This is the story of how I ended going beyond what I thought were my limits. I have always know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Everyone knows that. It's clockwork and a function of time. But how many sunsets have you seen that were exactly the same? Not one...ever. So while we count on the sun to show up on time, and to disappear and give us night, we never put the expectation that the sun will be unchanging. Constant yes, but not unchanging. Yet we sometimes fence ourselves into so many rules and expectations and limitations that we think we can do life day in and day out, year over year, without ever really changing. It seems that it's always when hard things happen in our lives, we are forced out of our daily grind and pushed to reevaluate the lines we've drawn and the false sense of security within our self-imposed limitations. I guess this is mid-life crisis material and I just never got that memo -- now I know.

At age 42, I had five children and had been married for 19 years. I had this recurring thought, "I just don't know if I can do __________(fill in the blank) for another 20 years." It may have been triggered by our enormous Christmas' that I spent 2 months each year putting together, or the 26 people that ate Thanksgiving dinner at my house, or the fact that I had at least one birthday to celebrate every two months all year long, or homeschooling five kids, or the fact that I still fought with my husband about pretty much the same things we had fought about since day one. Maybe it was my orthodox and opressive religon and the incessant demands that were placed on me both internally and externally that I was not enough in every area of my life. My relationship to my family of origin was challenged on so many levels and I knew I couldn't maintain the demands and keep up with my own enormous family. I was deeply engaged in this relentless push for more and more and more. Even though I was being pulled in countless directions, I was honestly amazing! I did an incredible job at everything. That was the whole problem, the demands were limitless and I was exhausted. Some how, in th chaos, I had preserved this fragment of my life that was mine--that was completely selfish. When I went to this place I was nothing to no one. I was just "a runner" and nothing else. When I would go out on long runs, I could put everything out of my mind and just be a runner. It was magical. It was my sanctuary--my sacred place.

The unravelling was well under way, but it came to a head when my 19 year old son came out to me that he is gay. I didn't know then, that this would be one of the greatest things that could have happened in my life. But I know it now. At the time, because of my religious affiliation, it led me down a road of decision that became totally divergent. I could not maintain my religous belief system and preserve the life of my beautiful child. To leave the religon would make me an outsider in my whole culture and community. To turn my back on my child would have been to forsake my beliefs, my deepest sense of spirituality, and my life's work. I would often think of the poet, Robert Frost, and his poem "Walking by the Woods on a Snowy Evening". I had been faced with two divergent roads, the one I chose was less travelled by. Or was it? The first time I worked a FREE HUG booth at the LA PRIDE parade in 2014, I hugged many people that were certainly strangers to me then. I was on a completely unfamiliar path. I realized, somewhat painfully, that I had to change...that I was meant to change...my change was inevitable.

What I learned that day and every day to come, was that there was a whole universe waiting for me out there on the edge of the familiar. I had limited myself to such a small view of humanity and life and the magnificence of the world around me.

It was in all of this unravelling, and the unfamiliar, and the uncomfortable, that I came to really know who I am. I was amazing before, and I am amazing now...but now I am not afraid of what I don't know. I have boundaries without limits all around me, like fences, keeping me into my place. I see myself more like the sunset over the Pacific Ocean...that spans across the water as far as I can see; ever-changing and beautiful; predictable yet undefined.

Here begins the transformation of my life. It is here that I began to really check in with the limits in my life. Those I had put there, those limits that lived in my head, and even those that had been carefully placed there by others. What if the things we believe about ourselves are false? This is what lead me to health coaching. I wanted to be there for women on the precipise of fear like I was. And I want to thrill with them as they open the door of their limitations and see what awaits them? When they see for the first time the answers to thier own questions and hidden dreams: Why can't you be healthier? Why don't you run a marathon? Why aren't you happy? Why don't you feel good about yourself? These are not absolutes in your life. They are just dreams that are clouded over by limitations. You believe you can't or you won't or it's not possible. Maybe you are afraid of what will happen when you tear those limits down? What will happen if you join a gym? Or lose 50 pounds? Or get off that medication? Or find joy in your marriage?

I don't see limits now and I don't fear change because I know that I can be something new each day and that is both okay and extraordianry because down deep I know that I am the sunset. Let go of your limits, my friend.