I became a SURVIVOR

Did you ever stop and wonder who you really are, I mean like REALLY wonder?  Now just stay with me here for a sec, I promise you I haven’t totally lost all my marbles.  Admittedly a few are probably missing at this point from my years so far, but I promise you there are still plenty left to keep playing this game called life.

I am a fitness professional. I am a certified nutritional therapist. Do these things really define me?  If I were to look in the mirror am I nothing more than the person staring back at me?  Or am I something more?   And this got me to really thinking:

What if we were more than just what we see in the mirrors?  Better yet, what if we BELIEVED we were more than just what we see we are?Sure fitness is what I do, but fitness is also a part of who I am, t’s what I turned to in times of turmoil, stress, or feeling hopeless and in that hopelessness I found me, I found who Jill really is.

Now I know that may sound like a lot of pyscho mumbo jumbo, but believe me when I tell you it’s the complete true.

My childhood years were anything but a fairy tale, but I survived. Everything that I went through has helped me to become the SURVIVOR I am today. In my fairy tale there was an evil monster who would try and steal innocence and happiness from unsuspecting little girls. While that monster did manage to steal my innocence, and temporarily take away my happiness, I was never going to let him take away my life!

When I had the opportunity to go to college, I jumped at the chance.  To me it was a means of escape, a chance to leave and not have to face the monster again.  There were some pretty dark days and times when I questioned how anyone could be so evil, but there was a light on deep inside they refused to burn itself out. Eventually, I found fitness or should I say fitness found me. Moving my body and feeling it grow stronger  and stronger, seeing it begin to change empowered me. It was something that I COULD DO something I COULD CONTROL. There was no one telling me I wasn’t good enough or trying to take advantage of me, it was just me and my body. I began to believe in myself. I believed I could. It was a where I felt safe and that’s something I hadn’t felt in forever. Fitness became my drug. It’s what I turned to when I was sad or depressed. Fitness not only gave me a new lease on life, it gave me back my life.

The feeling of that high, that feeling of liking who I was, that sense of empowerment, I began to want to share my story with others. I wanted others to know they too could feel that same sense of self worth, and to like the reflection they saw in the mirror.

That’s where my journey into fitness began. I started working with women of all shapes and sizes to feel better about themselves and to help them make a change in their health and fitness. To this day I LOVE WHAT I DO….. There is no better “high” than to see a woman transform into someone who likes the women starring back at her in the mirror. The clincher for me is when a dozen long stem roses showed up unexpectedly at the studio where I was teaching at the time.  They were from my client Doreen’s husband.  The card simply read, Thank you for giving me back the woman I always knew was hidden inside.  She now smiles and has a new lease on life.  Doreen was just one of many, they experienced what I did and in her case, 100 lbs was also shed.

Fast forward to age 40–I’m happily married with 2 amazing kids, working 50+hrs a week as a fitness trainer and BOOM! Life changes in an instant.

I am diagnosed with breast cancer and my world is turned upside down not to mention that of my family’s.  Chemo, radiation, surgeries, complications, all fun times(insert sarcasm here) I began to feel the “dark cloud” descending upon me again. My body was not my own.  I began to feel that sense of shame again that I was somehow not worthy of leading a normal happy life.  Due to complications from the meds, I was put into full blown menopause and once it was determined that I also needed a full hysterectomy, this body went into menopause permanently. You want to talk about Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde!!! Hell even the dog was afrad to come near me.  I felt as if I was going to lose my mind and on this one, I am NOT kidding.  Again I turned to the only thing I knew that could really save me from the dark abyss and that was fitness.  This time however, I started to feel better mentally, but this time the body just did not want to cooperate.

I’ll spare you the details here, but suffice it to say that this is when I really began to open my eyes to the role that nutrition plays in our lives as well as on our mental state.  With the help of Beachbody, I got my life back on track and feeling better than I had felt or looked in years, and coming from a background of health and fitness, that was a pretty solid endorsement.

I was never one to really go with the tried and true type of therapy.  Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with it especially if you find the right therapist, but for me, it just never seemed to work and I was never one to air my “dirty laundry’ to the neighbors.  Years of self help and personal development books and lectures have taught me lots about myself and finally decided to go back into therapy this past fall.  Without sounding like a smitten teenager, let’s just say I finally found the right fit, someone who “got me” and my was able to help me unload some of my suitcases from the past.  It was at this point that I was diagnosed with PTSD……..who knew……. It made perfect sense yet no one had ever seen the symptoms before now, but to be fair I was pretty terrifici at dissassociating myself from everything that had ever happened to me.

Now you might think that moi would be relieved to finally have a diagnosis or at least some closure,but I have to say that it didn’t feel good.  In all honesty, it felt bad, like I was broken, not whole.  The darkness began to descend again…….Food aka sweets, refined sugars, and processed foods became my friends.  In spite of knowing better, I felt myself slipping off the health and fitness wagon and hitching a ride on the “Letting my self go” van.  It wasn’t up until a few weeks ago, that I really started to pick myself up, dust off the old YOU CAN DO THIS pumps and get my act in gear.  Again Beachbody and fitness saved me……I turned to what I know works and has worked for me so many times in the past.  This time fitness wins!

That little girl will never again be scared by an evil monster because she knows how to slay him.  She has her magic potion, nutrition, and her invisible cloak, fitness, and together they will beat any demons down!