Rachel's Reflections

This week’s first 'Women’s Wellness Wednesday' in our private community group hit deep. Like seriously, it was jaw dropping and heart-warming all at once.

For a while now, April (our health coach and my right hand woman) has been wanting to create something that brings women together around the topics that don’t always come up in class- the things we should talk about but often don’t. Between seeing clients, teaching, training, and helping run a studio with 48 classes each week, time is limited for both of us. But when one of our members approached her about wanting to share her story in hopes of helping others, the two ideas came together perfectly.

That’s how Women’s Wellness Wednesdays was born- not as another class or event, but as a space for connection, awareness, and honesty in our private MHF Community group.

This members story, if you haven’t read it yet, is one of courage and openness. She talked about her experience with Lichen Sclerosus, a condition that many women have never heard of, yet one that affects far more than we realize. Her willingness to share something so deeply personal wasn’t easy I’m sure, but it was powerful! It opened the door for awareness, education, and most importantly- conversation. The comments that followed (including my own) reminded me just how important it is to talk about ALLLLLL the things, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable.

That’s what this community is all about.

What April and this member started this week is more than a health post- it’s an invitation.

It’s an invitation to talk about the things that we often keep quiet. The things that we carry around thinking, “no one else will get this.”

But the truth is…. we all have something!

Maybe it’s something physical, like the health challenges we don’t know how to talk about… symptoms we ignore, pain we normalize, or appointments we keep putting off. Maybe it’s something emotional- grief, anxiety, loneliness, or the weight of trying to hold everything together for everyone else. Maybe it’s something life-changing- a diagnosis, a divorce, a loss, a family crisis, or just that overwhelming sense of “how do I keep doing it all?”

We have women in this community who are quietly going through breast cancer treatments…. showing up when they can, finding strength in movement, and seeking normalcy in the middle of something incredibly hard. Yet no one knows.

We have women navigating grief without saying a word.

Women trying to figure out how to move through a divorce quietly and painfully.

Women caring for aging parents, women living with chronic pain, and women who show up every day carrying invisible things no one else can see!

And yet…..

They smile.

They check in on others. They encourage. They show up.

That’s why kindness matters so much.

You never really know what someone else is walking through. The woman beside you in class might be fighting her own battle.

The one who seems quiet might be holding everything together by a thread.

The one who always makes you laugh might have cried in her car before walking through the door.

We talk a lot about strength here- physical strength, mental toughness, determination. But I think kindness is strength too. The quiet kind. The kind that sees others, that softens instead of hardens, that chooses compassion even when life feels heavy.

The recent member story in our group reminded me of that. So did the courage it took for her to share it.

My hope is that ‘Women’s Wellness Wednesdays’ becomes a space for more of this- for the things that don’t always get said out loud. The questions, the symptoms, the emotions, the taboos, the struggles. Because when one woman shares, it makes it easier for the next to do the same.

So thank you to the member who started this…. Thank you for your honesty and heart.

And thank you, April, for creating this space… for taking something you’ve dreamed of doing and finding a way to make it fit into our busy world.

Members, if there’s something you’d like to share- a story, a challenge, a topic that needs more light, I would encourage you to please reach out to April. You never know who you might help, or how your words could change someone else’s life.

And to everyone reading this: keep being kind. Keep showing up. Keep taking care of yourself and each other. Because behind every strong woman is a story.... and we’re stronger together when we’re brave enough to tell them.

💗

Until next Sunday.

-Rachel