Since starting my journey with Natural Awakenings as an avid reader of the Rhode Island edition back in 2009, I’ve admittedly ridden the roller-coaster on and off the healthy lifestyle path.

May of that year, at the same time I picked up my first copy, I weighed in at 269 pounds. Over the next 12 months as I devoured my copy each month, multiple dramatic life changes began to occur. These changes included the healthy loss of 97 pounds. I felt great!

Some of the things I had been learning through the magazine like meditation, led me to a consistent practice that helped keep me grounded through some pretty challenging times that year. Little did I know what was to follow in the next few years to come, but that’s another story.

One of the most impactful life changes that year was a decision I made at the end of 2009 to leave the company I was previously so sure I would be retiring from at age 59 and a-half. I detoured into an opportunity that swiftly landed me career-less by the end of April 2010.

It was then that I discovered Natural Awakenings was a franchise and made the decision to go all in. I pretty much sold most of my belongings for what was to become my new life in Brookline, Massachusetts, where I rented a condo from a dear friend as I started my publishing journey.

Starting the magazine grass-roots style with copies from the Rhode Island and Naples, Fla. editions, I set about my new career and subsequently began to lose all of those great habits I had been practicing as a reader. Now I was working from early morning into the night, grabbing junk food along the route as I slowly edged away from living the healthy lifestyle I was simultaneously promoting.

As I've especially ridden the weight-gain/loss healthy habit coaster during the last several  years, self-judgement crept in as I drifted further and further away from my personal perception of what a Natural Awakenings publisher “should” look like.

The weight of this incongruent lifestyle dampened my ability to be the best I can be for myself and for our community, leading me to look for ways to hide or escape by selling out or simply quitting.

Today, I’m aiming to follow this month’s theme of balancing energy. Committing to a few of the plethora of tools I’ve learned about on this path, I’ll lean into incremental change and breaking through the limiting beliefs that hinder me from showing up at my best. Stay tuned, God only knows where this is gonna go!

I’ll leave you with today’s timely daily quote from a text subscription I picked up along the way from noted business philosopher Jim Rohn: 

“If you don’t like your present situation, change it. If you haven’t got enough, change it. If there isn’t plenty, change it. If it isn’t to your liking, change it. You don’t like your present address? Change it. You’re not a tree!”

With the holiday season upon us, may you find a tool or two that help you balance your energy within our pages.

I’m grateful to each and every one of you for your readership and support and wish you a healthy and happy Thanksgiving.

Peace,