About Me
Overall, my life has been amazing!! I grew up in Austin, Texas, in a blended family of 7 and excelled academically and athletically in high school. In college, I met and married my husband of 32 years, graduated, taught middle school history, and coached girls’ athletics. In addition, Billy and I were blessed with two beautiful kiddos who light up my life!
Like most people, I have experienced several “bumps in the road” along the way. However, once I hit my late 40s, these small obstacles and setbacks suddenly felt like huge mountains to climb and vast valleys to navigate. I call this period in my late 40s “The Perfect Storm and Falling into a HUGE PIT.” Ultimately, this path led me to quit my job, move out of the city to a small remote fishing village, and start a new career in my 50s.
The Perfect Storm & Falling Into a Huge Pit
I call this the perfect storm because in a short period of time, I went from everything in my life going smoothly to everything hitting rock bottom.
THE STORM:
- Being nominated for teacher of the year to resigning from my teaching job because of burn-out
- Spending time with my kids daily to not seeing them for months at a time
- In shape and working out each week to a nonexistent sedentary lifestyle
- Focused and determined to brain-fog and apathetic
- Having a celebratory drink or a glass of wine on the weekends to a bottle of wine each night.
- Fixing homemade meals and eating out on special occasions to “what are we picking up tonight.”
- Blood pressure 99/70 all my life to 142/90
- Attending church and bible studies to nonexistent spiritual life. The Devil had taken up shop in a big way!
- Going out and keeping in touch with family and friends to curling up on the couch and not returning phone calls or texts.
THE PIT:
- Midlife ~ perimenopause
- Empty nester (both kiddos in college out of state) ~ depression
- Job (special education behavior support specialist) ~ stress, sleep deprivation
- Husband’s job ~ stressful, marriage strained
- Spiritually ~ depleted
STORM GOT WORSE:
My hair started falling out in clumps, and I had constant bouts of uncontrollable crying, relentless fatigue, and exhaustion (to the point of not wanting to go to my daughter’s college graduation). A sudden unexplained weight gain (15 pounds), anxiety, and mood swings galore (ask my husband).
The event that eventually landed me in the doctor’s office was waking up one morning, and my left side was frozen. The day before, I had an incredibly rough day at work where my heart felt like it was coming out of my chest. I dismissed it like I had all of my other symptoms and just continued on. However, the following day my body let me know it was not going to carry on this way.
Doctor: “The positive is your EKG looks good, for now, but you are depressed, and your body is shutting down on you.”
Another uncontrollable crying episode followed.
If anyone knows me very well, I am a tough cookie; pull yourself up by your bootstrap kind of girl; however, I couldn’t control these crying episodes; I couldn’t even complete a sentence sometimes without crying. I didn’t recognize this person anymore, and it was scary. The doctor prescribed a medical leave of absence for a week, sleep medicine, and muscle relaxers.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was at Thanksgiving when all my family was outside around the campfire laughing, singing “toad on a log” (funny how you remember these things), and having a grand time together while I was curled up on the couch inside…crying! I looked up to find my husband standing there, not knowing what to say or do anymore. He was sad. I was sad.
Something needed to change before I lost my marriage.
I like to say I had fallen into a dark bottomless pit with no ladder to get out.
A Slow, Steady Climb Out of the Pit
I turned in my resignation the Monday after Thanksgiving and booked a flight for my daughter’s college graduation. A couple of months later, I signed up to run a half marathon with my daughter and found a Holistic Doctor.
Hashimoto’s Diagnosis: A blessing and curse. March 2018
I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s in March 2018. I remember thinking…what the heck is that and how did I catch it?
Once I realized I had been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, all the dots connected. I also felt relief knowing that I was not going crazy and that my body was letting me know something was out of whack and not right. I believe I checked off every box on the list of Hashimoto’s symptoms. Finally, I had an answer to why I felt this way, but I also now had a DIAGNOSIS for a LIFETIME DISEASE. Take a minute for that to sink in. Healthy most of my life to you now have an autoimmune disease with no cure. Oh, and you are also susceptible to getting another autoimmune disease. Well great. Now what!
Slow Climb Up The Ladder
I now had a ladder to climb up in my bottomless dark pit, but I just needed to take the first step.
Step 1: PRAY. My first step was starting to pray every day, all day. I envisioned God behind me pushing me up the ladder. God was in the pit with me, and I trusted that he would help me get out, but I had to do the hard part of climbing and trusting.
Step 2: NUTRITION, TESTING & SUPPLEMENTATION. I (we) drastically changed what we were eating. I took EVERYTHING out of my pantry and refrigerator and started over. I researched and educated myself on how to read labels, found new recipes to try and made healthier swaps. We invested in testing, so we were not just guessing but had data, a baseline, and a concrete plan to improve and ultimately optimize our health. We took a natural therapeutic approach by adding critical supplements that we were deficient in and would initially help us feel better. We knew this was not long-term, but needed to jumpstart us in the correct direction,
Step 3: MOVEMENT & NATURE: I started to move again. Not to kill myself with intense cardio and HIIT workouts, but a steady progressive walking/running program, resistance training, and yoga (which ultimately was not my thing but at least I tried). In addition, I got out outside in nature as much as possible!
Step 4: DATES WITH MYSELF: I made dates with myself each week. I took a photography class, journaled, hung out at nurseries and bookstores just because I liked to, planted a flower garden, created a bird sanctuary in our backyard, took long Epsom salt baths, and cooked new recipes. Dates with myself were non-negotiable and were actually put on my calendar as an appointment. I needed to find Christina again. Who was she, and what did she like to do by herself? What were her hobbies?
Step 5: FAMILY & FRIENDS: I knew this needed to change. My gut told me so. Who were my real authentic friends? Those who reciprocated, lifted me up, fought for me, and loved me no matter how I looked or how long it had been since we visited. I did a friend and social media DETOX and weeded out the sludge weighing me down and not building me up. I embraced my marriage and leaned into spending time with loved ones. I spent precious time with my parents called Dates with Dad (creating things with him in his workshop) and Making things with Mom (cooking and feverously writing down all of my favorite recipes she made growing up). I carved out time to travel and spend time with my kids, who I desperately missed.
The Pandemic and Out of the Pit
Don’t get me wrong, overall, the Pandemic stunk, but for me, the Pandemic helped me climb those extra few steps out of the pit. I found a new hobby and passion for macro-photography; we sold our house of 17 years in Austin and moved to a remote fishing village on the Texas coast; I published two photography coffee table books, reversed, and have my Hashimotos in remission (all naturally), and feel strong, vibrant, and joyful.
I am also proud to say I have another new passion and career. I am a Nutritional Therapy and Restorative Wellness Practitioner. It has been a rigorous and intense last couple of years remembering how to write essays, study, take quizzes and finals, learn new technology, learn different supplements, weed through PubMed articles, and try to pronounce scientific words that sound like a different language. I honestly have LOVED every minute of it and have made a whole new group of friends from all over the world.
I can not express the joy and compassion I have to take all of these experiences, bumps in the road, education, and lessons learned to a new level and help as many women going through similar experiences.
It would be an honor to walk beside you and guide you to living your best life ~ symptom free, healthy, and joyful.
