We'll start with what you are already a little familiar with...my name is Jami Lynn McCormack and I am married to Keith McCormack and we have a dog named Lady who is our everything. We had two dogs for most of our time together but we had to say good-bye to our Shiva Blue just this past July. : (
I am originally from Texas. Both sides of my family still reside there. When I was 12, my dad moved up to Washington State for work. I moved up there at the age of 14 and with a couple moves back and forth between Texas and Washington, I eventually ended up graduating up there. I was there for almost 10 years. As a youngster I was interested in healthy eating and natural medicine. Back then, I did not know much on those subjects but I was always drawn to it. I bought my first herbal medicine and aromatherapy books in high school and even read books about how the way we think and speak has an affect on us. This was the very beginning for me.
My next move was to Colorado. I was there for 2 years. This is when I got Shiva.: ) This is also when my interest in holistic health really really became strong. I read yoga magazines simply out of pure curiosity and joy. I did eventually begin my yoga practice in Colorado at a place called Starr Mountain. I lived in a little mountain town called Woodland Park just west of Colorado Springs. During my two years there I read ..a lot..I was like a sponge for holistic "things". I came across this treatment called Reiki. It is vibrational, or energy healing. I was curious and I decided to go through the courses. I went through Master Level training. Although I never thought I would use it to work with people, I wanted to learn about it for myself. During this time I also learned so much more about essential oil and their many health benefits and began playing around in the kitchen making all kinds of body oils, scrubs and such. It was fun, but there was much left to be learned. While living there I worked at Dillard's in the cosmetics department at the Origins counter, which was their "natural" skin care line so I was also learning there too. My desire grew to learn more and all I knew was that "I want to work in Holistic Health."
Then came my move to Little Rock. My mom, sister, niece and nephew had moved here at some point while I was gone and as life brings us times of change, I was in the midst of a big one and came to live with family again. I transferred with Origins/Dillard's so I had a job to come to while going through this change. It just so happened that Dillard's still had the cookie department upstairs. : ) One day a gal that I worked with and I decided to go get one. This pretty cute guy served us up and was pretty talkative. Me, well, I was a little shy. I didn't quite know what to think with his abundance of initial conversation. It was sparked once he found out I had just moved from Colorado because he had just returned from working up there for a ski season. We had the Colorado connection! I walked away thinking he was pretty cute. Fast forward, we are married for almost 9 years now. We met in 02.
I was in a bit of culture shock moving here. I remember feeling quite out of place and not sure what was going on. Very different from Pacific Northwest and Colorado. I felt nervous quite a bit and as it turned out, I was more uncomfortable than I was aware of because my body began having health issues. I was internalizing all of it. But..I did my best to take it in plus I was excited about the boy. One day another gal I worked with went to go get a colonic. If you do not know what this is, it is a cleansing of the colon with filtered water. It is a holistic therapy for cleansing the body. I told her I wanted to know about it because I was experiencing these new issues. When she came back she said, "You have to go meet this woman. She says things you would say and I think you need to just meet her." Ok, so I go and fast forward again, I become a certified Colon Hydrotherapist and also a certified Body Ecologist. Body Ecology is a nutritional format for healing the digestive system with cleansing, food and probiotics. BOOM! Working in Holistic Health! woohoo! I loved my work! I was learning and learning so much. Had an amazing teacher and worked with great people and had truly amazing clients, some of which are my friends to this very day.
I ended up meeting my very first Holistic Lifestyle Coach while working here. I remember when I met her and learned of what she did with people I thought, "That's it! That's the missing piece!" Because it was totally based on THE INDIVIDUAL and it covered everything from the chakra system (our energetic body) to nutrition to movement to mental/emotional patterns, all of it and I loved it!
A few years into being here and working in colon therapy I met a lovely, lovely woman who was a therapist and a Reiki practitioner. I spent time with her and went through Level 1 training again and began to work with clients utilizing the energy balancing technique. I loved it also and everything I was learning was also bringing up more questions.
In the midst of all of this with my work, I was still experiencing difficulties with my own health and with this new place and life. I just didn't know what was going on. Fast forward yet again to me in 2011-12. I finally went to a Holistic MD here in the area. She took everything she could get her hands on from my body and got to the core and figure what was going on with me physically. I was diagnosed with celiac disease and auto-immune hypothyroidism. Thank God I finally had an answer! I already ate well but now it got serious. What is known now as the Paleo way of eating saved my life. I was initially put on thyroid hormones but just for a while. I had severe malnutrition even with my healthy way of eating because of the damage that was done to my intestines from eating wheat all my life. So, I was determined to get well, and be well again. I mean, how could I have been learning all these things and living and loving it and end up sick!? What kind of trick was that?!
So, with food, movement, prescribed supplementation...I began to get well. I had felt so bad and became somewhat disillusioned by it all that I just didn't know what to do or think. I was experiencing anxiety and depression and so much frustration I just eventually laid down. I remember just waking up one day and I just didn't have it in me to get up and make like I was ok anymore. I wasn't and I didn't know why. I had listened to a podcast one day and heard this woman speak about health and wellness and it was very inspiring. I went to her Facebook page and commented on something and ended up winning a phone call with her. Here's where my health really began to get better. She is a Lifestyle Consultant. Working with her I was able to figure out the deep rooted issues I was dealing with that were keeping me not well. This was not only monumental for me but also for Keith and I. Not that we were not good, but it helped us go to a new level. One of the biggest things I learned during this work with her was about Intuition. I knew about this. I knew I had experiences with it when I was a child but I became afraid of it and told myself I didn't want to "know" anymore. I had very strong feelings in my body and I didn't know how to do it. I developed ways of just keeping the peace by being a people pleaser. This was a shocker when I found out I am not quite as SWEET as I thought I was! : ) Probably a shocker to some people around me too. But this was integral to me getting well.
As I began to acknowledge this and start to listening to it again I regained so much energy. Not only that but a lot of the pain I had been having went away. WOW. I was blown away! And I was getting well. So much so that I decided it was time for me to start doing what I loved so much....working in Holistic Health. I went back to my Holistic Lifestyle Coaching certification class and I also went through the Exercise Coach course, both through the CHEK Institute. I began working with women to help them regain their health, confidence, joy ..whatever that's been missing, it can be brought back to life! I am living proof of the work. Holistic Lifestyle Coaching is formatted for the individual because we are all different and our health and vitality will come from a unique variety of tools with a foundation in diet, quiet, movement and happiness. I....LOVE ....IT. It has been my dream to do this work and so here I am! I have been through it! and I am able to help others now, experience the same life changing for the better benefits of aligning with your truth, your dreams, and taking action to make these things happen. It's like magic.
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