By Sarah Nigbor
At one point in her life, business owner Valerie Lundgren felt helpless and afraid, anxious and overwhelmed. A few years after opening her retail store, her anxiety worsened when she heard three unthinkable words: “You have cancer.” Diagnosed with melanoma, the life she and her husband Mark had crafted together took a twist they’d never expected. After all, she was healthy and young. This couldn’t be happening.
While Lundgren’s body recovered from her cancer, her mind and mental health did not. Looming medical bills resulted in the closure of Karma, her store. Her anxiety and depression became crippling. She developed agoraphobia and couldn’t leave her house. Family outings were a thing of the past, as was driving, or even going to a grocery store. It was a dark time.
But how did she get from then to now?
“Going through cancer and having anxiety, it wasn’t just a nutritional thing, a physical thing, or a psychological thing,” Lundgren said. “It was all of those things.”
Cancer was her wakeup call, she said.
“I developed it while I had the store. I had to close the store because I was in so much debt from it,” she said. “My anxiety got worse. I have always had anxiety and panic but it became worse and became a panic disorder.”
Lundgren founded Mindful Wellness six years ago, which incorporates a holistic, spiritual approach to whole body care. Through mindfulness, Reiki, meditation, hypnotherapy, counseling, and changing her diet, Lundgren was able to heal from her trauma. She wants to help others do the same.
“I did a lot of deep inner work for several years,” Lundgren said. “As I continued healing myself, I realized this was something I could help others do as well. I saw more of a clear path as I continued healing, and I could help someone else who was struggling like me. But I could help them come out of it much quicker.”
Lundgren didn’t necessarily have support at first; she didn’t have a coach guiding her. Her family helped but didn’t know or truly understand what she was going through.
“Throughout my healing process, I hired a coach who helped me, and that gave me that confidence that this is what I should be doing. That’s what led me to this space,” Lundgren said. “I started going into and did my coaching program specifically looking at holistic health coaching. As I continued to learn more through my own healing, that’s when I discovered more of what I wanted to bring into coaching.”
Lundgren studied meditation and mindfulness for several years, then became certified as a health coach. As she continued growing and incorporating more mindfulness, she was introduced to energy healing and became a Reiki practitioner.
“Most of the time people are coming to me feeling not clear in their body, overwhelmed, and anxious. Reiki helps clear things out and helps you feel more calm, centered, and clear.”
This past year, Lundgren also became a board-certified hypnotherapist. After using it in her own healing, she saw many benefits to it. Hypnotherapy can also be used for treating anxiety and phobias and building confidence, Lundgren added.
“It’s reprogramming the conscious mind,” she said. “When I work with a client, we go through the different goals they have for releasing limiting beliefs and stuck points they are having in their lives. We go through their goal sheet and create a hypnosis they listen to for 30 days.”
From her learnings, Lundgren has discovered how integral incorporating the whole body into your healing journey is for impactful change.
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