Annie's Story
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When I had just turned 16, my father became mysteriously ill, was diagnosed with cancer and within the span of 2 short months, he died. I was devastated. I lost my best friend. I felt completely alone. While my dad was ill, my father's two sisters taught my family how to meditate in the hospital waiting room. I loved meditation and the profound peace I could find just by sitting quietly. That skill saw me through many tough moments in life.
Always aspiring to something bigger, I became Canada's first in-house marketing executive in a Canadian teaching hospital, a world traveler and married an eye surgeon. Despite this success, there was this aching feeling in my heart and soul, a sense that I was missing something. I wanted my life to be fulfilling and exciting. I wanted to know that I made a difference in the world.
By 1987, my yearning for Self-knowledge could no longer be contained. I had a one-month holiday from the hospital, and off I went to India. One year later, I gave everything away (which I do not recommend) including the doctor husband (I have since remarried a wonderful man whose life/heart path matches mine), and ended up living in the Himalayan Mountains of India for seven years where I became a certified instructor in the Science of Yoga, Vedant Philosophy and the Theory and Practice of Meditation.
One day, on my way down an icy Indian mountain, I lost my footing and fell off a 15 foot cliff. A well-meaning but ill-educated "chiropractor" in India attempted to adjust my back and I ended up with 4 herniated discs. My medical advisors in India prescribed bed rest, but after six months, I lost sensation in my legs. I had to return to Canada to seek professional medical care. I came home in a wheel chair. As an active athletic individual, it was one of the scariest times of my life.
And the most transformative.
Transitioning back in Canada after seven years in India was not easy. Aside from rehabilitation, consulting doctors, physiotherapists, osteopaths, healers and surgeons, I had to find my "roots" and my "True Self", both physically and metaphorically. I had to learn how to connect with my body, to hear the messages it was always trying to send me. Like most of us, my busy mind was so involved with its numerous and compelling thoughts, I missed receiving those messages. Even though I was a seasoned meditator, I needed to learn how to be completely present with my body; to love and cherish it. Through in-depth work on myself on every level, I was the recipient of an unexpected bonus - my own inner wisdom. I came to understand the interconnectedness of mind, body and spirit.
The body speaks to us at first, with a whisper. If we ignore this whisper, it will give us a shove. If we ignore the shove, it will hit us with a two by four. Falling off that mountain was my two by four. This was the catalyst that launched my career into holistic healing (12 years of apprenticing with a healer and numerous holistic certifications too many to count) and the decision to focus on coaching as the delivery system to help others learn to gracefully integrate mind, body and spirit.
What started off as my greatest challenge evolved into the greatest gift - that of learning how to stay very present despite the mind's incessant and compelling chatter; learning to listen very carefully to the whisper of intuition within and appreciating the magnificence and magic of life. Today I bring that gift into my clients' lives as a life and executive coach.
I am an incorrigible passion hound, always on the look out for causes that are crying out for change and a voice to be its advocate. For that reason, I branded myself as a Radical Wisdom Coach™ and Radical Changemaker.
