, because I was meeting myself in a place where my happiness mattered. Um, I was living in a space where I was trying new things. I was starting to get into like meditation. Um, I had a great group of girlfriends that were really supportive. But I had come to this place where I think it was also just spirituality, like no amount of control that I think I have is going to help me in this life. And so in my marriage, I had just kind of been like, whatever, this either works out or it doesn't. And I remember my husband just being so frazzled, and I felt bad, but him being like, How are you okay with it? Just being like, it either works or it doesn't. And I don't know. I was just in this place where like I can't really control it. I can control what I do for myself, I can control how I show up, but at the end of the day, it comes down to whether this works or not. I was at a place of just curiosity and wonder. And like I believed that things were happening for me, not to me. I had already plotted out, like, if our marriage doesn't work, what my budget needs to be and what that might look like. And I think just giving myself permission to not feel like I was stuck or trapped in this allowed me to meet my husband in a different place, also. So we were doing the work. Um, it was hard. I honestly thought we were gonna split for a while, but at the end of the day, it allowed just letting go of control, letting him meet himself where he was, do his inner work, and me not feeling like I needed to force everything was so huge. Letting go of outcomes, just like I had to do with my son's diagnosis and just trusting. I think that allowed me to show up in a different place for my kids, for my husband, and for myself. I had kind of come to a place where, like, okay, first this, then this, then COVID, then like blah, my marriage. And so I had kind of started thinking about what else I can do for work? Because what if my body shuts down and like this isn't serving me? I'm getting kind of oh, COVID was so exhausting trying to run fitness stuff and people weren't showing up, and I was ready just to throw my hands in the air. I had even typed up a post that I was shutting down my business because the financial hits were huge. I was losing my passion about it. I had been doing the same thing for so long the same way. I was just done. I was burnt out, and I had been shown that I could be spending more time with my kids. So I started to take courses, and I have a very big rule in my life with myself. Everything I take is first for me, and then I could share it with people if I love it, if I believe in it, but it's always for me first. So I started with this soul school, and I got big into meditation and manifestation and got into all the signs and my air signs, fire signs, sun sign, rising sign. I got into the moon stuff. It was amazing. And then I got into breath work, and I was doing these amazing breath work classes with a beautiful human from BC, and I was starting to find a new community of people who met me in a little bit more of an open space, a less autopilot and a more dreamy, like meeting yourself where you are now, headspace. It took me into some new modalities. Um, I went for a Reiki session with one of my beautiful friends who then taught me how to do Reiki. And again, it was like it was for me first, and I very much needed it. It connected me with my guides and my angels, and oh, just brought me to a space on earth where I felt like I could fucking breathe despite all the cards I'd been dealt. And then I reached out, and even though I was tight on finances, you guys, I was like, nope, I'm investing in myself. And that was incredibly scary for me. And my husband and I also weren't really chatting finances. We had always kind of kept our stuff separate, but I really believed in myself. And so I took my Reiki training and I signed up with this life and business coach. And again, it was like connecting with spirituality and connecting with my heart, and I was feeling very called to get into some somatic work. And I always trust the nudges, I always trust when things come up, or I get a weird, like, hey, what about this? And yeah, so I signed up for a somatic training course, and it was so interesting how much all these things were helping me. And so then I joined some online groups for support, and I signed up for my breathwork training course and more healing and Reiki modalities, and then I'd find myself in women's circles and going to retreats, and it was filling my own damn cup and then allowing myself to step into new space professionally, but also finding myself in new community, which I didn't even know how much I needed that. I think my biggest takeaway in that aspect of the shift in my life was that it's not that I needed people who necessarily understood exactly what I was going through. What I needed was people who could just hear me and not try to pep talk me, not try to give me advice on what to do, but just let me cry and let me meet myself and let me process whatever I needed to. And a really huge part of that, too, all my somatic training was online, meeting this amazing group of humans who were on the same page of like needing to meet themselves and feeling like they were connected with trees and stones and like bringing us back to our really core self, our