Good health, nutrition, energy, stress managing skills, ideal weight and effective exercise….it’s a common list of concerns for someone striving towards a healthy lifestyle. If you’re here, you are likely amongst those of us who aim to achieve those characteristics. But, if you’re anything like me or the women I have worked with, you also find yourself swimming upstream, against a list of priorities, roles and responsibilities that somehow take over your best intentions.
In a culture touting quick fixes and fly-by-night fads and as women with our lives divided into requirements to care for everything else before we turn attention to ourselves, we neglect self-nurturing. I GET that!
As you explore this site I want you to know that you were made for more than the food or fitness struggles you battle. You’re not selfish to turn your attention to learning to live well within your own mind, body and spirit. You’re also not leaving those you love behind. Rather, by embarking on a path of living well from the inside out, you’re gaining an authenticity from which healthy choices much more easily flow. You are NOT made to do it ALL. You were made to be YOU, to fit into the perfectly whole model of YOU.
It starts on the inside as you mindfully make self-care choices guided by your values. You may not always feel fully accomplished, your weight may not be what it was before babies and the face in the mirror may reflect the wisdom of time gone by. But, if you pursue an authentic desire in your own mind, body and soul living well looks just like YOU. It is beautiful.
Perhaps you have put yourself last on the list. Maybe you bury the burdens that hold you back from really letting yourself live the happily whole life you want. Or maybe you simply don’t know where to start.
I was there, in each one of those predicaments. As a beginning fitness professional, I exercised for all the wrong reasons. As a new wife and mom, my heart’s desires were buried under my own self-imposed expectations instead of guided by what might make me happy and whole. As caregiver to an ill husband and then a new widow, I fell deeply into the shadows of not knowing which way to move next. Now as I step into the sunlight more with each lesson learned, I move steadily in the direction of ‘Happily Whole’.
I have God guiding me forward and, even when the steps come with uncertainty, I finally feel like I’m becoming more of the woman He wants me to be. That’s living well, my friends!
For me, it took personal tragedy. I only learned to LIVE WELL FROM THE INSIDE OUT after I was forced into soul searching. Instead of simply following obligatory food and fitness ‘rules’ I know from my education, I now connect with my passion for whole, real food and have fun with it! I enjoy eating and experimenting, creating new concoctions and finding satisfaction in savoring food as nourishment.
Fitness fills me with inspiration rather than desperation. I no longer chase (literally) the calories I consume. Moving improves my mood, invigorates my body, sets my spirit straight each early morning as I connect with what’s to come. Most of all I live well with faith as my foundation, finding my bliss in the blessings that fill the moments of even the most mundane day.
And I know that this is where I am supposed to be as I work to inspire other women to find their sweet spot of living well in their own lives.
This site is about self-nourishment from how you fill your body to what feeds your soul. It's about FILLING our minds and bodies with nourishment and not depleting them with restriction, rules or socially-defined, airbrushed images. Really living WELL starts with something deeper than a number on the scale or self-judgment.
Whole living feels natural, pure and imperfect. It feels happy, at least in some moments!
Happily Whole is the direction we all wish to move….it’s a journey with a destination I never want to reach. There is always another place to feel inspired and renewed.
