My guest today is Erika McNeil, a mom of two and a very active woman that loves the outdoors. In fact, in recent years she has seen significant gains in her fitness and has felt stronger than ever! But it all came to a grinding halt when a freak accident ripped her shoulder apart.

If you’ve ever been sidelined by an injury or a major life event, this episode was meant for you.

Listen in as Erika shares her mindset work and perspective through the tedious process of rehabbing, and the turning point in her healing process that made all the difference in the world.

“I feel like one of the most challenging things that we can ever encounter in our health journey is having the desire, the motivation and the drive to show up and do all the strong things, but then suddenly getting sidelined by an injury or a major life event. And I know that you are intimately familiar with what that feels like.”

Some quotables from this episode:

• “I need to put in the work - nobody’s going to do it for me. It’s ok…there can be joy each day in the journey, because it really is a journey.”
• “The day in and day out of healing can become so mundane, so you have to learn to find joy in the mundane.”
• “Looking back, I didn’t care about my body. I just wanted instant results. It was very unhealthy…I didn't know how to actually take care of it.”
• “I tend to hide. So it was really good to have the moment of being called out and told, Hey you need to deal with this. This is not something that’s going to go away if you hide, this is something you need to address.”

Here are some of the questions I ask Erika in this interview:

1. How have you been sidelined in the past few years?
2. What does that feel like, emotionally and mentally, to be forced to slow down and focus on having different goals than you want to? Have you ever felt like giving up on your fitness in those moments?
3. You used to have very unhealthy habits and I know you’ve tried a bunch of fad diets in the past - In the past, what would happen to those particular methods when you hit a speedbump or a challenging season in life?
4. Compare that to now. You’ve been a member in my Strong Mommas Coaching Program for quite a few years now, through many of these ups and downs, so how have you been able to still utilize the knowledge and habits you’ve learned from Strong Mommas during these challenging seasons?
5. What has been the most significant event (or lightbulb moment!) in your entire fitness journey? (Becoming an active participant in your healing process - how did you learn this? What does that look like? ) What has God taught you the most?

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