From Survival Mode to a Life I Don’t Need to Recover From
My health and wellness story is deeply personal — probably a lot like yours.
For most of my life, I lived in survival mode without ever calling it that. I was born with strabismus, a misalignment in the eye muscles, and I dealt with digestive issues from a young age. There were moments those things left me feeling stuck in my own body. So I learned to keep going anyway — through school, through law school, through every job that followed. I got very good at staying composed on the outside, even when things didn’t feel steady on the inside.
Back then, I was mostly sedentary and living on fast food. I told myself I just wasn’t the healthy type. The stress of law school made my gut issues harder to ignore, my eyes always felt tired, and for the first time I felt physical pain that seemed to come from somewhere I couldn’t name. I didn’t understand it yet. I only knew something in me wasn’t okay. I started dabbling in yoga, pilates, and spinning to feel better — though never with any real consistency.
Where Things Began to Shift
In 2002, I became an attorney and moved into private practice — the kind of high-pressure, high-stakes profession that rewards staying composed no matter what’s happening underneath. In 2012, I closed that practice and shifted to public service, but the demands didn’t ease. These were the very environments that taught me to hold it together on the outside while things felt anything but steady on the inside. Then everything started to change when I found CrossFit in 2014.
CrossFit helped me loosen some of the beliefs I’d carried for years — that I was lazy, that my body was working against me, that health simply wasn’t for someone like me. For the first time, I connected with myself in a different way. I wasn’t moving to fix myself. I was learning what my body could actually do. I started making different choices around food and rest, and I began to feel what steady energy really felt like.
I grew curious about how I could care for my health beyond exercise. That curiosity led me to my first health coaching certification. Studying integrative nutrition showed me that nourishment isn’t only about food — it’s about all the parts of life that support how we feel. Things began to settle, even when work was demanding.
When the Old Patterns Returned
I was hooked. I even opened a coaching practice. But when a high-stakes government role came along, I stepped back toward the very kind of environment I’d once promised myself I’d leave behind.
Slowly, I slipped back into survival mode. The pressure around me returned, and my body responded the way it always had. The stress already imprinted in my nervous system came back, this time even stronger.
Years of chronic stress began showing up in ways I couldn’t ignore. Unpredictable digestion. Deep fatigue that sleep didn’t touch. Ongoing inflammation. Brain fog. I felt wired and worn out at the same time. Even when I was eating well and moving my body, I still felt stuck. I wasn’t only tired. I was disconnected from myself.
Alongside diagnoses of IBS, silent reflux, chronic gastritis, and arthritis, I stayed curious about how to truly support my health. That curiosity led me to more certifications that shaped who I am today. And through that deeper learning, I finally understood something that changed everything.
What I Came to Understand
Stress isn’t only what’s happening around you. Your body carries its own response to it, and the two shape each other constantly.
I could see how stress had been cycling through my body and my days for years — touching my sleep, my digestion, my energy, my focus, my ability to care for myself in the ways I wanted to. It made the basics around nourishment, movement, and rest feel so much harder to reach.
The problem was never a lack of discipline. It was that the patterns underneath my life had never had the support they needed. And when I began to change my relationship with stress — working with both what was around me and what was happening inside me — my energy stopped feeling so drained. I stopped fighting against myself. I started building habits that actually held.
That’s when I understood this work isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about building a life you don’t need to recover from.
Why I Do This Work
That understanding is what brought me here. In March 2025, I stepped away from public service, and from the law career that once shaped the path I now walk. It was time to build something that felt true.
I find deep meaning in helping people reconnect with themselves and care for their health in a way that fits real life. I’ve been doing this quietly my whole life — with family and friends, as an attorney, and now as a coach. This time, I gave my coaching practice my full heart, and Timbiriche Vida Health Coaching grew from there.
My work weaves together lived experience and professional training. These certifications are the tools I’ve gathered to walk alongside you — not to hand you rules, but to help you understand your own patterns and build support that actually fits your days.
Let’s Work Together
If any of this feels familiar — the fatigue that lingers, the habits that never quite hold, the sense that stress keeps getting in the way of caring for yourself — please know you’re not doing it wrong. You may simply have never had support built for your real life.
You don’t have to have it all figured out to begin. I’d be honored to walk alongside you as you reconnect with your body, rebuild your energy, and build healthier habits that fit your real life.
When you feel ready, let’s take the next step together.
Your health is your power,
