What’s the most stressful time of my life? That’s hard to say! I’ve had several stressful times: I was given up for adoption, and that comes with separation stress no matter how well it’s done; my adoptive mother died two days before my 9th birthday; a brother committed suicide; the blended family was a wild ride, to say the least; as a young adult, I made a fair amount of really bad life decisions and a spontaneous, poorly planned move to a strange city (Hello, Memphis) knowing no one, having no job, and having to make my way without ready-made connections.
As with all of us who are married, my hubby and I have had our issues – and now that we work together, well, we’ve added a whole new array of stressors to our relationship! But we’re doing well- most days. And we experience lots of blessings working together as well.
Speaking of Blessed Stress…
I don’t want to leave out my most positive stressors! As all parents know, having children is no walk in the park, although walks in the park help with the stress of children! Having children is definitely one of those life experiences that is a mixed bag of difficulties as well as blessings. As fate would have it, we Brain Trainers have a beautiful, brilliant child with attention issues! She’s doing fabulously and we’re so proud of her. And having this gem has helped us empathize with our clients with ADHD children.
We run our own practice and with that comes the stress of business ownership. Learning to become a business woman and not just a health practitioner continues to be one of the most stressful things I’ve ever done. Business skills don’t come naturally to me and I’m having to learn them in my old age. Thank God, we have plenty of brain tools to help my old brain learn new tricks!
A Rocky Road
In my late 40’s I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s and, on top of that, struggled with a long flare of EBV. That was very stressful because I felt sick and exhausted and conventional medicine had nothing to offer me. I am not a person who takes medications to cover over symptoms. I believe we can get to the root cause of conditions and I believe healing is possible if we supply our bodies with what they need and get rid of the toxins.
Trying New Stuff
Oddly, while I hardly had enough energy to do the bare minimum, it was an incredibly productive time in my life. It’s a time in my life where I dug into my faith in God and learned how to really listen to Him and follow His lead. Somehow in the midst of the pain, exhaustion and brain fog, I had the grace to really study the body and true health. I learned how to nourish myself in body, mind and spirit. I availed myself of our Neurofeedback and stress reduction tools – and experienced our practice as a client would. I believe that helped me become a better practitioner.
I found some wonderful Functional Medical practitioners who helped me get some services I couldn’t get on my own: like IV Vitamin therapy and bioidentical hormones.
This hard time in my life became an accelerated learning curve. I tried all kinds of things!
“Some people thought I was a little overboard, maybe even a little crazy, but I don’t consider anything I tried to have been a failure or waste of time. ”
I learned so much, and it was so personal to me that those lessons stuck. Now, I’m blessed to get to use all my experiences and knowledge to help others.
How I Deal
I’m not done with my healing journey. I kind of think we’ll all be on one form of healing journey or another until the day we depart from this earth. So, I’m learning to have patience (at least I try), and to be curious rather than judging myself.
I think the most important things that have helped me deal with stress are:
- My faith in God: Learning to be quiet and hear His voice has been life changing.
- Learning to breathe in a way that calms my system and at the same time, energizes me with a good energy has been exciting.
- Learning to practice gratitude and appreciation – of even the smallest of things. I’m learning to consider each day a treasure hunt in which I intentionally search for beauty, kindness and joy, and then take time to revel in the feelings of appreciation for those gifts.
- Learning to listen to my body to decide which foods nourish rather than deplete me has helped me make increasingly more effective food choices.
Everyone has an incredible story. Everyone faces a myriad of difficult stressors. I feel honored and blessed to get to walk alongside people as they step into their healing journey. I love to listen deeply and help people find their own unique healing path.
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