About Me

upward facing dog in Scarborough, ME

In my life, I am beginning to arrive at an unparalleled place of empowerment, balance, courage, truth, stillness, and love.

A snapshot of me:
I am a 28 year old "Outside of Boston" Native. I graduated from Colby College in 2005 with a degree in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Human Development and Education. I am an adult and kids yoga instructor, a raw food enthusiast, and I enjoy making green smoothies on my bike blender. I definitely advocate for feeding oneself with more seasonal and local foods and for moving the body more and breathing more deeply! As I began to eat closer to the earth, I realized that nature is full of such nourishing gifts and abundance. I believe we need to be more connected to our food source and our bodies to truly experience long lasting vitality.

IIN Education:
I received my training to practice Health Coaching at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which is the only nutrition school integrating all the different dietary theories—combining the knowledge of traditional philosophies with modern concepts like the USDA food pyramid, the glycemic index, the Zone and raw foods. I am a Certified Holistic Health Coach by the American Association of Drugless Practitioners.

For more information about my education, please go to www.integrativenutrition.com.

Yoga Training:
I am trained in O2 Yoga, which balances many principles of Ashtanga Yoga with a more creative and less predictable Vinyasa-flow format. I studied with Mimi Loureiro and Elliot McEldowney in Boston, Massachusetts. I am excited to share with my students the power, joy, and openness that evolves from intentional movement and conscious breath. I am also a Certified Childlight Yoga Instructor (CCYI), having completed the Basic and Advanced Childlight Teacher Training with Lisa Flynn in South Berwick, Maine.

My Eating Lifestyle Journey:
My journey of taking back control of my health and being committed to a life of balance began in 2004, when I studied abroad in Kingston, Jamaica. Ever since I was thirteen years old, I used food to cope with my emotions, and as a result, my teen years were filled with disordered eating, depression, anxiety, and low self esteem. During that time, whether I was abstaining from it, or binging in it, food became an enemy, a stranger, and a fear. Food certainly became my shield over sadness and anxiety I experienced due to a sibling's struggle with mental illness. Food was something I hid from, or something I hid behind.

In 2004, when I studied abroad in Kingston, Jamaica, I truly began healing work. I began to meet a lot of health conscious people and natural healers. I would regularly visit Livity, a vegan Rastafarian restaurant, in Kingston, which is the inspiration for the name of my health coaching practice. Livity means life force and aliveness. In Jamaica, I decided I finally needed to change my eating lifestyle, because it certainly was not in equilibrium with who I knew I could be. There, I became a vegetarian, and I started a healthier and more sustainable way of life for me.

For me, a primarily plant based diet eating lifestyle has led me to become more conscious, balanced in mind, body, and soul, and it has also helped me heal and cleanse from old habits of emotional eating and destructive negative thought patterns.

Everyone's journey of self cultivation will be different, and it is my deepest hope that people can take back the happiness, self love, self confidence, and connection to nature and community that they deserve. I have now rediscovered that food is our blessing, our guide, our hope. It is certainly not our enemy. Food is such a gateway for how we are in this world.

My greatest gift:
The greatest gift I could have ever received was the lesson to live in the process of whatever I was doing, or thinking, instead of living in the destination. We must have radical acceptance and compassion with ourselves and meet ourselves where we are at. This gift of being in the moment has been a catalyst, a grounding force, a calmness, a friend, and a home in my self evolution and my awareness of we are all one.

For more info, please email me jeanette(at)livityhealthcoaching(dot)com