I can honestly say I’ve shifted with the times.

The current pace of change on our planet, and in our country, is dizzying. It’s challenging to keep up with anything. Yet, one thing I keep finding that has been persistent my whole adult life, is that we are all instinctually aware that something is very wrong with our systems and our human conditioning.

This sense of unsettled minds, collectively, has us all realizing that yes, something has to change and it has so many people feeling like they need a hero, a savior, a role model, or at least an amazing influencer to make them feel ok. Thirty years ago, I sensed a shift would come during my lifetime that would be seismic. I finally feel like we are now shifting.

Up until about a year ago, it was easy to keep returning back to my same pattern of trying to swoop in and lift someone up who seemed to be struggling. If someone wanted a piece of my pie I was more than willing to give them more than they wanted. If they needed a step stool I gave them a ladder that was too tall for them to manage. It was innocent, but usually messy.

One of the things I kept missing when I looked at my own personality type was that I had always been “the challenger”. If you cross my path, I will challenge you to do better. Ok, well, that’s very different from being a Mother Theresa type, a Lifeguard or a First Responder type. Swooping into save people didn’t align or combine well with my coach-boss style.

I’m not saying that I recently woke up and read something brilliant or listened to some particular podcast that made me break out of this spell I was under. Yet, all of those things contribute to me waking up today and realizing the old way is gone. And if I have something to offer here, I want to start giving and creating the change I feel I was destined to create.

I’ve always been gifted with a lot of energy and passion in my heart center. While in the old world, which I sometimes refer to as 3D, I had this “trigger” for injustices. And everything seemed unfair. This cultivated a state of unease, or a way of life plagued by constant frustration. I had often given so much to people, including the benefit of the doubt, when I should have practiced discernment.

Practicing discernment came and went. It wasn’t what got me beyond the martyr role I started to see myself playing. So what in today’s world made the difference for me?

People are starting to shift. People are truly seeing that they will have to care for themselves. No health insurance company or huge profit-seeking healthcare conglomerate will save them in a time of crisis. People expect to be bankrupted by the system in a time of crisis.

People are looking for ways to care for themselves without the mainstream healthcare system. And that’s exactly what I have been trying to inspire since I became a licensed pharmacist in 1998, at the tender age of 23. I didn’t know how to inspire it. I just knew natural was better.

Eating healthy made sense. Movement, affirmations, reflections, exercise, travel, outdoors, laughter with friends, hugs, yoga, energy work, meditation, prayer, nature, pets, artwork, retreats, mentors, writing, music – I found medicine in everything around me and within me. I was a constant seeker.

Now, people are becoming inspired because they see a better way to their own good health, and survival. We seem to live in a “dangerous world” where we don’t know what to expect but we know we really depend on technology and our systems to stay safe, cozy and secure. So many fires and floods and other natural and man-made disasters show us that we are vulnerable. It also shows us that we need one another.

This is where I naturally, finally find myself. I’ve always been right here to help guide people through how to heal themselves how to be healthier and how to manifest what they really want in their lives. Before there was a thing called “life coaching” I wanted to become a “Holistic Health Counselor”. That’s how I referred to it back in 2001.

Even beyond the Wellness Coaching I do now, I’ve always used meditation and the Laws of Nature to achieve optimal wellness in my own life.

What does that mean?

It means I feel better than I have ever felt, and of course, I am older now than I have ever been! And that means I can relate to other people who are aging and transforming, and who are stronger than they would have dreamed possible. It means the kinds of transformations we are currently making now were perhaps not available then.

Our ability to share stories over social media is an excellent example of how we can see that our connectedness to one another has us trusting each other to help one another feel less alone. We all want to feel well. We all want to be happy about where we are in any decade of our lives. We are all helping one another figure out the best ways to reduce anxiety, sharing workshops, recipes, sharing product reviews and what has worked for us.

I can’t say that I support commercials for prescription drugs. I do support autonomy when it comes to learning about our own health, eating habits, lifestyle and how all of those things contribute to wellness. Yet, if you want to know what to ask your doctor for, ask a pharmacist – the screen does not provide heart-centered consultations, although it does provide direct-to-consumer advertising. You may not want to see yourself as a consumer when it comes to dangerous drugs created with profits in mind.

I believe that some prescription drugs help people in very important ways. I also know from first hand experience in the field that over-prescribing and overmedicating is a very harmful pattern that is normalized in American society. It’s encouraged by health insurance companies. It’s encouraged by big pharmaceutical manufacturers that put out the above mentioned commercials.

The average American can’t afford to be overmedicated in today’s world. We know we pay higher prices for the same prescription medications than citizens in Canada and Europe and other places in the world.

So now, people are looking within, and people are ready to use their resources to invest in themselves. Instead of using that money to buy expensive health insurance that still has high deductibles, copays and formularies to get around.

The systems themselves can’t provide for people, nor can they fool people anymore.

So as a culture, WE ARE READY. We are finally ready to use the natural, and very powerful, medicines found in nature and in food. We will use the Laws of Nature combined with good old common sense to get us to our healthiest state of existing. Health is wealth.

I didn’t have to do anything here except wait patiently, or not patiently, for our culture to seek out what I have always had to offer – and that is guidance and encouragement on how to do you and feel great about it.

It doesn’t feel anything like trying to save someone. I’m not pushing people to do better. They want to do better, and they’re coming to me because they know I have been there all along to show them the next way.

I’m certainly not the only person in wellness and healthcare that’s been there ready and waiting to help. So many have been actively engaging in this type of work for decades, and are pleasantly surprised that mainstream America is starting to feel more empowered about their ability to prevent disease. People can become even healthier than they were when they were younger.

What do I mean by this? One great example is people who do something simple like give up soda or alcohol, and they start to transform their whole life because all they needed was a kick start for their health and wellness journey. Once people start feeling great – that feeling is what inspires them to keep going.

People are inspiring themselves because there are so few heroes to be found. They are finding the hero within. They’re ready to invest in themselves. Their transformations and their stories are having a ripple effect.

They are inspiring me to keep going, too. We encourage one another. A healthy cycle. That’s the new model for total wellness.