Author’ s Note: Always seek input from your health care provider for any concerns for your health. This column is meant to be informational, educational and entertaining and is not meant as professional medical or mental health advice.
Fighting Irony and
Finding Authenticity:
Teaching balance while living in the chaos
There’ s a particular kind of irony that comes with being a yoga teacher, personal trainer and workplace wellness professional while simultaneously navigating a stressful life and chronic illness.
I have been a health and wellness professional for a large part of my career and knew decades ago I wanted to build a yoga and wellness retreat.
About nine years ago, I bought my 13-acre homestead to start Jones Wellness Ranch and have been plugging away at it to make it a place where others can come to enjoy nature, practice yoga and learn about nutrition, fitness and holistic living.
I feel the irony of helping others tap into their best self or focusing on a wellness goal while I’ m often just trying to keep my own body from staging a full‐scale rebellion.
Outside of Jones Wellness Ranch and the yoga classes I teach in the community, I work a high-stress, high-trauma, front-line job in a crisis response and social work type position. The vicarious trauma in the role is often bone deep.
Then there is the ranch work. Let me tell you, country living is not for the faint of heart. I am not living a“ pinstigram” kind of homesteading life.
I have chickens, goats, five rescue dogs and honeybees. I am progressively clearing my 13 wooded acres and planting crops that my goats climb a fence to eat. Or picking up something for the 18th time after my goats got into something or my dogs brought one of my shoes into the yard.
Last week I had to vanquish a six-foot snake out of my chicken coop. Last month I had to relocate an opossum from there. I once broke a toe and got a
concussion from running after one of my billy goats who climbed a fence and was sharing the love a bit much with my girls as I ran outside in slippers to get him away from my nannies and went head-first into a gate after tripping on my slipper.
I recently achieved apprentice-level master beekeeper designation and only last year got stung in the head 20 times when my hood slid forward and filled with bees.
Many assume that because you teach wellness, you should have somehow mastered it. As if certifications come with a magic spell that protects you from autoimmune flares, family stress, financial pressure or the exhaustion of being a person with dreams bigger than your current capacity.
The truth is that many of us enter the wellness world not because we’ re the epitome of health but because we’ re trying to understand our own bodies and our own healing. We teach what helps us. We hold space for others while feeling imposture syndrome on days of chronic pain. As if illness or pain was a personal failure on my part.
Sometimes you can guide someone through breathwork to reduce stress while your own nervous system is often stuck in survival mode. You can coach a client on sustainable habits while your own sleep cycle looks like an Etch A Sketch drawing.
And yet this is not hypocrisy. It’ s authenticity. Maybe modeling wellness needs to include showing our messy, stress” y” selves and in telling the truth. The irony isn’ t that I struggle. The irony is that people think I shouldn’ t. As if wellness professionals are supposed to be immune to stress, illness, grief, anger or the chaos of being human.
It makes me the kind of teacher who knows what it feels like to show up on the mat tired or overstimulated and being able to accept myself just as I am in that moment. As I encourage my clients to do as well.
Liz Jones is a certified RYT-500 yoga teacher, personal trainer and workplace wellness specialist dedicated to helping people build sustainable, compassionate relationships with their bodies. Living with chronic illness herself, she brings a grounded, relatable perspective to the wellness world – one that embraces humor, honesty and the imperfect path of healing. She spends her days teaching people how to breathe through stress while negotiating daily peace treaties with her own nervous system. She believes in real‐life wellness: messy, honest and occasionally held together by Skittles and coffee.
Look for her book“ Bad Yogi,” coming soon and visit her Facebook page to see upcoming yoga classes, workshops and events at https:// www. facebook. com / lizjoneswellness. com
For yoga classes in Greenville and surrounding areas, text( 715) 684-9297 or email lizjoneswellness @ outlook. com.
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