The Worst Year of My LIFE!

 

Sometime after the birth of our youngest child, my husband and I had a serious discussion. I didn’t want to be on the pill anymore and we didn’t want any more children, so we decided he’d go in for a vasectomy and it was done.

 

But sometime later I realized I was pregnant. And I’d just started a new job!

 

So my husband and I had another very serious discussion and this time we made the most difficult decision ever. We already had two little boys that we loved so much, but we just weren’t prepared financially and emotionally to support another child. So that night we decided to have an abortion.

 

But a few days after the abortion, I realized I still felt pregnant. A doctor at a walk-in clinic confirmed my worst fears and also told me it was a girl. I always wanted a girl.

 

I said to my doctor, “Can I continue on with the pregnancy?” She gave me a long hard look and said, “No Joanny. This baby is damaged. You don’t want to bring a damaged baby into this world! Other women have done that out of guilt and shame and they live with regret and worse every day!”

 

So I went for the second procedure and this time it worked.

 

That same year I got my cancer scare. This really got me. I had my annual checkup complete with a PAP test. A few days later my doctor called that they found something.

 

At her office, she told me there were abnormalities and that I needed to go in for exploratory surgery. She mentioned the C-word. I was SO upset. I’d done everything modern medicine told me to do. Exercise. Good diet. Apparently, they didn’t know everything about prevention.

 

I drove home, crying all the way. I was SO upset. I told my husband and no one else. I then began to do my own research.

 

I was at my gynecologist’s office when a nurse told me who back in the 1990s was getting cervical cancer: people who had multiple partners who had multiple partners. In other words – prostitutes!

 

Well, that was NOT me. I was a community leader. I was a professional engineer. I was a wife, mother, sister, daughter.

 

This episode had a much greater impact on me than the “reproductive” issues I had, though they certainly contributed to the stress I was experiencing at the time!  But I got quiet and made some important decisions, one being, that it was no longer acceptable to be a “good girl.” Enough was enough.

 

It was the worse year of my life, but it was also the best year of my life because it led me to do what I do today. Several years later, I left my career as a professional engineer to study Chinese medicine. Years later I started my practice and later began to study neuroplasticity, advanced psychology, and finally consciousness.

​

It was in my first year when my professor told us that one minute of anger hurts us more than the person or thing we’re mad at. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I began to understand what happened!

 

After I started my practice I began to study the brain, which led me to study psychological wellness based on Classical Chinese Medicine, which led me to advanced psychology taught by extraordinary people. My graduation from TCM school sent me my true teachers who taught me the mental/emotional causes of disease and injury AND misfortune.

 

That’s why mental health and mental resiliency are so important. 

 

But I know why I went through all this - it taught me that no matter what happened, I could turn on the mental resilience. And live on. And THRIVE. These experiences taught me about mental toughness and how to help others who are facing dilemmas. 

 

I was a professional engineer for 24 years. Being an engineer is about making sure my clients get the outcome they want. That’s the difference between myself and most MDs and therapists. It’s about results!

​

Challenge after challenge seem to follow each other.

​

Would you like to find out how to calmly smooth out life's ups and downs?

Would you like to find out how to cultivate great relationships that last a lifetime?

Would you like to find out how to be consistent game in game out?

Would you like to find out how to shut up those monsters of "doubt"?

Would you like to find out how to train your brain for success?

​

 

This is Resilience!

​