Project Description
Terri, BC, Canada
“When I feel at ease with my body, and I do feel it, you’re not always weighed down by physical discomfort or pain. It’s very freeing psychologically to feel more at ease in your body. You carry yourself differently. You just feel like your shoulders are back and you’re facing the world instead of all hunched over and hiding from it, bearing with the pain. So when you realize that there’s hope at the end of the tunnel, it just improves your feeling about yourself and about everybody else immensely.”
Improvements with: Arthritis, Difficulty Walking/ Flexibility, Post-Accident Recovery, Self-Love & Love for Others.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Flexibility and Mobility. Because I've been inactive for so long and I have a lot of skeletal and physiological issues, damage from accidents and other things, plus some pretty bad arthritis happening and a condition called degenerative spinal, So I have pooching out discs and some nerve impaction and that and so my mobility and everything actually the problems I have with mobility with and with flexibility impeded my working out. | One of the most positive things is my increased mobility and my increased flexibility. It's amazing when you can finally stand tall again, you're not all hunched over and you're not babying the parts of you that hurt. |
| Fear of becoming immobile. I was afraid that sometime down the road I'd be ending up in a wheelchair. | I now think that I can probably deal with it. |
| Walking difficulty and pain when working in the garden. I couldn't go for walks for the longest period of time… I can always bend over and tie my shoes and things like that, but I work in the garden a lot and bending over at a certain angle really, really causes me a lot of grief over time. | I can actually go out on walks. I'm amazed I couldn't do that for the longest period of time. My husband and his sister go walking every Sunday for a quite long walk. I don't go because my back would tighten up so bad at certain points and I do not want to end up having to come back home or leave them and head back to the vehicle. So now I think that I can probably start joining them and be part of that. I am also looking forward to getting out in the garden and spending time there without hurting. |
| Downplaying and putting up with pain. I think I downplayed how down I was and I just thought, that's normal. So on a scale 1 to 10, physically, I would have rated myself at a five or a six or something like that. But that's just because even despite all the physical problems, I could still achieve a lot of, work around the house, work in the garden. I still had fun with friends. I'm not a person to take Tylenol or other painkillers I just kind of put up with it. But after everything you do all day long that level of discomfort and pain weighs on you. | You don't want to say you're perfect because then there's nothing to strive for, but because I know I'm not at the peak and I still have ways to go and things to achieve on my own, I'd say, physically, on a count 1 to 1-10, I’m 5.9-8.7. but I'd say everything is at a pretty high level. Now I feel like I don't have to put up with pain. I can do something about it. It means, I'm going to carry on with seeing a massage therapist more frequently, probably, joining a yoga class and doing a lot of more stretching. I've got a membership at Fitness World that I stopped, and I'm going to resume going there. |
| Mental Health. I was focused on physical changes and I didn't really expect the mental changes and I didn't expect them to be so sweetly profound. | It's a game changer and a life changer. it's a huge attitude adjustment. It's amazing what a big part of the whole program that is and that's what worked for me. |
| Being sceptical. I didn't think I would really enjoy sitting there doing artwork. | It was regaining a sense of being a kid again. I laughed a lot. I am much happier that I'd been for quite some time and I feel like a nicer person. I feel kinder and gentler. |
| Rigidity. I was rigid. I was very rigid when I got here. We all have preconceptions or misconceptions about how things are going to go it's sort of like just drop your expectations and see what happens. | When I discovered that it's a lot more fun to just be open than to sit back on your, oh, I'm this or I'm that. And just go, I don't know really what I am, but let's maybe make an attempt here to find out. I feel like it was like being a child again. That much enjoyment, just pure enjoyment, unsullied by any kind of attitude or adult oriented pattern of thinking. And it was just being in the moment and experiencing what I was experiencing and enjoying it. |
Experience Highlights:
- The camaraderie
- The group activities that I didn’t think I would enjoy, such as art classes
- The food was amazing, really beautifully presented, great flavours, great colours, really an inspiration and really healthy.
- Mental work
- Unintended things that never came into the picture when you were considering coming here. Here was a whole series of little epiphanies, things that would occur to me and I would go, wow, I never thought about that.
- Seeing improvements in other group participants: I watch them blossom and to go through similar transformation as I did.
The information above is based on the following resources:
- Unedited Video Testimonial Materials
- Before and After Self-Assessment
- Program Participation and Progress Sheet
- Emotional Wellness Test
Disclaimer : Results of participants differ and the Fresh Start cannot guarantee that you will experience your improvements in the same way as in this testimonial. The Fresh Start is not an allopathic medical facility and does not claim to either diagnose or treat any disease. The Fresh Start does not guarantee a recovery from any specific disease or a health symptom.
