Meet Me - Leah Ryan

I love how people have just started developing a concern about the dangers impacting the Earth. 

But will their support stick around?

 I am a girl that was raised in a time when we sat at the dinner table with homemade food. 

Nothing from a box. 

Since I was able to remember, my Mom would say prayers before dinner .

 My Papa would teach us about the exposure to things like fluoride, sunscreen, and GMO’s, just to name a few.

 I grew up eating peas off the vines, picking fresh tomatoes in the hot Midwest sun, and patiently waiting for the strawberries to ripen from a garden I helped grow.

 As a ten-year-old, when I wanted extra money beyond my two dollar a week allowance. I earned my money picking rocks out of the garden all day. (Hey, at five dollars for a bucket of rocks, that was a lot of extra money!)    

I babysat as a teenager, and had my first after-school job at a screenprinting  and embroidery shop in Forsyth, Missouri at the age of 15.  (The  woman I worked for now handles my marketing and built this website!)

I  developed an entrepreneur's spirit.

While driving back home from taking my entrance exam to nursing school, I was in an awful car accident.

I remember opening up my eyes and I saw My Angel Wings on my car visor at an angle as if it was hovering above me.

I had many cuts from broken glass, and bruises everywhere. 

My head was gashed open so badly that they would have to use staples to put it back together.

As the paramedics lifted  the stretcher into the ambulance, my eighteen-year-old frightened and battered body was somehow alert enough to look over at what remained of my car.

My trunk had been completely pushed into the back of my driver’s seat. My passenger door was smashed up to the console at the right of my driver’s seat. My T-Top was even gone on the passenger side. 

What was left of my beloved 90's Camaro?

Just from my driver’s seat to the headlight on the front end of my car. My driver's side window, my T-Top above me, and my windshield were untouched.

Literally, everything else was destroyed.

 I shouldn’t be here. But, I am .

Five years later I was still dealing with horrific pain from this accident. I was taking pain pills for my neck and back. 

I was still working , despite the pain,  at a car wash in my bare feet and a  bikini. When I couldn’t feel a tiny beetle bug crawl across my foot, I freaked out and finally went to a neurologist. 

The diagnosis? He said I had three herniated discs in my lower back and two in my neck.

His prescription? He told me I needed to get a wrestler’s body! 

If I developed my core muscles using Pilates, my back would heal!

 I walked out of the office mad, hurt, and feeling fat. And my back still hurt! 

But, I decided to try it because he had assured me that was the ONLY solution! 

Now this happened just after I graduated from high school  in southwest Missouri. I had to dial 411 to find a Pilates instructor! 

I was led to a Pilates studio with a amazing instructor in Branson, Missouri, near the little town where I lived.

She then introduced me to Joseph, who became my mentor in all things holistic.

 Who knew that such a horrible car accident and years of subsequent chronic pain could be cured by a 411 inquiry? 

Little did I know that this 411 call would also set everything in motion for me to find my purpose in bringing holistic services to others!

If I had not had that car accident, I would have continued on the path to be a nurse, or maybe a doctor, in traditional medicine.

 I am at peace with the journey I have been on for over twenty-five years.

 My own challenges with my health, chronic pain, sensitive skin, and food allergies have developed compassion and empathy for those who are struggling with their own issues. 

I now have such amazing knowledge of the power that the earth has for us all. God made it and He made everything for a reason  . . . my love and respect for the earth’s environment, water conservation, and animals is at the heart of all that I do in both my business and personal life.

#BeInSerenity