You read that right, three spine surgeries. In five years.
And no, I didn’t have an accident, and no one in my family has back problems. There was no obvious explanation for why this kept happening. Even my doctors have been just as baffled as I have been throughout this entire journey.
I’m going to be very real with you: nerve pain from spine issues is the most horrific thing I have ever experienced.
If you have never experienced true nerve pain, I hope you never do. It is unlike anything else. It is relentless. It takes over your entire life because your spine and your nerves control so much of what allows you to move, feel, and live independently.
The best way I can describe it is like being violently stabbed while being on fire and hit by a car all at the same time. And the worst part? It doesn’t stop. Pain like this changes you.
From 2020-2025, I went down hard three separate times and ended up having two lumbar microdiscectomies and eventually a spinal fusion (all at L5S1). Before my last surgery, the pain became so severe that I spent an entire month on bedrest. I went from being someone who loved movement, dance, and staying active to not knowing when I would be able to walk normally again.
There were moments where I was beyond terrified, moments where I wondered if my life would ever look the same, moments where I was hanging on by a thread wondering how I would continue to endure the pain and suffering I was experiencing.
Looking back now, I can honestly say I made it through that season because of two things: God’s grace and the mindset work I had already done long before my health challenges began.
The Mindset Work I Didn’t Know I Would Need
Before my spine issues became such a major part of my life, I started working with my own life coach. At the time, my coaching had nothing to do with my health. I was focused on building my business, developing healthy relationships, and becoming the person I knew I was capable of becoming.
I felt like everytime I would try to move forward in life I would run into an invisible wall. I am a go-getter who knows how to make things happen, but everything felt so much harder than it needed to be, and things were just not happening. Through my coaching I extracted past pain from my life, rewrote limiting beliefs that no longer served me, reconnected to my intuition and began moving forward again this time from a place of authenticity and alignment.
All of this healing and personal growth work I was doing in my coach prepared me for one of the hardest seasons I would ever face.
The emotional resilience I was building through personal growth became one of my greatest tools during my health journey. When you are facing something that you cannot control, your mindset becomes one of the few things you still have ownership over.
That does not mean I was positive every single day and let me tell you, I wasn’t. I cried. I was frustrated. I got very angry with God. I questioned why this was happening. I had moments where I was exhausted from fighting through something that felt so unfair.
But there was a difference between having hard moments and letting those moments define me. The mindset work I had done helped me recognize that my circumstances were something I was experiencing, but they were not who I was. When I felt like I was at a breaking point, I prayed to God to help me endure, and He answered. I gave gratitude for anything and everything, like the fact that I was still alive and breathing, that I had the support of a loving community when I needed it most, and that I trusted my intuition firing an horrible doctor and finding an amazing new doctor who got me back on track.
Learning How to Move Forward When Life Changes Overnight
I used to think resilient people were just naturally stronger. They handled everything better. They somehow avoided fear, doubt, and frustration. I don’t believe that anymore. Resilience is built in the moments when you have every reason to give up but choose to keep moving forward anyway.
A positive mindset is not pretending something is easy when it is not, it is allowing yourself to acknowledge how difficult something is while still believing there is hope on the other side. I prayed, read the Bible, watched funny TV shows, cried on friends shoulders, thought the pain would never end…but it did. God is so good!
The Invisible Wall That Keeps Us Stuck
This lesson is something I now see constantly in my coaching practice. As a Dallas life coach coaching clients across the country, I help people navigate those seasons where they find themselves asking, “What now?”
“What now?” seasons can show up in your career, your business, your relationships and your life in general. Sometimes you find yourself thinking ‘there has got to be more to life than this’ as you’re navigating burnout from health events or career stress, when you’re tired of dating the same emotionally unavailable guy over and over, or as you realize that the life you built no longer feels aligned with who you are becoming.
I always say that if something isn’t happening in your life, it’s because you are lacking clarity.
Through coaching, I found clarity by reconnecting to myself, rewriting limiting beliefs, making decisions from faith instead of fear, letting go of old stories, and taking the space to truly invest in myself.
That is the power of coaching. It helps you uncover the things happening beneath the surface so you can understand yourself, rebuild trust in yourself, and move forward with clarity.
My Recovery Defied the Odds
There are parts of my recovery that astonish me. I spent over a month barely able to walk. I was told that because of how long I had been inactive, I would most likely experience significant muscle loss. But I didn’t.
I maintained my muscle mass, and just three months after my spinal fusion, I was back in dance class, which is pretty much my favorite thing ever. When I went back for my follow up appointments, I saw nothing but shock on the faces of the nurse and the doctor. They would check their notes, confused that I was only a short time out form such a major surgery and yet I was moving and feeling so good. All of this is because of God’s love and because of mind over matter!
My body, that felt so broken, actually carried me through something incredibly difficult and allowed me to come out on the other side pain free.
Why This Journey Changed the Way I Coach
My spine surgeries changed my life in ways I never expected. I would never choose to go through that pain again, but I also cannot deny the growth that came from it. This long journey gave me so much more understanding and empathy for people who are experiencing pain of any kind, whether that pain be mental, emotional or physical.
I understand what it feels like to be in a season where you don’t recognize your own life anymore. I understand what it feels like to wonder what comes next. And that is why I am so passionate about helping others through their own “What now?” moments.
You don’t have to be recovering from spine surgery to be questioning everything and starting over. Maybe you are navigating a career transition, are feeling burned out or are questioning what you really want next in life.
The circumstances may look different, but the feeling of being stuck is something so many of us experience. My story taught me that hard seasons can change us, but they do not have to define us. There is always an opportunity to find clarity, rebuild confidence, and create a life that feels aligned with who you truly are.
If you are in a season where you are struggling and asking “What now?” I invite you to apply for a complimentary consultation so that you can feel supported, seen, and understood as you too overcome the odds.
