How I went from chronically stressed “yes girl” to helping countless leaders say “yes” to themselves, heal from their past, and build a life they love.
Before the sought-after inspirational keynotes and speaking gigs. Before the transformational trauma healing and intuitive skill sets. Before the in-demand sacred healing sessions… I was a chronically stressed woman saying yes to everyone and everything and living life through her trauma-stained lenses.
Eager to please.
Desperate for approval.
Scared to death of following my gut feelings and intuition that were calling me to deeper levels of healing and bigger impact, no matter how many times I tried to perfect my outer world.
Therapists, Kids, and Two Rock Bottoms
Therapists, Kids, and Two Rock Bottoms
While I saw multiple therapists in my teens and 20’s to heal from my childhood traumas – convinced I was ‘fixed and forever healed’…
The shift into motherhood proved just how little healing I had actually done. A role that I refused for quite awhile, convinced I would do the same damage to my children that my mother had done to me.
When I finally did “take the leap”, I was plagued with chronic health issues (Autoimmune Diabetes and Thyroid disease), anxiety, stress, and a battering of “not-enoughness” that made everything feel 1,000,000x harder than it should.
During those days, I operated from my survival tools from childhood – stuffing difficult emotions and gut feelings down and away, getting uber controlling of my diet, people-pleasing, and trying to perfect my outer world.
And it took two rock bottoms before I would figure out that I was repeating my childhood trauma patterns and learn how to heal the energy of the trauma from my body, regulate my nervous system, and find my truest self.
Health is your Greatest Wealth
There is a saying…”Health is wealth”. This idea that if you lose your health, you lose your happiness, you lose your wealth, you lose your career, you lose your peace of mind, and eventually you lose everything. This is why those who have gone on a healing journey will always tell you to give time to your health because “health is wealth ”.
I never truly understood this until my health began to slip away in 2012….when my diabetes was out of control like the most extreme roller coaster with super highs and super lows, and I was running on coffee, anxiety, and stress.
It took sitting in front of the refrigerator in the middle of the night, wondering if I could even reach the food to bring up my extremely low blood sugar, to realize that I needed to make some big changes.
Sitting there with the cold air streaming down on me, I could envision a future where I let this disease deplete my energy, vitality, and motivation to care for myself.
I could see a future where I die early and leave my children to grow up without a mother just like I had.
It was like a punch to the gut and a dark knight of the soul awakening!
I was a better person than that, I was a better mother than that! I refused IN THAT MOMENT to give up on myself. I refused this outcome for my children. I refused to perpetuate this cycle in my family of women dying early leaving their children to grow up alone.
I took a stand with a deep mission to change my health so drastically that I would be able to thrive with more energy than ever before and show up more powerfully for my children…
…rewriting the trauma, parentification and neglect that lived in my past and the generations before me.
And as you might guess…I did just that. I completely changed my diet – eating more than ever before and losing weight, reducing my medication needs, and gaining my energy, vitality and mental clarity back!
And best of all, I had the capacity to show up for my kids in a more intentional way.
In 21 Days of focusing on my diet, I woke up a new person.
After that transformation, I had so much passion and a deep cellular understanding of the power we hold within us to take back control of our health USING FOOD, that I signed up and completed a certification program to become a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner.
A year later, I started my first business, Innate Nutrition and Wellness.
And I had the pleasure of helping countless people recover their health and vitality all through the use of functional nutrition. It blew my mind every single day! Yet despite all of their successes and even my successes, it was short-lived.
They…nor I could maintain the dietary and lifestyle changes.
Something was missing.
The Body Keeps the Score
I have always prided myself with being a great mom. The type of mom that I never had but always wished for – loving, warm, comforting, safe and present.
But something started to change for me as I had more years of mom’ing under my belt and I didn’t quite understand it. All I knew was that I started to become frustrated easily…and angry (for the first time EVER) at my children, especially my youngest daughter.
Her “tantrums, meltdowns, and emotional outbursts” were like fingernails on a chalkboard to my nervous system. It took all I had to keep my composure.
However, that all came crashing down, one night in 2016. I stood at the sink washing dishes with my back to her, listening to her have the grandest temper tantrum of all.
It wasn’t so much her emotional outburst that rocked my world that night, it was the way I felt during it. It was the anger.
I had never tapped into an anger like that before. I could feel something boiling in my body and I could feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
I could feel this venom coursing through my body.
It exploded in me and as a result I exploded at my daughter. I quickly turned towards her with a glass in my hand and threw it at the floor beneath her little feet, yelling “Shut up. Just shut up!”
