Meet Jessica

From Turmoil to Transformation: My Journey to Wellness Coaching

 

Hey there! My name is Jessica, and this is my rollercoaster of a journey to finding my passion as a wellness coach.

 

At the age of 4 I became a first time mother and at the age of 6 I was taking care of two boys, my little brothers. I had a mother who was an alcoholic and a drug addict and had more fun putting on raves at one in the morning than fulfilling any motherly duties. I had a father who spent less time with me than the sentence I am writing about him. The boys had a different father than I, who was around for more time than mine, but that isn’t saying much. They both ended up signing their rights away to us when our mother lost her parenting rights. Needless to say, I came into this world facing challenges that would make most people's heads spin. 

 

Our maternal grandparents helped as much as they could but after my grandmother passed away I was separated from my brothers and we were bounced around between family members and eventually put into the foster care system. Being separated from my brothers was unbearable for me and after a lot of begging I was finally relocated to the same foster home. A family who fostered kids for the joy of the money they received from the government. From the outside this family was a picture perfect family to adopt us, little did anyone know that they took emotional abuse to a new height. For both our sakes, I won’t dive into that. 

 

The impactful part of my experience with them was their introducing me to the world of processed foods. Our diet consisted of frozen and boxed meals that were riddled with preservatives and things I would hardly consider food with the knowledge that I have now. This was the start to massive digestive issues that would plague me for more than a decade of my life. 

 

Between the ages of 16 and 27, I suffered from debilitating digestive issues. I was throwing up multiple times a week to the point of dry heaving bile for hours because my body was rejecting the food I was putting into it. My doctor ran an insane amount of tests all yielding results that were within the normal range. After our final test he looked at me and said “our next step is exploratory surgery”. I don’t know about you, but to me, those two words do not go together. I told him no thank you and decided to experiment with something I had been researching, elimination diets. For 6 month intervals I eliminated just about everything you can think of, nothing yielding helpful results. Enter my knight in culinary armor: a friend who happened to be a chef. 

 

When he saw my pantry, he looked at me and said, "We need a grocery run." I was puzzled, I just stocked my kitchen – had I missed something? Turns out, I had. Processed junk was masquerading as food in my house. That conversation sparked my deep dive into researching processed foods, the importance of going non-GMO, and the perks of choosing organic whenever possible. And guess what? My gut thanked me for it. 

 

After making the switch to a non-GMO, organic, whole food diet, I never again prayed to the toilet gods for my body to stop purging everything in it! I was on cloud nine, feeling better than I have in my entire life. Little did I know I was about to take another rollercoaster ride. Life has a way of forcing us to deal with things we lock away and try to forget exist. This came in the shape of a curveball in my career that left me shattered, boiling with rage, spiraling into depression, and unearthing all the ghosts of trauma’s past at the same time. 

 

Strangely enough, I'm grateful for that curveball. It forced me to confront my demons and unknowingly set me on another path to wellness. The only way I knew to deal with what I was feeling was to barrel through it. I started with the boiling rage, I hired a trainer to help me process my anger and he took me through boxing routines, had me take a sledgehammer to a tractor tire, and murdered my body in the best way with brutal workouts. His ability to answer a lot of my “why are we doing this” questions encouraged me to take personal training certifications of my own. These then spiraled into more movement certifications along with nutrition certifications to optimize my results.  

 

Deeper nutrition knowledge came after discovering Viome, a company that tests your blood and stool samples to know what is happening within your body at a cellular level. They give you back a 90+ page report along with the foods that are optimal for your unique body. This was a game changer for me! Even though I felt great, I still had some digestive issues, bloating, fatigue, and hit a plateau for building muscle. Little did I know, I was eating “healthy” but not optimally for my body. My body was not capable of processing the foods I was eating so I was not absorbing the nutrients from my diet. After 3 weeks of following my recommendations I hit a new level of feeling great! My energy skyrocketed, my bloating dissipated, my muscle mass increased, and my digestive issues subsided! 

 

However, I realized that wellness wasn’t solely about movement and nutrition. Mindfulness emerged as the missing puzzle piece. Let me tell you, embracing mindfulness was like hugging a cactus – painful yet strangely cathartic. Therapeutic intervention became my compass, leading me to a deeper understanding of myself. Over the course of many years the more I practiced mindfulness techniques the easier it became to process and release my trauma. To heal wounds I had ignored for so long I didn’t know they existed. This process, yet again, sent into another quest for knowledge. I learned more about meditation, breathwork, energy healing, and obtained more certifications.

 

My journey from chaos to coaching has been a wild ride, filled with experiments, tears, laughter, pain, and growth. My mission? To make your journey smoother. I've done the legwork, so you don't have to. Whether you're craving fitness, a cleaner diet, or just some darn peace of mind, I'm here to walk beside you. To be a guiding light on your path. 

 

Join me in turning struggles into stepping stones. Let's craft a life that's not about surviving – it's about thriving.