Jo Waller:
The Rise of 'Shine'
My reasons for starting up ‘Shine’ are simple .. In this world today there are so many people battling against the pressures of life that they no longer seem to take the time for themselves. Rushing around with families, careers, pressures to pay the bills and achieve what is expected of them rather than what they want to achieve .. Dreams and ambitions are forgotten along the way and taking the time to care for themselves become further and further down their list of priorities.Through out my years I too have struggled with what life has thrown at me .. But I am a fighter and with each challenge I have fought, I have discovered so much more from life and what I want to get out of it .. Reaching goals I would have never have known even existed to me.
Losing my sister at an early age always made me see life from a different perspective and during the time that she was unwell I became a person who truly cared, I had an appreciation for those around me, family, friends, even people that I would barely know, because I knew that inside each individual they too were experiencing their very own challenges in life. I knew that if they had the same help and support which had been given to me, then their journey would become more bearable, as support that I received did for me.
Throughout my life, whether it be school, college, in the work place .. people would always feel that they could open up to me and talk about issues that they were experiencing. After taking the time to really listen and supported them in their decision making, I saw the life changing results that these people could achieve. This inspired me to decided that if I was blessed with having an ability to help people, then I should make this my life time ambition and through 'Shine' my ambition could become my career.
In Feb of 1999 I trained to be a level 2 Fitness Coach with the YMCA .. What better way to help people than to be able to advise them on their health and fitness . I stayed in the fitness industry for many years and would mainly concentrate on weight management as it seems with lack of education about nutrition and fitness and its relation to good health, with busy days at work for people where lunch is nothing more than something grabbed to fill a space, and also reduced time due to busy lifestyles and the breaking down of family structures for families to be able to sit down together at the dinner table to a wholesome cooked balanced meal. These were all helping to contribute to the growing high levels of obesity in both adults and children. I believe educating people of the importance of a healthier and balanced lifestyle is a good step to dramatically improving many peoples lives.
In 2007 I took the first steps to start up 'Shine'. I studied Advanced Nutrition, Life Coaching and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and after a lot of hard work and time dedication I was proud to have achieved an A pass in each of the subjects, all of which are practitioner levels.
Through 'Shine' I will be focusing on helping people make Positive Lifestyle Changes. I will be specifically working with individuals around the topics of Diet, Exercise, Motivational Mentoring and Stress Reduction particularly if work or relationship related. All of which will be achieved through E mail support or face to face depending which would be more suitable.