Wellness Redefined: What does wellness mean to you?
As I sat down to write this post, my very first blog post ever, I simultaneously had everything to say and absolutely nothing to say. Where do I start? What message do I want to share? What do my readers want to know? Thoughts bounced around my head as I stared wide-eyed at my computer screen. Then I got up from my computer, for no particular reason, and got distracted with watering my plants and a quick dance party before returning to my office almost 45 minutes later.
And that is a pretty good example of how I function 99% of the time. My husband calls this my “beautiful mind”. You can call if whatever you’d like, as long as it’s kind. #kindnessrules
Let’s start by sharing more about my wellness coaching journey, shall we? I am a relatively new health and wellness coach as I completed my 12-month certification in February 2022. Initially, I planned to do coaching part-time on the side, but as I became more in tune with my own health and what wellness meant to me (more about that later), it quickly became apparent to me that life was taking me in a new direction.
Four months after graduation I officially left my beloved career in law enforcement and began the implementation of Brittany Schooley Wellness Coaching. As with most things in life, my practice continues to grown and evolve, as I explore what best serves my clients’ needs as well as my own.
Fun fact: I had just found out I was pregnant with my second child at the same time I decided to pursue wellness coaching full-time. I think I was about six months pregnant in these head shots and asked my photographer not to take any full-body photos so I wouldn’t need to retake them! Photo Credit: Kristen Johnson Photography
Like many people in the wellness industry, it was my own health journey that led me here.
I’ve always been health conscientious, but as an overachieving perfectionist, my definition of health was reaching (and staying at) an ideal body weight without anything to pinch or jiggle. Like so many women growing up in the ’90s, our body image was based on diet culture and magazine cover models with anything but “normal” body types.
Ironically, when I thought I was the healthiest I had ever been, my body began shutting down on me. At the time, I had just cleaned up my diet and was primarily gluten-free, dairy-free, and grain-free. I was meditating and journaling daily. I was also training for a marathon and running 5-6 days a week. I was doing everything “right” but my health was quickly circling the drain. I was chronically fatigued, anxious, depressed, rapidly gaining weight, and experiencing poor sleep and digestive issues.
I was in the exhaustion stage of adrenal fatigue (or HPA axis dysfunction), which meant I had been ignoring my body’s signals for quite a long time.
What I wasn’t doing was managing my stress and prioritizing my emotional health. I want to take a moment to really emphasize the “overachieving perfectionist” part. As I began my journey back to ideal health, it was through therapy and working with my own team of functional medicine providers that I began to understand and recognize my perfectionist, achievement-driven tendencies and how I equate worthiness to productiveness.
This isn’t to say I don’t still struggle with body image or feeling good in my own skin at times, or that I don’t need to be mindful about my habits, but I’ve placed more importance on my mental and emotional health — something that has shaped and guided my coaching practice.
As a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach, I am trained in the principles of functional medicine combined with the art and science of coaching — I am a behavior change expert and utilize motivational techniques to help clients make healthy and sustainable lifestyle changes. I am passionate about helping my clients overcome health hurdles by creating awareness and mindfulness around their daily habits, bridging the gap between their desire to change and the mindset needed to make and sustain those changes.
My personal belief is that wellness requires balance in all areas of life, and we must address the mind, body, and spirit.
In writing this blog, my hope is to build a more personal relationship with my clients, future clients, and followers by sharing wellness information I think you will find relevant and applicable to your own life. As I beat down my perfectionist tendencies, I will strive to let the words flow from an honest and heart-centered place. Sometimes there will be an obvious direction, and others I may be chattering about with no destination in sight! With that being said, I thrive off human interaction and always have room at my table. Let’s chat!
Just because you're not sick doesn't mean you're healthy. Good health is not just the absence of pain or disease but positively feeling good in the whole of our being, and therefore includes lifestyle, mental attitude, and ways of relating to all living beings and nature.
I'm Brittany!
I’m a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach and am passionate about helping you achieve your ideal vision of health. Welcome to my blog, where I hope to educate and inspire you by sharing health and wellness-related content as well as my own personal health journey.
Wellness Coaching
A client-centered approach to holistic wellness through lifestyle modification and behavior change.
Functional Medicine
A form of alternative medicine that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease.