I created the blog Sole to Soul Chat to share my passion and quest for health and wellness.
I am a 52-year-old mom of young kids (10 and 11), who retired my communications career after having children. Pre-children I worked in PR, marketing consulting and sales in both the profit and non-profit sectors. I loved my work which included creating videos, writing press releases and campaign speeches, coaching professionals on how to grow their business, and selling great patient care products.
When, my husband and I took on parenting (in our 40s), my intuitive voice kept saying to me — stop the crazy busy work pace and slow down — be there for your kids, yourself, your marriage. Take time to focus on health and wellness and consider what the next half of life is going to be in terms of career. I couldn’t (still can’t) imagine how I could continue with my career, raise my children (actually be there for my kids) while focussing on my health — eating well and exercising.
There’s more to my story. Both my parents died of cancer at young ages. Breast cancer took my mother’s life when she was 42, I was 9. My father lost his battle to kidney cancer when he was 53, I was 19, a freshman in college. So, taking great care of myself is a top priority.
Enter — perimenopause and my challenges for feeling good mutiplied! Growing up, my sisters and I swam competitively (good choice my parents made). Being involved in swimming gave me a spring-board to the importance of exercise, nutrition and meditation (yes, our forward thinking coach in the 1980s showed us how to meditate and made it a part of our swimming practice).
To pursue my wellness efforts while taking care of my kids, I became certified in spinning/indoor cycling, started my yoga for kids’ certification, attended meditation and stress reduction workshops, earned certification in stress reduction from John Ellis Coaching Consultants, participated in several nutritional classes and consultations and joined a soul to soul circle of like-minded people to pursue a more present moment/spiritual life.
I also continued honing my leadership skills by chairing my kids’ nursery school board of directors and writing a monthly column for the school’s newsletter. In addition, I served on the board for the Wendy Wills Cancer Fund.
All this helped me transition from a busy career professional to a stay-at- home mom, who now embarks on recreating my career while telling my health and wellness story in this blog.
At times, frustration gets the best of me when I think — over 20 years, I built a career, now I am doing it again! Then, I rethink — how exciting– I get to develop a new career that brings me passion, joy and good health — while using all that I know and honed over the years working in communications.
Health and wellness are my passion I hope to share with you!
EnJOY!