connection with earth, our connection with intuition, with spirit, with angels and guides. And sorry if I'm getting too woo-woo, but these things really truly shifted my life. And I never looked back. In my somatic training, I started to learn about conscious relationships. And my husband and I were able to kind of sit with our strengths and our weaknesses and find how we needed to support each other and then start to communicate different and start to meet each other. And oh my gosh, learn the hard things that one of us is often in a really good place, and the other person is in a really hard place, and you're fucking annoyed with each other because it's like must be nice to be in that good place, but being able to speak that to each other and know that like that shift happens, and then you're in the opposite position, and that's just how life goes, and trusting that and being able to support each other to be the rock when you need to be the rock, to be the hot mess and the soft ball of emotion when that's what you needed. It was a chapter where we had to start carving out time for us and letting the kids see that we love you guys, but we also need time with just each other. And that was really big, especially coming out of COVID, where it was just like the four of us constantly, and that was good, but we needed to step away. The kids needed to see us choose ourselves and choose each other. I'm so grateful because now the kids seen all the mess. We've talked about it, but they now get to see the work we did and how different we show up. They always speak to how positive they see our marriage. I think one of the biggest pieces of advice, and I always say to my clients, maybe I'm fucking up. I don't know. I'm trying my damn best. But I think one of the biggest things that we gave our kids during all of this was letting them know that me breaking down or me and my husband having a like a moment together, even if if it's messy, that's human and that's normal. And when you're an adult, that's allowed. And you don't need to do anything to make me feel better. I'm just processing, I'm just feeling, or we're just working through something, and then being able to then hold space for a conversation about what we were working through, or the fact that everything is okay. We just needed to feel whatever needed to be felt in that moment. And I think those real pieces of marriage and relationship were so huge, and my heart just feels like it's what my kids needed to be shown. You don't have to always seem like you got your shit together as parents or in a couple, but really do embrace and show that there is variety, there's feelings, there's hard moments, but at the end you come together, you talk, and you're stronger together at the end by doing so. There was a period of time in there. It wasn't yet, I don't think, when my husband and I were in a good place with marriage. We were kind of in between, we were doing the work, but we kept our kids home for a year. Um, there were a lot of people that had a problem with that that felt like it was an attack on them almost for that decision. But everything in us was like, this is what we're doing. And you know, I have some friends at homeschool, and I applaud you guys still because what a beautiful thing. No, it's not for everyone. Yes, it was an incredibly hard chapter, but it was the most freeing feeling in my whole life as a parent. We had no schedules. Um, my kids weren't allowed to be in anything because you needed a passport. We weren't participating in this. So we had nowhere to be. I had put the kids in some art classes. Um, my daughter was taking some online acting classes. Um, they got to do whatever they wanted to do. Um, we did distance learning, so we were given kind of the schooling curriculum for the year and what needed to be handed in. I was not doing Zoom meetings, I wasn't doing schedules, so it was just us. And we set up our own schedule. We did school from October till March, maybe April. We took our schooling outside in April. Um, oh man, in that year, I felt so empowered as a mom. Uh, it was crazy. I signed up to teach grade one, which was reading. And oh, my son and I got to connect in such a beautiful way, but I also got to see the parts of me that were very controlling, the parts of me that were about perfectionism and oh my god, the rule following. Like that year, I learned so much about how I felt I needed to always follow the rules. And so that was incredibly freeing. And the kids would be like, Why do we care about that? And I'm like, you know what? You're right. I learned so much about what my daughter wasn't learning in school and how she was just kind of being pushed through, even though I'm being told that she was doing really well. Like she couldn't do any of the math, which I think math matters to a point, especially the basic stuff you're learning in grade four. So that was a really big eye-opener. I learned a lot about the school curriculum, and oh, I carved out an hour each day to meditate so I could stay grounded and make sure that I was showing up in a way that was supportive and calming for my kids. That was a really big year about unlearning how my own wiring had been with perfectionism, control, and outcome measurement. And I'm at a place now where, yes, school learning is important. Do I agree