Jen's Career Dream Part 1: Health Coach Training
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Thank you so much for being here! You have all been a part of my story. You are my inspiration to be brave, be bold, ask good questions, listen to my heart, love others more deeply and find meaningful ways to employ my skills and gifts.
What is this GoFundMe all about?
I just enrolled in the 12-month ADAPT Health Coach Training Program proctored by the Kresser Institute. Completing the training and practicum-based program will provide me with the in-depth core coaching skills, functional medicine and ancestral health knowledge, and business management acumen to launch my new career as an ADAPT-Certified Functional Health Coach.
I am beyond excited about this program. I’ve done a lot of research, reflection and practical consideration to land on this program and path. I am 100% ready to launch into a new chapter of learning, personal growth, opportunities for deep and meaningful connection with others with the explicit intention of helping them on their health, wellness, and personal journeys, and to create a tangible career that is personally fulfilling, reflects my values, and empowers me to be and do the other things in my life that are essential to my well being and sense of purpose.
I am asking bravely and humbly for your financial support to make this career pivot possible. I will be juggling homeschooling, single parenting, providing child care and educational assistance for other children and all the other obligations of life while completing the program. I can do this! I just need some help paying for the program and paying for health care and self care along the way.
What is a Health Coach?
Good question. Here are a couple of concise definitions I like:
Health coaches are experts on human behavior, motivation and health. They use that knowledge to help their clients achieve their goals and improve their day-to-day lives.
Health coaching is about exploration, support and accountability. Coaches ask powerful questions to explore their clients’ values and strengths; they support their clients as an ally, without judgment or criticism; and they offer accountability by helping their clients develop actionable health goals and a process for tracking and measuring them.
Why do I want to do this?
Another good question.
First, I will be vulnerable and a share some of my recent personal story. Some of you know many of the intimate details, others may simply be aware that I’ve had a growing interest in holistic nutrition, functional medicine and/or various healing modalities. I recognize this is a long account and may not be fun to read. I promise it concludes on a positive note and comes back around to the question “why do I want to do this?”
After the birth of my first child seven and a half years ago nearly every element of my life changed. I went from living a relatively self-centered, self-serving, work-hard-play-hard, predictable life where my identity was largely defined by my career and sense of perceived mastery and control over all things to an unfamiliar realm with little structure, no roadmap, no built-in external validation and the weight of caring for a new human being. I was elated and yet totally lost. I didn’t know what my values were, how important fostering relationships and community were, or - most importantly - how to take care of myself in the midst of exhaustion, nursing, a crushing onslaught of chores, crying, challenges and crises, and all the emotions and feelings surfacing I had never before encountered. Emotions and feelings were things other people had; they weren’t something for which I possessed the capacity, worthiness or desire. What did I do? What I did best then: over perform, read, research, seek out experienced experts and peers, and of course attempt to exert control over whatever I could to calm the storm of chaos brewing inside.
Then I started to get sick. Really sick. Three months after Ava was born she started sleeping more or less through the night. I did not. Months of insomnia were followed by GI distress, migraines, extreme anxiety, brain fog, heart palpitations, weight loss and muscle wasting, chronic yeast infections, and more and more tension and loneliness in my marriage. I went to a naturopath physician, started reading about nutrition and diet, made some minor dietary changes (removed gluten, added raw-milk yogurt, started making bone broth) and focused on building a “mom” community, nurturing the few friendships I had and making new friends. I also took a 10-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction class and did my homework diligently. Those interventions helped a bit and gave me a renewed sense of agency.
