My Journey

Does this sound familiar? 

You constantly think you’re not enough and that thought derails you from getting it together to fulfill your goals. You're so filled with fear of failure that you can’t imagine taking action to create a life that matters. 

Attention to everyone else's needs leaves you little or no time for yourself.  You wake up in the morning thinking who am I to do this, I am not worthy. When you step out of your comfort zone, it creates so much overwhelm you freeze.

OMG! I get that because that was me.

NOW, I work with people who struggle to achieve their desires because they are held back by their limiting beliefs, fears, self-doubt, and self-sabotage. I guide them to shift their beliefs, understand what drives fear and self-doubt, replace self-sabotage with sustainable, balanced habits, and develop actions to move into a life that matters to them.

It all started during my grade school experience.

I’m not sure exactly when it happened but I remember that in first grade I was devastated when the teacher passed me by for the highest reading group. By about third grade we had to start taking those standardized tests and they were hard for me. The public school system in those days was not yet creating IEPs but I needed one because I couldn’t comprehend what I was reading in the standard way and would not score very high on those standardized tests in reading because the stress of the timed test would cause me to freeze. ( In the 60’s learning styles was not a focus for teaching. )

I would always ace the spatial reasoning tests and didn’t understand why they included that on the standardized test because that part was so ridiculously easy. I began to form some beliefs about my intelligence at that time because there wasn’t yet a marker for emotional, musical, or kinesthetic intelligence. 

My self-worth regarding my intelligence was negatively impacted.

I have an older brother who was a very high achiever and I could not even come close to his strengths and abilities in school. I was good at sports, music, sewing, and had high intuitive, emotional and spatial intelligence, which had no value in those times. To complicate matters, while that was happening, my parents were going through a divorce. Divorce is never easy for anyone’s life and that trauma had negatively impacted my ability to focus. So At the age of 9, I began stuffing down feelings of worthlessness with food as an effort to find comfort which continued for many years to come. Self- sabotage and procrastination also became my major area of study and my survival skills.

So began what seemed like a lifetime of giving myself messages that I wasn’t enough.

Fast forward to the college years. I went to the local community college because I didn’t need to pass an entrance exam. I had always been interested in counseling and helping people but did a U-turn in college because of the voices saying I would never  be very good, I wouldn’t be able to make a living, I wasn’t smart enough, I would fail and on and on. 

So, I didn’t finish college, I took what I saw as the safe and practical route by becoming a hairdresser and conveniently my dad, an entrepreneur, owned the beauty school. Of course that left me with plenty of voices in my head screaming you’ll never be able to make enough money to support yourself, what will people think, you didn’t finish college so you're worthless, and you’ll never be good enough. 

My insides were a mess from those voices in my head and the self soothing and numbing with food was causing a lot of weight gain. I just wanted to find peace within myself. I got married with the hope that would make things better and in the next few years, I had two wonderful daughters.

Guess what? I still brought myself into the mix. 

Over the next many years, while raising my family and learning about parenting to the best of my ability, I began participating in personal growth workshops, an experiential therapy group and personal therapy, learning to develop healthy habits of self care and creating a community of friends who had the same interests. 

I  participated in a 12 step program for food addiction which has been an important step. I worked in a pre-school, began practicing yoga, participated in volunteer work with a program called challenge day with pre-teens, and got certified with mental health first aid. 

I also participated in many programs to enhance my spiritual growth through Unity church and I began to feel differently about myself which was a welcome relief as I connected with things that really mattered and enhanced my life. I turned inside out the ways I lived and viewed life and it was helping.  

As time passed, I began to attend conferences and classes specifically for hair stylists while working part time as a hair designer, discovering that I could make some money as a hair designer if I stayed with it long enough to feel some semblance of confidence but there were still those voices of self doubt. 

One conference I attended, I heard a man named Douglas Cox speak.

His message changed my hairstyling work forever. 

I’ll never forget how he described the many ways a hairdresser can touch such a diverse group of people. It was the first time I began to value myself and what I brought to people across all walks of life. In 2019, I looked him up, called him, and told him how he had changed my life. Wow, I was so overjoyed to have been able to find him and thank him.   

Thomas Fuller, an English theologian said, “It is always darkest before dawn.”

This brings me to the time in my 50’s when my daughters were now grown and living their own lives. I knew I had to make changes in myself, in my relationships and in my life. I had resisted stepping into some things in my life that truly mattered to me causing anxiety and fear like I had never experienced. I wasn't sure exactly what it all meant but I did know I was standing on the threshold of change and resisting it. The self soothing and numbing with food had reared its head again. The support system for that issue was not serving me in a way I was needing. It was all I could do to just put one foot in front of the other until I figured out what I needed to do with my life to step out of the darkness into the light. 

Truth be told, at that time, I didn’t know anything about life coaching but…

…my clients would tell me from time to time that I should be a life coach. My hair design career has served me well for many years, yet I was also ready to find a way to share all I had learned on my journey of self-exploration and spiritual growth….. all that personal growth work had put me in the same club as the Uber drivers and the bartenders as an unofficial coach. 

During a session with a life coach, it took me completely off guard when she told me I would make a good life coach and the only thing getting in my way of becoming a coach was feeling and believing that I would not be good enough. There it was again!

Surprisingly, I knew at that moment something had shifted and I was going to become a life coach. After a month of being paralyzed by the fear, self doubt, and limiting beliefs I had held about becoming a life coach, I began researching life coach training programs. 

Two programs captured my interest: HeartMath’s Coach/Mentor Certification Program that gives people research-based techniques to increase resilience in today’s emotional climate and connect with their heart’s intuitive wisdom and Courageous Living Coach Certification which is grounded in a holistic philosophy of supporting clients where they are. Of course, being frozen with the fear,  I appropriately waited until the last possible day to sign up for each of the courses I had decided to participate in and proceeded to spend days after signing up painfully living with the voices of fear screaming what did you do, what do you think you’re doing, that’s a terrible idea, you can’t do that, omg you’ll never be any good, what if this is a mistake and on and on. 

So, at 60 I entered an arduous course of study to be a life coach starting with the Heartmath coach/mentor training. Back in school after many years, I began the journey to finally confront and shift those beliefs of feeling I wasn’t enough. Shifting beliefs has been a courageous journey. I have learned that those limiting beliefs can be shifted and it has been worth the effort. 

Today, I am a life coach and I get to help people who are like me to shift their limiting beliefs, self doubt, fear and self sabotage as I do.

I find coaching to be satisfying and stimulating because I have the opportunity to witness some amazing courageous people take a heart centered journey within themselves to discover and shift what has stopped them from stepping into the things that matter to them. 

I LOVE, LOVE LOVE connecting with people who want to create shifts in their life!

Together we  celebrate the successes from their journey within as they recognize and release limiting long held beliefs with fresh new ways of seeing the world. I’m inviting you to reduce stress and overwhelm by releasing limiting beliefs and living a life filled with what matters.

MY BELIEFS