LIFE EXPERIENCE/Who I am . . .
I recently celebrated my 48th birthday. I’ve spent the past twenty-plus years gaining a unique set of skills, many of which I integrate into my health coaching practice. [Blog posts coming soon on each of these topics.] Working backwards chronologically, the most impactful experiences/modalities, which will certainly guide my work with you, are these:
- FUNCTIONAL NUTRITION/Health Coaching: “Functional medicine addresses the underlying causes of disease, using a systems-oriented approach and engaging both patient and practitioner in a therapeutic partnership”. My health coach training is based in a functional approach to health and healing. Expect to go deep into your physiological symptoms, your mental/emotional/physical health history and your motivation for getting on the path towards health. We will work to find the root cause(s) of what ails you.
- ASTROLOGY: and especially it’s medical applications. As an archaeologist/anthropologist it is not lost on me that every ancient culture I’ve studied has had a profound and sophisticated relationship with the stars, planets and their movements. I was thrilled to find out recently that in ancient Europe where all my ancestors are from, every doctor was also a skilled astrologer. I am just beginning my study in this realm.
- ACCOUNTING/Book-keeping: I have managed the Accounting Department for a multi-million dollar company and currently support multiple bookkeeping clients. Not only can you trust that your information will remain confidential, you can also trust that I know and understand how to navigate the economic aspects of our relationship professionally, fairly and with integrity.
- COOKING/Catering: For the past ten years I’ve been involved in many aspects of the food industry, mostly as a self-employed caterer/chef. I’ve done everything from cooking in field kitchens at activist camps to cooking on a wood stove on a 125 year old sail boat to being the chef/kitchen manager for an events facility that could seat 200, and a lot of things in between. Though each situation is different, my focus has always been on local, seasonal, whole foods and on accommodating any dietary restriction that comes my way without compromising flavor or aesthetics.
- PERMACULTURE: Bill Mollison defines permaculture as “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems, which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems”. I was introduced to permaculture when I cooked for a 2-week design course at which we sourced almost 75% of the ingredients locally. A few years later I did my own 2-week Design Course followed by an 8 month internship and employment at the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute in Colorado. The health of our bodies is largely determined by the quality of food, herbs and water we ingest; and that quality is directly linked to the health of the ecosystem. Permaculture offers a new way of looking at what indigenous people understood inherently: the integrity of human and natural ecosystems are key to the health of our individual bodies, to very much over-simplify it.
- BOLADS KITCHEN: I was a student at Martin Prechtel’s magnificent school of small things in Northern New Mexico for almost eight years. “Teaching forgotten things, endangered excellent knowledges, but above all a grand overview of human history as seen from a particular Martín Prechtel way in the search for a comprehension regarding the survival of unique and unsuspected manifestations of the Indigenous Soul . . .” from Bolad’s Kitchen
- WESTON A. PRICE FOUNDATION/Traditional Foods: Weston Price was a dentist who discovered the link between the modern plague of deteriorating, chronic health conditions and the modern diet of processed foods, sugar and refined flour. His work spurred a movement aimed at getting more nutrient dense foods into our food supply and educating people about the benefits of traditional food preparation techniques and ingredients.
- HERBALISM: As a long time lover of plants, it did not take long for me to discover the healing properties of many common and not so common plants. I’ve completed a distance learning 18-month long herb school, an internship at United Plant Savers Botanical Sanctuary and several other workshops on the topic. The power of plants to heal and speak to our bodies in a language our bodies understand is undeniable.
- ENVIRONMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY/Anthropology: I wrote my Master’s Thesis on using ancient seed data from archaeological sites to do environmental reconstruction and why that is important. I have come to think of this work as Life History of the Land. I believe connection to land is one of our primary attachments as human beings and is integral to the process of healing in situ (meaning “in place” and by this I mean healing our connection to being inside our own bodies, wherever we find ourselves). Connection to land and place is a resource that can root us deeply and firmly into our own healing journey.
- COMMUNITY ORGANIZING/Activism: I spent many years organizing around, educating about and protesting Free Trade, Globalization, the second Iraq War and many other issues. I understand this lifestyle and the toll it can take on bodies and souls. There is so much grief for those of us who love life in all its diversity and also see the devastation being done to the planet as well as our collective and individual psyches by the modern world.
- SOMATIC EXPERIENCING/Trauma/Addiction/Biodynamic Craniosacral/Massage: I’ve done quite a bit of self-study in these areas and while I’m not “certified” in anything related to these fields, I will definitely bring my study and personal experiences to bear as I believe trauma and addiction greatly impact our physical health and that SE, Biodynamic Craniosacral and body work therapies can be transformative in most people’s healing journeys.
- BIKRAM YOGA: I discovered this yoga series in 2009. 26 postures done in the same order each time in a 105* room with 40% humidity. This yoga transformed my life, nervous system and body and has been invaluable in my own healing journey. It is not for everyone, but if you have questions about it, I would love to share how it’s helped me over the years.