Then I got pregnant, birthed (via cesarean) and nursed my second child. Melia had a host of allergies and food intolerances that resulted in rashes, hives, sleep disturbances and lots of crying (Melia and me). Ava had sensory processing and other behavioral patterns that troubled me and my family. I got sicker and sicker. My marriage continued to suffer the negative consequences of all the dis-ease in my body, mind and spirit, and in our family. I blamed myself. I was the source of my family’s struggles. If only I were stronger. If only I had paid more attention to my physical and spiritual health in my 20s. If only I could figure out the right “diet” to eliminate my migraines, GI distress, anxiety, etc. If only I had the self-discipline to meditate regularly maybe I could sleep and wouldn’t be so grumpy. If only I could just get better then I would have the energy and mental clarity to care for the kids, my home, and go back to work to contribute financially as my husband so desired.
Then my mom experienced a year of injuries, loss of physical and cognitive function, and the eventual discovery of critical malfunctions in the defibrillator and pacemaker and associated hardware inside her that required a very risky surgery to repair. Then I lost a dear aunt rapidly to cancer. A few months later my husband told me more or less that he didn’t want to be in our marriage any longer. We spent the next year and half plus formally separating in a step-wise, prolonged, painful and stressful process.
During all these years of chronic illness, pain, personal heartbreak and grief I voraciously continued to consume all manner of nutrition and wellness information. I continued to tinker with my diet, incorporate more whole and nutrient-dense foods, and witnessed myriad small improvements in myself and my children. I did my first true elimination diet and discovered I felt so much better without many of the (healthy) inflammatory foods in my body that I had been eating multiple times a week. I worked with another naturopath physician and made more gains in GI function and sleep. I focused on enhancing and building relationships with friends, family and community. There was a lot of positive personal growth and development in the midst of hardship. I thought I was slowly - very slowly - learning to let go of my pathological desire to control my environment.
I wondered how I could turn my interests and arguably the sole sense of joy in my life (I’m a life-long cook and foodie who loves to eat!) into a career and means of financially supporting myself. I contemplated pursuing a MS in Nutrition and Dietetics and attended a seminar at Bastyr University. I completed the personality tests, worksheets, reading and networking activities generously offered pro-bono by a career coach and a book I studied in depth about relaunching one’s career after taking a career “break” to raise children. All signs pointed to doing something in the nutrition and wellness arena. Still, I doubted my abilities, felt limited by my body and cognitive function, questioned the practicality of making a career pivot in the midst of a divorce, and continued to engage in unhealthy behaviors and thought patterns that sabotaged my overall well being and self confidence.
So what did I do? I completely ignored all my inner wisdom, yearnings and visceral physical sensations and got a job in my previous professional field of environmental consulting in December 2019. A job in an office building where I had to sit at a desk, sedentary, stare at a screen, and barely see the scant Pacific Northwest winter daylight. I talked myself into the idea that if I could prove my intellectual and income-earning potential to myself, my peers and my soon-to-be ex-husband that everything would neatly fall into place and I could leave all my lingering troubles behind. Well, I crashed and burned. Hard. This past December and January I had more migraine days than ever before. I visited urgent care multiple times with joint swelling, nerve pain and loss of motor function. Autoimmune symptoms and inflammation were raging through my body. On days when the girls were with their dad I could barely get out of bed. I started to have dark thoughts. I wondered if I was destined to a life of disability, disappointment and self-loathing. The stress of attempting to re-launch a professional career after a seven-and-a-half-year hiatus to raise my children coupled with personal stress, ongoing, unresolved chronic health challenges and following a path for which I had little passion and no intrinsic desire to pursue manifested in my body as physical pain and loss of function to a degree that I just broke.
And now fast forward to the positive conclusion I promised:
Clearly the experiment of denying my body, mind and soul for the purpose of restoring order and proving my professional chops did not accomplish either of those ends. Pushing through and smiling just wasn’t going to work anymore. Period. Instead, that place of broken turned into breaking wide open. I started asking for help, truly accepting help, listening more than talking, implementing many of the tools I had so voraciously researched and sought out the past several years, and became humbly and excruciatingly aware of the resistance I was mounting to everything: physical pain, sadness, change, insecurity, grief, an honestly demanding home life, the unknown. What if I just laid down some of that resistance? I figured I had nothing to lose. I quit my job in mid February. I chose two simple yet giant things to focus on: my health and well being, and my children. And since that time I have done just that. Just. That. Well, at least more than a fair 70% of the time anyhow (I am human and enjoy wasting time on social media and staring at a wall on occasion).
