In this journal, you can daily track: the weather sleep quality pain levels mood other symptoms and their severity bowel movements what you ate + drank exercise energy levels stress levels feelings the good things that happened When I set out to create this journal, I wanted it to feel like you have me as your personal coach. I wanted to give you a space to track, to journal, to vent, and to feel like I'm right here beside you educating and encouraging you to keep going. As you work through your journal, you will see my "coaching tips" sprinkled throughout. These are some of the very things I teach my one-on-one clients to help them work through their symptoms.
Living with chronic pain is suffocating! You feel isolated, completely alone, because no one you're close to can really understand how you feel. You feel selfish to complain, but some days you just need someone to get you, to feel what you feel so they can offer you some solace. Mentally, you're exhausted. The pain takes up so much of your headspace, and you muddle through trying your best to ignore it.
Does any of this resonate with you? Well, these are all feelings I have felt. For over 7 years, I suffered with intense chronic pain. When I was around 33 years old, my health started to shift. I started experiencing a host of random symptoms like irregular cycles, weight gain, insomnia, anxiety, depression, dry skin, migraines, and moodiness. But worse than any of those other symptoms was the chronic pain I started experiencing.
I was spiraling. Getting only about 4 hours of sleep each night, major anxiety and feelings of overwhelm left me in a completely desperate place. I was willing to do pretty much anything to feel better. In my research, I came across Functional Nutrition, and my life was forever changed! Functional Nutrition is based on getting to the root cause of the symptom rather than just treating the symptom. That's what I had been doing for all those years...treating my symptoms. Chasing after every new remedy, but with no long lasting results.
Out of a deep desire to help others find relief from their symptoms and truly heal their bodies by getting to the root causes of their symptoms, I became a Certified Functional Nutrition Counselor. Although I feel like I lost a lot of my younger years to chronic pain, I know that otherwise, I never would have pursued an education in Functional Nutrition, and I would not have had the opportunity to help others who are sufferin