My Story
There are two things that have transformed my life for the better this year: holistic wellness, and the teachings of the Catholic church, which have led me to my upcoming confirmation, which will take place this Easter.
Over the course of my young life, if you had asked me what I “wanted to be when I grew up,” my answer would have changed as I got older, as is the case with most people. One thing, however, always remained constant: anything I would have told you would have had to do with performing movement – specificially, movement with an artistic component. To me, being active was a always an emotional and spiritual need, rather than a chore; there was just no greater feeling to me.
That will always be my desire and my passion. If I had to put a label on my main title in life, the best I can come up with is “movement artist.” Nonetheless, I have found through the years that no matter what you do with your life, in order to get the most out of it, total fitness is essential.
For years, I thought I had total fitness… until I took my first steps toward realizing what total fitness felt like. I’ve always been what one would call “physically fit.” I had the “athletic” body type, was physically strong, and, for the most part, had no real trouble learning the dancing or sports that I practiced. One thing was always holding me back, however — a force greater than myself. There were times I could not even live my life and take full advantage of the things I loved because I a case of OCD (and a deficiency of serotonin in general) that was at times crippling and all-consuming. Though this had been an issue all my life, I hit rock bottom in 2017. My life literally became sheltered and centered around minimizing agony rather than living a productive life and doing the things I needed and wanted to accomplish.
I knew that something had to change, but wasn’t sure how or that I would ever even be ready. I had tried the traditional method of managing the problem with medication and various therapies in the past and found it to be only marginally effective at best, and absolutely dreadful at worst. I was not willing to risk the side effects of medication, or medication robbing me of parts of my personality that were important to me. I was also not willing to learn to make something of my feelings that I knew could never be true for me. I was running out of options, or so it seemed.
In late 2017, I saw this video, of one of the nation’s premiere naturopathic physicians, Dr. Peter Glidden discussing chemotheraphy and its astonishing failure rate as a cancer treatment, which was viral on Facebook at the time. I found it intriguing, and it all but confirmed the suspicions I’d had about the mainstream medical field in this country for years. I didn’t, however, further pursue the subject until early 2018, when remembered the video and sought it out on YouTube. A plethora of other videos of Dr. Glidden as well as his colleague, founder of Youngevity, Dr. Wallach, showed up in YouTube’s suggestion bar.
They spoke on a variety of topics, but all of the centered around three things:
- The mainstream wellness model is flawed. When it comes to chronic and progressive illness and dysfunctions, it is more focused on masking symptoms than getting to the root cause. It also treats the body as a congolmerate of independent systems, rather than one single unit
- Most illnesses and dysfunctions that people seek intervention for are the result of nutritional deficiencies.
- If you give your body the right raw materials while minimizing unhealthy lifestyle choices, your body CAN and WILL fix itself. This goes for all disorders, physical, mental, and emotional. As forever a dancer and athlete at heart, I especially liked the benefit of not having the aches and pains of your parents and grandparents when you get to be their age!
I liked this model a lot better than the mainstream one that seeks to force a square peg in a round hole with various behavioral therapies, or medications that mask symptoms while potentially screwing with the rest of my body (and persona) during the process. It also sounded a heck of a lot better than staying as I was with nothing that was of any help at all!
I decided to order the Athlete Pak from Youngevity, because, suffice to say, I just want to continue to do what I love without any physical regression, and I very much harbor a childlike dream of becoming the dancer and martial artist version of this 91-year-old gymnast!
I immediately loved the products, however, the most profound change for me had nothing to do with the robustness of my bones and joints. It was that I almost instantly felt in control. My emotional state stabilized, my threshold for life (for better or for worse) increased. My insomnia, which I had had since birth, also started to become less of an issue. I still have the little quirks and idiosyncrasies and drives and desires that are a part of me but my life is no longer ruined over trivial little matters such as Drew Brees not throwing enough touchdowns (it sounds stupid, but that really had really been the death of me for years!)
My family and friends have noticed a profound change in me and my mother is always on me to make sure I never run out of my Tangy Tangerine, my favorite Youngevity product which she calls my “happy juice.”
God’s Nutrition + God’s Love = The Ultimate 1-2 Punch
I had wanted to become Catholic for years. I tried in 2015, however, due to not even being able to make it through football season because of severe OCD that by then was bordering on addiction, I was forced to bail out. I decided to revisit this journey against, at the end of 2018, when I was finally stable enough to withstand the potential highs and lows of my football fan existence. There were a couple of setbacks — I still get flooded with adrenaline at times to the point of a breakdown over things that are important to me but not within my control. But now I can recover within a few hours or sooner rather than it consuming my whole life. This would not have been possible, however, had I not discovered the holistic approach to health and wellness.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Romans 8:18
The structure of the Catholic church has appealed to the disciplined side of me while keeping the equally-strong free-spirited side of me grounded when need be. I can’t think of any other affiliation that has managed to achieve that.
As luck would have it, the day I received the Penetential Rite, March 17, 2019, our first reading at Mass would be from the book of Genesis, chapter 15, verses 5-12, in which God takes Abraham outside and says, “Look up at the sky and count the stars — if indeed you can count them.”
My parents met working at a NASA test site (Stennis Space Center, formerly NSTL). Mementos from that period include an American flag that was flown on the second flight of space shuttle Columbia, given to my mother, and a challenge coin of the first lightweight fuel tank, which my father worked on, flown on the maiden voyage of Challenger. About a year or two to any of this happening, my uncle, the other converted Catholic of the family, had a totally chance encounter at Stennis Field in Mississippi with First American Woman in Space, Sally Ride.
On my first Christmas, at seven months old, I received a special present from my grandmother, who it turns out was baptized Catholic as a child and we never knew it: a star named after me.
I acquired the moniker of Skydancer (or its German variation, Himmeltanzer) as an adolescent strictly by coincidence. Needless to say, the Genesis reading felt somewhat personal; one could not have scripted it any better (pardon the cliche!)
The climax for me was when standing at the altar as the organ music started. I’d heard those same organ arpeggios in mass many times, but there was something different about this time. The way that first note filled the sanctuary felt as though there was something far more abundant behind it than the organist himself. My 3rd great-grandfather, who inspired me to become Catholic, was a well known church organist in New Orleans during the 1850’s, and I always wondered how he sounded. Maybe I was imagining it, but it really did feel like he was up above, making sure I felt his spirit at that very moment. He wrote the first chapters of my family’s 5-generation story in New Orleans. I always hoped to complete the 6th, right where it began.
Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
Proverbs 22:6
The journey is far from over. But I finally feel like I am on the right path.