I'm mae.

The past 6+ years have been a whirlwind but the highlight reel shows I was carried from a land of thorns and exhaustion, into the land of junipers and thriving, because God has been kind to me, yes. I also rose up and met the losses with a pursuit of weakness extinction and I did the work.

Spring 2017, the valley I found myself in was deep and vast.  I could not physically carry my own body or hold my infant son to nurse him.  I had fought with every ounce of my capacity and more to turn a broken, destructive marriage into something functional.  My try-hard had beat me down so significantly that I had a run in with 5 autoimmune diseases, 3 later reversed and 2 that carried their own trauma with the changes required.  My life crumbled, my body quit, my children and I moved in with my parents to heal my body back to basic independence. I craved safety.

Testing said I was malnourished.  No shit.  I lost just shy of 80 pounds in 2 months.  My body was home to a pervasive viral infection.  Rheumatoid arthritis put fire in my hips that made standing from up from nursing my son impossible without help.  Walking was a task that often brought tears. A broken thyroid dropped my body temperature regularly in storms where my body would tremble convulsively.  My digestive destruction kept me home and afraid to be away from my various remedies. The onset Celiac disease challenged my emotional relationship with food, family and years of fond baking memories.  Years of chronic bronchitis that eventually became a string on months-long episodes made for scary breathing, even an inability to talk to my children in the evenings when the coughing was severe. I unknowingly held my breath from the anxiety that appeared alongside the traumas and lack of safety.  Spending a year dizzy give you great perspective on which way is up. My MTHFR gene mutations kept my body from detoxing appropriately, amongst other issues. I was a walking, painful, broken petri dish. With two beautiful sons, a proven company and buckets of hope and vision, I felt a still small voice push me towards wellness work, purely for my own healing.

The beauty of my character gift of strategy is I refuse to take ‘you can’t’ or ‘no’ or ‘it’s all in your head’ or ‘you’ll learn to live with it’ as a complete thought.  It’s my nature There is a way out of everything. “He will show you a way out so that you can endure.”  Question all.  Press for answers.  Press toward healing.  I took note of my body’s inclinations, desire to eat THIS food or drawness to THAT practice.  In its weakness, my body was reduced to a megaphone of my innate wisdom. I dug for answers. I found a new doctor.  I researched what I felt made sense and left the rest. Traumatic and empowering.  Seeing my own body fail at its breaking point while simultaneously seeing it powerfully seek homeostasis and safety so that it may heal was pivotal.

A few long years of healing what ailed my body and what ailed my heart brought all sorts of coaching clients.  Clients who needed a fresh angle on their problem. Clients who had a problem because they were overworked and under energized.  Fundraising strategy, startup strategy, systems strategy, work at home SAHM strategy, MLM strategy. The variety of clients was invigorating as was seeing new effectiveness that came out of my own breaking and healing.  The work we completed together, the funds raised and the viewpoints empowered - those conversations always slowly trickled right back to heart health. To soul care, to nutrition to boosting your brain so you can dig out of painful patterns and press forward into effectiveness.  We worked together, crafting practices that free coaching clients to press into their giftedness. All roads led back to whole person work founded on the truth that our bodies were designed perfectly, to heal. Our emotional patterns, physical ailments, relational destruction, self-sabotage…  My suffering became a window into seeing more clearly what needed pruned or cut out - what was impeding healing in my clients and where to nourish what facilitates healing. Vegetables and fruits, yes - but mindsets, belief systems, toxic relationships.

In this restful season of a new day-to-day for me, I was busy doing much grief and healing work alongside coaching clients doing their own array of work.  It was that parallel learning that fueled my healing work. While I did the next right thing in so many ways to heal my heart and to heal the soul of my family of 3, I headed to schooling where I could learn the science behind what I had experienced.  I had the practical evidence in my healthy body and my healing heart, but I wanted to lead others from the evidence-based modality of nutritional therapy. I wanted to know why the mindfullness, prayer and breathwork healed my vagal nerve and freed me up to move forward.

It was a wild ride that not only afforded me much chisling of my own character and choices, but tossed me right into a pool of coaching people to effectiveness and healing their whole body mind, soul, spirit and physical body.

There is life in the land of the living.  Nutritional therapy from a trauma-informed perspective is step one on my journey of loving others well through their hurdles into health and life.  We’re the same. We all struggle. I just got an extra dose of strategy and ideation. The greatest joy for me and fulfillment of that purpose is walking alongside others as they hit their breaking point and seek to edit their lives so that they may pursue the fullness of their design.  I believe that optimization of personal health, heart work and practical systems are the paths toward success.

Let’s link arms and shift you into a land of more hills than valleys.

I followed the way out.  You can, too.