Meet Sara

A Surprising Start

Hiya! I’m Sara, the person behind mshealthesteem.com. And I’ve been living with Graves Disease for more than 8 years. But I’m incredibly glad to be able to call myself a Graves Disease Thriver. This Autoimmune Disease has taught me so much about loving myself, feeding my body with kindness and making self-care a priority.

In April of 2012, after months of testing, I finally had a diagnosis. “You have Graves Disease”. These four words changed my life (as any chronic illness diagnosis inevitably would).

But despite the anger and devastation I felt initially, today I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the journey Graves Disease has allowed me to experience.

Weird, I know. But let me explain…

I definitely didn’t go from sick to grateful right away. That’s impossible! I had so many emotions to work through and took my sweet time (which is totally ok!)

But one day I woke up and realized that I wanted to do everything in my power to be well. I And I started on a pretty wonderful adventure, trying my best to learn how to thrive with an autoimmune disease.

I learned how to eat a more balanced diet. Which meant cozying up to green things I never would have eaten before. But also finding a way to make healthy eating fulfilling, fun and, ultimately, intuitive. Because there has to be room for dessert, am I right?

More importantly, I started to listen to the messages my body was trying so hard to tell me, and to treat my body with unconditional love and forgiveness.

And I learned something incredibly valuable from this experience…

• I deserve to be one of my top priorities.
• I deserve my own unconditional love and forgiveness.
• And it is totally possible to feed myself with kindness, thought and devotion and still love dessert. Balance is important.

(Fun fact – you deserve all of this goodness too!)

My disease might be incurable but that doesn’t mean that I can’t be well.

I will always have Graves Disease. But I’m well, I’m in remission, and I’ve joyfully created mshealthesteem.com, a little health haven where we can work together on self-care, acceptance, wellness and nutrition.

Everyday I feel incredibly passionate and grateful for my journey (a journey that couldn’t have been possible without Graves Disease). See – I told you the gratitude part would make sense in the end. 😉

If I can take such a negative circumstance do that with it, imagine what you can do!

A Healthy Lifestyle AND Modern Medicine 

My Graves Disease may be in remission, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t rely on modern medicine to help keep me well. I work with an endocrinologist that I adore, who monitors my condition and takes incredible care of me.

If my illness were to become aggressive again I would definitely take the needed medications and even consider other treatment methods if necessary.

I believe that it’s super important to take a balanced approach when it comes to wellness.

Yes, we need to participate in our healing and create a lifestyle that support our health and unique needs. But that doesn’t mean that doctors and modern medicine aren’t an integral part of our well-being. My lifestyle may be the reason that I thrive but my doctors are the reason I survive.

I urge everyone to seek the aid of a doctor when they need it. And work together to create a treatment plan that works best for you and your prognosis. Lifestyle changes aren’t going to be overly helpful if you’re not receiving the treatments that you need to be well.

A Little About Me In a Nutshell

I believe that:

• Wellness is a beautiful journey, not a destination
• It is imperative that our relationships with our amazing bodies be built on the foundations of kindness, patience, forgiveness and love and that our actions reflect those ideals
• Our struggles do not have to be our downfalls
• Modern medicine is an important part of our health journey and we must also be active patients and participate in our healing
• We are all capable of magic and deserving of joy

I choose to:

• Accept and love myself as I am, incurable illness and all
• Cherish my body and treat it with devotion and respect
• Lovingly support my well being
• Accept that change is a necessary part of the journey
• Find joy in the light and the darkness

I’d Love To Connect with You

I adore hearing from you! The best places for you to get in touch with me are in the comments on this site, by e-mail at sara(at)mshealthesteem.com or on social media like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest. I highly recommend connecting with me on Instagram. That’s where I love to share my adoration for self-love, self-care and food. I hang out there a ton!

And, my favourite way to keep in touch, you can sign up for my e-mail group! I’ll send you a free self-care planner. And on top of that goodness, I’ll send new goodness your way once a week, including self care ideas, recipes, inspiration, freebies and more. Sign up right here.

I’m so happy to meet you. Welcome to mshealthesteem.com!

Health and love,

Feed with such ID does not exist