The past six months haven’t been all rainbows and unicorns, but hey, I'm a single parent who managed to get happier and healthier in the midst of a global pandemic, attempting to homeschool two (some days four) young children, and pay some bills through ingenuity and thinking "outside the box.” I can say with confidence that my health and well being and my children are all in a good place. Not perfect, not even great some days, but good. There is a growing sense of ease inside my body that I haven’t known in years. I feel cautiously resilient and most days have the energy and capacity to do more. I am ready for the next thing. I am healing.
I credit positive outcomes and trends in personal health and well being to the small army I mounted this past February: select family, friends, church community members, other constituents of my “mom” community, a personal therapist, a new functional medicine practitioner who is off-the-charts amazing, and a nurse practitioner specializing in mindful therapy and medication management. I believed in myself enough to reach out. They believed in me enough to ask hard questions (such as: “how’s that working for you?”), challenge me to challenge the protective measures I had spent years erecting, hold my hand and offer affirmations, and encourage me to dance with the wisdom, power and answers inside my own body, mind and heart. I am listening. I am healing. I strive to make informed, intuitive and intentional choices each day.
And now back to the health coach thing:
I want to be a health coach, a change agent for others who struggle with chronic illness and all the knock-on effects and issues that come with it. I want to learn and listen and help unlock the healing wisdom, intuition and power that reside in each one of the people I am lucky enough to work with. I don’t want to pretend to be an expert. I want to be a facilitator. I want to learn how to ask better and better questions. I want to hone my empathetic listening skills. I want to engage in deeply meaningful and personally fulfilling work. I want to work collaboratively with functional medicine practitioners, therapists, nurse practitioners and other accessible health care professionals to provide people with the best real care I can. I want to be a resource for those who have been failed by the expensive, ineffective and often alienating traditional western medical system. I want a career that empowers me to do all these things and is inherently flexible, creative and entrepreneurial. I want to help people make informed, intuitive and intentional choices that move them toward their goals and make them feel good about themselves. (I may brand that three “I” thing - Informed, Intuitive and Intentional - if it hasn’t already been branded, just thought of that!)
I have witnessed the physical, cognitive, emotional and financial decline of people I care about due to chronic illness. I have seen them write off their self-confidence and vitality and resign themselves to a life of perceived disability, suffering and limitations. These are people with unique talents, gifts, ideas and skills; yet they are unable to fulfill their dreams and engage in important and fulfilling work because they are sick. We are collectively in the midst of a global pandemic where the overwhelming majority of those who get acutely ill or die are those with underlying metabolic issues and chronic illness. Metabolic issues and chronic illness that are largely preventable and reversible by modifying diet, lifestyle and behavior. We are facing a huge wave of social unrest, the cumulative effects of climate change and a polarized leadership. We need all the healthy, capable, smart, convicted and empathetic people we can get out there in the trenches. Okay, okay, now I’m getting a little carried away. Can you sense the passion? I am ready for this.
Thank you so much for supporting me. I appreciate each one of you!
Bonus: if you support me with a gift of $200 or more you will be on my short list for a health coaching session for yourself or a friend starting summer 2021!
I provided some links and supplemental information if you are interested in learning more about any of the following topics. I would be ecstatic to talk more with you personally too!
General information
Kresser Institute and
ADAPT Health Coach Training Program
What does a health coach do?
Where and how do health coaches work?
What are the career and earning prospects for health coaches?
Health Coach Job Description
I highly recommend reading Chris Kresser’s book Unconventional Medicine if you are interested in initiatives to reimagine the health care industry using a combination of genetically aligned diet and lifestyle modifications, functional medicine, and a targeted, collaborative practice model that empowers patients and practitioners.
