My Journey

Whether it is my journey or your journey, don’t you just love the chance to look back over life and to realize that though there have been challenges, you have also been able to experience some of the most amazing events and meet some of the most wonderful people in the world. That’s what writing a little “blurb” about my journey has allowed me to remember; hopefully you’ll have as much fun reading as I did writing!

In my first life—first career actually—I trained as a social worker (BSW, University of Calgary, AB) and was employed in the social services field for almost a decade.

During this part of my journey, I worked with family support services in a variety of positions including group home supervisor and social worker for an inter-ministerial residential facility for high-risk adolescents.

Next Came . . .

Moving onto my next life (although there was some overlap!), for the next 20 years I formally and informally studied nutritional principles, natural cooking, fitness, nutritional and food supplementation and time management. In 1986, I formed my own company, Choices Lifestyle Management, and began consulting, teaching and writing on healthy living. Though the company flourished, I was less consistent in my personal goal attainment and by 1996 was working out of a home office surrounded by five additional but smaller warm bodies. (I like to think that once I added the study of pre and post-natal care to my writing and nutritional practice, I simply wanted hands-on experience to back up the research!).

My writing credits span more than a fifteen years—largely in the area of freelance health writing—and include three years of column writing (Eating for Health and Body in Balance) for local papers, newsletters and promotional material for a nutritional supplement company and a national water purification corporation, as well as a variety of articles on family life written for publications such as Canadian Living, Maclean’s, Family Fun and Grit.

Then There Was More

Once my kids were all in school my journey took a little turn and I went back for formal nutritional training and became a Registered Holistic Nutritionist (RHN) with accreditation from the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition and Registered Nutritional Consulting Practitioner (RNCP) designation through IONC (International Organization of Nutritional Consultants).

Things I love and have grown to do pretty decently include consultation and communication, both verbally and in written form.  I have a humorous style (or I like to think I do; sometimes my kids have a different opinion on that) and practical way of imparting information and am most inspired when motivating others to learn, risk and grow. As well, I am able to model with conviction the principles I teach—including the role of chocolate as a “sometimes” food—and can, through presentation of sound information and personal experience, encourage others in their own healthy living choices. I find when inspiring wellness in my kids and husband, however, that I do better with the right ratio of threat and bribery!

Both my passion about holistic health and my sense of humor that have been a strong theme of my journey, come of surviving my first 25 years as a “sickie”—how else do you survive four bad colds a year, each being a full season long—and my last 25 years as a mother of five wonderful but slightly wild and crazy children.

Why I Built Begin Within Natural Skincare

My hope is that as you read through my Begin Within Natural Skincare site that you too will be inspired to make wellness choices that, in turn, will supply all the healthful nutrients your skin needs and correct any body imbalances you may be experiencing. As you replace any less than helpful skin care products and body lotions with natural organic body care products, increase your intake of clean water—the beverage of choice for anyone who wants clear skin—and have a couple good chuckles a day to relieve stress, may the glowing, youthful, smooth and radiant skin you are looking for, be your reward.

Making good lifestyle choices is an extremely important matter, and one that, depending upon your decisions, gives rise to some significant consequences. It is my belief, however, that not taking yourself too seriously and being able to laugh when the situation warrants—I need some reason for the laugh lines on my face!—takes you much further along on the healthy living journey than another batch of solemn, theoretical information. As far as I’m concerned, a spoonful of organic, unpasteurized honey does a very good job of helping “eating for health” medicine go down.

As you have now seen some of my journey, good luck on your own! And if there is additional information you’d like to see on the site or good reports you’d like to pass on, feel free to contact me.

Thanks!

Brenda

Brenda Wollenberg BSW RNCP