To celebrate Women History’s Month, toth shop sat down with different women to hear their experiences, insights, and lessons on topics that matter the most.
Our bodies always know the truth.
For years, Stephanie Riel’s body tried to tell her, “something isn’t right.”
But like many driven, professional women - she kept pushing. She built a successful marketing agency. She served clients across the country. She was named one of the top CEOs in Phoenix by Titan 100.
The painful, physical nudges from her own body, mind, and soul, and some pings from the universe finally caught up with her. Listening to her intuition, she realized something was not right about how she was spending her time and energy.
When faced with this, we have two choices - keep pushing, slough it off, and swear to “fix it later” OR do something about it.
Stephanie chose to do something.
Over the last few years, she transformed her life and work, prioritizing her well-being and, above all, listening to what her body was telling her.
We sat down with Stephanie to hear her story and what advice she has for working women today.
toth shop:
You made a complete professional pivot, including closing down a successful business. What was life like that led you to make that decision?
Stephanie Riel (SR):
There were so many signs and so many things that weren't working, but I kept on pushing forward. Especially as an entrepreneur, you can make something out of nothing so many times and reinvent yourself and figure out challenges like a pandemic or staffing issues. But there were so many nudges that I was personally given, even though I was succeeding and the business was doing great, that I was just ignoring. My business grew 35% year-over-year, two years in a row with a very minimal team of rock stars, but nothing inside my body felt right. Something felt off. I was having these confusing mystery health things going on. I was literally working 16 hour days, so that doesn't leave a lot of time for sleeping or eating or friendships or anything that's nourishing. That really started to catch up to me.
There was a lot of that emptiness, and then a lot of just something feeling off within my intuition and in my spirit. I kept on pushing it to the side and just working harder, hitting more goals, and hitting more success, which was awesome, but it was also at my own detriment. My body was talking to me. Working those 16 hour days caught up to me, and I injured my ulnar nerve, which is in your elbow. I've learned that baseball players get this injury a lot, but I didn't injure myself playing any kind of a sport. I injured myself by being on my keyboard too much. Working too much. I couldn't write for more than a couple minutes without being in pain. I couldn't type without being in pain. In 2021, I remember thinking, “What am I going to do? How am I going to work?” The answer in my brain wasn't, “Oh, my body's telling me to stop.” It was, “how can I push through this and push harder?” And I did a lot of that until I couldn't.
My body physically was like, “No girl, you got to stop. You got to do something different.” And that started a shift in my whole existence.)
toth shop:
what is life like today?
(SR):
I let all of that life go to step into what I call the health and wellness era of not only taking care of and nourishing my nervous system, but helping others do the same. It’s a mix of energy work as well as sound and somatic healing. I help clients, entrepreneurs, and teams be less stressed out, get back into their bodies, and to be more into alignment, both energetically and frequency based. It is all about feeling really good in our bodies and in our spirits. It's a journey that I took myself through, so I love getting to help people go on that journey for themselves.
toth shop:
what is one of the biggest challenges facing women when it comes to prioritizing their health and wellness?
(SR):
From my lived experience and from my experience with clients who are predominantly women, we so often give so much and don't fill our own cup first. Whether it's a human baby, a fur baby, a business baby, we often put those entities outside of ourselves first. I know that was a lot of my story, and so a lot of my healing journey has been re-learning that.
toth shop:
what do you wish women understood about the relationship between work and wellness?
(SR):
So often with women, we think, and I know for me, I thought: “Oh, well, my business is over here and my health is over here. And business is great, so everything else is great, too.” But that's just not how it works. We're one being. Yes, we have all these different facets but how we are shows up in everything that we do, whether it's a business, family relationships, with our friends, in our diet and nutrition, or lifestyle choices.
toth shop:
how can women prioritize their mental and physical health?
(SR):
It doesn't take a two hour or three hour morning routine. It doesn't mean you have to do it four times a day. Especially as women, and if you're a high achieving woman, you have a lot of things going on. You like to achieve and succeed. You want to crush it. You want to do the best you can. But you're like, “oh my gosh, another thing on my list for the day.” That’s why with clients, we literally start with 30 seconds to show that shift. That really helps us build up that trust with ourselves.
If you're really stressed out, maybe you just had a stressful conversation at work or with your partner, or the kids are trying to jump off the coffee table, even just taking a couple deep breaths can change your energy in the moment.
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