What is this GoFundMe all about?
I just enrolled in the 12-month ADAPT Health Coach Training Program proctored by the Kresser Institute. Completing the training and practicum-based program will provide me with the in-depth core coaching skills, functional medicine and ancestral health knowledge, and business management acumen to launch my new career as an ADAPT-Certified Functional Health Coach.
I am beyond excited about this program. I’ve done a lot of research, reflection and practical consideration to land on this program and path. I am 100% ready to launch into a new chapter of learning, personal growth, opportunities for deep and meaningful connection with others with the explicit intention of helping them on their health, wellness, and personal journeys, and to create a tangible career that is personally fulfilling, reflects my values, and empowers me to be and do the other things in my life that are essential to my well being and sense of purpose.
I am asking bravely and humbly for your financial support to make this career pivot possible. I will be juggling homeschooling, single parenting, providing child care and educational assistance for other children and all the other obligations of life while completing the program. I can do this! I just need some help paying for the program and paying for health care and self care along the way.
What is a Health Coach?
Good question. Here are a couple of concise definitions I like:
Health coaches are experts on human behavior, motivation and health. They use that knowledge to help their clients achieve their goals and improve their day-to-day lives.
Health coaching is about exploration, support and accountability. Coaches ask powerful questions to explore their clients’ values and strengths; they support their clients as an ally, without judgment or criticism; and they offer accountability by helping their clients develop actionable health goals and a process for tracking and measuring them.
Why do I want to do this?
Another good question.
First, I will be vulnerable and a share some of my recent personal story. Some of you know many of the intimate details, others may simply be aware that I’ve had a growing interest in holistic nutrition, functional medicine and/or various healing modalities. I recognize this is a long account and may not be fun to read. I promise it concludes on a positive note and comes back around to the question “why do I want to do this?”
After the birth of my first child seven and a half years ago nearly every element of my life changed. I went from living a relatively self-centered, self-serving, work-hard-play-hard, predictable life where my identity was largely defined by my career and sense of perceived mastery and control over all things to an unfamiliar realm with little structure, no roadmap, no built-in external validation and the weight of caring for a new human being. I was elated and yet totally lost. I didn’t know what my values were, how important fostering relationships and community were, or - most importantly - how to take care of myself in the midst of exhaustion, nursing, a crushing onslaught of chores, crying, challenges and crises, and all the emotions and feelings surfacing I had never before encountered. Emotions and feelings were things other people had; they weren’t something for which I possessed the capacity, worthiness or desire. What did I do? What I did best then: over perform, read, research, seek out experienced experts and peers, and of course attempt to exert control over whatever I could to calm the storm of chaos brewing inside.
Then I started to get sick. Really sick. Three months after Ava was born she started sleeping more or less through the night. I did not. Months of insomnia were followed by GI distress, migraines, extreme anxiety, brain fog, heart palpitations, weight loss and muscle wasting, chronic yeast infections, and more and more tension and loneliness in my marriage. I went to a naturopath physician, started reading about nutrition and diet, made some minor dietary changes (removed gluten, added raw-milk yogurt, started making bone broth) and focused on building a “mom” community, nurturing the few friendships I had and making new friends. I also took a 10-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction class and did my homework diligently. Those interventions helped a bit and gave me a renewed sense of agency.
Then I got pregnant, birthed (via cesarean) and nursed my second child. Melia had a host of allergies and food intolerances that resulted in rashes, hives, sleep disturbances and lots of crying (Melia and me). Ava had sensory processing and other behavioral patterns that troubled me and my family. I got sicker and sicker. My marriage continued to suffer the negative consequences of all the dis-ease in my body, mind and spirit, and in our family. I blamed myself. I was the source of my family’s struggles. If only I were stronger. If only I had paid more attention to my physical and spiritual health in my 20s. If only I could figure out the right “diet” to eliminate my migraines, GI distress, anxiety, etc. If only I had the self-discipline to meditate regularly maybe I could sleep and wouldn’t be so grumpy. If only I could just get better then I would have the energy and mental clarity to care for the kids, my home, and go back to work to contribute financially as my husband so desired.
