My Story.

My Story begins in early childhood.

My family was very active, and my Dad, considering the fact that he had two daughters, raised us very much the same way he would have raised us if we had been sons.

For my sister and I, being active was just a way of life. Dad would take us to play football after school, he taught us to play cricket, he coached my athletics team. We surfed, we water skied, we did everything!

Basically, if there was a sport out there we were never deterred, and, we were always encouraged to try, to practise, and to do our best.

As a result I was a provincial gymnast, played first team hockey in High School with some of the best players in the region, and a competitive track and field athlete in the 800m and the 1500m distances, and a South African record holder over 1500m.

I loved to run!

The feeling of total freedom that I felt when I was fit, and able to get my body to virtually fly around the track is one that I still feel today.

However pushing your body too hard can come at a price, and that price has been a lesson to me over the years, and also helped me to aim for more balance, to enjoy the process of stopping to smell the flowers, and to really look at taking care of myself, a lesson that I look at, and that I am able to pass on to others.

So what was my price, you may ask?

A couple of things happened to me.

The first was that in my early teens I developed incredibly low iron levels, to the point I had to have iron infusions to improve them. I realised then how important diet was and is in maintaining your overall health, and in allowing you to be able to put your best foot forward.

I then continued to push myself though, and became unwell with what we thought was chronic fatigue, and it turned out I was allergic to monosodium glutamate and tartrazine...two additives that at the time were extremely prevalent in just about all fast foods. This made me look at what it was that I was putting in my mouth, and I started to work at the local gym as a nutrition and exercise consultant.

I loved to learn about the qualities of the different foods and food types, and loved to help others to achieve their goals through nutrition and exercise, to the point where I enrolled at Auckland Uni to study a Bachelors degree in Sports Science.

Throughout this time I continued to run at a highly competitive level, and to push my body very hard.

I was running 100km per week in training, and I was at the gym four days a week for overall strength and conditioning.

Then one day after a heavy training session up the Waitakere Mountain ranges, I woke up in severe pain.

My back was so sore that I could hardly move.

I was in absolute agony.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, my competitive running career, was over. I thought at the most I would have to have six weeks out, but six months later I was still in pain.

I was in my early twenties, and lived every day in agony.

I stood at the back of my lecture rooms because it was too sore to sit down.

I couldn't go anywhere in the car as it caused too much pain.

Pain was keeping me awake at night.

But mentally the hardest thing for me was that I couldn't run!

I was pool running in the water daily to maintain my fitness. (In fact I did so much pool running that the smell of chlorine from indoor swimming pools still makes me feel somewhat ill.)

I went to see a surgeon hoping that surgery would "fix" me. But I wasn't a candidate.

Not knowing what else to do, I took up yoga, hoping that at least that would relieve the pain.

Then one day out of desperation, I rang an emergency Chiropractor.

It was a Sunday, and he opened his clinic to see me. I didn't know anything about Chiropractors, and to be honest I was a little scared of them! (Just like many people out there.)

He examined me, studied my X-Rays, and explained what was going on. For the first time I had someone give me hope that maybe I didn't have to live in pain like this for the rest of my life.

And then he adjusted me, and I had immediate pain relief. I cried.

Of course one adjustment didn't "fix" everything", and I had to go back for several sessions, but it was a life changing moment.

With some encouragement from him, I decided that I was going to go and study Chiropractic medicine, so that I could help people the way that he had helped me.

From my experience, life is tough...but it is tough for everyone in different ways. If you can take the things in your life that have all but broken you, and start to see some positives in them, start to see how you can use the difficulties to catapult you to higher levels, then the difficulties become opportunities.

Joyce Myers once said; "If you don't get squeezed, no paste comes out!"

And for me, that is Life. When you stop thinking that the Universe is singling you out in a negative way, that everyone has difficult times, then you can start to say; "Why is this happening and what can I learn from it."

When I look at health, I realise that you cannot focus totally on just one area of your health in order to stay healthy and well.

During my competitive days as an athlete, I was extremely focused, but I also missed out on having fun with friends, and being able to stop and smell the roses.

As much as I miss and have missed those days, I have learnt to appreciate things like dinners out with friends, sleep-ins on a Sunday, the odd glass of champagne, being able to plan hoildays and getaways that didn't involve training, to name but a few.

I learnt to smile more, laugh often, and take each day as it comes, with the moments of joy and happiness that can come from even the smallest of things.

I hope that my story can help even one person out there, to see obstacles as opportunities to grow, and to appreciate and value the moments in life that can caterpault you to change.