with curriculum? No, but I think lots of the teachers and school systems don't either. I unlearned to give many fucks about marks in school and to be honest. Um, it was so amazing to have no schedule, freedom for those kids to wake up when they wanted to move how they wanted to, go where we wanted to. And it was a really big eye opener. Both the kids and I always say, like, if we ever feel like we want to travel, or you want to pursue a sport, or you want to do something, or school just isn't your jam, we don't have to. Like, we already know we can do it on our own. How fucking freeing. Oh my gosh. We kind of just came to this place that we realize we're never locked into the school system. And I hope everyone can get to a place where they feel that. And while I was homeschooling my kids, I thought, why not rebuild my business? So I'm taking all these courses and training and I'm getting great coaching, and I shifted everything in 2022. I changed my business from being Pipes Fitness to aligned. And I had been avoiding this word in my yoga classes forever, the word soul. And I don't, I still don't know why. I don't know if it felt impostery or if I just wasn't there yet in my own journey. But slapping on my front door, mind, body, soul, just oof, landed me in who I am, allowed me to speak how I my heart wants me to speak. I dropped all the old ways of things that I had created, these schedules that I ran by myself that just led me to burnout. I used to miss some of my kids' stuff because I had a class and that just wasn't going to happen anymore. I got really honest with myself about what I wanted to make financially or what I needed to make, what my services were, what my schedule was going to be. And I I had to let go of yes, there's going to be people that don't get it, or who aren't happy with it, or who it doesn't fit. And I continually come back to the name of my studio aligned. I try to live that way. I believe that when we show up authentically, we're clear about what matters to us, we're clear about what we're willing to do. We allow people who don't allow align with that to fall away, and we call in the people that want to support that, want to be on this journey with you. It forced me to show up in a new way, a new way that was very much me, very authentic. Would everybody understand it? No, it was vulnerable. I was also calling in a team. Um, I created some new space to have independent contractors, to feel supported, to hold a space for holistic wellness, um, but also just to have my own community. It was very different. Um people came, people still do, they come, they go. Um, I've learned a lot about that in the last 10 years as well. I think when we decide that we are allowed to create our own reality, when we're allowed to map out our lives however we want, there's going to always be those that agree, support it, are alongside you for it, and those who just won't. And that's totally fine because we all have our own thoughts and intentions and journey to walk. And I think that was a big one with friendship. And I've come to a really beautiful place with friendship. I always just craved finding this like group of best friends, and like the movies portray it all the time. And I thought that once you found that one person, they were with you forever, and then when the person would fall away, I took it so personally. And between COVID and my marriage work and my spiritual work and opening up this business and people coming and going, I've met myself in this beautiful place to learn that friendships, and I wish the like five-year-old on version of me could be told this, but friendships come and go, and it's not a reflection of you. It's meeting people from the past that have been in your journey that then go a different route and being so grateful that they got to be with you for part of the journey and all they brought, and all the beauty that came from it, and the laughs and the love, and oof, so beautiful. They supported me, they helped me grow, and then they moved on. And I've been that person in some chapters too. And sometimes we don't even know specifically the reason why things fall apart, but they just shift. And it's okay that I'm not that girl who has eight galpels and we do everything together. I kind of call bullshit on some of that, to be honest. I'm really I'm so excited for the people that have that, but I'm not for everyone. I'm not the lifelong friend girl. That's okay. Um, I've got some beautiful friends that have been on my journey. I could reach out to them tomorrow and we could rekindle and connect. And I'm grateful for those people. And I'm grateful for the friends that I have in my life right now, but I've also learned that my people are the people in my classes. They're the people that I just kind of bump into in my life, and we have those deep chats. And yeah, it's not every birthday, and it's not, we don't get together for a girls' trip all the time, but I have amazing people in my life, and they're my friends, and it just it looks different. And I've had to really meet myself and understand that the people that have come into my life and then left, what a blessing! So grateful. And I've also learned that when they left, they opened up a door for the amazing friends that I have in my life right now who I'm so incredibly grateful