About

Incase you were wondering why I’m qualified to teach about JOY.

15 years ago I lost my mom in a car accident and sustained life threatening injuries of my own. I had to grow up pretty fast as the oldest of 3 younger sisters under the age of 7 and quickly learned to appreciate what it means to be resilient. Somewhere in all of that hardship I picked up the belief and the faith that everything happens for a reason which evolved into “everything is happening FOR me not TO me” and it’s allowed me to maintain happiness and appreciation for just about everything in life. Why’s this important? Because if I can figure it out, I’m certain that my clients can too.

Growing up in a later very toxic and psychologically unsafe family dynamic/environment, I learned (& mastered) the ability to empathize with others, deeply understand “why people behave the way they do” and most importantly how to choose happiness even when our circumstances give us so many valid reasons to be miserable. I learned how to cope by using joy, relentlessly seek out and celebrate positives and most importantly how to self-regulate and lead with enthusiasm and optimism. I learned how to “rinse & repeat” these skills to just about any situation and before I knew it, I had trained my brain to be happy.

Key word: I learned which absolutely means that you can too.

Flash forward a few years to my own version of a quarter-life crisis. I had just finished nursing school – got my diploma, passed my licence exam, made the dean’s list and was still just as obsessed with nursing as I was on day one. I was completely convinced that I had found my calling, that nursing was my true purpose, that I would be this happy, passionate and inspired FO’ LIFE so long as I was doing something nursing-related. Without even realizing it, I had done the thing that soooo many people do – wrapped up my happiness to be dependent on somethingoutside of myself and placed it inside of a profession, an identity and inside of achievement.

Yikes! 

This hit really hard when life caught up with me and I spent 8 months looking for a job in my field. I went into a mild depression, couch surfed for a few months, shopped an unhealthy amount & gained a large amount of weight in a short period of time. I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t doing something nursing-related. My joy was so dependent on something external that when it was no longer there, I was forced to ask myself some deeper questions such as “What makes me happy outside of nursing? Who am I if I’m not studying, teaching, achieving or providing care?”

………. crickets.

I had to completely figure this out for myself from scratch and it was super challenging and confusing. I tried a lot of the things that I thought people my age “should like or enjoy”, nothing stuck, nothing made me feel as passionate and lit up as nursing did. Months of this went by and I eventually found a nursing job, which  surely did not meet my expectation of white fire passion, joy and fulfillment (shocker).