How does an Accountant also become a Mind-Body Coach?
Well, I can tell you it wasn’t the path I planned, but the path that - tiny step by tiny step - emerged ahead of me.
From an early age, school was always a place I could perform well and feel good - I graduated high school with a scholarship to university, graduated university with a Bachelors in Commerce and full time job in a Top 6 accounting firm, and completed my CPA exams with results that landed me in the Top Ten in BC. Life was good. I travelled the world, worked hard in my career, got married, bought a house, had 2 kids---you know, the “expected” path. I now realize there were whispers along the way that something wasn’t quite right, but I did not know how to hear them. Oprah has a saying that -
The whispers got louder after my second son was born and had some health issues, followed by my marriage ending and a minor car accident. I continued to push through —- determined to figure it out and get back to my old life.
Then in late 2013 life screamed at me. A fourth car accident stopped my world. Dead stop.
After this car accident, I spent next 2 years living with daily headaches. I saw specialist after specialist with “no clear diagnosis”. When I would mention a buzzing in my head, and clarify it was NOT a ringing in my ears, they would just look at me funny. I could not tolerate light or noise, working on a computer became almost intolerable and the chronic pain was locked in. It was a scary and lonely place to be. Then I met some amazing people in the world of nervous system healing and mind-body connections, and finally found some hope and health recovery. Learning about the nervous system, the mind-body connection, how to connect with your body and emotions, the amazing power of our mind (not always in a good way) and the importance of play all allowed me to be headache free by late 2016. I returned to full time work, was able to be active with my kids again, changed my parenting style to enjoy my kids and learned a new definition of the word “healthy”. Life was good again.
Then in mid 2017 came other big life lesson----just because you do all the work to heal does not mean life won’t knock you down again. To bring in my “Wave Plans surfing analogies”, I had fallen off the board a few times in my life but for most of 2017 I had been surfing pretty well. Then came summer and I would get thrown off the board (again), but this time I felt the undertow pull me down even further. Yep, another car accident.
So began another recovery process, but from a darker place. I felt like I was submerged and I was flailing trying to stay afloat with headaches again, muscle pain, unable to be active and a heavy financial burden of no job or income. As Iyanla Vanzant says -
This is where I had to learn to navigate the undertow. If you look up how to survive an undertow, one of the most important things is to stay calm because if you struggle you will wear yourself out. They also say to swim along the edge of it, not directly away from it. This undertow was pulling me one way (Why me? This isn’t fair? How will I pay my bills?) and I had to learn to stay calm, surrender a bit and get comfortable swimming next to it. That journey took another 3+ years.
Today I am relatively headache free, back to doing most of the activities I love and expanding my business. I still need the occasional physical therapy appointment and noisy environments need to be short visits, but it FEELS manageable and not overwhelming. I’ve learned to navigate my personal undertow and safely swim myself back to the beach (so I can keep enjoying life) WAAAYY faster!
If you are looking for coaching support with running your own business, parenting, divorce/co-parenting or moving beyond chronic pain, check out my offers here.
If you are looking for financial assistance with your own business, check out my offers here.
