Genevieve Lodal-Guild

It was the spring when I was about to turn 30. I had been having panic attacks, extreme dizziness, and a sudden drop in my energy levels and digestion over the past few months.
 
But it all reached a head one night as I was leaving work. I had an undeniable urge to crawl under my desk in order to be closer to the ground. I was spinning out with the room whirling around me, when just an hour before, I had been typing on my computer like it was any other workday. Now, I was trying to get up the nerve to call my partner to pick me up at my office.
 
I mustered the pride and energy to drive home alone, but I chewed gum and blasted the radio on the hour-long drive, so deep was my fear of losing consciousness. I felt disconnected. and so. damn. tired.
 
After getting home, I made a vow to take my state of illness seriously. I had no energy to do anything other than go to work and feed myself, maybe watch a movie with my partner. My world had shrunk, as I felt unable to go out, see friends, or even run basic errands. My digestion was so bad that I wasn't able to eat even very bland foods without bloating and discomfort. Gas and constipation were constant. And nothing I did seemed to shift this now-familiar state of unease.
 
It had been building for a couple of years but was dismissed as “adrenal fatigue” or chalked up to the physical nature of my previous work. I had trained for and run a marathon a couple years prior, was a yoga instructor who practiced regularly, and was working seasonally in a physically-demanding farm job. But for a couple of years, my energy had started to wane. I began to feel like I couldn't work on the farm anymore, even though I was an ostensibly health 20-something. So I took a full-time office job and hoped I'd find more energy to live like a young person. But instead, I began to double up on the caffeine and wine and accept things as just the way I was built.
 
After that drive, though, I couldn't keep coping. I had seen multiple doctors, had lots of tests run, and researched anything I could about nutrition and body health. I had some leads but no great answers. And I was trying all the things. Different diets. Meditations. Exercise regimens. Mantras. I couldn't figure out what was going on and was starting to lose hope of ever getting to the root causes.
 
Then, a friend recommended I see a chiropractor who practices BioGeometric Integration, as I felt a lot of the issues were happening in my neck. After one appointment, it was suggested that I might be dealing with chronic Lyme disease. This was a revelation and a relief, to have at least one cause of my maladies. I ended up working with a Lyme specialist, and after a couple of years of dedication to different rounds of treatments, in addition to work with an acupuncturist, counselor, and massage therapist, I was in the clear as far as the chronic infections.
 
This was a big step in my health journey, as I had learned in the process what emotional patterns and beliefs were lying underneath my disease and how to advocate for myself and work with my doctors, not simply acting as the “good patient” and taking everything without question. Thankfully, I was also in a new personal relationship with someone who was supportive of my need to get well. So I had a fuller picture of support and wellness, which was a huge part of my recovery.
 
My health journey has been a bumpy one. The first notable point in the journey was a descent into an eating disorder at 16 that raged for well over a decade. In hindsight, two seeds were planted then: one, a desire to learn more about bodies and nutrition, and two, an awareness of the connection between my physical health and my emotions. These seeds continued to grow and flower over the next two decades and have formed a foundation of my awareness of holistic health.
 
As a teenager, I was depressed and running deep control and fear patterns, all out of a sense of self-preservation and desire to create. My time at university was clouded by this depression and seeming inability to control my eating. I turned to the conventional wisdom at that time and used my mind to try to overcome what was happening with my body. (Like, compulsively overeating chocolate then counting the calories needed to burn and doing so through any means necessary.)
 
It didn't really work, but I had the momentum to keep searching for solutions and trying new things.
 
As a sensitive person, I have always been aware of my relationships with others but struggled with anxiety and people-pleasing. I did not have a strong sense of self but looked to external markers for validation for decades. And I excelled at these externals markers. I finished university early, went on to finish an advanced degree, bought a house with a partner at 24 in a major city, and had all the trappings of a bright young thing. Until one day I realized I didn't want the life I had and didn't know why. I disliked my corporate job, was overstimulated in the city where I lived, and wasn't in love with the person I was sharing my life with. And I didn't know how I got there. I had heart arrhythmias, a completely flat menstrual cycle, and I couldn't find the energy or body I thought a 20-something should have.
 
And so my first major journey through my body and emotions had begun. It felt like something told me I had to start making choices for myself from deep within. (And I now know that something was actually me.)
 
I sought out a therapist, who helped me look at the patterns I'd developed in childhood and brought through to my adult relationships. I studied nutrition past the received wisdom of the USDA and fad diets and learned about how our ancestors ate and how distorted the food system has become in the United States. I experimented with eating different foods (raw milk! sauerkraut! arugula!) and trying to repair what had become broken. And I found purpose in my working life and sought to shift my relationship to the world around me.
 
This journey has had many hills and valleys, and it is ever-long in its winding. Since my healing up from chronic Lyme in the past decade, I have experienced significantly better health. I've borne a healthy daughter and improved my own markers continually. Now, at 40, I have perhaps the best health yet, in body, mind, and spirit. I am aware of my emotions and patterns, I work to strengthen and listen to my body, and I am in touch with my life purpose. I am more at ease and in flow.
 
The life I've co-created is pretty amazing, and it has looked vastly different at certain points along the way. I've had experiences with a very sick body, chronic illness, disruptive emotional patterns, limiting beliefs, and psychological blocks. I've run patterns of perfectionism, low self-worth, scarcity, self-sacrifice, people pleasing, depression, poor body image, and judgment, just to name a few. But along the way, I've met great teachers and guides, and I've gained a lot of knowledge about how we messy humans function. I'm grateful for my journey, as that's how I've learned what I know, deep in my bones. I'm excited to see what comes next and to share my gained wisdom and gifts with my clients.
 
We are here to lift each other up and remember who we are meant to be.
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I am here to facilitate that remembering.