This is My Story

“Finding one’s purpose in life means finding the largest burden that one can bear and bearing it.”

There was a time that this quote would have meant little to me. Although I longed for purpose more than anyone I knew, I never expected the universe to send me a burden so great, it would cost me nearly everything.

But it was this long-term and life-threatening illness that became the catalyst I needed to find that purpose

This is my story.

I don’t recommend stressing over things you can’t control. This is advice I freely heed to anyone I meet, especially my patients. And for the things you can control, don’t stress -there are no mistakes in life, only lessons. The irony of this advice is if I were to have followed it in my earlier years, I never would have found my purpose.

I truly believe that you can’t find purpose in life without struggle. For some, the amount of struggle is directly proportional to the amount of meaning we derive from it. I wear a medallion around my neck that reminds me of this - lector et emergo. Struggle and emerge. Luctor parallels the necessary struggle for survival of the species. Emergo mirrors the possibility, small though it may be, that in this struggle something entirely new may come to the fore: a higher form of being with new functional properties.

In my teens and twenties I struggled to find my life’s purpose. I bounced from idea to idea trying to figure out what kind of work I wanted to do. I stressed that I wasn’t enough in my relationships if I didn’t figure it out soon. I didn’t know how to handle this stress and suffered mostly in silence and solitude, until the symptoms were deafening.

Chronic stress does a number on the body, it turns out. At first I experienced low back pain, joint pain, and mood changes. Over time I developed signs of fatigue, cognitive disfunction, sleep issues, food sensitivities, and more. Over the course of the next eight years, and countless visits to allopathic specialists and holistic practitioners, my health deteriorated into oblivion. I invested all of my spare time and energy researching and attempting to convince doctors to believe that something was awry. But test always came back clear and the diagnosis always idiopathic.

My capacity for work and relationships became paper thin. As a result, all of my relationships changed. Some were lost, while the rest mostly faded into the background, as my sole focus became my fight for answers and to maintain control over my health. Sadly, that fight would perpetuate the stress on my poor nervous system.

A turning point finally came eight years into my journey. Now 118lbs, unable to work, and sensitive to any food I tried to put in my body, I was introduced to a Practitioner of Chinese Medicine, medical intuitive, and energy healer named Jeanette. I remember making that first 1.5 hour drive to Toronto, with no clue what to expect. I had been let down so many times previous there was little hope left in reserve.

I remember vividly the first time I saw Jeanette. I was sitting in the waiting room when a pale woman in white scrubs and bright red hair walked out to inform me she would not be but a few more minutes. She appeared young, but carried herself like an elderly woman - bent over, arthritic, frail, moving slowly and with more effort than any person should have to. I would come to learn that she recently experienced a near-death electrocution. Not knowing this at that time, her appearance made me emotional. She was unintentionally exuding old sage/Yoda vibes! Suddenly I felt like this is where I was suppose to be, which was comforting.

We finally sat down in her office and I began sharing my story. I had shared it so many times previous, it was like reciting my novella. Hitting certain points in such a way to try to convince her there was something objectively wrong with me. If we could just get to the root...but instead of resistance, I was met with a straightforward and unpretentious, “I believe you,” which sort of blindsided me. I broke down. I finally felt seen. I finally felt like I was in a safe space. It was the first time I felt l could relinquish control. And not a moment too soon. I had nothing left to give. This was the first big break my nervous system needed to shift into a state of healing.

And so began my bi-weekly trips to Toronto to see Jeanette. The healing came slow. I used that time to learn more about the impact chronic stress can have on the body. A lot of my symptoms felt consistent with this diagnosis, but not completely. I intuitively felt there was something else going on that we weren’t addressing, and confirmation of that would come in the form of some private health testing. A urinalysis showed severely high levels of several heavy metals in my system. How the?!

It’s not exactly clear where and when the excessive lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, and more entered my system and began to wreak havoc. The best explanation I have is, much of it was in my system before the illness, and much entered it during. It’s fully plausible and logical that a state of chronic stress made it more difficult for my body to rest, repair, and detoxify. After all, it was primed and ready to fight bears and lions, not clean itself out. Regardless, I can’t express how liberating and validating it was to finally and objectively name what ailed me.

Now armed with the missing link to my health woes, I was able to fully dive into healing. I had to teach myself everything there was to know about heavy metal detoxification. Jeanette continued to help my body heal and strengthen and optimize my detoxification pathways. My body was so weakened, it was essential for me to take the process slow and steady so as to not overwhelm it. Over the course of the next year I would continue to see Jeanette bi-weekly. I slowly experienced improvements. Year two of my healing journey I saw Jeanette one time weekly. My energy slowly improved and I could begin to reintroduce certain foods into my diet. Year three I continued to see gains and stretched out my sessions to a monthly visit.

By year four I felt a sense of hope that I could go back to school to become….a physiotherapist. During my years of ill-health and healing, I found solace working at a sports medicine clinic in my home town. I always saw myself

working in some capacity with the body and health, I just didn’t know what that was. But for the first time in my life I was working in an environment that aligned with my skills, interests and desires. It just fit. Somewhere along the way I decide to go back to university and slowly chip away at classes so that I could apply for a masters and become a physiotherapist. I’m sure it seemed crazy to a lot of people who were around me, and knew of my health journey and the limitations that brought. If I’m being honest, it felt a little crazy to me too. But here’s the thing, I desperately needed a reason to keep fighting. A reason to live. After all, what is life without purpose?

So, four years into my healing journey I applied for my masters. If I could get my GPA from a 2.7 all the way up to a 3.89 while going through literal hell on earth, I could do anything, right? I believe “if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans,” is the saying. Receiving rejection letter number one sucked, but I forged ahead.

Receiving rejection letter number two in as many years felt like another low point. I wanted so desperately to lock in this comeback story. People close to me suggested I re-evaluate and explore acupuncture as a career. It seems logical right? The thing is, despite four years receiving transformative acupuncture care, it felt so otherworldly that I could not wrap my head around it as a vocation. Like many others, I was raised being exposed to a completely different healing paradigm. But I decided to start researching programs. I had always dreamed of living out West and I found a school in Victoria, BC that sparked something. I flew out there in February of 2019, and knew within the first few hours that I wanted to live there.

I still had my apprehensions about choosing acupuncture as a vocation because it didn’t “feel right”. I’ll always remember the advice I received from my friend and colleague that changed everything for me. She said she didn’t know if physiotherapy was the path for her, but she

decided to do everything she could to turn it into the right choice, and she did. The advice landed, and I made a decision right then and there that I would do the same. The rest, they say, is history.

The day I received my board exam result was one of the proudest days of my life. Treating my first patient was another. I still pinch myself every once and a while because I can’t believe how lucky I am and how far I’ve come. In hindsight, it was the best decision I’ve ever made, aside from the one I made each and every day to keep struggling.

Through the immense burden of my illness, I discovered my true purpose, proving that the greatest struggles often lead us to our most meaningful paths. Bearing that weight not only led me to healing but also to a career where I can help others emerge from their own struggles. For that and everyone who helped me along my journey I am eternally grateful.