Five years ago, I was on a road trip with my best friend, driving through the middle of nowhere Texas. It was raining out and the sun had just set when out of nowhere my heart began to pound out of my chest and I couldn’t breathe. I immediately pulled over and thought “Okay, maybe it’s just the long hours in the car driving from town to town and I just need a break.” We pulled over, swapped seats and pressed on. However, it didn’t get better, it got worse.
I rolled down the window, took deep breaths, chugged my water, but nothing was working. My hands and feet started to go tingly and eventually numb. As my body was physically reacting to whatever this was – I started freaking out even more. The breathing was getting heavier and faster and I just couldn’t shake off what was happening. Then my hands turned into lobster claws (imagine my four fingers were stuck together like they were the big pincer and my thumb was the little pincer). To this day that is weirdest and scariest thing that has ever happened to my body. My friend kept trying to grab my hands and make them go back to normal, but the second she let go they went right back to the claws.
I wanted to crawl out of my skin, and at that moment I would have given anything to make it all stop. My poor friend, Charlotte, had no idea how to help me. I couldn’t be in that car any longer, so we pulled off the highway to get a hotel – I thought maybe I could just sleep it off. I realized I was sadly mistaken when my left arm started to go numb. It was in that moment that I decided I needed to go to the ER.
Once I was seen by the doctor, I immediately began to calm down. Even if I were dying (which I clearly wasn’t) at least I was at the ER where they had the tools to help me. As it turns out, I was just having one of the craziest panic attacks of my life! I couldn’t believe it; I had dealt with panic attacks in the pass and this was NOTHING like I had ever experienced before. I later learned from my therapist that the lobster clawing was a result of my body going into fight or flight mode. I was working myself up so much that all the blood was rushing to my organs to protect them, so I lost feeling in my hands and feet.
After everything had passed, I still felt awful, like I had been hit by a truck. The whole ordeal lasted almost five hours, and kudos to Charlotte for trying to do anything in her power to help me out. Clearly, my body was communicating to me in a huge way. I had been letting my body - the only body I have, my temple - take a complete backseat to everything else. I had been partying too much, barely sleeping, running myself into the ground, eating whatever I wanted, not exercising, and it all eventually caught up with me. As much as I wish I never had to go through all that, I’m grateful to the experience because it was my body slapping me in the face, telling me to “Wake the F up!!!”.
So, I did!
Spring has Sprung – My Rebirth
My 30th birthday was approaching so it was a great time in my life to take on a new way of being. And even more perfect, I’m a spring baby, so a time for rebirth and renewal seemed fitting. It couldn’t have been a better time to make changes. I wasn’t too clear on what this so-called “rebirth” was going to entail, so I decided to just take baby steps. At the time, I was living in San Diego, and since it’s nice 360 days out of the year, the first thing I decided to implement was hiking once a week. I figured it was a great way to get out among nature and be healthy at the same time. I’m so thankful for those mountains in Southern California, they truly initiated a string of positive changes in my life.
The hiking once a week turned into hiking two times a week. Then I decided to join a kickboxing gym. After that I decided to start jogging on the beach. Once I had hit my stride physically, I introduced healthy eating. As a result of the exercising and the change in my diet, I began to get great night sleeps. I started to go to yoga and introduced a meditation practice. My life was changing, and it was glorious!
Most importantly, it led me to my career in Health Coaching, but I’ll touch on that in a moment. I could probably go on and on about the beginning of my early 30’s and everything I learned. It was filled with so much transformation I could write a book. I’ll spare you all those words and share with you the two lessons that have stuck with me the most over the past five years.
Learning to Listen to my Body
Now, my wake-up call forcing me to listen to my body was a bit extreme. Not everyone is going to have to take a trip to the ER! It can show up in many ways for different people. It may be through body aches, headaches, stomachaches, stress, low energy, low sex drive, arguing with your partner, not sleeping through the night, etc.
For example, maybe the last few days you’ve gotten a pretty annoying headache around 3pm. It’s most likely a tension headache caused from stress and working at a computer all day. Check in with yourself, are you drinking enough water? When was the last time you stood up and stretched? Perhaps taking a 10-minute walking break could help. Leave your cellphone at your desk and do a lap or two outside your building. Breathe in the fresh air and take in the sights and sounds around you. We all know the negative effects of sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day but sometimes things just get a bit hectic and your body takes the backseat. The headache is the bodies way of just saying “Hey! Remember me?!”.
Whenever I’m burning the candle at both ends, I almost ALWAYS begin to get a scratchy throat. Whenever that happens, I know it’s time to re-calibrate, slow down and give myself some TLC. Green tea, bed early, a big bowl of leafy greens and endless amounts of water are usually the ticket to getting me back on track. Our bodies are in constant communication with us and it’s remarkable what you can learn about yourself if you just take the time to stop, observe and listen.
When Life Gets Hard: KEEP GOING!
Left. Right. Left. Right.
It’s like doing that yoga pose you despise. They always say the ones you like least are the ones you should be doing every day. Well, when life gets overwhelming, challenging or stressful and you feel like you want to pull the covers up over your head, you should do the opposite. For some people (present company included) being overwhelmed with a certain idea of living can stop you dead in your tracks.
I was clearly at a big crossroads in my life and not sure where to start. The goal was clear: get healthy. Seems easy enough, right? Wrong! Being healthy can mean SO MANY different things, especially in today’s day and age. So, instead of being stopped and feeling inundated by all things healthy, I started small, quite literally, with just one step. As I mentioned before, I decided to start hiking. I put one foot in front of the other and I climbed a mountain. Truthfully, I hated almost every minute of it.
I went during the hottest part of the day and it took FOREVER. My friend Jeremiah literally put his hand on my back and pushed me up the last bit because I was having such a hard time! Bless his heart, because the next time we went I discovered that we didn’t even make it to the peek! Turns out we were just around the corner from the top, about ten stairs away, but I was so exhausted that I just nestled into a little nook in the shade and assumed we were done. He didn’t have the heart to tell me at the time!
Getting to the (almost) top of that mountain was an incredible feeling, it made me forget about the struggle I went through to get there. I was hooked and I wanted to keep going back, again and again, so I could eventually show that mountain who was boss. It became my favorite spot to hike and it created a positive ripple effect in my life. I’m also happy to report that I haven’t had a panic attack since! All the things I mentioned before began as a result of taking this one action, that first step. It was the step that led me to Health Coaching.
The Ripple Continues…..
I was so fired up about the way my life was transforming I knew there had to be other people out there who were feeling the same way but didn’t know how to help themselves. I wanted to share my knowledge, passion and support with other people and empower them to make changes. I was (and still am) blessed to be around people who support me and lift me up. Not everyone has that in their life. Health Coaching has allowed me to be that person in my clients’ lives. I feel like I’ve hit the job jackpot because my work doesn’t ever seem like work to me, it’s just who I am. If only that ER doctor could see me now!
December 2014….. Me, Charlotte, Archie and the Nissan Versa we drove across the country in (twice!)