All I wanted to do with the VA was get my disability.
And so I left the military in April of 2020,
I had a MRI early August of that same year, 2020.
And it was just for my shoulder, you know, I just needed to get my crappy
shoulder looked at from the military because they beat me up a lot.
And, you know,
that's all I wanted was, you know, get in, get out, MRI and, show up to the MRI.
Everyone was pretty friendly.
They pulled me out and I thought I was done.
And I still remember this nurse.
She pulled me out midway through the MRI and she she goes,
The MRI is not done yet.
We found something in your brain,
trying to get authorization to do another MRI today.
Hopefully we can do it today.
You walk into the VA for shoulder cramps. You walk out with cancer.
Whole Health is a department that was created to give the veterans another option.
Find a way to get back to the way that they want their health and wellness to be.
We give them programs in order to find the right fit
for the right thing that they need at the right time in their life.
I think the biggest thing is putting them
back into the driver's seat of their health,
right? Not putting it off on anybody else.
Understanding that it is truly themselves are the ones
that are going to drive them forward to get to the places they want to go.
And I mean, honestly speaking, just from
my experience, the treatment's not that bad.
You know, radiation or chemotherapy,
it's really not I never lost my beautiful locks of hair.
And, you know, I never like upset stomachs at all.
You know, I had a very easy time with my treatments.
But the one thing that really destroyed me was my mental capacity
and just the spiraling effect.
You know, I just
it was hard to think of the next week, the next day even, You know,
people were talking about plans in September and it was like,
am I going to even live till next September?
Whole Health coaching is really working with
a battle buddy, per se,
somebody that's there for you that can support you
to keep you accountable for what's
for where you want to go with your goals.
Really having that support person
that can help celebrate the wins along the way.
Having somebody there to help remind you why it was that
you started this goal in the first place.
We began with a personal health inventory, and it's something that even
if it's over the phone or whether it's virtually that's mailed to you
or face to face, we can work on it face to face.
And it goes over all the different areas of self-care.
And we talk about each one, what they mean to them
and where they would like to be in those areas,
kind of the changes that they want to make.
And how they want their future to look like.
Because it’s hard to speak to your family when they start crying.
So, I spoke to her, her name was Tanisha.
She's my first Whole Health coach.
And it was very interesting, you know, the whole health coach,
they focused on like eight different areas,
you know, from fitness to sleeping, to diet, this and that.
Tanisha initially, she kind of
punched my soul
in the face of like, this is an easy day.
Like, you've done so much worse like, look at you like, let's go.
And she kept putting goals and I would
do to do to me being kind of a cocky guy, you know,
I put in a fake goal that I just thought she would want to hear,
but then she would double down and make me follow up on it.
And so it started getting annoying and suck, initially,
but she would just keep following up on me and keep pushing it.
And then as soon as I met that goal, it was like, Awesome, what's next?
And remind me a lot of the military of like,
you know, you accomplish the mission. What's next? Let's go, Let's go.
And, you know, it really reminded me of I actually have a tattooed on me.
It was really the phrase kind of OM which was Oscar Mike, on move,
which just means just keep going, just keep moving.
And so she really kind of opened me up with that of,
Hey, this doesn't define you.
Truthfully, the funnest part is those little wins every single session, every single day.
It's that huge thing where I get to say, Good job.
Look what you did.
Wow, you're amazing, right?
It's it's that huge win
that I get to celebrate with them. Sometimes they don't see it themselves.
I get to say, Look what you did.
I would I would tell a vet who's kind of resistant to the idea of health coaching
or just kind of anything that you're coaching, they kind of back away is
just give it a shot.
Honestly, I was very skeptical,
you know, at the end of the day, but I just needed someone to talk to.
You know, I was in the kind of the traumatic position of where it was at.
And I wish I wasn't in it.
But once you kind of talk to someone who's trained
and then knows how a vets mind works,
you know, I've just seen really tremendous growth, not in my
not only with my emotional and mental capacity,
but with just my lifestyle, with my relationship with my wife,
my dogs, my everyone I've spoken to, other vets even.
And, you know, it's it's interesting.
Like I, I own a business now.
Give it a shot.
You, give it a shot. I mean, because
you just don't know if it doesn't work out for you.
Cool. Maybe try a different coach or something else.
But the community of whole health is pretty amazing.
I mean, there's so much for everything to do and some people don't like coaching.
There's other stuff for you to do, but start with the coaching because they
have access to everything.