Something happened in that moment, when my eyes met hers and I could see the fear in her eyes. What I know now, is that I was not able to hold space for her emotional outbursts because I couldn’t hold space for my emotions and feelings.
Although I didn’t understand or have the words for it…intuitively I knew this feeling in my body was calling me to deeper levels of healing.
I knew that I’d have to drastically transform myself, so that I could become the woman that I knew I could be…so that I could become the mother I knew I could be.
And as you can imagine…I decided
ONCE AGAIN
to take a stand for me and my deeply ingrained mission to change my life so drastically that I would no longer be held captive by my past experiences and old programming…
…once and for all rewriting the trauma, parentification and neglect that lived in my past and the generations before me…
and live the life I dreamed about.
The problem was…I had talked about my past to death with multiple therapists. I knew it inside and out…and yet I was still suffering.
So I sought a body based therapy approach (Somatic Experiencing) and it helped me heal more in 2 years than in 20 years of talk therapy.
I got vulnerable with myself and looked at the shadows that I carried around. I faced them head on, I let go of the ideas everyone else had about who I was supposed to be. And I began listening to who I really was.
With each story healed, another layer of my truest self came forward and listening to my intuition became easier!
This was the beginning of the journey and the call (from the universe) to be more than a functional nutritionist…
I was being called to embrace the thing I had hidden from most of my life but that was my true innate calling…to be a trauma healing guide.
So I set out on this mission even though I had no clue what it meant.
The first few years were rough.
The first few years were rough.
I didn’t hit eject from my cushy corporate gig just yet and decided to build this ‘thing’ on the side.
Every small “win” was marred by an even bigger hit of self-doubt, sunk costs and a shooting pain inside my entrepreneurial gut that taunted me with a crippling sense of “not enoughness’…
and long hours spent in front of the screen without the cash flow to justify it.
Painful “heart-to-hearts” with friends and family, desperately trying to convince them that success was just around the corner.
Anxiety-ridden webinars.
Half-finished products.
And a list so small (and growing so slowly) I could literally memorize every subscriber’s name and recite them on command.
And when I finally did get traction:
I realized that I had built the wrong business.
Burning myself out with 1-on-1 sessions, which, on paper, gave me the right to call myself a “self-sustaining” entrepreneur…
When in reality, I knew that I was simply building another people-pleasing “job” for myself that put everyone else’s big dreams ahead of my own.
So I took a final stand…
I said good-bye to my 20 yr corporate career and stepped fully (with trust) into the life and business I was creating.
I discovered that building my dream life was ONLY possible when I healed my nervous system and released the energy of trauma from my body.
I let go of the idea that I had to fill my business with 1:1 sessions, which felt so restrictive in my nervous system, and got curious about what I loved to do, what made me happy and felt expansive in my nervous system.
I built my business and life from there!
I started embracing my innate gifts and the deep fulfillment I get from teaching and speaking to small and large audiences – helping them discover their own untapped personal power and infinite potential to heal and create their dream life.
I created a schedule that gave me the freedom to be fully present with my children while growing a business without having to burn the midnight oil.
And best of all…
I’ve had the honor of helping thousands of online coaches, entrepreneurs, and leaders like you sidestep years of struggle and create their own amazing dream life.
How?
One healing step at a time.
Are you ready to take the REAL, healing steps for building an expansive and peaceful life that you love?
The peaceful and purposeful life…
that you secretly dream about…
is waiting for you!
Join me on this transformational journey!
xo, Mandy
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A Little About Me
I have lived in Colorado my whole life and I don’t know how to ski.
I once ran in 3 half-marathons back to back in one year, even though I hate running! I haven’t run since.
I love to cook Brussels sprouts, roasted only! The crunchier the better!
My favorite hobby is watching the sunset.
During my Jazzercise days, I performed in a half-time show for the Colorado Rapids with my Jazzercise class!
A Little About Me
I have lived in Colorado my whole life and I don’t know how to ski.
I once ran in 3 half-marathons back to back in one year, even though I hate running! I haven’t run since.
I love to cook Brussels sprouts, roasted only! The crunchier the better!
My favorite hobby is watching the sunset.
During my Jazzercise days, I performed in a half-time show for the Colorado Rapids with my Jazzercise class!
As seen at:
As seen at:
“Healing and thriving isn’t a function of how many affirmations you repeat each morning. Instead it’s the process of turning inward, and honoring your emotions and needs that helps you rewire old patterns, reprogram old ways of being, and build the emotional muscle you need to create a life you can thrive in.”