Sep
When misfortune finds us, oh, it finds us. It’s as if one misfortune gives our address to other misfortunes and they all come on a little train, one right after the other. These phases of life are not meant to last or break us. They are a call for us to rise and become our strongest authentic self. (That’s at least how I view it anyway.)
Meet Julia Brine. She was open to sharing about her misfortunes and journey navigating them. I hope her story inspires you and gives you a bit of fuel to navigate your own journey.
I asked Julia to name one situation she thought she was not going to be able to overcome but did. This was her response: “This story begins in one defining moment; however the process leading up to this particular moment had taken years.
I was 27 and living in Vancouver, Canada. I had made the choice to move to the opposite coast, away from my entire family, for a relationship. As it turns out that relationship was unsupportive and psychologically damaging, I wasn’t happy. I had also been suffering from severe contact dermatitis due to the nature of my job as a professional hair stylist.
After losing vision in my right eye days before I left my home to move across the country, I found myself in the neurologist’s office looking at recent MRI scans of my brain. The doctor turned in my direction, looked me in the face and said the one of the MANY things I was hoping he wasn’t going to say.
“Julia, I am 99.999% sure you have Multiple Sclerosis.”
I have never felt so alone in my life. All the life had been sucked out of the room…
…and true to my repressive nature, I swallowed my fear and said, “Okay, so what’s next?” That was December 15th, 2014, and since then I have come a long, long way.”
Assuming your initial thoughts were negative, how did you change them into positive thoughts?
“In order to begin to shift to a more positive outlook, it was important for me to acknowledge my current feelings. It was important to examine the thoughts, beliefs, behaviors and habits that had contributed to the development of my illness and the general unhappiness I experienced in life. I spent years with chronically low self-worth, feelings of not belonging, fear of confrontation or speaking my truth. These serious repression tendencies created a lack of boundaries in my relationships that allowed me to create some pretty toxic situations.
One could say I had no back bone. Multiple Sclerosis is a disease that affects your brain and spinal cord. It can create crippling disability as well as wreak havoc on your mental health.
There is a significant body of science that supports the theory that the development of disease happens over time and how your emotional/mental and spiritual development play a fundamental role. When you’ve got a minute, check out the study of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) and dive into the fascinating world of the effect of the mind on health and resistance to disease.”
Do you see how Julia took accountability there? At what could have been one of her lowest points in life, she chose to acknowledge her feelings instead of run from them. Educate herself instead of let fear succumb her. We often chose a fight (overly proactive and sometimes in denial) or flight (ignore the problem and hope it goes away) mentality, but landing somewhere in the middle is just fine.
Julia, how did you overcome?
“My journey of embracing this news and what it meant in my life began immediately. My family, even though they were far away, were very supportive and I could not have done it without them.
I went through all the motions of getting medication, seeing doctor after doctor, one round of IV steroids for a second optic neuritis (the vision loss) and ultimately making the decision to leave my relationship and move back home.
The journey wasn’t easy. I had a lot of work to do. Simply thinking positive was not enough, I had to get serious and take responsibility. I began to research how and why something like MS develops in a person. In the beginning, understanding what was happening gave me comfort.
I transitioned into the supportive network of loving friends and family once I returned home. Surrendering to this support, trusting in the process allowed me to start putting one foot in front of the other. Ultimately, it was taking action that allowed me to begin to believe in myself again, and that is what began to pull me out of my depressed, scared and isolated state.”
What advice would you give others that are trying to be positive/overcome something?
“When I finally took responsibility for the creation of my reality, and developed my own relationship with faith, things began to quickly turn around. Now I co-own Elevated Academy, a coaching organization designed to help people move through this process every day.
We are dedicated to working with fearless individuals who have heart-based missions to embark on a similar journey of self-mastery, guiding you to find the ultimate secret….. you are the creator of your reality. You are of God and God is of you, and that makes you powerful beyond your wildest dreams.”
Yes! We can make it happen. Regardless of our circumstances, we can shift how we approach our thinking and let it lead us to greatness.
I recommend becoming a part of any self-mastery program at different stages of life. Julia’s Elevated Academy offers self-mastery coaching for extraordinary people so they can live extraordinary lives. They offer group coaching programs, one-on-one coaching, intensives and retreats. Elevated Academy believes that every single person has their own zone of genius and given an opportunity to recognize their creator status they will live in their own personal heaven on earth.
Julia Brine, Elevated Lifestyle Coach, BPR
Elevated Academy
Picture by Blue Vine Photography
Invest in yourself and Make it Happen!
Take care,
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