Trailblazing Wellness: How I Designed My Own Liberation
I’ve never really fitted in. Maybe you haven’t either.
You aren’t alone, many of us here feel like misfits, pariahs or some call us pioneers. You’re in good company.
So I didn’t fit in, I’d like to say that’s ok, but it was painful, the sharp sting of rejection, of loss.
It hurt as a child, as a young adult, and it would hurt still, but for the shift I’m going to share with you here.
Being the odd one out can be lonely, tiresome, onerous. I wanted to fit in with a desperate hunger. But I was, among other things, ill, visibly disabled and I couldn’t push the symptoms aside long enough to convincingly “hustle and #BOSS it” along with my peers.
I had a plan for my life, it was pretty standard; school, exams, university, career, change the world…
Maybe getting pushed off my original life plan wasn’t my choice. But blazing a new one can be.
What is Trailblazing Wellness? And what’s it got to do with feeling like a misfit and ‘failed’ life goals?
Oxford English Dictionary Definition:
Trailblazer | noun | trail·blaz·er \ˈtrāl-ˌblā-zər\:
A person who blazes a trail for others to follow through unsettled country or wilderness
First person to do something or go somewhere
My Definition:
Trailblazer | noun | trail·blaz·er \ˈtrāl-ˌblā-zər\:
Someone who, when life crisis throws them off track, forges a new path & blazes their own trail.
If your health, your hopes or your heart are feeling wonky, wounded or won’t work as you’d like then you are in the right place.
“[Illness] is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”*
Illness has been called “another country”, and it’s not just illness we get lost in, but pain, accident, trauma or grief.
They are our own personal wildernesses, and you are finding a way through the wilderness, you are the first to do it in your life, the only one who can, but you don’t have to do it alone.
We trailblazers, we survivors, we struggling but still breathing can come together and follow in the footsteps of those who have traversed these struggling ways before us.
I have struggled through many of these places, I’m waiting on the other side for you, I want to hold your hand, to reassure you that it won’t always be like this and that even when it hurts more than you can bear, even when you feel like giving up, I believe in you.
Blazing my own liberation trail
If you’ve followed my work for a while (thank you), you’ll know I began writing about coping with illness, about feeling like a sick chick but knowing you are not only an ill person, you are a multifaceted, valid, worthy human. The disabilities, grief and challenges do not have to be all that you are (even if it feels like it). They can, in fact, be the footnotes and YOU can be an adventure story (yes, even from your hospital bed).
I was a sick chick, I turned trailblazer. So what if you feel like a lot more like a sick chick then a trailblazer? If you feel like both? If you don’t feel anything like a trailblazer? That’s ok, here we embrace all of you.
How do you shift your thinking, embrace all you are and blaze your own trail? Download my how-to guide here (it’s free). And let’s bust any misconceptions – being a trailblazer isn’t about aspiration and outward achievement, it’s about empowerment. You don’t have to become a motivational speaker or start your own business (although you can). You too can build a meaningful, fulfilling life.
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We can all choose trailblazing
But illness and disability are not all I have had to cope with, and are not the only topics I work on with my private coaching clients.
My counselling skills/coaching/teaching training all equip me to work with many issues and my work has included not only illness and disability, but life challenge and emotional struggles including grief, mental health struggles, accident, sexual and non-sexual trauma.
I also support people in building a new life through their recovering, including building a business or creative project.
If you have adversity, pain, grief, struggle I am here for you.
Why ‘Trailblazing Wellness’? Because when you can’t take the path you planned due to illness, accident, trauma or grief, you have to find a way back to yourself, forge a new path and blaze a trail!
P.S I’ve been beavering away over at GQ HQ (gracequantock.com headquarters) and have been spiffing up the website, polishing and simplifying. I totally love it and I hope you like it too.
There’s some exciting news to share: GraceQuantock.com is now officially Grace Quantock Trailblazing Wellness (Un)Ltd.
Look out for shiny new offers coming soon, hop on my list below for early-bird discounts, offers and other goodies.
* With apologies to LP Hartley for the mis-quotation
Photo Credit: Major Clanger via Compfight cc
Photo Credit: Paul Weeks Photography via Compfight cc
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