When Do We Wake Up?

My biggest question for people, for our society, is what EXACTLY is the breaking point in their life that will wake them up? To wake them up to finally take care of themselves, to prioritize health, to prioritize happiness, to eat right, to LIVE, to get the help needed.  Is it cancer? Is it the loss of a job? The loss of a loved one? The risk of dying? I ask these questions towards society, with politeness, without giving shame, without judgement. I also want to shout it to people, to make people wake up the slightest amount. Why? Because most of all, I look back at my health story, which turned into a life story, years of agony, tens of thousands of dollars because I was too stubborn, too focused on goals and accomplishments, to change my ways for health. I say that with self-compassion, because I’ve learned self-acceptance is key in healing, but life would have been a hell of a lot easier if I didn’t wait so long for such a drastic breaking point.

I entered business school at 18, dove into the corporate business world at 22, was a high-level manager with a six-figure income by the time I was 27. I started noticing health symptoms around age 25 but pushed through it with full power. At age 30, I followed my passion of skydiving. I traveled the world, getting my instructor ratings, launching a successful coaching business, with a full obsession of becoming the best. Within those 4 years, my body gave me every warning sign it could possibly give to say there was something wrong. To me though, I still had strong muscles, my bones weren’t broken, I was successful in my business, I was highly skilled in the sport, praised for succeeding at following my dream. Looking back though, I was literally in health agony most of the time. I ignored it.

In my 4^th year of working in skydiving, my body collapsed. It literally stopped functioning. I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t move, I was in full body pain. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t be social, I couldn’t do anything. That was my breaking point. It was a worse breaking point than many illnesses because there were no answers, there was no doctor who understood, there was no easy fix. It was a storm that had been brewing, probably since I was a teenager, that I had chosen to ignore. It was a very long road to recovery.

I wish I had listened to the signs before the breaking point. This is what fuels my work every day with clients. I want to help people focus on health BEFORE the body is in desease. Our health is so incredibly precious, our lives so short- we need to be awake, we need our health. I got lucky enough- I was young enough for the body to heal, I had enough savings for resources, I didn’t have kids relying on me, there was time to heal, I had the motivation to change. We will all have some forms of breaking points, but I hope your breaking point is more of a changing point, a motivation to work towards health, rather than work on illness, rather than an end point.

In my writing I hope I can encourage people to have a breaking point be a wake up to health, a change in nutrition and lifestyle for prevention. I hope it can be a wake up to really, fully live this life, to feel vibrant. Each year in the US, $4 billion is spent on healthcare but only 4% of that is on preventative care. Imagine if we get motivated to change before there is disease- how much money would be saved, how much more life we would enjoy, how much more healthy we would feel. I understand how hard change can be, but I promise you it’s worth it.

With lots of love,

Woodbury