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Why Am I doing this?

I helped develop and facilitate a Youth based mental health promotion when I was 18. Over the next 8 years I helped facilitate more than 300 focus groups and spoke with over 3,000 youth about mental health, mental illness, stress, and coping. The program goal was to decrease stigma around mental health and to encourage youth to seek help. A component of the program was suicide intervention. During my time with the program I spoke with hundreds of suicidal youth. For many of them I was the first person they told. When ever I reflect back to this time, tears come to my eyes. The vulnerability, trust, and openness that I shared with them is beautiful.

During that time I was very sick. I started to feel sick when I was 16. Passing out. Not sleeping. Intense migraines and physical pain. I was missing weeks of school at a time and doctors could not identify what was wrong with me.

My work with the mental health program gave me hope, strength and a sense of purpose. Although I would often cry of pain on my way home from a session, I knew it was where I was meant to be.

At 21, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue – offered antidepressants and anti-inflamatories. While these helped minimize my symptoms they in no way cured me. I was desperate. I had seen every specialist under the sun, gone the natural route and still nothing was working. I decided to take a Reiki class. My life changed.

I had no prior interest in meditation, chakras or intuition. I didn’t even know about it. Reiki and meditation worked for me. And I proceeded to heal myself.

People witnessed the change in me and started to ask questions. I began teaching Reiki and meditation classes. These occasional classes and one on one sessions grew into my full time business.

When I look back at all the things I’ve done with my life the main theme is : help people understand who they are, why they feel the way they do, and how to feel better.

That main theme is exactly what I had to figure out in order to survive. I spent 15 years learning about physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.

Now I’m in a position to put it all together in simple concepts and effective tools that I’ve been able to test with my client base over the last 6 years.

Many people silently suffer from stress, worry, and self-worth issues. It’s a silent epidemic.

A few weeks ago I was at my high school talking to grade 9’s and 10’s about healthy headspace. I asked who knows what stress feels like and they all raised their hands. I asked how does it affect your sleep and 98% of them said they couldn’t fall asleep at night.

What I’ve learnt is stressed out youth grow into stressed out adults.

I want to share what I’ve learnt and what has helped me and many others feel good with the world.

Thank you for helping me do that.

About the Project

Pepsi is giving away more than one million dollars…

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Daily Email Archive

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HOW TO VOTE

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Vote Everyday

I want to Help Empower Canadian Youth by voting everyday!

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Why Am I doing this?

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