I just had to do this.

I had to share it today. Ready or not.

Some of you may know me personally and some may not. Although I’ve been practicing health and nutrition coaching for 10 years now, my life, my website, and my services have not always looked the same. I’ve noticed that a lot about people in the wellness space. We’re creative. We’re a balance of Type A and Type B. We’re entrepreneurs, we’re healers, and we’re artists. We can be a little all over the place.

I knew I had to get involved in helping others with their wellness, but I always struggled with knowing exactly how that would look. It changed and evolved. I moved, I started a family, I had other jobs that came and went. I learned SO MUCH! Ugh, I think that was the best part. I met mentors and doctors and read books and took classes and every year and month and day I learned something new about my own health and how to help others with theirs.

And for a while, I felt really shitty about it. I felt like I was inconsistent, I was hypocritical. I was doing too much or trying too hard. Then I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. Actually, I knew I wasn’t doing enough.

I took classes and courses on running this business completely online. I learned very quickly what would or wouldn’t work for me. I don’t have an Instagram team. I don’t have full-time hours available to see clients, to blog, to market, to take photos, to partner, to do all the things. I’m not an expert. I’m not a doctor. I’m not perfect. I even took a full-time job and when that happened on top of the global pandemic, I 100% willingly totally stepped back from my entire website/blog/coaching thing.

It wasn’t so bad.

I still saw clients, but only as needed. I thought and thought and thought all summer about letting it all go, or making it exactly what I wanted it to be.

And I did it. I created “A Place of Grey,” (still legally Nicole L Schmitz, operating as a health coach). I wanted to create a forum for you to find resources and advice you might actually use, and a place for me to be brutally honest about my own wellness journey. I wanted to write more about my life as a parent, life as a patient, life as an entrepreneur, an artist, and a human who still drinks more wine than she should and doesn’t always meditate as much as she’d like.

I’m over this facade that so many of us have on social media that we have to have it all together. I’m over feeling guilty that I still see my own health coaches and practitioners for health advice. And mostly, I’ve decided to completely let go of the search for the perfect diet plan. The perfect theory. The answer.

I don’t know why it took me so long, but after completing a Whole 30, then going vegan for 6 months, then implementing Ayurveda into my life, and then seeing every natural health practitioner and energy worker I could find…It just sort of hit me. “OH! This is like religion…or politics.” (stay with me)…It doesn’t really matter if you agree with me or not…My beliefs, my values, my body, and my experience, are all true to me, as they are to you.

So the Whole 30 experience may literally be THE answer for a lot of people, or the answer might be a hormonal balancing protocol or a gluten-free diet, or maybe Chinese medicine is what works best for you. It’s a spectrum. It’s a little bit of everything. (Yes, a grey area).

And what I know for sure is that I know a lot more than I did 10 years ago. Some people like to call me an expert (most of them are my friends, but hey). I would call Dr. Mark Hyman or Jillian Michaels or Deepak Chopra experts, I’m just an enthusiast. But I know some stuff. And there are a lot of people I will help.

Also, know that what you read on my blog (and there is SO MUCH more I still need to add in here…I told you, ready or not…) or on my social feeds is 99% of the time in real-time posting-fashion. It’s not planned months in advance with an underlying motive. I don’t have a staff to support all my photos and recipes, I don’t want to write something to funnel you into buying something from me (although buying stuff is cool with me too). This is real and realistic and helpful and heartfelt.

So…here’s to 2021. I’m committing to myself to share the ideas and inspiration that come to me from all the work I’ve done…rather than hide away and put off sharing this stuff any longer. Because that’s what I’ve been doing. And we all need to start doing something different.

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