MY HEALING JOURNEY
It is hard for me to know where my healing journey begins. In my early 20’s, I contracted several viral infections that still impact my health 20 years later. At the time, I knew absolutely nothing about self care. I did what a lot of young people did where I was from; heavy drinking, experimenting with drugs, staying up late and generally not taking care of myself.
Later, at 24 years old, I traveled to South America for the first time. In subsequent years, I returned two more times. Each time, I contracted at least one, if not several, digestive ailments – parasites, severe altitude sickness, dysentery, giardia and who knows what else. I also returned from one of these trips with debilitating chronic back pain. At 26 years old, I could not sit, stand, walk or do anything else without excruciating pain. This daily debilitating pain lasted for at least two years.
I followed those international adventures with graduate school, where I jumped head first into community organizing and activism during the Bush II Administration and at a time when the US government was just starting to use military style tactics in large scale protest situations. This combination of events was both amazing and very stressful on me physically, emotionally and psychologically. I learned about massage and stretching and got my first insight into the emotional aspects of disease, as well as other alternative therapies around this time. I was also introduced to the Slow and Local Food movements by a dear friend.
Soon after that, my brother and sister asked me to help them get clean from years of prescription opiate (oxycontin) and other addictions. Back then, there weren’t many people talking about prescription drug abuse and not really many options for them to get support. I was actively involved in their detox and continued journeys towards sobriety at much cost to my own health, because, as I came to understand and write about later, I had to shut myself down emotionally in order to do this service for my family. In the depths of this crisis, I cried daily, was terribly emotionally unstable, isolated and depressed and still dealing with chronic pain. I spent years in therapy of different kinds working through a lifetime of instability, nervous system dysregulation, depression, self esteem issues and many other things I hadn’t realized were impacting my health. Through therapy, I learned to put my experiences into perspective and began to understand the story arc of my life. This is such an invaluable experience, whether you get it through therapy or writing or drawing or music.
After all this, I went at life and work with a vengeance, attempting to fill some of the emotional holes I’d discovered with overwork and constant movement – in 8 years I lived in 4 different states and literally changed homes at least 20 times. Eventually, I ended up cooking on a set of 3 masted schooners in mid-coast Maine. My “last big hustle” before trying to settle down in one place. I started cooking and sailing on May 17th and worked 49 days straight – 7 days a week for almost 2 months, mostly 10-15 hour days. This is not an exaggeration! By the time I quit the job after 4 1/2 months, I had gained 30 pounds, had burns all over my arms, couldn’t bend my knees or use my right wrist, and barely had energy to get out of bed each morning. I had literally worked myself almost to death. For almost 7 months in my late 30’s, I had to move home to live with my mother. I couldn’t work and could barely function. Everything I ate made me bloated, my blood sugar was out of control, my mind was so foggy I could barely read or understand a book, standing for longer than 20 minutes exhausted me, all my joints, tendons and muscles were sore, tight, weak and barely functional.
It was during this time that I discovered Functional Diagnostic Nutrition and with no job, no clear plan, practically no mental capacity for new knowledge and no end in sight, I signed up for the training with a credit card. In the midst of all this, I undertook a very strict elimination diet. For one month, I was completely miserable – agitated, angry, irritable, emotional, fragile. As my system detoxed, I started to stabilize emotionally. After becoming emotionally stable, and less compulsive in my eating and relationship to food, I was able to focus on healing at another level. I got a job, but it was still 6 more months before I stopped feeling dead at the end of each work day, and another year and a half after that before my digestion and energy levels became somewhat consistent and “normal”. It is still a balancing act. And life continues to throw curve balls into the mix. I don’t have it all figured out with my own health and I’m actively on the journey, committed to each step of the way.
In the end, this is a story about how someone who lives a mostly “healthy” lifestyle (that’s how others would have described me during most of my adult life) can still be knocked down flat by repeated, chronic stresses of various kinds. At 42, I had never felt healthier, more stable or more resilient in my life. At 44, I was once again struggling with mysterious symptoms and re-committing myself to the ongoing journey. At 48, it is clear that this journey doesn’t have an “end”. I am feeling mostly good with long and short moments of challenge, backsliding and the subsequent recommitment it takes to live in a human body at this time on the planet. My experience has lead me to believe that the best and most important thing we can do for ourselves is cultivate resiliency in our own personal spaces – bodies, minds, homes, communities. The modern world is inherently stressful. So many diseases and chronic illnesses are linked back to stress at some level or another, whether that stress is a chemical irritant, trauma, financial instability, nutrient depleted foods, pathogens or the looming existential threats of climate change and nuclear war. Cultivating resiliency in our selves, our communities and our landscapes is our most important work as humans at this time. I have a lot of tools in my tool belt to do just that and I look forward to working with you.
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