for. I still have those moments, I think we all do, where you feel like you're alone. And I have to be really honest and real with myself and remind myself that just because there's not someone sitting right here doesn't mean I don't have this whole huge community of people who love me and support me. So even as my listener, if you're on the same page with me, sending so much love because I think we need to normalize that sort of friendship and love peace. It's not always the hanging out together, the doing everything together, the selfies together. It's just the people that make you feel good, feel heard, and being able to meet each other in different chapters of life. My little people are sprinkled everywhere as I walk through my day, and it's amazing. So, yes. Those have been, I'm actually so impressed with myself. I didn't break down as much as I thought I would. Um, I walk this health journey. Yes, it's still a big impact in my life. Um, I still continue to work on owning my power with it. I believe in being the energy that I want in my life, being vulnerable, holding space for myself and the amazing people in my life. I believe in my ability to heal. I think I have a lot of unloading of overwhelm, of fear, of things that have happened that felt like too much, too fast, too soon, you know, the thing about trauma. I'm really grateful for the practices I have that help me to move through that. Things that I teach, breath work, kundalini, yoga, somatic work, Reiki. I've built a new relationship with my body where we're learning to trust each other and we're learning to find our power again, and we're learning to unlearn that there needs to be a treatment, and rather allowing it to be a process, that the symptoms are maybe just showing up as when things were too much, meeting myself there and trusting that the more I speak, the more I teach, the more I do my own healing, the closer I get to that, and that I'm not broken. And maybe I'm like this for my whole journey. But when I sit with myself in meditation about my future, I always see this beautiful gray-haired woman walking on these trails. And I just I truly do feel in my gut that I'm gonna get there. I'm grateful for my holistic team, my herbologists, my acupuncturists, my chiropractors, my naturopath, my Reiki practitioners, my breath coat, oh man, all the people. Um, I truly believe following my heart no matter what, trusting my intuition. I believe so strongly in the impact I can have on people's lives, in supporting the shifting of humanity into a place where we can own our own power, believe in manifestation, believe in the ability to create and live in a good space despite the negative thrown our way. And I really love to speak and advocate to finances, how I talk about money, how I teach my kids about money, how I coach my clients, because that is an a form of energy. And I think a lot of my financial growth, things I've had to do to learn about it, about how to navigate chapters that are hard in finances are a really big way of owning your power, also. I'm still working on creating my own life, normalizing what I want, um, dropping the walls of what we're told that we should want, calling in what we do want, asking for signs, allowing ourselves to dream, asking for help when we need it, letting go of control and really trusting. I continually have to remind myself to come back to trust and faith, that things come and things go, that things aren't happening to us, they're happening for us, believing truly that we're always meant to be shifting and growing, and that it's not a to-do list, but just a like meeting yourself and being really curious, and also the allowing people to come and go and to meet yourself where you're at and truly believe that you are where you are for a reason. The lesson you're supposed to get from it, being curious about why you're there, and just trusting everything is where it's supposed to be. You are who you're supposed to be right in this moment. And the big ones, we'll get there. This is a step in the right direction, letting go of imposter syndrome, like I spoke earlier. Oh, doing fitness stuff while I have a disability. Like I've been doing this my whole career. It's what I went to school for. Training high performance athletes and helping people with injuries and then starting the coaching and healing and being like, who am I? And every time I get guidance on offering a new thing, it's like, who are you? And like, who do you think you are? And I have to be like, this is who I am, and this is what I'm gonna do. And the people who align with it will believe in me and trust me. I also have to continue to work on remembering that other people's hearts don't dismiss my own struggles. Yes, I am grateful for the outcomes of some of the cards that I've been dealt and the lessons that I've learned. And yes, I do, I'm really grateful that I've done my work and that I get to sit here in a really beautiful headspace and trust and have faith and be happy, but also let myself be sad and being able to meet myself with all these parts and have the ability to be in my kids' lives as much as I am, and be able to have days where I can just hang out at home with my kids or my husband, and giving myself permission to know that I'm allowed to create that. That's not imposter. I get to create