A busy wife and mother Dawn is a former blacksmith, horse trainer, and riding instructor who began teaching at age 14. She has also worked in other fields including new-product development, marketing, and software design, usually while continuing to teach and train horses full or part-time. Returning to school at age 34, she attended Palomar College, earned a place on the Phi Theta Kappa All-California Academic Team, and transferred to Stanford University where she studied Psychology. Dawn now provides support to her husband’s start-up business, home-schools her 8 year old son, teaches Math and Science workshops at her son’s Charter School, and teaches Science classes at home.

In addition to pain from previous back and knee injuries, Dawn was diagnosed with fibromyalgia last year then several months later ended up in the ER with pain and heart palpitations due to stress.

Dawn realizes she has lost sight of her personal needs in her desire to provide support to her family and that making time for herself is her main priority in her journey to regain health. She looks forward to climbing stairs without pain, then swimming, hiking, and playing with her family again!

HEALTH ISSUES

Stress (stress-medication), fibromyalgia, spinal fracture, knee surgery (pain medication), asthma (asthma medications)

MY GOAL

My goal is to reduce stress by focusing on the things that stress me the most:

Reducing pain from fibromyalgia, back & knee injuries.

Increasing my physical strength & stamina.

Committing to healthy stress-management practices.

At the end of this challenge I want to:

Have made healthy stress-reduction practices a permanent part of my life; stop taking medication.

Manage my fibromyalgia & reduce pain through healthy means; reduce/eliminate pain medication.

Have significantly reduced my back & joint pain; reduce pain medication.

Have measurably increased my overall physical strength, flexibility, & stamina.

Swim a mile.

Hike 15 miles with manageable pain.

Have regained self-confidence & feel good about myself again!

WHAT MEETING MY GOAL MEANS TO ME

It sounds trite but it’s absolutely true: Meeting my goal for this challenge will truly give me my life back!

With less pain, I hope to wake up in the morning and stand without difficulty and not shuffle my feet for the first hour or so until my body has sufficiently warmed up. The stairs in our house will not be an obstacle that I plan around. I will have more energy so I can get those everyday tasks done quickly and have more time for myself and my family.

Once again I’ll have the energy to run and play with my husband and my son. To go on all-day hikes, to swim at the beach, to simply take our dog for the long walks we enjoy so much. The energy to spend the day on field trips teaching my son while he explores and discovers a new topic or idea. To teach a morning of classes and not need energy bars and espresso to keep my brain functioning. To be able to do the everyday household chores in a timely manner and then have time to relax instead of falling onto the couch in exhaustion to sleep for several hours.

I will reclaim my health and the fundamental feeling of myself as a physically strong and capable woman!

MY LIFE WILL CHANGE

I’m excited and looking forward to the journey to achieve my goals!

Right now I realize I’ve really lost sight of myself and my own needs at this point in my life. I love all the things I’m doing but I’ve realized I’m focused intensely on these things to try to ignore my physical pain and exhaustion. I’m certainly not going to find balance and healing in my life with that kind of strategy! I believe that addressing my health and fitness issues will reduce my stress, and the only way that will happen is to actually schedule time each day for my health and well-being. During this challenge I’ll focus primarily on regaining my health but after this first goal is achieved I must continue to keep this time for myself! I need the mental breathing space which is essential to me, and which has been completely non-existent for too many years.

Currently I feel as though I’ve been in a negative loop of pain, which increases my stress, which increases my pain, which makes exercising unthinkable. Then the lack of exercise increases my pain, and stress—all of it is just exhausting! I have little energy to get through the day and frequently must nap in the afternoon or spend the weekend in bed resting and sleeping to recover from the activities of the previous day or two. It takes me much longer to complete a task than usual because I move more slowly and must rest more. I don’t take walks with my family or spend much time on my feet because the pain becomes too intense

I see my stress and pain issues being inseparable from my lack of strength and stamina, and all these issues get in my way of spending time with my family and from being who I am!

I remember when I could shoe a horse, ride horses or bikes for hours, go rock-climbing or kayaking, hike all day, and have a very healthy pregnancy at age 43—that’s who I am! Not this person I’ve become who struggles with stress and pain, and feels powerless to take time for her health. I am so ready to learn new tools and to put them to use by fighting my way out of this quicksand and to back to my old/new, real life!!

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