Author: Cheryl Ilov

Episode #164: Heart Fire, Spirit, and A Higher Power with Thomas Wurm

Thomas Wurm is the owner and creator of Mountain Mind Tricks, a company which focuses on life coaching, guided meditation, fitness, and nutrition. He is a Wildland Firefighter, Master NLP practitioner, author, coach, sports nutritionist, and fitness trainer. Thomas is also the host of The Conscious Fire Culture Podcast, which is about alternative mental health for wildland firefighters and connecting them with alternative methods of healing.

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Episode #163: Awareness, Potential, and Human Dignity with Scott Forrester

Scott Forrester is a movement expert, mind-body specialist, licensed PTA (physical therapy assistant), Certified Personal Trainer, and Feldenkrais practitioner. He is also the host of The Aware Athlete Show and author of the book “The Aware Athlete: How the Wild Origins of our Human Nature and the New Science of Neuroplasticity are Redefining Fitness.

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Episode #161: Giving Hope and Making an Impact with Bettina Brown

Bettina Brown is a physical therapist who is also board certified in both wound care and lymphedema management. Her professional experience, continuing education and expertise led her to work with clients one-on-one who are either going through, or have gone through, breast cancer treatment and lymphedema.

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Episode #159: God’s Plan and Barking for Balance with Pat Buttitta

Pat “Packman” Buttitta is a dog behavior and rehabilitation specialist, founder, and owner of Packman to the Rescue: K9 Solutions and Coaching where he focuses on training people, not dogs. What makes Pat’s story so compelling is that he was afraid of dogs for over 25 years. However, once he confronted and overcame his fear of dogs his life changed forever.

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Episode #158: Climbing the Mountain of Life

Jamie MoCrazy is a keynote speaker, resilience advocate, and resilience sport expert. She is also a TBI survivor and co-founder of MoCrazy Strong, an organization which provides TBI specific opportunities and education as well as inspirational keynotes, programs, and workshops for TBI survivors and corporate organizations.

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Let Your Dreams Be Your Guide

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What are your dreams, and with whom do you share them? Do you keep them to yourself for self-reflection and contemplation, or do you hold them close to your heart? Or, are you someone who doesn’t remember your dreams?

I come from a tribe who have very vivid dreams and share them freely with each other. Or at least we used to when we were younger and spent so much time together. I grew up in a house with 4 sisters, 2 bedrooms, and 1 bathroom, so privacy itself was a dream. I never had my own room until I was 21 and a senior in college. That, my friends, was a dream come true!

But until that time, we shared everything, including our dreams. We even tried to analyze what they might mean, although some were pretty easy to figure out. Like the dream my mother had when my grandmother died, ten years after my grandfather did. She dreamed that she was alone on the property where her childhood home stood, and where she was born. The house was gone. Vanished. All that was left of the site was dirt. She wandered alone over the mounds of dirt, desperately looking for her parents as well as her childhood friends.

My mom woke up with a heavy heart, and she told me about it when I called her a few days later, as I was safely ensconced in my own apartment. Which also included my own room, my own closet, and my own bathroom. “Oh, Mum,” can’t you see what that symbolizes?” Mom replied, “I never thought of it that way.”

Dreams give us a way to process our feelings, emotions, fears, desires, and so much more. Hmm, perhaps we should pay closer attention to them. Sweet dreams.

A Renaissance Woman

I have been musing over my recent podcast episode with the amazing Joy Johnson titled Bold, Brash, and Beautiful. Although I have “known” Joy for several years, I really didn’t get to know her until we had a vibrant conversation during her interview. Joy was full of surprises. She even left me speechless, which has only happened a handful of times in my lifetime.

For example, Joy explains that she had a fascination with engines at a very young age, and began tinkering with them. She discovered that she was a mathematical genius in high school. Who knew? She has a self-proclaimed violent streak. I would like to dispute that last point, since she used that “violence” to protect her younger siblings, as well as other kids who couldn’t protect themselves. I call her a mama bear. Or a warrior.

Regardless of how you label it, this passion for protecting those who can’t protect themselves led her to pursue training in Krav Maga. If you aren’t familiar with Krav Maga, it is totally bad-ass fighting system, which Joy now shares with other women through her self-defense classes.

She earned a degree in engineering from The Colorado School of Mines, and then decided it was time to tap into her feminine side. So, she began pole dancing. She loved the strength and power of pole, as well as the sexy side of the sport. She became so passionate about it that she enrolled in the teacher training program at a lovely studio called Studio 3sixT.

Joy shares her passion with the many women she teaches and is a role model and inspiration for all of them, including me. The definition of a Renaissance woman is one who is a highly cultivated. One who is skilled and well-versed in many fields of knowledge. You might call Joy a Renaissance woman. But I call her a warrior.