Before its inception, I was functioning as a busy mom, wife, doctor, business owner, educator, and entrepreneur—way too many hats and hustle! One day I turned around and realized two things:

Being so busy all of the time, I was not happy or thriving in any way. 

 

I realized I was burned out, miserable trying to please everyone but myself.

While I loved all of my individual roles, my life felt like a series of tasks and stressors. My capacity to accomplish goals was high, but my health, relationships, and sanity were suffering. Whom was I trying to impress, anyway?

Thus, I began the process of a-deep-dive into what excited and inspired me and who I wanted to be, on my terms. I began to review all the skills and knowledge I learned in my education and various trainings and then reapply them to my own life. I developed a devotional practice to myself, with two main tenants as the driving philosophy:

1) If I take care of myself first, the rest of my life flows and I can better care for others.

2) I have to trust my body, the messages it is sending me, and its ability to heal.

With the help of some friends, healers, guides and my own intuition, I began to thrive instead of survive. My background in naturopathic medicine,  functional medicine, Ayurvedic healing, yoga, qigong, chronic illness and cancer, medical laboratory science, and counseling lead me down a path of finding myself in balance and joy.

I started sharing my findings with my good friend, Emily, and we realized the self-work I was doing could benefit every busy woman. She could relate from her own life experience and we realized that between the two of us we had a mountain of knowledge to create balance in many area of life: health, lifestyle, mood, relationship, genetics, environment and diet/nutrition. Hence, the Ignite Life Project was born; a project that brings me great joy and allows me to practice my skills on my terms. We hope it will do the same for you!

 I have been working in the field of wellness and nutrition for over ten years. One of my greatest joys is connecting with women, hear their goals and struggles alike, and supporting the implementation of lifelong change.

What continues to inspire me are the conversations around burnout, stress, the challenges and juggles of life. Over ten years I have learned that by gently adding  nutritional upgrades,  strategic self- care and lifestyle upgrades, I could  create sustainable changes. The weight I felt physically and the weight of the world began to be more manageable. By identifying my true purpose and goals, my busy life schedule became more spacious and priorities became more balanced.

Learning to live well and live balanced was inspired by my grandparents who were Idaho ranchers and farmers. My grandmother planted a garden each summer and made everything from scratch. She lived to be 99 years old. She taught me the  80/20 rule of balance:  80% of the time eat smart and healthy, and 20% of the time enjoy the homemade candy, apple pie and the fun things in life. I draw on this wisdom, it helps me prioritize the relationship with food over the current dietary trends. 

I graduated from the University of Idaho with a B.S in Psychology. The same summer I graduated, I tragically lost three of my immediate family members in an airplane crash in the mountains of Idaho.

This grief and paralyzing loss broke me to my core.

It wasn’t until my first ever yoga class when the teacher asked the class to simply sit, and breathe that I realized I still had a heartbeat… and that I still had my life to live. Yoga became my lifeline and I dove in headfirst into the world of yoga, meditation, and wellness.

I’m a believer in silver linings, and something this tragic event in my life taught me is keeping a clear perspective. Everything in my life changed in an instant, and I was forced to take the lens of life and ‘zoom out.’ I have learned how to see in my own life what is ‘life-enhancing, or life-detracting.’