To answer this question, I have to admit some vulnerable stuff. At 28, I finally feel at peace and in love with life, but it wasn’t always this way.

I grew up in Seattle, WA with an older brother and two wonderful parents. I remember my childhood being centered around whatever sports season it currently was. My brother and I rotated from soccer, to basketball, to baseball season on repeat, year after year. I loved it. I loved moving my body and just playing ball.

Eventually, all that time playing sports led me to play college soccer and pursue a professional career. Out of college, I trained for about a year, and after some trials in Sweden and Jamaica, I hung up my boots. What I discovered, but didn’t come to understand until years later, was that my heart wasn’t really in it. For me, athletics was always an escape from life.

Cut off from the world, I sat in a small house on the west coast of rural Jamaica with no friends, no way to contact any loved ones, and no distractions. All I was left with was me, for the first time in my life. It was in that moment that I named for myself that I had and have always lived with severe anxiety. Jamaica’s “island time” exposed the dormant beast that lived in me. I couldn’t deal with it, so I packed my bags and headed home.

A few months later, I hopped into the workforce and taught at an awesome independent elementary school for 3 years before things caught up to me. I continued to play soccer recreationally in adult leagues during those years, which for a while was fun. Eventually, the escape sports used to provide no longer satisfied me. I ended up finding that escape through overbooking myself and staying busy, which in no way shape or form was a sustainable, healthy way to deal with my own problems.

After about a year of teaching, I started to have bouts of depression and was living with anxiety, only to be managed by distractions. Eventually, in the midst of the COVID-19 epidemic, my bouts of depression became more severe, my anxiety reached an all-time high, and I was living a life on the edge. Without any healthy coping mechanisms or outlets, things just escalated.

Then my whole life changed. It was April 6th, 2021, and I was snowboarding with my brother and a good friend. On the last run of the day and entire season, minutes before getting into the car to make the journey back to Seattle, I crashed. I went off a set of three jumps, landing the first two, only to take off the third a bit out of control. I over-rotated and landed on my heels and butt, eventually snapping my head back against the cold, icy slope. From that moment on, I spent the next 10 months, all day every day, dealing with concussion symptoms, mostly head pressure and brain fog.

My mental health and my physical health absolutely tanked. I had no spiritual life before the accident to help me fall back on and navigate the hole I was now in. While spending months in a deep depression (mostly in my dark bedroom) where I couldn’t do anything that would overstimulate my brain, I was again left with me and only me, like Jamaica all over again. However, this time, it was much more intense and severe. As the months dragged on, my physical body atrophied and left me feeling weaker and more powerless than ever.

One late night, somewhere deep in my depression, I realized, “No one is coming for me.” No body. Not my mom. Not my dad. Not my best friend and brother. No body. I remember thinking, “I am alone in my own experience.” Nothing external could save me, bring me happiness, or bring me back to the person I recognized. I was stripped of everything that gave me identity and purpose. I realized that only I would be able to pull myself out of this hole with no logical depth. I’m the only one who’s got me at the end of the day. I am responsible for every move I make, the only way out is through. That night, I decided I was going to fight for me again, and boy, am I glad I did.

The following two years were a long and patient healing journey that has now led me to where I am today. It has led me to become a coach. It has led me to live my best and healthiest life, which I could never have dreamed of before. The gift of my accident and depression was that I had to build from scratch. I felt so bad mentally, physically, and spiritually that I became hyper aware of what was making me feel better and what wasn’t. I became so vigilant about the smallest details of life (thanks to anxiety) that I figured out a formula to live life in its fullest expression.

Over the last two plus years, I have essentially done a long trial and error process of what feeds every aspect of our beings in positive ways and what does the opposite. Our mental, physical, and spiritual health are vastly more connected than we can fathom. To maximize our healing, find peace, or live our best life, we need to address each part of our being. Our health is nothing to play around with, and we are the only ones responsible for taking care of ourselves. A magical thing happens when you focus on feeling your best; every area of your life begins to click.

My own healing and recovery journey led me to become extremely passionate about helping those around me feel their absolute best and take on life in ways they have always wanted to. I decided to go back to school to become a Health and Life coach in order to help bolster my own lived experience and provide me with a formal education and system to help others achieve peak health!

I wholeheartedly believe that when you feel your best, everything in life flows for you with ease and fluidity. I believe food is medicine. And that your health is the foundation for finding peace, experiencing joy, and making your dreams a reality. It all starts with health; everything comes after. Too often, we have it backwards, thinking you’ll focus on yourself and your health after you achieve something or arrive somewhere. Even if you do, what’s the point? If you don’t feel good, you won’t enjoy it.