We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Reba Shapiro. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Reba below.
Hi Reba , so happy to have you on the platform and I think our readers are in for a treat because you’ve got such an interesting story and so much insight and wisdom. So, let’s start with a topic that is relevant to everyone, regardless of industry etc. What do you do for self-care and how has it impacted you?
Today, self-care is often idealized and glorified as some sparkly new trend of habits. When self-care is talked about in this way, it makes it seem like a negotiable luxury that is inaccessible to many. Really, the definition is right there in the word: caring for oneself. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that and it doesn’t require fancy or expensive products and tools.
At its root, self-care is the practice of meeting our personal needs. By shifting the perspective on self-care, it is easy to see that eating nourishing, balanced meals is self-care along with getting good quality sleep, moving the body, enjoying fresh air and managing stress. Of course, there are other practices people like to include as part of their self-care routine and everyone’s approach might look different.
In addition to helping meet our most basic needs, self-care helps us to build resilience and to stay grounded and true to who we want to be. It allows us to love, support and give to the activities and people around us more fully, because self-care is not selfish and only when our own cups are full can we pour into others.
Looked at this way, it is clear self-care is not negotiable. Living with chronic illness that included constant full body pain and exhaustion, I had to learn the hard way that self-care is the way to managing my symptoms so that I can be the most effective version of myself in all areas of my life. There was once a time I was bedridden by my debilitating symptoms, only able to watch the days of my life pass me by. Self-care has allowed me to take an active part in my life again.
When I feel my best, fueled by self-care practices like I mentioned before, my body and mind feel more at peace, clearer, and more resilient to whatever may unfold in my day. I am able to enjoy a more well-rounded, full life. I can be more effective and productive in managing my business and more present in supporting my clients. I can enjoy social activities with my friends and family. I can travel and do all the things that make me feel as though my life is fulfilling. To me, being effective means I am able to do all the things that I want to do and intentional self-care is a practice that facilitates doing just that.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
It’s amusing to me how life has a way of surprising us and also making perfect sense sometimes. I never planned on being a holistic health coach but I find it fascinating to reflect on how my many intertwining passions and life paths have brought me to the work I do today.
My introduction to the world of holistic health came through my own debilitating battle with fibromyalgia and autoimmunity, when I was struggling to find ways to reduce my pain, improve my energy and get my life back despite years of doctor appointments and tests. After finding the holistic health and wellness approach to be so pivotal in my own health experience, I decided to build upon the education I already had in health and wellness by obtaining health coaching certificates that empowered me to turn my difficult experience into an asset that helps to support others.
I intimately understand both the direct and indirect implications chronic illness can have on one’s life because of my own chronic conditions and so I am able to relate to many of the experiences my client’s share. I am not just someone who understands based on some written material, but rather, I have lived the experience of these conditions and watched as they became more disruptive to the life I wanted to be living. I know what it is like to feel so different from others around me and what it required to rebuild my life after crawling out of the hole my illness dropped me into.
One thing I absolutely love about my work now as a holistic health coach is that I get to use all my passions to inform my programs and truly help people who need it. Holistic, to me, goes beyond just how one body system is connected to another. It also includes how one area of life is connected to another and how one person, one family member, is connected to another. I enjoy being able to support people through understanding this interconnectedness and how to use it to their benefit, creating fulfilling lives by enhancing the peace, balance and joy they feel in their bodies, lives and homes.
In my family wellness coaching, I bring my background in early education, child development and family systems to meet the need I have seen firsthand for a holistic approach to family wellness. When one member of the family is struggling with a chronic illness, the whole family is impacted and deserves support. Even without chronic illness, many families have goals around how they would like to be healthier as a family and create healthy, happy foundations for their children to take into their futures.
I offer loads of support in various ways to those who need it. For those living with fibromyalgia, feel free to check out the free My Revival Starter Kit on my website. I am always offering coaching programs for individuals and families, of course and additionally, I will be launching my membership in the very near future. I also regularly offer educational webinars and workshops so I encourage everyone to stay tuned on your preferred social media site to be notified about upcoming events.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly demanding environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
There are so many helpful skills, I’ll share with you the three that have made some of the largest impacts in my life.
First, I would say persistence. Persistence is what kept me going through the years that were filled with countless specialist appointments and no answers or direction. It helped me to continue pursuing support and more information and what ultimately helped me to find what I needed to feel my best. As anyone who has had to wait for a diagnosis will tell you, the wait can feel eternal and it is easy to entertain the idea of giving up the search. As anyone with chronic illness, especially chronic pain and exhaustion will tell you, it is difficult to do well, anything. To anyone at any point in their unique journey, I would say don’t give up. Don’t give up if you are not yet where you want to be. Don’t give up if you are seeking a diagnosis and don’t give up even if you have found one. Every day, there are countless opportunities to make the choice that will nourish one’s health and wellness or deplete it. Be unapologetically determined to nourish it.
Adopting a beginner’s mind was also helpful in my journey. For one thing, I needed to get back to basics and make sure I was checking all the boxes of those basic habits that support general health and wellness. This is where my definition of self-care began to change. I had come to realize that somewhere along the way of waiting for answers, I had stopped doing some of these most basic things that would impact my baselines. Additionally, I knew that I didn’t know everything. I had to be comfortable with being a beginner and asking for help from those who had more information than I did, whether that be doctors, health coaches, books, or courses. Even if some information was a review, hearing it again through a beginner’s perspective helped me to apply it with renewed intention. To those looking to cultivate a beginner’s mind I would say don’t be afraid to start over, simplify things or ask for help and support to fill your gaps.
Finally, mindfulness was integral in my upward climb back to health. Mindfulness taught me to be present in the moment. It taught me to meet my experiences without judgement and to treat myself with compassion through them. It gave me the perspective to see and understand my symptoms and my experiences as messages from my body asking for love and support. Mindfulness also enhanced my self-awareness and helped me to learn how to interpret the messages my body was sending me so I could better attend to its needs. If someone is looking to bring mindfulness into their life, I suggest finding some guided mindfulness exercises or meditations or even a mentor that you connect with to begin and then challenging yourself to apply the concepts throughout your day. I’d also say that like with anything, know that this is a process that will take some time and like with any practice, perfection is not the ultimate goal.
How would you describe your ideal client?
Some of my clients are looking for support in navigating life with chronic pain and exhaustion from conditions like fibromyalgia and autoimmunity and are hoping to find ways to feel comfortable and confident in their own bodies again, revive their energy and trust in their ability to support their health and wellness. Others have more general goals like reducing stress and enhancing their family’s wellness and are looking to improve their resilience and patience, model a healthful lifestyle and create healthy, happy foundations for their children to build upon in their own futures.
In any case, my clients are people who desire to find sustainable solutions that will allow them to not only reach their goals but maintain them too. They are willing to repeatedly show up for themselves and take an active role in their health and wellness so we can collaboratively develop plans for how to move forward.
My clients are interested in how the different areas of their lives impact one another and are willing to take a holistic look at their lives and determine where they need to make lifestyle shifts and create habits to support their goals. They want to set good examples for their children and other loved ones and they desire to break cycles, for themselves and for the future.
My ideal client knows what it is like to be living a life they are not happy with or fulfilled by and wants to take steps to create the life they envision. They are willing to cultivate a growth mindset and be empowered to manage their health and wellness so they can feel their best and enjoy more peace and balance in their bodies, lives and homes.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.fortomorrowwellness.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortomorrowwithlove/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fortomorrowwellness
Image Credits
Carrie Rengert Laura Baits Aaron Newland Reba Shapiro