Then my mom experienced a year of injuries, loss of physical and cognitive function, and the eventual discovery of critical malfunctions in the defibrillator and pacemaker and associated hardware inside her that required a very risky surgery to repair. Then I lost a dear aunt rapidly to cancer. A few months later my husband told me more or less that he didn’t want to be in our marriage any longer. We spent the next year and half plus formally separating in a step-wise, prolonged, painful and stressful process.
During all these years of chronic illness, pain, personal heartbreak and grief I voraciously continued to consume all manner of nutrition and wellness information. I continued to tinker with my diet, incorporate more whole and nutrient-dense foods, and witnessed myriad small improvements in myself and my children. I did my first true elimination diet and discovered I felt so much better without many of the (healthy) inflammatory foods in my body that I had been eating multiple times a week. I worked with another naturopath physician and made more gains in GI function and sleep. I focused on enhancing and building relationships with friends, family and community. There was a lot of positive personal growth and development in the midst of hardship. I thought I was slowly - very slowly - learning to let go of my pathological desire to control my environment.
I wondered how I could turn my interests and arguably the sole sense of joy in my life (I’m a life-long cook and foodie who loves to eat!) into a career and means of financially supporting myself. I contemplated pursuing a MS in Nutrition and Dietetics and attended a seminar at Bastyr University. I completed the personality tests, worksheets, reading and networking activities generously offered pro-bono by a career coach and a book I studied in depth about relaunching one’s career after taking a career “break” to raise children. All signs pointed to doing something in the nutrition and wellness arena. Still, I doubted my abilities, felt limited by my body and cognitive function, questioned the practicality of making a career pivot in the midst of a divorce, and continued to engage in unhealthy behaviors and thought patterns that sabotaged my overall well being and self confidence.
So what did I do? I completely ignored all my inner wisdom, yearnings and visceral physical sensations and got a job in my previous professional field of environmental consulting in December 2019. A job in an office building where I had to sit at a desk, sedentary, stare at a screen, and barely see the scant Pacific Northwest winter daylight. I talked myself into the idea that if I could prove my intellectual and income-earning potential to myself, my peers and my soon-to-be ex-husband that everything would neatly fall into place and I could leave all my lingering troubles behind. Well, I crashed and burned. Hard. This past December and January I had more migraine days than ever before. I visited urgent care multiple times with joint swelling, nerve pain and loss of motor function. Autoimmune symptoms and inflammation were raging through my body. On days when the girls were with their dad I could barely get out of bed. I started to have dark thoughts. I wondered if I was destined to a life of disability, disappointment and self-loathing. The stress of attempting to re-launch a professional career after a seven-and-a-half-year hiatus to raise my children coupled with personal stress, ongoing, unresolved chronic health challenges and following a path for which I had little passion and no intrinsic desire to pursue manifested in my body as physical pain and loss of function to a degree that I just broke.
And now fast forward to the positive conclusion I promised:
Clearly the experiment of denying my body, mind and soul for the purpose of restoring order and proving my professional chops did not accomplish either of those ends. Pushing through and smiling just wasn’t going to work anymore. Period. Instead, that place of broken turned into breaking wide open. I started asking for help, truly accepting help, listening more than talking, implementing many of the tools I had so voraciously researched and sought out the past several years, and became humbly and excruciatingly aware of the resistance I was mounting to everything: physical pain, sadness, change, insecurity, grief, an honestly demanding home life, the unknown. What if I just laid down some of that resistance? I figured I had nothing to lose. I quit my job in mid February. I chose two simple yet giant things to focus on: my health and well being, and my children. And since that time I have done just that. Just. That. Well, at least more than a fair 70% of the time anyhow (I am human and enjoy wasting time on social media and staring at a wall on occasion).
