ABOUT ME

Hi, I’m Suzy, and I have been freaking out since the third grade…

with my very first panic attack in the middle of a busy TGI Fridays.

I have written many bios about myself.   This is truly the hardest and most personal one I have ever written because my stress, anxieties, traumas and depression have always been my secret shames.  I have tried to ignore them, hide from them, outrun them, numb them and medicate them throughout my life and here I am, putting it all out there for the world to see.  Yet now, I have to share my story because it why I do what I do.

So here goes: I have been an anxious and nervous stressball since I was a little kid.  My mom has said I came out of the womb intense.  Most people probably couldn’t tell as I was a high achiever, a happy and polite kid with a loving family, good friends and a good life.  What could I possibly have to worry about? How could I possibly be so sad or nervous when the world was my oyster?

It all started in that TGI Fridays, in the summer between third and fourth grade, which  had just opened in our town and was THE new cool place to go to.  (If you have never been, picture Chotskie’s or Flingers from the movie Office Space, they were modelled after it.)  It was loud, crowded and FULL OF ENERGY. Waiters wore suspenders with whacky buttons.  The walls were covered with old beer neon lights and funny, vintage posters.  The table mats were made for kids, with games and puzzles and stuff to color with the crayons sitting at every table.  The food was different than other restaurants and was meant to be FUN! And out of nowhere, I felt nervous and panicky, like was going to throw up. 

“Oh my God”, I thought.  “I’m going to throw up in the middle of a crowded restaurant.  I can’t do that, I’ll be mortified.  I need to get out of here.”

My parents didn’t know what to do but indulged me in escaping to the car to lay down while they finished eating.  I was still hungry but my body had taken over and I just felt PANIC.  Over what, I had no idea.  This was supposed to be a fun night out with my family.  My brother was fine, I had left him at the table happily coloring.  I just knew I couldn’t eat right now as the thought of food made me want to throw up.  And that lasted the entire summer, where everytime I thought about food, I felt nauseous and just couldn’t eat.  I was a nervous mess.

At the end of August, I remember putting on my dress for my brother’s birthday and when I pulled my belt to where I normally wore it, it just kept going and going.  I looked down.  I had lost a lot of weight unintentionally and it was only that afternoon, when all the kids at the party started playing soccer and I joined in (cause I loved me some soccer), I got hungry enough to eat lots and somehow, my body rebounded.  I was back to being normal… sort of.

Since then, I’ve had various bouts with depression and anxieties and panic attacks.  And they all interrupted my life.  Sometimes they stopped me in my tracks and sometimes I was able to trudge through them but they all made it impossible to enjoy my life.

Doctors, while I know they mean well, didn’t help and only offered pharmaceuticals, which all had side effects and didn’t heal my bodymind.  In the long run, I had to learn how to heal myself.  I had to figure out why I struggled and how to grapple with my head.  It took many years of therapy, a bachelors in Psychology from UC Berkeley, hundreds of self help books, introspection, journaling, meditation and body work to truly understand why I struggled and how to get out from under it for good.

It has been my personal life’s work to wrestle with my body and mind and find ways to tame the anxiety, uplift the depression, change my mindset and not react to the stressors that come with everyone’s life.  And you know what?  I did it. 

I had always thought my sensitive reactions to the world was a curse.  I certainly felt cursed in the past.  But really it has been one of my gifts.  I am not alone in being an anxious stressball or a Debbie downer.  Life in this day and age is more intense and stressful than ever before and there are reasons that our bodies are responding this way.  It is not just our genes, as modern medicine would have us think, easily swept under the rug by a pill.  There are ways to get back to balance and feel happy and calm, despite the cyclone of chaos that may be whirling around you.  So I decided to teach what I know as a stress and anxiety coach, or as I like to call it a serenity coach. Because not only did I get an early and intense education into the land of an unbalanced nervous system, I also happen to have had unique experiences along the way that unknowingly at the time, made me uniquely qualified as a serenity coach.

Firstly, I have a bachelors degree in Psychology from UC Berkeley. After graduation, I was pursuing my passion of acting as a professional actress and voice over artist. An actor’s instrument is their body and I had years of practice of both relaxing and connecting with my body with various techniques, such as breath work, alexander technique, yoga and vocal training.

As a side hustle, I became a licensed massage therapist and energy healer and when in school, had hundreds of hours of bodywork: massage, polarity and cranio sacral, where it became plainly obvious to me that there is no separation between the body and the mind. I developed my own private massage practice and worked with hundreds of clients over 12 years..  During that time I also co-hosted the Food Heals Podcast where we talked about natural health and wellness, mind body connection and entrepreneurism.  Next I married another entrepreneur, my husband Michael.  Together, we started a hemp CBD company, CBD Fountain, and our focus was to create organic, vegan hemp CBD products to help people’s bodies heal naturally.  I created my tinctures specifically to help calm my own anxiety. And now, I am putting it all together. I am a certified anxiety coach and look forward to helping you on your zen journey

I currently live in Los Angeles with my husband and two gorgeous sheepadoodles (aren’t they cute?), Ernie and Rosie.

with love,

Suzy