and be who I am striving to, what's valuable to me, what's important to me. I can do that, and I don't need to explain it to myself or to others. And done is better than perfect, which takes me to the end of this episode. I find myself here today. Um, someone out there, maybe you need to hear what I have to say. The experience I had shifted me to be really empowered, to meet myself in a new place, in a new light, rather than letting it all take from me. There's been so many positives. So when I mentor people or coach people and they're in hard chapters, I do always say, like, you're gonna look back on this version of you, and though it's hard to think it right now, you're gonna be so proud and you're going to understand why this was put on your plate, why you were put here, and you're going to be so grateful for it. But when you're in the thick of it, it's hard. I wouldn't change anything. It snapped me off autopilot. It made me realize that I'm here to live my life, not to please everybody else. Brought me to a place where I had to do my inner work. I've been there before. And so they always say, like, if a door opens and you walk by it or close it and you're meant to go through it, it'll show up again. When I was in university, I was in a really dark place, and I wanted to come home. And I'm so grateful my dad said no. He said, No, like you can get through this. And thanks, dad, for believing in me. But I wanted to be a psychologist, that was what I went for. And in the hard moments, I was like, hey, no, I don't want to do this. Um, it was hard to read about headspace, depression. I found that really challenging. Um, and I was like, you know what? The only the thing that makes me happy is sports and working out. And so I switched my degree to kinesiology. And I loved it. It was awesome. And then I met with this health issue and this part where I needed to understand that I'm more than that. Yes, that brought me joy, but what about the stuff underneath the joy? And I needed to go there. And a door opens again of healing. And yes, I certainly sat there thinking, ooh, I should have been a counselor. And then I realize I don't want to be in that box. That's not who I am. My superpower is my feelings, my heart, my ability to meet people, and now all these experiences that I've gone through and come through to the other side. Now I get to help people with that, but I get to do it my own way. So instead of trying to force the fitness thing again, I did my inner work, I took some training, I stepped outside the box, I dropped the identities that I'd been carrying with me the whole time that I thought I needed, and I found these new parts of me. And so we're never stuck and we're never missing an opportunity though, because it comes back around. And could I have predicted that? Absolutely not. Am I grateful for it? Yes. It allowed me to create my life differently, to care for myself in new ways, to meet myself with compassion and understanding. It allowed me to let go of this very controlling, independent version of myself, the strong part, and meet a strong but softer part that took more vulnerability. And that is what led me to being the type of mom that I am today. That allows me to mentor my clients and that has allowed me to create this beautiful marriage. Is it perfect? No, but oh my God, does it fill my cup to be able to show that to my kids and to meet my person in the place that I can meet him? Oh, there come the tears. And a really big one, um, I think it's really taught me about boundaries, and that boundaries aren't me being mean, they are me choosing me and protecting my energy and my happiness, my light, my joy. I'm so grateful for a Leo daughter who knows who the fuck she is and won't apologize for it. And I've definitely learned from her in this journey to speak my truth, be who I am, and who gives a shit about what anyone has to say about it. And then my son, our journey together has been hard, so vulnerable. Um, I know we'll have a lot of healing to do together because of just the medical fear piece. However, moving forward, I don't talk about it a ton. Um I look at him, he's a healthy boy. I believe he will stay that way. I've been shown that he will stay that way. Um, we do what we can from a holistic standpoint to support him. I know if anything comes up in the moment, we'll figure shit out. And that's all that I can ask for. But he's been so huge in cracking open my heart, um, my soft side, my vulnerability, and knowing that I can be strong, speak my truth, be authentic, and I can also be really soft and vulnerable. And I need to be both to do what I'm doing in this life, to walk the path I'm supposed to walk, to support my people, my community. So wherever you are in your journey, maybe you share some of the same stories or experiences as me. Maybe you're on a completely fresh path or somewhere completely different. But I hope some of the things I've spoken to can help you or help someone that you know. Sometimes life throws us the cards, but just remember we know how to play them. It just might take some time, some feelings, some vulnerability, and some trust. In saying that, I invite you to love fiercely, to trust that you'll land softly. Thanks so much for your time and energy for being part of my community. Until we chat again, peace and love.