The past six months haven’t been all rainbows and unicorns, but hey, I'm a single parent who managed to get happier and healthier in the midst of a global pandemic, attempting to homeschool two (some days four) young children, and pay some bills through ingenuity and thinking "outside the box.” I can say with confidence that my health and well being and my children are all in a good place. Not perfect, not even great some days, but good. There is a growing sense of ease inside my body that I haven’t known in years. I feel cautiously resilient and most days have the energy and capacity to do more. I am ready for the next thing. I am healing.
I credit positive outcomes and trends in personal health and well being to the small army I mounted this past February: select family, friends, church community members, other constituents of my “mom” community, a personal therapist, a new functional medicine practitioner who is off-the-charts amazing, and a nurse practitioner specializing in mindful therapy and medication management. I believed in myself enough to reach out. They believed in me enough to ask hard questions (such as: “how’s that working for you?”), challenge me to challenge the protective measures I had spent years erecting, hold my hand and offer affirmations, and encourage me to dance with the wisdom, power and answers inside my own body, mind and heart. I am listening. I am healing. I strive to make informed, intuitive and intentional choices each day.
And now back to the health coach thing:
I want to be a health coach, a change agent for others who struggle with chronic illness and all the knock-on effects and issues that come with it. I want to learn and listen and help unlock the healing wisdom, intuition and power that reside in each one of the people I am lucky enough to work with. I don’t want to pretend to be an expert. I want to be a facilitator. I want to learn how to ask better and better questions. I want to hone my empathetic listening skills. I want to engage in deeply meaningful and personally fulfilling work. I want to work collaboratively with functional medicine practitioners, therapists, nurse practitioners and other accessible health care professionals to provide people with the best real care I can. I want to be a resource for those who have been failed by the expensive, ineffective and often alienating traditional western medical system. I want a career that empowers me to do all these things and is inherently flexible, creative and entrepreneurial. I want to help people make informed, intuitive and intentional choices that move them toward their goals and make them feel good about themselves. (I may brand that three “I” thing - Informed, Intuitive and Intentional - if it hasn’t already been branded, just thought of that!)
I have witnessed the physical, cognitive, emotional and financial decline of people I care about due to chronic illness. I have seen them write off their self-confidence and vitality and resign themselves to a life of perceived disability, suffering and limitations. These are people with unique talents, gifts, ideas and skills; yet they are unable to fulfill their dreams and engage in important and fulfilling work because they are sick. We are collectively in the midst of a global pandemic where the overwhelming majority of those who get acutely ill or die are those with underlying metabolic issues and chronic illness. Metabolic issues and chronic illness that are largely preventable and reversible by modifying diet, lifestyle and behavior. We are facing a huge wave of social unrest, the cumulative effects of climate change and a polarized leadership. We need all the healthy, capable, smart, convicted and empathetic people we can get out there in the trenches. Okay, okay, now I’m getting a little carried away. Can you sense the passion? I am ready for this.
Thank you so much for supporting me. I appreciate each one of you!
Bonus: if you support me with a gift of $200 or more you will be on my short list for a health coaching session for yourself or a friend starting summer 2021!
I provided some links and supplemental information if you are interested in learning more about any of the following topics. I would be ecstatic to talk more with you personally too!
General information
Kresser Institute and
ADAPT Health Coach Training Program
What does a health coach do?
Where and how do health coaches work?
What are the career and earning prospects for health coaches?
Health Coach Job Description
I highly recommend reading Chris Kresser’s book Unconventional Medicine if you are interested in initiatives to reimagine the health care industry using a combination of genetically aligned diet and lifestyle modifications, functional medicine, and a targeted, collaborative practice model that empowers patients and practitioners.
Organizer
Jennifer Lawson
Organizer
Seattle, WA